The idea made her both queasy and high. She looked back down, leaning in to focus on each tiny row of information. The first two columns on each set showed what she assumed was the gene information—gene names and GenBank session number. The third columns held raw compatibility scores, with numbers that seemed to range from zero to four. Nearly all of their scores were higher than 2.5. So, somehow these scores came together in the neural network’s algorithm, and ninety-eight popped out at the end. Clearly, Jess could see now, the data was scientific, but it also felt deeply magical. She was a convert. Show her to the GeneticAltar.

She dragged a finger across the page, wanting to feel the information for herself.

Their most recent assay had been completed on January 30—River’d drawn her blood the night before with such careful formality. They’d been so awkward around each other, so wary. Jess bit back a laugh remembering. Holy shit, she’d had no idea: he’d wanted her even then.

Looking up to confirm David’s office door was closed, she quickly took a picture. She knew she shouldn’t; it might have even been illegal—besides, she could just ask River for a copy of it anyway. But Jess knew she’d want to look at it again and again. Flipping through, she began snapping photos of every page, rows upon rows upon rows of data. Each one had a few values circled, annotated, called out—she guessed—for being totally fucking awesome.

Maybe she’d frame this for him as a gift at some point.

Maybe they’d each pick their favorite gene and get that value tattooed.

Maybe she was starting to sound like one of Fizzy’s heroines right now and should probably shut the hell up.

Grinning like an idiot, Jess flipped to the next page, ready to snap a picture, but stopped. This next set of data was from their first DNADuo assay, the one from her spit kit. In this stack, some cells were circled in pencil and some notes were scribbled in the margins, barely legible. Jess marveled that their data had been pored over like this. Her soaring-soundtrack brain sang that their data might even unlock larger truths about love and emotional connection.

And there was still more. Jess flipped more pages, expecting notes and correspondence, but she found another first page. A duplicate? No. It was a different first page—someone else’s—from an assay run in 2014.

Client 05954

Client 05955

Compatibility quotient: 93

This must be David’s Diamond Match pile, Jess assumed. But her brain tripped over a coincidence in the upper right corner. She flipped between this one and her and River’s top sheet, comparing.

The assay dates were different in all three cases, but the assay end time was exactly the same.

Every time.

Jess blinked, tilting gently toward uneasy, flipping back to their first pages to confirm. Yes: for all three assays, the run time ended at 15:45:23.

Her stomach tightened. Statistically, that was… deeply unlikely. Out of 86,400 seconds in each twenty-four hours, there was only a 0.0012 percent chance of two events landing on the same second. Even if Jess assumed the assays were usually started and finished at roughly the same time—say within the same four-hour window—that was still only a likelihood of 0.007 percent, or a 7 out of 100,000 chance, that Jess and River’s assay and another assay completed on a different day would have finished at the exact same time. But all three? It was nearly impossible. The chances—Jess closed her eyes to do the math—of three assays randomly ending at the same exact second on different days were roughly 1 in 2.5 million.