The Mars Project

Discover your perfect match, that’s what they said. Jessica hadn’t known what to expect when she signed up for the ‘Mars Project’, and she certainly didn’t expect to be standing where she was now, but this was it, too late to go back.

She looked across at the man the algorithm had chosen for her. He wasn’t what she’d normally go for, he had blonde hair for a start. But the process was never wrong, infallible. One hundred percent accuracy guaranteed! The infomercials would always confidently boast on the success rate of the scheme. She watched him curiously as he pulled on the last parts of the specially designed outfit for the deep hibernation process that lied ahead for the both of them. He was shorter than her conventional men, not that it bothered her truthfully, she wasn’t the tallest herself. She liked someone who looked after themselves a bit though, and she didn’t think this Josh had seen the inside of a gym for quite some time. But this man was meant to be her soulmate, the highest of all compatibility from the other hundred thousand or so people who applied for the project. And after all, she’d had no success with those she considered her type over the years, so perhaps the algorithm knew her better than she actually did herself.

It all started one Friday night after half a bottle of wine. She had returned home from her shift at the coffee shop, taken a shower and opened her laptop. Her various social media platforms presented her with numerous images of her friends all coupled up, serving to remind her how lonely she felt on a Friday night with no where to go and no one to see. The wine flowed quickly after that. Before she knew it, she had clicked on a link for the ‘Mars Project’, and had set about instinctively answering each of the one thousand compatibility questions that guaranteed you a match with your life partner at the end of it.

Except the ‘Mars Project’ was no ordinary dating program. Colonizing Mars had come about quick when Jessica was just a little girl, and now as a twenty-eight year old woman it was a fully-established part of everyday life. Last year they had passed three million people settling on the red planet, and the numbers were expected to be through five million by the end of the decade. Jessica had long wanted to get out of her job and experience something new, and she had always been intrigued by living on Mars. The home domes that had been installed there were state of the art, and no one ever returned to Earth thinking they had made the wrong decision settling there. The ‘Mars Project’ was unique in its ambition. You fill in the compatibility questions, and it measures you up with your perfect match. You then both fly free of charge to live your lives together on Mars and become a part of the ever growing community there, a fresh start and a second chance. One hundred thousand people apply for the project each year, with around two thousand being selected to make the move. It took about a week after completing the compatibility test for Jessica to discover she had been one of the lucky ones. She was heading to Mars with a man she had matched one hundred percent with. She had little family now, both parents had passed away within a few months of each other a few summers prior. She had no siblings, and knew only a handful of people she truly thought of as close friends. By the end of that day, she had decided to take the plunge. She opened up the email she had received with confirmation and clicked ‘accept’. She was going to Mars.

Everything that followed had been quite the whirlwind. In next to no time Jessica had sold her place and the majority of her possessions, leaving a few bags of clothes and personal items. She had turned up not knowing what to expect at the ‘Mars Project’ headquarters a week before her shuttle to Mars was scheduled. A few days intensive briefing began, and by the time the week ended, Jessica could tell you anything you wanted to know about life on Mars. The worst part of the process was the paperwork. Page after page needed signed and dated. Death in transit liability, Mars rule of law documentation, insurance documentation, you name it, it was covered. Finally, on the night before the blast off, she was given the handbook. The bible as it was referred to by other Martians (Yes, she would actually be referred to as a Martian now, how quaint). Not able to sleep with a cocktail of nervousness and excitement sloshing around her stomach, she spent that night leafing through it. She learnt everything from how plumbing works on Mars to where to go if you need legal advice there. By the time the sun came up on her last day on Earth, Jessica felt prepared and ready to meet the man who had been selected to spend the rest of his life with her.

She had finally met Josh that same morning, when they met to have breakfast together. The small talk had been weird at first, she could tell Josh was nervous, and she was sure she recognised him from somewhere. It didn’t take long for the two of them to establish that Josh actually lived around the corner from where Jessica worked in the coffee shop, and he regularly went in their for a latte on his way to work. This piece of small-world coincidence helped them both to open up after that, and as Josh revealed more about himself Jessica felt more at ease. He actually seemed a nice guy, trustworthy at least. Though she was still waiting to feel some kind of spark towards him, and worryingly she as of yet couldn’t really see herself getting intimate with him. But that would come, she was sure of that, the algorithm was never wrong. One hundred percent accuracy guaranteed!

They had finished up their breakfasts and made their way along to a circular room in the heart of the space shuttle that would get them to Mars. They had been given some time to prepare for blast off, to make any last minute phone calls and to check their luggage one last time. Their suits that they had to get changed into were laid out on top of the hibernation pods, and it was time to get ready for the journey. Underneath the suits, both Jessica and Josh were expected to be naked so their vital signs could be read accurately through the latex. As Jessica stripped off ready to pull on the suit, she glanced towards Josh and noticed him staring at her, blatantly ogling her most private areas. Normally she would have been mortified knowing that a stranger was watching her get undressed, but she felt that in a way it was good that Josh seemed to find her attractive, so she carried on as if she hadn’t spotted him.

Once everything was in order, the technicians arrived to get them both strapped in for the journey. Her last minutes on Earth had finally come, and before she lay down in the pod she looked in Josh’s direction. Their eyes came together across the room, and she felt a connection for the first time. He smiled at her, and she returned it before laying down in the pod while the technicians finished doing their bit. Maybe this’ll all work out just fine she thought. Maybe.

Josh knew he loved her the first time he saw her. He had entered the coffee shop down the road from where he lived, and she had been stood there behind the counter. New girl, probably her first shift. When he had approached the counter he had seen she was called Jessica, and to Josh she was beautiful. Over the weeks and months that followed, Josh had never drank as much coffee, in fact he was spending a small fortune making his daily pilgrimage to worship at the shrine of Jessica. Often he had ended up in the shop multiple times in a day, and sometimes he had sat at a table for hours pretending to work. Despite this effort to become relevant to Jessica, Josh felt that she never acknowledged his existence more than any of the other customers. This had got to him.

Over time, he had built up quite the picture about Jessica purely by listening in to her conversations with her workmates. He knew she had been single for some time and had lived alone in a little flat on the outskirts of town. He had found out she had no family and was considering going back to university. But most crucially, the piece of information that he had been waiting for came to light one recent Saturday morning. It had been cold that morning, so he had entered the coffee shop and ordered a spiced latte to sit in with as he warmed up again. While the girls behind the counter were busy making his drink, he had heard Jessica regaling her tale about how she, under the influence of a bottle of wine, had decided to apply for the ‘Mars Project’. She had made the bold decision that, if this led to her actually finding a match, she would throw herself in wholeheartedly and embrace the adventure ahead.

This information was exactly the opportunity Josh had been waiting for. He gulped back the latte as quick as he could, threw on his coat and began the short walk to where his cousin Oliver lived. Here was his chance, an actual opportunity to be with the girl of his dreams forever. But he was no fool. He had known the odds would have been severely against him if he was to complete the ‘Mars Project’ compatibility test in the traditional manner, no matter how well he felt he had known Jessica by then. No, instead he could go one better. Fate had given Josh the biggest of favours.

It had taken no more than half an hour for him to convince his cousin. Oliver had been one of the original programmers of the ‘Mars project’ from its inception. He had helped design the base code that would go on to become one of the most sophisticated algorithms ever seen. He was a clever man, but he was also a shrewd man. The deal was simple. Josh was to leave Oliver everything, from his house to his car and all the trimmings. In return, Oliver was to use his privileged position in the company to access the algorithm results. From a simple search and readjustment of the data, he would be able to find Jessica’s application and match it to that of Josh’s. All through the backdoor, untraceable and completely immoral. Not that Josh had cared at that moment. He had one thing on his mind, and he was prepared to do anything to make it a reality.

Josh felt his heart almost beating out of his chest as he pulled on his suit designed for the long sleep ahead. He started to take some big breaths, he knew if the monitors picked up his heart in the state it was currently in, they may pull the plug on him going to Mars entirely, and everything would be for nothing. He needed to calm down now, and he told himself to stop worrying. The plan had worked. He was fifteen minutes away, from being with Jessica for the rest of his life.

She had sensed his nerves at first, but small talk over breakfast helped calm him down, her too he imagined. She hadn’t recognised him from all the visits he made to the coffee shop over time, and that hurt a little, but she seemed to buy the coincidental nature of their coming together at least. Once in the hibernation chamber he had thoroughly enjoyed watching her undress and get into the special suit designed for deep sleep. He was sure she caught him watching, but she didn’t intimate as much and this excited him. Everything had come together perfectly.

Before he got into his own pod, ready for the journey ahead, he looked across the room at Jessica. She was doing exactly the same. He stared into her eyes for a second, and then smiled. She smiled back and then began to make herself comfortable in her pod. You have no idea what I’ve done thought Josh as the technicians began to strap him in. Maybe he’d tell her when they woke. Maybe.