This is a love story.
Theresa walks into our Advanced Game Design: A Sytems Approach seminar. A guy friend of hers makes a joke as she walks over. She tells her guy friend to f#$k off as she sits down.
She is the embodiment of beauty.
Her sparkling eyes, radiant smile, and blunt language make my heart skip a beat. Her dark, soft skin and silky hair are a constant temptation to gaze at, and the sound of her laughter is music to my ears.
I promise I’m not a stalker. We have known each other for two years.
But I do have a crush on her. We’re both comp-sci majors. Both of us plan on going into the gaming industry. I sometimes catch myself daydreaming about starting a company together and getting married. Maybe we even have kids. I know… a bit pathetic.
The semester rolls by. We both independently stand out to our professor, Andrew. He’s a legend in the gaming industry and wants to show us what he’s working on. An immersive VR.
The Desmond program.
We agree to sign NDAs.
Andrew begins having us meet every Saturday and Sunday from 8am-4pm. It’s a bootcamp. We cover weeks of material every session. Advanced code. Situational game theory. Philosophy.
We go through extreme simulations to help keep one’s own reality in focus. We’re taught a method for exiting the program if we need to. We’re told things will get confusing for us. I’m happy to be there, Theresa is growing frustrated.
He hasn’t shown us the program yet.
Months later, we’re introduced to the Desmond program. It’s beyond anything we could have imagined. A true simulation of a reality that we design. Our consciousness is uploaded to a blank world, and our subconscious minds work together to populate the world for six days.
The Desmond reality begins on the seventh. From that moment, the world is simply put into motion. We build a world and time begins passing. After experimenting for a few days, we learn the exit method we were taught isn’t real. Andrew lied to us. You have to live out your life until the end.
We learn this the hard way, and the lie crushes us. Theresa and I spend our lives independently. I decided to try my hand at being a painter in NYC and fail. I die at 56. She studies computer science and becomes a world-class programmer. She teaches at Cal Tech. She dies at 82.
We both finally exit Desmond, beyond angry at Andrew.
He just stole a life from us. He offers no apology and argues that he didn’t steal a life but instead gave us an additional one. Especially since only a few minutes had passed in reality. He has us debrief him on the world we lived in. He doesn’t have the technology to record it yet. He trusts us.
We both quit the program.
A month later, we both return to the program.
We spend the rest of the year living out various realities. Living out full lives.
During our second one, we fall in love in Alaska when we decide to take an opportunity to go study the Northern Lights in the spring. We blame it on proximity as we laugh at the cliche of us two falling in love. We agree to not have kids and remain somewhat distant from everyone, studying our world but not growing attached to it. We both live to be 72 by choice.
Our worlds begin incorporating more surreal elements. On one occasion, Theresa’s subconscious focuses too much on a movie she had watched in the real world and we live out a life in a reality where ghosts and vampires reign. It’s fun, but not for the faint of heart. We both die in our early 30s.
The program seems to pick up steam. Andrew gets attention from the government. The program is acquired, and we’re given free rein to accelerate it for research purposes. Theresa and I know Andrew is only sort of in charge now. We continue working, building incredible worlds.
On one occasion, during the initial six days as we build out a new world, Theresa and I talk about the future. Our future. Things change. We make promises to one another. We live out one more life together, knowing it will probably be the last one as part of the Desmond program.
We meet Andrew for dinner one night. At a restaurant I choose. It’s not in an amazing part of the city, but the reviews are great. Theresa and I explain that it’s time to find new folks for the program.
Andrew understands but wishes we were more open to continue ideating new realities. At least until he can find replacements. We laugh and explain that we want to focus on living a real life together.
Andrew finally comes around to it and thanks us for the work we’ve all done together. We chit-chat with Andrew after dinner as we wait to get our coats from the coat check. Theresa didn’t check hers because she loves wearing it so much, even at the dinner table.
She receives a call and steps outside. Andrew takes the opportunity to ask me if Theresa’s pregnant. I laugh and explain that she’s not, but we’re hoping to be soon after our wedding in the summer. It’s the one thing we never wanted to risk in Desmond. We couldn’t imagine growing attached to kids, knowing it’s all a figment of our imagination. We hear yelling and commotion outside.
We finally get our coats and head towards the exit. We hear a gunshot.
It only takes a second to see Theresa’s body lying on the sidewalk, a hole in the side of her head. Blood pooling under her. Killed by a stray bullet during a carjacking. I stand in shock just feet away from her. The women of my dreams stolen from me. I don’t speak for 6 months.
I collect all of the data I can from the Desmond project.
I work at home developing a custom profile of her from all of our lifetimes together. I recreate a form of her. I go to the small office at 2 am where we always met Andrew and load everything up.
I hook myself up. It’s challenging, piercing my temporal lobe with the sharply pointed, thin metal rod that connects to a series of cables that connect to the primary machine. I begin to lose consciousness. And the more consciousness I lose, the more Desmond comes to life, slowly then all at once.
The classroom of our Advanced Game Design: A Systems Approach seminar appears, where our blank worlds always begin, where I asked Theresa to marry me the last time we were in the program together. I can feel her profile being loaded. She’s on her way. As she appears, I’m overcome with emotion. She is my world this time around. It’s her, truly and utterly.
I take a step towards her, but her face is uninviting. She can tell by my demeanor what I’ve done.
She tells me she loves me and reminds me that we’ve talked about this already. That we agreed to let each other go if this happened. I tell her I know, but I wanted to ask her if she was happy with the lives we lived together. She nods and tells me she feels lucky to have had a love story.
She lets us spend the six days together, but stops the program on the eve of the seventh day, right before we’d be locked into a new life. I say I understand. It tears me up. We embrace one last time and I promise to fulfill her wish, our prior agreement we made a lifetime ago.
Months go by and I agree to work with Andrew again on an exclusive contract. He tells me he’s fixed his technology to record the worlds, the next step in the progression of the program.
I’m building worlds again.
Andrew is right, his technology to record the worlds in the program works now. But I never turn it on when I’m inside Desmond. He still trusts me. I make a modification to the program of my own.
Months go by.
I have lived 23 lifetimes with Theresa since her death. We’ve had a dozen families together, including kids who we’ve loved more than words can describe. The Theresa I upload doesn’t know anything about the Desmond program. I always start our first day together in the same place. That moment in our Advanced Game Design: A Systems Approach seminar, right when she walks in and tells her friend to f#$k off. I feel tremendous guilt keeping her trapped in these worlds.
Yet I can’t wait to see her tomorrow.
This is my love story. I realize I’m lucky to have one.