Death Match

SIXTEEN

For a moment, Lash simply stared at Mauchly. The chairman’s words came back to him: You’re being given unprecedented access to Eden’s inner workings. You’ve requested — and been granted — a chance to do what nobody with your knowledge has done before.

“Inside the Wall,” he said. “I heard that same expression used in the emergency board meeting.”

“It’s quite literal. This tower is actually made up of three separate buildings. Not only for security, but for safety — in an emergency, the three structures can be completely isolated by security plates.”

Lash nodded.

“The front section of the Eden tower is what our clients see: the testing suites, breakout areas, screening rooms, conference halls, and the like. The rear structure is where the real work goes on. Physically, it’s larger. There are six entrance checkpoints. We’re headed for Checkpoint IV.”

“You mentioned three buildings.”

“Yes. Atop the inner tower is the penthouse. Dr. Silver’s private quarters.”

Lash glanced at Mauchly with new interest. So little was publicly known about the secretive founder of Eden, the brilliant computer scientist behind its technology, that simply hearing he lived here — that there was a good chance he was close at hand — seemed a revelation. Lash found himself wondering what kind of a person Silver was. An eccentric, Howard Hughes figure, emaciated and addicted? A despotic Nero? A cold, calculating arch-tycoon? Somehow, the mere lack of information served to increase his curiosity.

The elevator doors slid back to reveal a wider corridor. Lash could see that it ended in what looked like a wall of glass. A large Roman number IV glowed above it. People were queued before the glass wall, almost all of them wearing white lab coats.

“Most of the checkpoints are on the lowest levels of the building,” Mauchly said as they joined the end of the line. “Makes access easier at the start and the close of the working day.”

As the line shuffled slowly forward, Lash got a better look at what lay beyond the glass: a short hexagonal corridor, like a horizontal honeycomb, brightly lit, with another glass wall at the far end. As he watched, the near wall slid open; the person at the head of the line walked through; and the wall slid closed again.

“You didn’t bring along any mechanical devices, did you?” Mauchly asked. “Voice recorder, PDA, anything like that?”

“I left everything at home, as you requested.”

“Good. Just follow my lead. Once the guard has verified your bracelet, just walk slowly through the checkpoint.”

They had reached the head of the line. Two guards wearing beige-colored jumpsuits flanked the glass. Everything — the guards, the checkpoints, the bracelet, all the fanatical baggage of security — seemed out of scale. But then, Lash recalled what the company’s revenue had been the prior year. And Mauchly’s words: 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.

As Lash watched, Mauchly held his left hand beneath a scanner set into the wall. A blue light shone onto his skin, and the bracelet flashed. With a faint hiss, the glass wall slid away and Mauchly walked into the brilliant space beyond. The near wall closed, then the far wall opened. Once Mauchly was through the chamber and both doors had shut, the guards motioned Lash forward.

He held his bracelet beneath the scanner, felt his wrist grow warm under its beam. The glass wall slid back and he moved into the chamber.

Immediately, the wall whispered back into place behind him. The light inside the checkpoint chamber was so bright, and it reflected so brilliantly off the white surfaces, that Lash was only dimly aware there was more to this honeycomb chamber than bare walls. As he walked forward, he was aware of shapes protruding from the walls, painted the same white as their surroundings and hard to make out. There was a faint humming noise, like the purr of a distant generator. This was more than a corridor — it was a conduit linking two separate towers.

Then the glass wall at the far end slid open and he stepped out. There was a lone guard here, who nodded at Lash as he emerged. Lash nodded back, looking around curiously. “Inside the Wall” did not look particularly different from the Eden he had already seen. There were a variety of signs: Telephony A — E, Online Surveillance, Advanced Data Synthesis. People moved along the corridors, talking in low voices.

Mauchly stood to one side, waiting. As the inner glass wall slid shut behind Lash, he stepped forward.

“What was all that about?” Lash nodded at the chamber he’d just passed through.

“It’s a scanning corridor. Just to make sure you’re not bringing anything in or out. The instruments, software, information, everything on the inside must stay inside.”

“Everything?”

“Everything except a few tightly controlled datastreams.”

“But all the real processing takes place here, on the inside. Right? There must be an outrageous amount of number-crunching going on.”

“More than you could ever imagine.” Mauchly pointed at a large panel, set low into one wall. “Data conduits like this link all the areas inside the Wall. They’re basically wiring trunks that connect every internal system to all the others.”

Mauchly stepped to one side and gestured toward a figure Lash had not noticed before. “This is Tara Stapleton, our chief security technician. She’ll be your advisor while you’re inside.”

The woman stepped forward. “Dr. Lash,” she said in low, quiet voice, extending her hand.

Lash took it. Stapleton was a tall brunette with serious eyes who, he decided, couldn’t yet have reached thirty.

“Our first stop is this way,” Mauchly said as they started down one of the wide corridors. “Tara has just been briefed on exactly why you’re here. But of course nobody else knows. Your cover story’s that you’re preparing an efficiency report for the board’s five-year plan. I think you’ll be surprised at just how dedicated, and motivated, our people are.”

Lash glanced at Tara Stapleton. “Is that true?”

She nodded. “We have all the best equipment. We have a proprietary technology far beyond anything else. What other job lets you make such a difference in other people’s lives?” Despite the enthusiastic words, the delivery seemed rote, without nuance, as if her mind was elsewhere.

“Remember those class reunions I had you listen in on?” Mauchly asked. “Everyone on staff is required to witness them twice a year. It helps remind us of what we’re working for.”

They had arrived at a set of double doors labeled DATA GATHERING — INTERNET — GALLERY. Mauchly placed his bracelet beneath the scanner and the doors slid back. He motioned Lash ahead.

Lash found himself on a balcony above a room busy as the trading floor of the New York Stock Exchange. Except that, while the Stock Exchange always seemed to Lash like barely contained chaos, the huge space below had the precise, calm flow of a beehive. People sat at desks, staring at computer screens, while others gathered at data centers, pointing up at monitors or speaking into telephones. Oversize videoscreens covered the walls, showing feeds from Reuters and other wire services, CNN, local and foreign newscasts.

“This is one of our data-gathering centers,” Mauchly said. “There are several other research and surveillance subsections in the building, all similar to this one.”

“It seems like an awfully big operation,” Lash murmured as he gazed at the activity below.

“We tell our clients their single day of testing is the most important stage in the matching process, but actually it’s just a small part. Following the evaluation, we monitor all aspects of an applicant’s behavior patterns. It can take a few days, or a month, depending on the width of the datastream we get back. Lifestyle preferences, taste in clothes and entertainment, spending habits: everything is tracked. For example, this center tracks an applicant’s Internet use. We monitor what sites are visited, how they’re moused, then we integrate the clickstream data with the other information we’re gathering.”

Lash looked at him. “How is that possible?”

“We have agreements with the major credit agencies, telephone and ISP providers, cable and satellite TV, and the like. They allow us to monitor their bandwidth. And we in turn provide them with certain metrics — generalized, of course — for spotting trends. And we have our own surveillance specialists on board, of course. The omnipresence of computers in daily life is part of what makes our business possible, Dr. Lash.”

“Makes me almost afraid to touch mine,” Lash said.

“All monitoring is transparent. Our clients have no idea their Web surfing, credit card charges, and phone records are being tracked. It gives us a far more complete picture than we could gather any other way. It’s one of the things that separates us from the other, far more primitive social-networking services that have sprung up in our wake. And needless to say, the data we gather remains within these walls. That’s another reason why we seem so secretive to you, Dr. Lash: our first mandate is to ensure our clients’ privacy.”

He waved his hand at the activity below. “Once the Thorpes completed their personal evaluations, their datafiles would have been distributed to centers like this for monitoring. It would have been the same for the Wilners. Or you, for that matter, had you been selected as a candidate.”

Here, Mauchly paused. “By the way, I’m sorry about that. I’ve read the exit reports of Vogel and Alicto.”

“Your Dr. Alicto seemed to have a personal grudge against me.”

“No doubt it seemed that way. The senior examiner does have some leeway in how he conducts an interview. Alicto is one of our best examiners, but he’s also one of the most unorthodox. In any case, it was not a real evaluation in the sense that you were a candidate. I hope that lessens the sting somewhat.”

“Let’s move on.” Lash felt vaguely uncomfortable about having his less-than-stellar performance analyzed before Tara Stapleton.

Mauchly ushered Lash out of the gallery and down the long, pale-hued corridor, stopping at last before a heavy steel door marked by a biohazard symbol and the label RADIOLOGY AND GENETICS III. Once again, Mauchly opened the door with his security bracelet. Beyond was a large room full of gray-painted lockers. “Bluesuits” for biomedical and hazmat duty hung from metal dollies. The far wall of the room was made of clear Plexiglas, and its sealed entrance portal sported several warnings. Clean-Room Environment Beyond, read one; Sterile Clothing and Procedures MANDATORY. Thank You For Your Cooperation.

Lash walked up to the glass and looked through curiously. He could see gloved and suited figures bending over a variety of complex equipment.

“That looks like a DNA sequencer,” he said, pointing at a particularly large console in a far corner.

Mauchly came up beside him. “It is.”

“What’s it doing here?”

“Part of our genetics analysis.”

“I don’t see what genetics has to do with a service like yours.”

“Many things, actually. It’s one of Eden’s most sensitive areas of research.”

Lash waited expectantly, letting the silence lengthen. At last, Mauchly sighed.

“As you know, our application process isn’t limited to psychological evaluations. During the initial physical, any candidates who present with significant physical problems, or appear to be at high risk for future problems, are disqualified.”

“Seems harsh.”

“Not at all. Would you care to meet your perfect mate, only to have her die a year later? In any case, after the physical, the candidate’s blood is further screened — here and at other labs inside the Wall — for a variety of genetic disorders. Anybody with a genetic predisposition for Alzheimer’s, cystic fibrosis, Huntington’s chorea, and such are also disqualified.”

“Jesus. Do you tell them why?”

“Not directly, no — it might attract attention to our trade secrets. Besides, rejection can be traumatizing enough. Why compound it with anxiety over something that might not develop for years — if at all — and that’s untreatable in any case?”

Why, indeed? Lash thought.

“But that’s just the beginning. Our most important use of genetics comes in the matching process itself.”

Lash looked from Mauchly, to the lab workers moving busily beyond the Plexiglas wall, and back to Mauchly again.

“You’re no doubt more familiar with evolutionary psychology than I am,” Mauchly said. “In particular, the concept of gene spreading.”

Lash nodded. “The desire to send your genes on to future generations under the best possible conditions. A fundamental impulse.”

“Precisely. And the ‘best possible conditions’ usually means a high degree of genetic variability. What a technician might call an increase of heterozygosity. It helps ensure strong, healthy progeny. If one mate is blood type A, with a relatively high susceptibility to cholera, and the other mate is blood type B, with a heightened susceptibility to typhus, their child — with blood type AB — is likely to have a high resistance to both diseases.”

“But what does this have to do with what’s going on in there?”

“We keep very close tabs on the latest research in molecular biology. And we’re currently monitoring several dozen genes that influence the choice of an ideal mate.”

Lash shook his head. “You surprise me.”

“I’m no expert, Dr. Lash. But I can offer one example: HLA.”

“I’m not familiar with it.”

“Human leukocyte antigen. In animals it’s known as MHC. It’s a large gene that lives on the long arm of chromosome 6, and affects body odor preferences. Studies have shown that people are most attracted to mates whose HLA haplotypes were least like their own.”

“Guess I should be reading Nature more carefully. Wonder how they demonstrated that?”

“Well, in one test, they asked a control group to sniff the armpits of T-shirts worn by the opposite sex, and to rank them in order of attractiveness. And the scents the group universally preferred were of people whose genotypes were most different from their own.”

“You’re kidding.”

“No, I’m not. Animals also display this preference for mating with partners whose MHC genes are opposite their own. Mice, for example, make the determination by sniffing the urine of potential mates.”

This was greeted by a brief silence.

“Personally, I prefer the T-shirt,” Tara said.

It was the first time in several minutes that she’d spoken, and Lash turned to look at her. But she wasn’t smiling, and he was uncertain whether she’d meant it as a joke.

Mauchly shrugged. “In any case, the genetic preferences of the Wilners and the Thorpes would be pooled with the other information we’d gathered on them: monitoring data, test results, the rest.”

Lash stared at the gowned workers on the far side of the glass. “This is amazing. And I’ll want to see those test results in due time. But the real question is how, exactly, did the two couples get together?”

“That’s our next stop.” And Mauchly led the way back into the hallway.

A confusing journey through intersecting corridors; another brief ascent in an elevator; and then Lash found himself before another set of doors labeled simply: PROVING CHAMBER.

“What is this place?” Lash asked.

“The Tank,” Mauchly replied. “After you, please.”

Lash stepped into a room that was large, but whose low ceiling and indirect light gave it a strangely intimate atmosphere. The walls to the left and right were covered with various displays and instrumentation. But Lash’s attention was drawn to the rear wall, which was completely dominated by what seemed some kind of aquarium. He paused.

“Go ahead,” Mauchly said. “Take a look.”

As Lash drew closer, he realized he was looking at a vast translucent cube, set into the wall of the chamber. A handful of technicians stood before it, some scribbling notes into palmtop computers, others simply observing. Inside the cube, innumerable ghostly apparitions moved restlessly back and forth, colors shifting, flaring briefly when colliding with other apparitions, then dimming once again. The faint light, the pale translucence of the entities within, gave the cube an illusion of great depth.

“You understand why we call it the Tank,” Mauchly said.

Lash nodded absently. It was an aquarium, of sorts: an electromechanical aquarium. And yet “Tank” seemed too prosaic a name for something with such an otherworldly beauty.

“What is this?” Lash asked in a low voice.

“This is a graphic representation of the actual matching process, occurring in real time. It provides us with visual cues that would be much harder to analyze if we were scanning through, say, reams of paper printouts. Each of those objects you see moving within the Tank is an avatar.”

“Avatar?”

“The personality constructs of our applicants. Derived from their evaluations and our surveillance data. But Tara can explain it better than I.”

So far, Tara had stayed in the background. Now, she came forward. “We’ve taken the concept of data mining and analytics and stood it on its head. Once the monitoring period is over, our computers take the raw applicant data — half a terabyte of information — and create the construct we call the avatar. It’s then placed in an artificial environment and allowed to interact with the other avatars.”

Lash’s gaze was still locked on the Tank. “Interact,” he repeated.

“It’s easiest to think of them as extremely dense packets of data, given artificial life and set free in virtual space.”

It was strange, almost unnerving: to think that each of these countless gossamer-like specters, flitting back and forth in the void before him, represented a complete and unique personality: hopes and needs, desires and dreams, moods and proclivities, manifested as data moving through a matrix of silicon. Lash looked back at Tara. Her eyes shone pale blue in the reflected light, and strange shadows moved across her face. A faraway look had come over her. She, too, seemed mesmerized by the sight.

“It’s beautiful,” he said. “But bizarre.”

Abruptly, the faraway look left her eyes. “Bizarre? It’s brilliant. The avatars contain far too much data to be compared by conventional computing algorithms. Our solution was to give them artificial life, let them make the comparisons on their own. They’re inserted into the virtual space, and then excited, much in the way atoms can be. This prompts the avatars to move and interact. We call these interactions ‘contacts.’ If the two avatars have already intersected in the Tank, it’s a stale contact. But if this is the first encounter between two avatars, it’s a ‘fresh contact.’ Each fresh contact releases a huge burst of data, which basically details the points of commonality between the two.”

“So what we’re looking at right now are all of Eden’s current applicants.”

“That’s correct.”

“How many are there?”

“It varies, but at any one time there could be up to ten thousand avatars. More are added constantly. There could be almost anybody in there. Presidents, rock stars, poets. The only people…” she hesitated. “The only people not allowed are Eden personnel.”

“Why’s that?”

Tara’s reply did not address this question. “It takes approximately eighteen hours for any one avatar to make contact with all the others in the Tank. We call that a cycle. Thousands upon thousands of avatars intersecting with every other, releasing a massive torrent of data — you can imagine the kind of computing horsepower required to parse the data.”

Lash nodded. There was a low beeping behind him, and he turned to see Mauchly raising a cell phone to his ear.

“Anyway,” Tara went on, “when a match is determined, the two avatars are removed from the Tank. Nine times out of ten, a match is made within the first cycle. If there is no match, the avatar is retained in the Tank for another cycle, then another. If an avatar hasn’t found a match within five cycles, it’s removed and the candidate’s application is voided. But that’s only happened half a dozen times.”

Half a dozen times, Lash thought to himself. He glanced over at Mauchly, but he was still on the phone.

“But under normal circumstances, you could take one of these avatars, put it back in the Tank a year from now, and another match would be found. A different match. Right?”

“That’s a sensitive issue. Our clients are told that a perfect match has been found for them. And it’s true. But that isn’t to say we couldn’t find an equally perfect match for them tomorrow, or next month. Except in the case of the supercouples, of course — those really are perfect. But we don’t tell our clients about degrees of perfection, because that might encourage window shopping. Once we’ve found a match, that’s it. End of story. Their avatars are removed from the Tank.”

“And then?”

“The two candidates are notified of the match. A meeting is set up.” As she said this, her expression once again grew distant.

Lash turned to the Tank, staring at the thousands of avatars gliding back and forth within, weightless and alien. “You mentioned the need for computing horsepower,” he murmured. “That seems an understatement. I didn’t know any computer could handle such a job.”

“Funny you should say that.” It was Mauchly speaking this time, slipping the phone back into his jacket pocket. “Because there’s one person in this building who knows more than anyone else about that. And he’s just asked to make your acquaintance.”