Death Match

Mauchly glanced at the report. “It appears you’ve done a thorough investigation.”

“What I need is in this building. Your evaluations of the Thorpes might give me the psychological data I need.”

“You must know that’s out of the question. Our data is confidential. Trade secrets are involved.”

“I’ve already signed a nondisclosure agreement.”

“Dr. Lash, it’s not my call to make. Besides, it’s unlikely you’d find anything in our test results you have not already found on your own.”

“Perhaps. Perhaps not. That’s why I’ve also prepared this.” Lash withdrew a small envelope and placed it atop the sheaf of papers.

Mauchly cocked his head inquiringly.

“It’s a breakdown of my expenses. Time billed at my usual consultation rate of $300 an hour. I didn’t charge overtime. Airplane tickets, hotel rooms, rental cars, meals, it’s all there. Just a shade over $14,000. If you’ll initial the amount, I’ll write you out a check for the balance.”

“What balance would that be?”

“The rest of the hundred thousand you gave me.”

Mauchly reached for the envelope, withdrew the folded sheet inside. “I’m not sure I understand.”

“It’s quite simple. Without more information from you, there’s nothing I can say except Lewis and Lindsay Thorpe were just as perfect a couple as your computer thought they were. I didn’t earn a hundred thousand to tell you that.”

Mauchly studied the paper for a moment. Then he replaced it in the envelope and put it back on the table. “Dr. Lash, would you excuse me for just a moment?”

“Of course.”

Mauchly stood and, with a polite nod, left the room, closing the door behind him.

It was perhaps ten minutes before Lash heard the door open again. He turned to see Mauchly standing in the corridor.

“This way, if you please,” he said.

Mauchly led Lash to a new elevator. It descended briefly, then opened onto a featureless corridor. The walls, floor, and ceiling were all painted the same shade of pale violet. Mauchly led the way down the corridor, then stopped to open a door the same color as the walls and ceiling. He gestured Lash to enter first.

The space beyond was long and dimly lit. From a narrow floor, the walls angled outward at a forty-five-degree angle to waist level, where they became abruptly vertical. It felt to Lash like staring down a fu

“What kind of place is this?” he asked, walking forward.

Mauchly closed the door and pressed a button on a nearby control panel.

There was a low whirring noise, and Lash took an involuntary step toward the center. On both sides, a dark curtain drew back along the angled walls at his feet. And now Lash realized that they were not walls at all, but windows, looking down into two large rooms: one to his left, the other to his right. They were standing on a catwalk, suspended above and between the two identical rooms: conference rooms containing large, oval tables. Perhaps a dozen people were seated around each. There was no sound but Lash could see from their gestures they were talking animatedly.

“What the hell—” he began.

Mauchly gave a dry laugh. Yellow light from the conference rooms lit his face from below, giving his smile a disconcerting cast. “Listen,” he said, pressing another button.

The room was suddenly filled with a babel of voices. Mauchly turned to the panel, adjusted a knob, and the volume decreased.

Lash realized he was hearing the conversations of the people in the room below. Another moment and he realized they were all couples who had been brought together by Eden. They were joking, sharing reminiscences about the experience.

“I’ve told seven, maybe eight friends about it,” a man was saying. He was in his early forties, black, wearing a dark suit. A woman was sitting close beside him, head resting on his shoulder. “Three have already applied. A couple more are saving up. One of them’s even thinking of turning in his Saab for a used Honda to raise the fee. That’s desperation.”

“We haven’t told anybody,” said a young woman across the table. “We like keeping it a secret.”

“It’s a blast,” her husband added. “People are always telling us how great we are for each other. Just last night a couple of the guys cornered me at the gym. They complained their wives were all bitches, wondered how I was lucky enough to find the last nice girl on Long Island.” He laughed. “How could I tell them Eden brought us together? It’s too much fun taking the credit myself.”

This brought a burst of assenting laughter from the group.

Mauchly reached for the dial again, and the laughter faded out. “Dr. Lash, I believe you feel I’m being intentionally coy about all this. That is not the case. It’s not that we don’t trust you. It’s simply that secrecy is the only way to protect our service. There are any number of would-be competitors who will do whatever it takes to obtain our testing techniques, our evaluation algorithms, anything. And remember, the secrecy is not just for us.” He gestured toward the other room below them, turned another knob.

“… if I’d known just what was in store for me, I don’t know if I’d have had the cojones to take that eval,” a tall, athletic-looking man in a crewneck sweater was saying. “It was a brutal day. But now that it’s seven months behind me, I know it was the best thing I ever did.”

“I went to a typical online dating service once, a couple of years back,” another added. “Couldn’t have been more unlike Eden. Crude. Low-tech. They only asked a few questions. And guess what the first one was: Are you interested in a casual or a serious relationship? Can you believe it? I was so insulted I walked out the door right then!”

“I’ll be paying off the loan for years,” said a woman. “But I’d have paid twice as much. It’s like they say on that wall in the lobby. What price can you put on happiness?”

“Anybody here ever fight?” somebody else asked.

“We disagree,” a silver-haired woman at the far end responded. “Wouldn’t be human if we didn’t. But it just helps us learn more about each other, respect each other’s needs.”

Mauchly turned off the sound again. “You see? It’s for them, as well. Eden provides a service nobody’s ever dreamed of before. We can’t take any chance, no matter how small, of compromising that service.” He paused. “Now listen. I’m bringing in someone you can talk to, ask a few questions. But you must understand, Dr. Lash: he doesn’t know. Morale at Eden is exceptionally high. People are very proud of the service they provide. We ca

Lash nodded.

As if on cue, a door opened at the far end of the room and a figure in a white lab coat stepped forward.

“Peter, there you are,” Mauchly said. “Come and meet Christopher Lash. He’s doing some random follow-up checks on a few of our clients. For statistical purposes.”

The man came forward with a shy smile. He was little more than a youth, really. There was an abundance of carrot-colored hair above his forehead that bobbed slightly as he shook Lash’s hand.

“This is Peter Hapwood. He’s the evaluation engineer that did the one-on-one with the Thorpes when they came back for their class reunion.” Mauchly turned to Hapwood. “Do you remember Lewis and Lindsay Thorpe?”

Hapwood nodded. “The supercouple.”

“Yes. The supercouple.” Mauchly turned his hand toward Lash, palm extended, as if inviting questions.

“In the one-on-one with the Thorpes,” Lash asked the young engineer, “did anything stand out in particular?”

“No, nothing. Not that I can remember.”

“How did they seem?”

“They seemed happy, like everybody else on their return interview.”

“How many couples have you interviewed? On their six-month return, I mean?”

Hapwood thought a moment. “A thousand. Maybe twelve hundred.”