I married Cynthia on a perfect spring day. Despite the formal layers of my suit, I didn't feel warm or nervous. Had I marveled at the perfection, I may have noticed more than I cared for, but instead, I closed my eyes and sucked in the salty air of the ocean that slapped the beach at the bottom of the cliff I occupied. I flexed the soles of my perfectly polished shoes into the spongy green moss that carpeted the ground. When the harpist began to pluck out the Wedding March, I opened my eyes and gazed down the silk carpet of the aisle.

Cynthia was always the most beautiful woman I had ever seen, and on this day, she was so stunning that I thought my heart would stop and never beat again. She glided towards me; me. She had chosen me. She was the most incredible person, and she was closing the gap to entwine herself with me forever.

My feeble brain couldn't fathom the luck. I had always been aloof and quiet. I preferred code to a conversation and the flicker of a monitor to the flecks of an eye. But that all changed when I met Cynthia. After years in a bunker-like lab, Cynthia had just appeared next to me at the hot dog cart I visited most days. It was my brief reprieve from the constant tapping on my keyboard. Had it been another day, I may have looked the other way, but on this day, I saw her. I had finally gotten my code to work. With a few taps, I could enter a new world, one that made sense. No random acts of violence, no pollution clogging the planet, no egos driving division. I had created my fairy tale.

Smyth had been equally giddy.

"Think of the possibilities," he enthused. "We can change the world."

"More like an escape from it," I teased.

"We can make the world a place worth living in. This technology can sentence people not just to jail, but to their own worst nightmares." Smyth offered.

"It's not meant to be a punishment. It's not meant to be imposed on people; besides, your tests of forced entries all failed," I reminded.

It was the closest I'd come to boasting. It was another moment that deserved pause. I knew I could code walls around Smyth, but he had saved me. Being a seven-year-old in a foster home that couldn't afford a computer was like a prison sentence for me. Angela and David were loving, but I couldn't connect with them or my found family. My brain didn't work in terms of people. Code called me, not human connection. Smyth found me as my chubby little hands hacked into the electric company to zero out my family's bill.

"Where did you learn that?" He curiously asked.

I expected anger or immediate condemnation, but I got wonder.

"Their firewalls are weak," I murmured, dropping my face at the attention. My eyeglasses slipped down my nose, but I was too nervous to lift my hand to fix them.

Smyth visited me in the library for months, offering me more and more complex challenges. It was the first time I felt like someone understood me. Before long, Smyth was my legal guardian, and I no longer needed to go to the library to access a computer. Suddenly I had access to state-of-the-art everything. By the time I was thirteen, my code was being used worldwide.

Still, that day, the day that Cynthia innocently stood next to me waiting for her hot dog, had been the day I had perfected my greatest code and downfall. Just as I found a way to escape the world I detested, I found a reason to stay.

"Mustard and onions," Cynthia's singsong voice requested.

Her order made me smile. Not only was this beautiful creature willing to eat from a street-side hot dog stand, but she boldly ordered mustard and onions. My chest constricted as I tried to think of any way to connect with her. A single utterance that would keep her near for even a moment longer.

She lifted her blue eyes to mine as though she could read my mind and tentatively greeted me with a "hello."

"Hi," I murmured, instinctively dipping my face as my glasses slipped down my nose again. I was sure I appeared meek and young, like a 7-year-old computer geek, instead of an accomplished 23-year-old programmer.

"Do you know where I can find Orwell Tech?" Her heart shape face caught the sun and made her skin glow.

"Orwell Tech?" I sputtered.

"Yeah, I have an interview there. I think it's around here, but I can't quite get my bearings," she explained.

"I work there. I can show you right to the front desk." My exuberance was palpable.

I was sure I'd never see her again, but the few moments we shared as we rode the elevator to the fifteenth floor felt like a glorious lifetime. I practically floated back to my desk. Smyth initially chucked at my mood, but soon realized my focus was lacking.

Smyth was speaking fast, excited about the practical applications of my virtual reality code. However, I couldn't follow. My mind was with Cynthia.

"We aren't getting anywhere. You can't let this success stop future progress," Smyth griped.

"Success?" I asked.

"The successful test..." Frustration saturated Smyth's words.

"Oh right, the test," I agreed.

"What's wrong with you?" Smyth finally challenged.

I spilled like a pre-teen that had just had their first kiss. It was a girl. Suddenly, reality didn't look so terrible with its wars and pollution.

Smyth didn't even try to mask his disappointment.

"We're challenging the limits of this world, and you're hung up on a girl at a hot dog cart," Smyth complained.

"Not just any girl, and not just at the hot dog cart. She's applying here for an assistant role. I might see her again. I might get a chance to... you know... get to know her."

"You have to focus, Donovan. We can't stop now, not when we're so close," Smyth argued.

"So close to what? The code works. We can create video games or social media platforms, whatever you want. We're done. Maybe..." I stopped myself from even saying it.

"Maybe what?" Smyth pressed.

"Maybe it's time I lived here, in this world, in this reality," I offered.

"This reality? This world that has been spoiled and trashed repeatedly. What you've created is perfection," Smyth continued.

"And you want to make it a prison," I reminded.

"That was just one application." He sighed.

I shrugged and swiveled back to my computer, loudly banging my knee on the leg of my desk. I let out a loud "shit" and rubbed the smarting pain that throbbed through my leg. I should have remembered the pain soaring through my leg, but I had lost focus.

"Donovan," Smyth spoke quietly, apologetically.

"Mmhmm," I said without lifting my face from my screen.

"I'm sorry." His voice was soft, almost a whisper.

"Sorry about what?" I asked, as I swiveled back to him.

If I had been paying attention, I'd have noticed the pain in my leg disappear just as Smyth murmured, "I'm just sorry, son."

Knowledge is a dangerous thing. It can be the mightiest weapon. But ignorance can be a warm blanket, soft and secure. My blanket had been ripped away.

The charades of the programming had faded. No longer was Smyth a villainous pirate. No longer was Cynthia a counterspy or a princess. The knowledge of my reality had stripped away all the pretenses.

"It's Cynthia. She's corrupting your code," Smyth implored, as we were again back in our lab.

"Do I even know Cynthia?" My body lurched as my mind whirled through what I thought were memories. Our first date to that Thai restaurant on the corner of Market and Temple Street. I spilled soy sauce all over my shirt, but the laughter broke the awkwardness of the evening. Our wedding on the perfect bluff, with the minister whose Adam's apple bobbed strangely hypnotically. The car accident that haunted me for months. Was any of it real?

"What's reality?" Smyth pressed.

"It's life. It's feeling and chaos. Everything worth living for is unpredictable," I argued.

"Like love? You gave up on me, us, all our work because of one chance encounter..." Smyth argued.

"You gave up on me because of one chance encountered. You sentenced me to this virtual purgatory. You stole my life so you could what..."

"So I could save you. You were distracted. I couldn't afford a mistake. Not when..."

"Not when what?" I pressed.

Smyth raised his hand, and suddenly he was gripping a gun. "The mind is a curious thing. You taught me that. It believes what it wants to believe, not what's true. I believe I'm holding a gun, and you believe I'm holding a gun..."

"Why? I deserve to know why?" I pushed.

"I never thought I'd grow so fond of you. You were such a meek little thing when I found you in that musty, old library. I had been trailing your fingerprints all across the web. Was I surprised to find you at the keyboard?" Smyth reminisced.

"You found me?"

"Of course I found you. I had tried to hire the best of the best, but they were all limited. But you, your youth, your need for acceptance. I could mold you. This world didn't limit you. You hated this world, and coding this new reality was so enticing."

"You molded me..." It was all clicking.

"Building trust is the first step in the perfect betrayal." Smyth's lips curled into a twisted smile.

"I was creating a weapon."

"That's where all the power is. No one wants to pay for utopia. Everyone feels intrinsically deserving of love and happiness. But destruction, people will pay big bucks to destroy their enemies. Oh sure, guns and bombs are great, but imagine being able to condemn anyone to their nightmare."

"I don't have to imagine," I spat. "You already used it on me. You rewrote my life."

"I gave you happy moments..." A sinister smile crossed his face.

My heart should have been pounding in my ears. The anger should have flushed my face, but all I felt was a slight breeze.

"This isn't reality. There are no rules..." I muttered.

Panic flashed in Smyth's eyes. "Cynthia was real," he shot. "I needed insurance. I needed the real Cynthia. So..."

"You inflicted this on her, too." The horror filled my mind, but the wave of sensation I longed for was missing.

"It was the only way. But you still wouldn't focus. I couldn't get the program to work long enough. Even Cynthia was seeing the fraying," Smyth explained.

"So you killed her. The car accident was because you couldn't manage the code." I lunged at him, tackling his waist until we both fell to the hard floor.

"She wouldn't die. She knew it wasn't real, and then..."

"She was really storming the system..."

"She corrupted the system. It took all my skill to get this lone room stood up and get you here." Smyth's weight pinned me to the ground.

"The fairy tales and pirates," I recalled.

"She wasn't just an assistant. She cracked your code, but she couldn't handle it. No one can handle it."

"Then why don't you just leave me here? You put me in this hellscape. Why not let me wither into the insanity?" I challenged.

"I need you. I need your mind," Smyth pleaded. "It's just business," he added, lifting his hand from where it pinned down my shoulder. "I can't let this slip away, not when it's so close."

"Donovan." Fear permeated her voice.

I followed where Smyth's gun was pointed to see Cynthia battered in the corner. In slow motion, Smyth squeezed the trigger. I heard the shot as I lunged for him.