The True Story of a Missing 1.40

It feels like no time has passed since we released GRAVITY Version 1.39, and suddenly we are already announcing Version 1.41.

You might ask yourself: "Wait. What? Hold on. What happened to Version 1.40? Where is it? Was it abducted? Lost during time travel? Is it running perfectly happily in an alternate universe?"

Well, if we told you, we would have to… you know. All we can say is that the truth is much simpler than anything you could possibly imagine. It was a quiet Wednesday afternoon. Summer was at its peak. The sun was shining. The crickets were cricketing. At Gravity Global, we were wholesomely and benignly going about our lives, hard at work on GRAVITY Version 1.40.

Then we heard the Patrouille Suisse flying over Züri West. A Super Puma helicopter appeared in the distance. Red laser sights began dancing across our chests. Tom Cruise burst through the window (somewhat disappointingly short in person) followed by several Men in Black.

I am also fairly certain I saw a ninja.

Before anyone could ask whether they had an appointment, Jason Bourne appeared, placed a black bag over Christoph’s head, and escorted him into the meeting room for a “chat.” Fortunately, our meeting room is made entirely of glass, which seems like a considerable oversight for an organization conducting a top-secret interrogation. You can see and hear almost everything from the office, so naturally, I eavesdropped.

Apparently, we had made a serious mistake: we had accidentally created the greatest software release of all time. Every bug had been removed. Every process worked perfectly. Performance had reached previously unimaginable levels. Somewhere along the way, Version 1.40 created a software void and activated the flux capacitor. This threatened to destabilize the global economy, disrupt the space-time continuum, and trigger a butterfly effect leading to a chain of events worse than anything depicted in The Day After Tomorrow.

At some point, James Bond also showed up. We are still not entirely sure whose side he was on, but he made Christoph delete GRAVITY Version 1.40 at gunpoint. Once the release was safely inside the recycling bin, everyone disappeared as suddenly as they had arrived. The helicopters vanished. The lasers switched off. The ninja was nowhere to be found. The last of the action heroes collected their black bags and left the building.

There were also two unusually large black nylon sleeping bags. We are still not sure what those were for. Perhaps they had planned a slumber party.  

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We dusted ourselves off and gathered the papers scattered across the floor – which, now that I think about it, were mostly Scientology flyers. Tom Cruise, I’m looking at you – before turning our attention to Version 1.41.

Please check for signs of life after we publish this story. I am not entirely sure I should be sharing any of this with you. But cross my heart: every word is true.

Anyway, that was a mildly exciting day at the office.