Death Match (2 page)

The kitchen led directly into a breakfast nook, gilded by morning light. And there was the child: up ahead, in the archway between the breakfast nook and some other space that, from what she could see, looked like a living room. The infant was strapped tightly into her high chair, facing the living room. The little face was mottled from crying, and the cheeks were stained with mucus and tears.

Maureen rushed forward. “Oh, you poor thing.” Balancing the cookies awkwardly, she fished for a tissue, cleaned the child’s face. “There, there.”

But the crying did not ease. The baby was pounding her little fists, staring fixedly ahead, inconsolable.

It took quite some time to wipe the red face clean, and by the time she was done Maureen’s ears were ringing with the noise. It wasn’t until she was pushing the tissue back into the pocket of her jeans that she thought to follow the child’s line of sight into the living room.

And when she did, the cry of the child, the crash of china as she dropped the cookies, were instantly drowned by the sound of her screams.

TWO

C
hristopher Lash stepped out of the cab and into the tumult of Madison Avenue. It had been half a year since he was last in New York, and those months seemed to have softened him. He hadn’t missed the acrid diesel plumes belching from serried rows of buses; he’d forgotten the unpleasantly burnt aroma of the sidewalk pretzel stands. The throngs of passersby, barking into cell phones; the blat of horns; the angry interplay of cars and trucks—it all reminded him of the frantic, senseless activity of an ant colony, exposed from beneath a rock.

Taking a firm grip on his leather satchel, he stepped onto the sidewalk and inserted himself deftly into the crowds. It had been a long time, too, since he’d carried the satchel, and it felt foreign and uncomfortable in his hand.

He crossed Fifty-seventh Street, letting himself be carried along by the river of humanity, and headed south. Another block, and the crowds eased somewhat. He crossed Fifty-sixth, then slid into an empty doorway, where he could pause a moment without being jostled. Placing his satchel carefully between his shoes, he gazed upward.

Across the street, a rectangular tower rose into the sky. There was no number, or corporate lettering, to betray what lay within. They were rendered unnecessary by the logo that—thanks to countless high-profile news reports—had recently become almost as familiar an American icon as the golden arches: the sleek, elongated infinity symbol that hovered just above the building’s entrance. The tower rose to a setback, halfway up its massive flank; higher, decorative latticework ran around the structure like a ribbon, setting off the top few floors. But this simplicity was deceptive. The tower’s skin had a richness, a sense of depth, almost like the paintwork on the most expensive of cars. Recent architectural textbooks called the building “obsidian,” but that wasn’t quite correct: it had a warm, pellucid glow that seemed almost drawn from its environment, leaving the surrounding buildings cold and colorless by comparison.

Dropping his gaze from the facade, he fished into the pocket of his suit jacket and pulled out a piece of business stationery. At the top, “Eden Incorporated” was embossed in elegant type beside the infinity logo; “deliver by courier” was stamped at the bottom. He reread the brief message below.

Dear Dr. Lash:

I enjoyed speaking with you today, and I’m glad you could come on such short notice. We’ll expect you Monday at 10:30 a.m. Please give the enclosed card to one of the security personnel in the lobby.

Sincerely,
Edwin Mauchly
Director, Facilitation Services

The letter yielded up no more information than it had the other times he’d read it, and Lash returned it to his pocket.

He waited for the light to change, then picked up his satchel and made his way across the street. The tower was set back extravagantly from the sidewalk, creating a welcoming oasis. There was a fountain here: marble satyrs and nymphs disporting themselves around a bent, ancient figure. Lash peered curiously through the curtain of mist at the figure. It seemed a strange centerpiece for a fountain: no matter how he stared, he could not quite determine whether it was male or female.

Beyond the fountain, the revolving doors were kept in constant motion. Lash stopped again, observing this traffic intently. Almost everyone was entering, not leaving. But it was almost ten-thirty, so it couldn’t be employees he was seeing. No, they must all be clients; or, more likely, would-be clients.

The lobby was large and high-ceilinged, and he paused again just inside. Although the surfaces were of pink marble, indirect lighting lent the space an unusual warmth. There was an information desk in its center, of the same obsidian as the building’s exterior. Along the right wall, beyond a security checkpoint, lay a long bank of elevators. New arrivals continued to stream by him. They were a remarkably heterogeneous crowd: all ages, races, heights, builds. They looked hopeful, eager, perhaps a little apprehensive. The excitement in the air was palpable. Some headed toward the far end of the lobby, where twin escalators climbed toward a wide, arched passage. C
ANDIDATE
P
ROCESSING
was engraved above the passage in discreet gold lettering. Others were moving toward a set of doors below the escalators marked A
PPLICATIONS
. And still others had gravitated to the left side of the lobby, where Lash caught the flicker of myriad movements. Curious, he drifted closer.

Across a wide swath of the left wall, floor to ceiling, large flatscreen plasma displays had been set edge to edge in a huge matrix. On each screen was the head shot of a different person, talking to the camera: men and women, old and young. The faces were so different from each other that, for a moment, Lash sensed but could not place the commonality they shared. Then he realized: every face was smiling, almost serene.

Lash joined the crowd who had assembled, mute and staring, before the wall of faces. As he did so, he became aware of countless voices, apparently coming from speakers hidden among the screens. Yet through some trick of sound projection, he found it easy to isolate individual voices in three-dimensional space, to match them with faces on the screens.
It completely turned my life around
, a pretty young woman on one of the screens was saying, seeming to speak directly to him.
If it wasn’t for Eden, I don’t know what I would’ve done
, a man on another told him, smiling almost confidentially, as if imparting a secret.
It’s made all the difference
. On yet another screen, a blond man with pale blue eyes and a brilliant smile said,
It’s the best thing I’ve ever done. Period. End of story
.

As he listened, Lash became aware of another voice: low, just on the edge of audibility, little more than a whisper. It was not coming from any of the screens, but seemingly from all around. He paused to listen.

Technology
, the voice was saying.
Today, it’s used to make our lives easier, longer, more comfortable. But what if technology could do something even more profound? What if it could bring completion, bring utter fulfillment?

Imagine computer technology so advanced it could reconstruct—virtually—your own personality, the essence of what makes you unique: your hopes, desires, dreams. The inmost needs that not even you may be aware of. Imagine a digital infrastructure so robust it could contain this personality construct of yours—with its countless unique facets and characteristics—along with those of many, many other people. Imagine an artificial intelligence so profound it could compare your construct with these multitudes of others, and—in an hour, a day, a week—find that one person, that sole individual, that is your perfect match. Your ideal soulmate, uniquely fitted by personality, background, interests, countless other benchmarks to be your other half. To make your life complete. Not just two people who happen to share a few interests. But a match where one person complements the other in ways so profound, so subtle, it could never be imagined or anticipated.

Lash continued to watch the endless sea of faces before him while listening to the disembodied, sonorous voice.

No blind dates
, it went on.
No singles parties, where your choice is limited to a handful of random meetings. No evenings wasted on incompatibility. Rather, a proprietary system of profound sophistication. This system is now. And the company is Eden.

The service is not cheap. But if there is even the slightest dissatisfaction, Eden Incorporated offers a full refund, guaranteed for life. Yet out of the many, many thousands of couples Eden has brought together, not one has requested a refund. Because these people—like those on the screens before you—have learned there is no price that can be put on happiness.

With a start, Lash looked away from the screens and down at his watch. He was five minutes late for his appointment.

Walking across the lobby, Lash drew out a card and handed it to one of the uniformed guards. He was given a signed pass and cheerfully directed toward the bank of elevators.

Thirty-two stories above, Lash stepped into a small but elegant reception area. The tones were neutral, and there was the faintest rush of industrial pink noise. There were no signs, directories, formal guides of any kind: just one desk of polished blond wood, an attractive woman in a business suit behind it.

“Dr. Lash?” she asked with an engaging smile.

“Yes.”

“Good morning. May I see your driver’s license, please?”

This request was so strange that Lash did not think to question it. Instead, he pulled out his wallet and fished for his license.

“Thank you.” The woman held it briefly over some scanning apparatus. Then she handed it back with another bright smile, rose from her chair, and motioned him toward a door in the far wall of the reception area.

They passed down a long corridor, similar in decor to the room they’d just left. Lash noticed many doors, all unlabeled, all closed. The woman stopped before one of them.

“In here, please,” she said.

As the door closed behind him, Lash looked around at a well-appointed room. A desk of dark wood sat upon a dense carpet. Several paintings hung on the walls, beautifully framed. Behind the desk, a man now rose to greet him, smoothing his brown suit as he did so. Lash shook the proffered hand, typing the man from old habit as he did so. He looked to be in his late thirties: fairly short, dark complexion, dark hair, dark eyes, muscular but not stocky. Swimmer, perhaps, or tennis player. His bearing spoke of someone self-confident, considered; a man who would be slow to act but, when acting, do so decisively.

“Dr. Lash,” the man said, returning his gaze. “I’m Edwin Mauchly. Thanks for coming.”

“Sorry I’m late.”

“Not at all. Take a seat, please.”

Lash sat down in the lone leather chair that faced the desk while Mauchly turned toward a computer monitor. He typed for a moment, then stopped. “Give me just a minute here, please. It’s been four years since I gave an entrance interview, and the screens have changed.”

“Is that what this is?”

“Of course not. But there’s some similar initial processing to be done.” He typed again. “Here we are. The address of your Stamford office is 315 Front Street, Suite 2?”

“Yes.”

“Good. If you could just fill out this information for me, please.”

Lash scanned the white card that was slid across the desk: date of birth, social security number, half a dozen other mundane details. He took a pen from his pocket and began jotting on the form.

“You used to give entrance interviews?” he said as he wrote.

“I helped design the process, as an employee of PharmGen. That was early on, before Eden became an independent company.”

“What’s it like?”

“What is what like, Dr. Lash?”

“Working here.” He slid the card back. “You’d think it would be magic. Listening to all those testimonials in the lobby, anyway.”

Mauchly glanced at the card. “I don’t blame you for being skeptical.” He had a face that managed to look both candid and reticent at the same time. “Two people’s feelings for each other, what can technology do about that? But ask any of our employees. They see it work, time after time,
every
time. Yes, I guess magic is as good a word for it as any.”

On the far side of the desk, a telephone rang. “Mauchly,” the man said, tucking the phone beneath his chin. “Very well. Good-bye.” He replaced the phone, then rose. “He’s ready for you, Dr. Lash.”

He?
Lash thought to himself as he picked up his satchel. He followed Mauchly back out into the corridor, to an intersection, then into a wider, plushly appointed hallway that ended in a set of brilliantly polished doors. Reaching them, Mauchly paused, then knocked.

“Come in,” came a voice from beyond.

Mauchly opened the door. “I’ll speak with you again shortly, Dr. Lash,” he said, motioning him inside.

Lash stepped forward, then stopped again as the door clicked closed. Before him stood a long, semicircular table of dark wood. Across it sat a lone man, tall and deeply tanned. He smiled, nodded. Lash nodded back. And then, with a sudden shock of recognition, he realized the man was none other than John Lelyveld, chairman of Eden Incorporated.

Waiting for him.

THREE

T
he chairman of Eden Incorporated rose from his seat. He smiled, and his face broke into kindly, almost grandfatherly lines. “Dr. Lash. Thank you so much for coming. Please, take a seat.” And he motioned toward the long table.

Lash took a seat across from Lelyveld.

“Did you drive in from Connecticut?”

“Yes.”

“How was the traffic?”

“I was parked on the Cross Bronx about half an hour. Otherwise, okay.”

The chairman shook his head. “That road is a disgrace. I have a weekend place not far from you myself, in Rowayton. These days I usually take a helicopter. One of the perks.” He chuckled, then opened a leather portfolio that lay beside him. “Just a few formalities before we get started.” He took out a sheaf of stapled pages and passed it across the desk. It was followed by a gold pen. “Would you mind signing this, please?”