The Circle (26 page)

“Now I’m scared,” Mae said.

“Almost there,” he said.

And then there was the creaking of a steel door. It opened, and revealed an enormous
chamber illuminated by weak blue light. Kalden led her through the doorway and into
what seemed to be a great cave, thirty feet high, with a barrel-vaulted ceiling.

“What is this?” she asked.

“It was supposed to be part of the subway,” he said. “But they abandoned it. Now it’s
just empty, a strange combination of manmade tunnel and actual cave. See the stalactites?”

He pointed down the great tunnel, where stalagmites and stalactites gave the tunnel
the look of a mouth full of uneven teeth.

“Where does it go?” she asked.

“It connects to the one under the bay,” he said. “I’ve gone about a half-mile into
it, but then it gets too wet.”

Where they stood, they could see black water, a shallow lake on the tunnel floor.

“My guess is that this is where the future Stewarts will go,” he said. “Thousands
of them, probably smaller. I’m sure they’ll get the containers down to people-size
soon enough.”

They looked into the tunnel together, and Mae pictured it, an endless grid of red
steel boxes stretching into the darkness.

He looked back to her. “You can’t tell anyone I took you here.”

“I won’t,” Mae said, then knew that to keep this promise she would have to lie to
Annie. In the moment, it seemed a small price to pay. She wanted to kiss Kalden again,
and she took his face again, down to hers, and opened her mouth to his. She closed
her eyes, and pictured the long cave, the blue light above, the dark water below.

And then, in the shadows, away from Stewart, something in Kalden changed, and his
hands became more sure of themselves. He held her closer, his hands gaining strength.
His mouth moved from hers, across her cheek and onto her neck, pausing there, and
climbing to her ear, his breath hot. She tried to keep up, holding his head in her
hands, exploring his neck, his back, but he was leading, he had plans. His right hand
was on the small of her back, bringing her into him, where she felt him hard and pressing
against her stomach.

And then she was lifted. She was in the air, and he was carrying her, and she wrapped
her legs around him as he strode purposefully to some point behind her. She opened
her eyes, briefly, then closed them, not wanting to know where he was taking her,
trusting him, though knowing how wrong this was, trusting him, so far underground,
a man she couldn’t find, whose full name she didn’t know.

Then he was lowering her, and she braced herself to feel the stone of the cave floor,
but instead she felt the soft landing of some kind of mattress. Now she opened her
eyes. They were in an alcove, a cave within the cave, a few feet off the ground and
carved into the wall. It was filled with blankets and pillows, and he eased her down
upon them.

“This is where you sleep?” she asked, in her fevered state thinking it almost logical.

“Sometimes,” he said, and breathed fire into her ear.

She remembered the condoms she’d been given at Dr. Villalobos’s office. “I have something,”
she said.

“Good,” he said, and he took one from her, tearing the wrapper as she pushed his pants
down his hips.

In two quick motions he pulled her pants and panties down and
tossed them aside. He buried his face in her stomach, his hands holding the back of
her thighs, his fingers crawling upward, inward.

“Come back up here,” she said.

He did, and he hissed into her ear. “Mae.”

She couldn’t form words.

“Mae,” he said again, as she fell apart all over him.

She woke up in the dorms and first imagined she’d dreamt it, every moment: the underground
chambers, the water, the red boxes, that hand on the small of her back and then the
bed, the pillows in the cave within the cave—none of it seemed plausible. It was the
kind of random assemblage of details that dreams fumbled with, none of it possible
in this world.

But as she rose and showered and dressed, she realized that everything had happened
the way she remembered. She had kissed this person Kalden, who she knew very little
about, and he had led her not only through a series of high-security chambers, but
into some dark anteroom, where they’d lost themselves for hours and passed out.

She called Annie. “We consummated.”

“Who did? You and the old man?”

“He’s not old.”

“He didn’t have a musty smell? Did he mention his pacemaker or diapers? Don’t tell
me he died on you.”

“He’s not even thirty.”

“Did you get his last name this time?”

“No, but he gave me a number where I can call him.”

“Oh, that’s classy. And have you tried it?”

“Not yet.”

“Not yet?”

Mae’s stomach tightened. Annie exhaled loudly.

“You know I’m worried about him being some kind of spy or stalker. Did you confirm
that he’s legit?”

“I did. He works at the Circle. He said he knew you, and he had access to lots of
places. He’s normal. Maybe a little eccentric.”

“Access to places? What do you mean?” Annie’s tone took on a new edge.

At that moment, Mae knew she would begin lying to Annie. Mae wanted to be with Kalden
again, wanted to throw herself around him at that moment, and she didn’t want Annie
to do anything to jeopardize her access to him, and his broad shoulders, his elegant
silhouette.

“I just mean he knew his way around,” Mae said. There was a part of her that thought
he might indeed be there illegally, that he was some interloper, and, in a sudden
revelation, she realized he might be living in that strange underground lair. He might
represent some force opposed to the Circle. Maybe he worked for Senator Williamson
in some capacity, or some would-be competitor to the Circle. Maybe he was a simple
nobody blogger-stalker who wanted to get closer to the machine at the center of the
world.

“So you consummated where? In your dorm?”

“Yup,” Mae said. It was not so difficult to lie this way.

“And he slept over?”

“No, he had to get home.” And, realizing that the longer she spent talking to Annie
the more lies she would tell, Mae concocted a reason to hang up. “I’m supposed to
get hooked up for the CircleSurvey today,” she said. Which was more or less true.

“Call me later. And you have to get his name.”

“Okay.”

“Mae, I’m not your boss. I don’t want to be your supervisor or anything. But the company
needs to know who this guy is. Company security’s something we have to take seriously.
Let’s get him nailed down today, okay?” Annie’s voice had changed; she sounded like
a displeased superior. Mae held her anger and hung up.

Mae called the number Kalden had given her. But when she did, the phone rang without
end. There was no voicemail. And again Mae realized she had no way to get in touch
with him. Intermittently, throughout the night, she’d thought to ask him his last
name, for any other kind of information, but the time was never right, and he hadn’t
asked for hers, and she assumed that when they left each other, they would exchange
information. But then they’d forgotten. She, at least, had forgotten. How had they
parted, after all? He walked her to the dorms, and kissed her again, there, under
the doorway. Or maybe not. Mae thought again, and remembered he’d done what he did
before: he’d pulled her aside, out of the light of the doorway, and he’d kissed her
four times, on her forehead, her chin, each cheek, the sign of the cross. Then he
spun away from her, disappearing into the shadows near the waterfall, the one where
Francis found the wine.

During lunch Mae made her way to the Cultural Revolution, where, at the behest of
Jared and Josiah and Denise, she would be outfitted to answer CircleSurveys. She had
been assured this was a reward, an honor, and an enjoyable one—to be one of the Circlers
asked about
her tastes, her preferences, her buying habits and plans, for use by the Circle’s
clients.

“This is really the right next step for you,” Josiah had said.

Denise had nodded. “I think you’ll love it.”

Pete Ramirez was a blandly handsome man a few years older than Mae, whose office seemed
to have no desk, no chairs, no right angles. It was round, and when Mae entered, he
was standing, talking on a headset, swinging a baseball bat, and looking out the window.
He waved her in and finished his call. He was still holding the bat with his left
hand when he shook her hand with his right.

“Mae Holland. So good to have you. I know you’re on lunch, so we’ll be quick. You’ll
be out in seven minutes if you forgive my brusqueness, okay?”

“Okay.”

“Great. Do you know why you’re here?”

“I think so.”

“You’re here because your opinions are valued. They’re so valued that the world needs
to know them—your opinions on just about everything. Isn’t that flattering?”

Mae smiled. “It is.”

“Okay, you see this headset I have on?”

He pointed to the assembly on his head. A hair-thin arm, a microphone at its end,
followed his cheekbone.

“I’m going to hook you up with the same sweet setup. Sound good?” Mae smiled, but
Pete wasn’t waiting for answers. He arranged an identical headset over her hair and
adjusted the microphone.

“Can you say something so I can check the levels?”

He had no tablet or screen visible, so Mae assumed he was fully retinal—the first
one she’d met.

“Just tell me what you ate for breakfast.”

“A banana, granola,” she said.

“Great. Let’s decide first on a sound. Do you have a preferred one for your notices?
Like a chirp or tri-tone or something?”

“Maybe a standard chirp?”

“This is the chirp,” he said, and she heard it through her headphones.

“That’s fine.”

“It should be better than fine. You’ll be hearing it a lot. You want to be sure. Try
a few more.”

They ran through a dozen more options, finally settling on the sound of a tiny bell,
distant and with an intriguing reverb, as if it had been rung in some faraway church.

“Great,” Pete said. “Now let me explain how it works. The idea is to take the pulse
of a chosen sampling of Circle members. This job is important. You’ve been chosen
because your opinions are crucial to us, and to our clients. The answers you provide
will help us in tailoring our services to their needs. Okay?”

Mae began to respond but he was already talking again.

“So every time you hear the bell, you’ll nod, and the headset will register your nod,
and the question will be heard through your headphone. You’ll answer the question
in standard English. In many cases you’ll be asked a question that’s structured to
receive one of the standard two answers,
smile
and
frown
. The voice rec is exquisitely attuned to these two answers, so you don’t have to
worry about mumbling or
anything. And of course you shouldn’t have trouble with any answer if you enunciate.
You want to try one?”

Mae nodded, and at the sound of the bell, she nodded, and a question arrived through
the earpiece: “How do you feel about shoes?”

Mae smiled, then said, “Smile.”

Pete winked at her. “Easy one.”

The voice asked, “How do you feel about dressy shoes?”

Mae said, “Smile.”

Pete raised his hand in pause. “Now of course the majority of the questions won’t
be subject to one of the three standard answers:
smile, frown
, or
meh
. You can answer any question with more detail. The next one will require more. Here
goes.”

“How often do you buy new shoes?”

Mae answered “Once every two months,” and there was the sound of a tiny bell.

“I heard a bell. Is that good?”

“Yeah, sorry,” he said. “I just activated the bell, which will mean your answer was
heard and recorded, and that the next question is ready. Then you can nod again, which
will bring on your next question, or you can wait for the prompt.”

“What’s the difference again?”

“Well, you have a certain, well, I don’t want to say
quota
, but there’s a number of questions that would be ideal and expected for you to answer
in a given workday. Let’s call it five hundred, but it might be more, might be less.
You can either get through them on your own pace, by powering through, or by spreading
them throughout the workday. Most people can do five hundred in an hour, so it’s not
too stressful. Or you can wait for the prompts, which will occur if the program thinks
you should pick up the pace. Have you ever done one of those online traffic court
programs?”

Mae had. There had been two hundred questions, and it was estimated that it should
take two hours to complete. She’d done it in twenty-five minutes. “Yes,” she said.

“This is just like that. I’m sure you can get through the day’s questions in no time.
Of course, we can increase the pace if you really get going. Good?”

“Great,” she said.

“And then, so if you happen to get busy, after a while, there’ll be a second signal,
that reminds you to get back to the questions. This signal should be different. You
want to choose a second?”

And so they ran through the signals again, and she chose a distant foghorn.

“Or,” he said, “there’s a random one that some people choose. Listen to this. Actually,
hold on a second.” He lost his focus on Mae and talked into his headset. “Demo Mae
voice M-A-E.” Now he turned to Mae again. “Okay, here it goes.”

Mae heard her own voice say her name, in something just above a whisper. It was very
intimate and sent a strange swirling wind through her.

“That’s your own voice, right?”

Mae was flushed, bewildered—it didn’t sound like her at all—but she managed to nod.

“The program does a voice capture from your phone and then we can form any words.
Even your own name! So that should be your second signal?”

“Yes,” Mae said. She wasn’t sure she wanted to hear her own voice saying her own name,
repeatedly, but she knew, too, that she wanted to hear it again as soon as possible.
It was so odd, just a few inches from normal.