The One

by John Marrs

  There was only one more left before Christopher’s work was complete, but whether he could stomach it was up for debate.

  Chapter 83

  JADE

  Jade had never felt more heartless as when she stood partially clothed before her mother-in-law, still flushed from having made love to her son, and not the one she married.

  The light from Susan’s bedroom illuminated the distress on her face, the shadows accentuating her formidable presence. She glared at both of them in turn, disgusted by what she saw, then turned and walked towards the lounge.

  Mark scrambled to find the underwear Jade had stripped from him and thrown across the room. Pulling them on, he grabbed a T-shirt and pushed past her to follow his mother.

  ‘Mum,’ Jade heard him say, as she reached for the towelling dressing gown that hung from the back of Mark’s door. With her legs wobbling, she went to join him. They’d face this together.

  ‘How could you both?’ Susan exclaimed, tears already streaming down her face. ‘Kevin is your brother, Mark, and your husband, Jade. How could you do this to him?! We’ve only just buried him; he’s not even cold in the ground.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Mark said desperately. ‘I didn’t mean for you to find us.’

  ‘Oh no, of course you didn’t, it’s pretty bloody obvious that you wanted to carry on behind everybody’s backs.’

  ‘No, it wasn’t like that.’

  ‘And you!’ continued Susan, pointing her finger at Jade. ‘We welcomed you into our home and treated you like a daughter. And this is how you repay us? Sleeping with your brother-in-law the whole time?’

  ‘It hasn’t been the whole time,’ began Jade. ‘This was the first time.’

  ‘You expect me to believe that?’

  ‘Yes, because it’s the truth.’

  ‘You two don’t know what the bloody truth is. Mark, I thought we raised you better than this.’

  ‘You did … you have,’ Mark tried to explain.

  ‘Clearly I didn’t … You’re disgusting!’

  ‘There was never anything physical between Kevin and me,’ Jade said firmly, hoping to defuse the situation. ‘We didn’t have the chemistry and … I don’t know why.’

  Susan’s eyebrows knitted together as she glared at her. ‘Yes, there was, he was your Match! I saw how he behaved around you. He loved you.’

  ‘And I loved him, but I wasn’t in love with him. I know we were Matched but there was no romance there, at least not on my part. I guess that must sometimes happen …’

  ‘What you mean is that as soon as you found out he was sick, you lost interest.’

  ‘No, that’s not it, honestly, Susan. If I didn’t care about him I wouldn’t have stayed.’

  ‘He was besotted with you, Jade. I could see it in his eyes. You were his Match so why didn’t you feel the same way? You were supposed to feel the same way!’

  ‘I don’t know, please believe me. I tried so hard to fall in love with him … I wanted to love him like he loved me but … but I couldn’t.’

  ‘I don’t think you tried at—’

  ‘She’s being honest, Mum,’ Mark interrupted. ‘Jade couldn’t fall in love with him. She wasn’t his Match.’

  Both women turned their heads quickly towards Mark.

  He swallowed hard before he spoke. ‘And I know that Kev wasn’t her DNA Match because … because she’s Matched with me.’

  Chapter 84

  ALEX

  It was Alex who had found the note waiting for him in Nick’s empty hotel room.

  When he had still not heard from Nick the morning after sending him so many texts and voicemails, he’d cancelled his clients’ appointments and took a taxi to the hotel where Nick was staying. He knew his train back from London was scheduled for that morning, so he would wait for him, but hours later, when Nick still hadn’t returned, Alex, full of worry, talked the receptionist into letting him in.

  As the electronic key card opened the door, Alex held his breath, scared of what he might find. Inside, the room was empty and tidy, but the bin was full. Crammed along with cigarette packets and minibar bottles were scraps and scraps of paper, curled up into tight balls having been tossed away.

  The security man stood by the wide-open window looking puzzled. While the breeze violently blew the curtains back and forth, it did little to take away the smell of stale smoke that clung to the material. ‘He’ll be fined for that,’ the man mumbled in broken English.

  Alex glanced around the room and eventually spotted the sealed envelope which sat atop the pillow on the neatly made bed. He felt a sudden chill from the wind when he recognised his name and the handwriting, then held his breath as he dashed to the window and looked to the concrete roof of the building nine floors below.

  Chapter 85

  ELLIE

  Matthew brought the decanter of whisky from the drinks cabinet back with him to the sofas where Ellie sat.

  As he poured himself another glass, Ellie tried to disguise that she was becoming increasingly agitated by his accusations and threats. But they were both aware that he knew her well enough to see straight through her titanium veneer. He sat down opposite her and took an over-exaggerated breath.

  ‘After my dad left my mum – thanks to your test – in the space of a few months he forced her to sell the family house, so all she could afford was a flat miles away from her home and her friends,’ he continued. ‘She was lonely, humiliated and isolated, and over the years she turned to booze to blank it all out. It was just a matter of time before she lost her job because of alcohol dependency. Do you have any idea what it’s like for a son to have to change his mother’s underwear because she shat her knickers when she was paralytic? Or to pick her up from the police station when she was arrested for being drunk and disorderly in a supermarket?’

  Ellie wanted to shake her head but refused to give him the gratification.

  ‘Of course you don’t know,’ he said. ‘Then, just when she reached her lowest ebb, she was Matched with somebody.’

  Ellie paused and placed her glass on the table. ‘Well, what’s your complaint then? Everything worked out for her in the end.’

  ‘You’d think so, wouldn’t you? Bobby Hughes was his name,’ Matthew said. ‘He seemed like a good guy at first and she fell for him hook, line and sinker, just like Matches are supposed to. But he was a manipulative bastard and she was so desperate not to be alone that she agreed to do anything he asked, including turning a blind eye to the fact he took a fancy to young girls. Very young girls, judging by the 3,000 or so images the police found when they seized his laptop. He tried to claim they were already on the computer when he bought it on eBay and Mum was stupid enough to believe him – she paid his legal bills and took out loans for him right through his court case. But when he was put behind bars, she was left with nothing but final demands she couldn’t pay back. And all of this, everything that went wrong in her life, was because of a test that she and my dad had no knowledge of taking, because you’d decided to play God. You, sitting here in your ivory tower up in the clouds, have never had to watch someone you love transform into something else right before your eyes.’

  Ellie shot him a withering glance. ‘You think?’

  ‘I’m not talking about me; this is different,’ he continued dismissively. ‘I’m talking about watching a strong, intelligent woman disintegrate into a physical and emotional mess. You know she was passed out drunk when she set herself on fire with a cigarette? She burned alive. She was so badly injured that I couldn’t even identify her body.’

  He folded his arms defiantly while Ellie took a sip from her gin and tonic. He appeared to be counting on her feeling pity towards his unfortunate mother. But the more accusatory he became, the more she quietly seethed.

  He had underestimated her. He hadn’t known her back then when she was an ambitious young woman trying to convince a scoffing scientific community of her DNA discovery; she hadn’t told him of the sacrifices she’d made to
be heard and how much of her old self she had been forced to surrender to become the powerhouse she now was. While Tim had certainly softened her, Matthew was a fool if he thought she couldn’t snap back into her previous shape in a heartbeat.

  ‘There are millions of couples across the world who have taken the test and found they aren’t Matched,’ she began firmly, ‘but they’ve stayed together because they’re in love. I may have taken certain shortcuts back in the early days, but I won’t be held responsible for the decisions those Matched people eventually made. I didn’t force your dad to leave your weak-willed mum, and I didn’t put a bottle in her hand or pour booze down her throat. At some point, people have to take responsibility for their own actions.’

  ‘And at what point do you take responsibility for your actions, Ellie?’

  ‘My actions have put homophobia, racism and religious hatred on the edge of extinction – a Match doesn’t recognise sexuality, colour or whatever God you choose to celebrate. It has united people of all faiths and persuasions in a way we never thought possible. Show me what you have done to make this world a less hostile place.’

  ‘But you’ve divided just as many people by creating a “them” and “us”: those who are loved by design and the rest who’ve been made to feel like their relationships are less worthy. Do you not see a parallel between what you’ve done and what Hitler did to the Jews? The Nazis eroded them, one by one, until they were a ravaged minority, treated like vermin. Is that your aim for un-Matched people? To gradually break them?’

  Ellie laughed. ‘You’re more deluded than I thought.’

  ‘Matches are better off financially than the un-Matched. Matched couples get bigger tax breaks, better life insurance deals, they’re more productive at work because they’re happier at home so they’re offered better jobs. For the un-Matched, suicide rates are higher, as are divorces and depression—’

  ‘Both of which actually fell last year as more and more people are finding happiness with those for whom they were designed. Domestic violence against both men and women has also dropped.’

  ‘Only because people are too scared to report those kind of crimes against their physically and mentally abusive Match. They don’t want to risk a better relationship with a non-Match.’

  ‘Immigration and emigration are no longer such contentious issues,’ Ellie continued, getting into the swing of her arguments. She was going to take this Matthew down. ‘People are fast-tracked through red tape and are allowed to travel worldwide and settle with their Matches in other countries.’

  ‘And that’s damaged almost a fifth of businesses across globe who have lost key members of staff because they’ve relocated to another city or country.’

  ‘You can throw as many figures at me as you want, Matthew, but you cannot deny one thing. Match Your DNA exists, whether you like it or not.’

  He gave her a knowing look. ‘I don’t deny it, but I predict it’s not going to be around for very much longer.’

  ‘That’s not your decision to make.’

  ‘That judgment belongs to the people,’ he continued. ‘And the people always prevail.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  He stood up and stretched his arms behind him. ‘Another drink?’

  Ellie shook her head. She watched as he helped himself to a third whisky, unable to recognise the man before her as the one she had loved. Everything about Matthew was different from Tim, from his arrogance to his mannerisms and even the way he sat. She wondered how hard it must have been to maintain the facade in her presence for so long.

  ‘Even now that you know what kind of person I am, you’re still in love with me, aren’t you?’ Matthew said, the ice cubes cracking as whisky oozed over them.

  Ellie didn’t respond.

  ‘I thought so. It’s not much fun having someone play God with your life, is it?’

  ‘Don’t kid yourself, you’re not playing God. You’re being just as manipulative as the man who conned your gullible mother. Only I’m not pathetic like her and I’m not going to let this little blip shape the rest of my life. I’m always going to love you because it’s in my DNA to, but I’m never going to like you and, after today, we will never see each other again.’

  ‘With all the contempt you have for me, you still have faith we’re a Match, don’t you?’ he said scornfully.

  ‘Yes, of course we are, and Christ knows I wish we weren’t.’

  ‘You see, that’s the funny thing, Ells. Because we aren’t Matched and we never have been.’

  Ellie narrowed her eyes. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘You’re a woman of science, yet you were so desperate to be coupled that not for a single moment did you doubt your results.’

  ‘I was not “desperate to be coupled”. I had a perfectly happy life before you.’

  ‘You were, and still are, an ice-cold corporate whore who dated a series of wealthy idiots. You made up excuses not to see your family and all you had to keep you company was your work. With me you had everything, which is ironic because, in reality, I am nothing to you.’

  ‘Of the 1.7 billion people who’ve been tested, there hasn’t been one reported mis-Match—’

  ‘Until now. You and I are a mis-Match, Ellie, because I hacked into your servers to manipulate our results.’

  ‘Rubbish,’ Ellie said, secretly baulking at the notion. She folded her arms indignantly. ‘Our servers are more secure than almost every major international company across the world. We receive so many hacking attempts yet no one gets in. We have the best software and team money can buy to protect us against people like you.’

  ‘You’re right about some of that. But what your system didn’t take into account was your own vanity. Do you remember receiving an email some time ago with the subject “Businesswoman of the Year Award”? You couldn’t help but open it.’

  Ellie vaguely remembered reading the email as it had been sent to her private account, which only a few people had knowledge of.

  ‘Attached to it was a link you clicked on and that opened to nothing, didn’t it?’ Matthew continued. ‘Well, it wasn’t nothing to me, because your click released a tiny, undetectable piece of tailor-made malware that allowed me to remotely access your network and work my way around your files. Everything you had access to, I had access to. Then I simply replicated my strand of DNA to mirror image yours, sat back and waited for you to get in touch. That’s why I came for a job interview, to learn a little more about the programming and systems you use. Please thank your head of personnel for leaving me alone in the room for a few moments with her laptop while she searched for a working camera to take my headshot. That was a huge help in accessing your network. Oh, and tell her to frisk interviewees for lens deflectors next time – they’re pocket-sized gadgets that render digital cameras useless.’

  Ellie wanted the ground to open up and swallow her whole. She felt her cheeks glow red, a combination of regret for allowing him into her life without question and fury for trusting him.

  ‘You fell in love with me through your own free will,’ Matthew continued. ‘You so desperately wanted it that you talked yourself into it. You can’t blame your DNA for getting you into this mess – you can only blame yourself.’

  Ellie took a moment to regulate her shallow breaths.

  ‘There are several reasons I did this,’ Matthew continued, sinking deeper into his sofa. ‘Humiliating you was one of them. But I also wanted to demonstrate how greedy we are as human beings. How willing we are to give up everything and anyone we hold dear on the suggestion there might be something better around the corner. What you felt for me wasn’t a DNA Match; we weren’t designed for each other, we weren’t written in the stars. It was mind over matter that made you fall in love, not science. It was a good old-fashioned boy-meets-girl relationship, nothing more and nothing less. And once I tell everyone how I fooled the woman who “discovered” Matches, you’ll be a laughing stock and your credibility ruined.’

&nbs
p; Ellie gripped the arms of the sofa as her temper got the better of her. ‘So what? Go ahead. Go public with it, be my guest. I’ll survive it. In the end, plenty of others have found a true happiness they never thought possible because of me.’

  ‘Oh, Ells. Still so naive. Have you not learned anything from this?’

  She glared at him, not knowing what he was talking about.

  ‘You’re not the only one to have the rug pulled from under your feet. Millions of your subscribers are about to have their lives turned upside down too.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ she asked hesitantly.

  ‘Did you think I’d simply mis-Match you and me? Of course not. I rewrote your whole coding so that, over the space of the last eighteen months, at least two million people on your database were Matched with the wrong person.’

  Ellie swallowed hard, and her heart beat so fast she thought it might break her chest bone.

  ‘My mis-Matches are so completely random, even I don’t know who’s been affected,’ he continued. ‘Anyone signed up and Matched in that time period – which by your company’s growth rate is around twenty-five million people – could be one of my mis-Matches. Because of me, your business has just become completely worthless. Nobody will know if their Match is for real or if they’ve just talked themselves into it. I told you I was going to destroy you, and I never make promises that I can’t keep.’

  Chapter 86

  MANDY

  It was the pounding in her forehead that eventually woke Mandy from her unconscious state.

  With her eyes still closed, she reached her right hand slowly towards her face and felt the egg-shaped lump. It was tender to the touch. She could feel a line of stitches holding it together. Slowly, she attempted to open her eyes but her eyelids felt as if they’d been glued. She tried to move her left hand but it was too heavy and she was too weak. She went to grasp it with the other and realised it was encased in plaster that stretched towards the middle of her forearm.