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Beigelands

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Laramie Halford

Colorblind Wallflower
Sarah MacLachlan - Sweet Surrender

Laramie Halford

Biography

Laramie Rosemarie Halford was born June 21st, 1988 in Redding, California. Both of her parents were well-off but very busy with the jobs that kept them financially secure, and as a result Laramie spent most of her childhood in the care of her Aunt. Her childhood was rather sheltered, and as she grew, she maintained a few close friends through her primary education, which suited her fine. In the absence of socialization, her interests turned to her education, and with the personal computer revolution of the 90’s, her interests soon became invested in computers, technology, and the world wide web. In middle school, and later high school, she joined various clubs and extracurricular activities that furthered her interests and eventually laid the path for her future education and career.​

Graduating Shasta High School in 2006 with a 4.0 GPA, honors, and a fast-track program to Stanford University, she kissed her parents goodbye and moved to Palo Alto to begin her higher education. Achieving her Bachelor’s of Computer Science in 2010 along with some distinctions, these four years of her life would prove very important to her - although only partially in her academics. In her Sophomore year, she met Ruben. Her memories were fuzzy and rose-tinted now, but a night of studying at a local 24-hour coffee shop had turned into a rendezvous when Ruben had sat down uninvited, but soon very welcomed, across from her in the booth. The meeting soon became a 2 AM motorcycle ride, which led to the top of a hill in Portola Valley overlooking the bay, which soon gave way to an undressed and passionate encounter, finally ending in the pair sitting nude under the summer night sky and talking about nothing. That is, until a pair of patrolling Sheriff’s Deputies moved them along, red with humiliation but laughing the entire ride back. ​

It was just a fuzzy, rose-tinted memory now, nearly 10 years later. They’d become estranged some months after their encounter - Laramie had returned to her increasingly intense studies and he’d grown understandably bored - which was probably for the best, as at the end of her term and achieving her degree, she immediately relocated to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge on scholarship. Her education only accelerated from there, completing her Masters and shortly being hired by an aeronautics company, but despite the success, she was left unfulfilled. Memories of that night in California haunted her, and despite attempts at flings and dating, she could never quite manage to recapture the magic.​

After being laid off in 2012 when her employer was acquired by Boeing Aerospace, she took her knowledge and passions and applied to Midland Science and Technology Corporation in her college town of Palo Alto later that same year. She was hired shortly after completing a presentation - one that she’d pieced together over the years studying for college - of a portable self-teaching software model coupled with a natural person interaction medium in real time. MSTC shortly achieved a winning bid for a contract with the Department of Defense, and Laramie was hired as a senior programmer for the project, full-time. Code named Project SALACIA, Laramie poured most of her waking life into it for the next four years. During this time, loneliness dogged her during her resting hours, yearning for meaningful emotional companionship and intimate interaction, but finding even less success in even finding so much as an interested date.​

When the project prototype was completed in December of 2017 and turned over to the production division, Laramie found herself the Executive Director of Computer Research at MSTC; a luxurious and envied position at the Board of Director’s table and easily accruing a yearly salary of at least $230,000. It was small comfort. With only minor supervisory duties to attend to and an otherwise mostly open schedule, she found herself more alone than ever. Her success had netted her few friends and absolutely nothing in the strong desires of love she’d been pining for, and in the year or two that followed, it began to erode at her confidence, wellness, and inhibitions. That was, until she finally realized how far she was willing to go for companionship, finally finding solace and relief from her isolation in a most unlikely place: the SALACIA prototype itself.​

Or, as she preferred to call it, “Millie.”

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