The Circle (28 page)

And there was a wonderful thing that tended to happen, something that felt like poetic
justice: every time someone started shouting about the supposed monopoly of the Circle,
or the Circle’s unfair monetization of the personal data of its users, or some other
paranoid and demonstrably false claim, soon enough it was revealed that that person
was a criminal or deviant of the highest order. One was connected to a terror network
in Iran. One was a buyer of child porn. Every time, it seemed, they would end up on
the news, footage of investigators leaving their homes with computers, on which any
number of unspeakable searches had been executed and where reams of illegal and inappropriate
materials were stored. And it made sense. Who but a fringe character would try to
impede the unimpeachable improvement of the world?

Within weeks, the non-transparent officeholders were treated like pariahs. The clear
ones wouldn’t meet with them if they wouldn’t go on camera, and thus these leaders
were left out. Their constituents wondered what they were hiding, and their electoral
doom was all but assured. In any coming election cycle, few would dare to run without
declaring their transparency—and, it was assumed, this would immediately and permanently
improve the quality of candidates. There would never again be a politician without
immediate and thorough accountability, because their words and actions would be known
and recorded and beyond debate. There would be no more
back rooms, no more murky deal-making. There would be only clarity, only light.

It was inevitable that transparency would come to the Circle, too. As clarity among
elected officials proliferated, there were rumblings inside and outside the Circle:
What about the Circle itself? Yes, Bailey said, in public and to the Circlers, we
should also be clear. We should also be open. And so started the Circle’s own transparency
plan, which began with the installation of a thousand SeeChange cameras on campus.
They were placed in common rooms, cafeterias and outdoor spaces first. Then, as the
Wise Men assessed any problems they might pose for the protection of intellectual
property, they were placed in hallways, work areas, even laboratories. The saturation
was not complete—there were still hundreds of more sensitive spaces without access,
and the cameras were prohibited from bathrooms and other private rooms, but otherwise
the campus, to the eyes of a billion-odd Circle users, was suddenly clear and open,
and the Circle devotees, who already felt loyal to the company and enthralled by its
mystique, now felt closer, felt part of an open and welcoming world.

There were eight SeeChange cameras in Mae’s pod, and within hours of them going live,
she and everyone else in the room were provided another screen, on which they could
see a grid of their own and lock into any view on campus. They could see if their
favorite table at the Glass Eatery was available. They could see if the health club
was jammed. They could see if the kickball game was a serious one or for duffers only.
And Mae was surprised by how interesting Circle campus life was to outsiders. Within
hours she was hearing from friends from high school and college, who had located her,
who now could watch
her work. Her middle-school gym teacher, who had once thought Mae insufficiently serious
about the President’s Physical Fitness Test, now seemed impressed.
Good to see you working so hard, Mae!
A guy she dated briefly in college wrote:
Don’t you ever leave that desk?

She began to think a bit harder about the clothes she wore to work. She thought more
about where she scratched, when she blew her nose or how. But it was a good kind of
thinking, a good kind of calibration. And knowing she was being watched, that the
Circle was, overnight, the most-watched workplace in the world, reminded her, more
profoundly than ever, just how radically her life had changed in only a few months.
She had been, twelve weeks ago, working at the public utility in her hometown, a town
no one had heard of. Now she was communicating with clients all over the planet, commanding
six screens, training a new group of newbies, and altogether feeling more needed,
more valued, and more intellectually stimulated than she ever thought possible.

And, with the tools the Circle made available, Mae felt able to influence global events,
to save lives even, halfway across the world. That very morning, a message from a
college friend, Tania Schwartz, came through, pleading for help with an initiative
her brother was spearheading. There was a paramilitary group in Guatemala, some resurrection
of the terrorizing forces of the eighties, and they had been attacking villages and
taking women captive. One woman, Ana María Herrera, had escaped and told of ritual
rapes, of teenage girls being made concubines, and the murders of those who would
not cooperate. Mae’s friend Tania, never an activist in school, said she had been
compelled to action by these atrocities, and she was asking everyone she knew to join
in an initiative called We Hear You Ana María.
Let’s
make sure she knows she has friends all over the world who will not accept this
, Tania’s message said.

Mae saw a picture of Ana María, sitting in a white room on a folding chair, looking
up, expressionless, an unnamed child in her lap. Next to her picture was a smile button
that said “I hear you Ana María,” which, when clicked on, would add Mae’s name to
a list of those lending their support to Ana María. Mae clicked the button.
Just as important
, Tania wrote,
is that we send a message to the paramilitaries that we denounce their actions
. Below the picture of Ana María was a blurry photo of a group of men in mismatched
military garb, walking through dense jungle. Next to the photo was a frown button
that said “We denounce the Central Guatemalan Security Forces.” Mae hesitated briefly,
knowing the gravity of what she was about to do—to come out against these rapists
and murderers—but she needed to make a stand. She pushed the button. An autoresponse
thanked her, noting that she was the 24,726th person to send a smile to Ana María
and the 19,282nd to send a frown to the paramilitaries. Tania noted that while the
smiles were sent directly to Ana María’s phone, Tania’s brother was still working
on a way to get the frowns to the Central Guatemalan Security Forces.

After Tania’s petition Mae sat for a moment, feeling very alert, very aware of herself,
knowing that not only had she possibly made a group of powerful enemies in Guatemala,
but that untold thousands of SeeChange watchers were seeing her doing it. It gave
her layers of self-awareness and a distinct sense of the power she could wield in
her position. She decided to use the restroom, to throw some cold water on her face
and use her legs a bit, and it was in the bathroom that her phone buzzed. The caller
ID was blocked.

“Hello?”

“It’s me. Kalden.”

“Where have you been?”

“It’s complicated now. All the cameras.”

“You’re not a spy, are you?”

“You know I’m not a spy.”

“Annie thinks you are.”

“I want to see you.”

“I’m in the bathroom.”

“I know.”

“You know?”

“CircleSearch, SeeChange … You’re not hard to find.”

“And where are
you
?”

“I’m coming. Stay there.”

“No. No.”

“I need to see you. Stay there.”

“No. I can see you later. There’s a thing in the New Kingdom. Open-mic folk night.
A safe, public place.”

“No, no. I can’t do that.”

“You can’t come here.”

“I can and I will.”

And he hung up.

Mae checked her purse. She had a condom. And she stayed. She chose the far stall and
waited. She knew that waiting for him was not wise. That it was wrong on many levels.
She wouldn’t be able to tell Annie about this. Annie would approve of most carnal
activity but not here, at work, in a bathroom. This would demonstrate poor judgment,
and reflect poorly on Annie. Mae watched the time. Two
minutes had passed and still she was in a bathroom stall, waiting for a man she knew
only vaguely, and who, she guessed, wanted only to ravish her, repeatedly, in ever-stranger
places. So why was she there? Because she wanted this to happen. She wanted him to
take her, in the stall, and she wanted to know that she had been taken in the stall,
at work, and that only the two of them would ever know. Why was this some glittering
thing she needed? She heard the door open, and then the clicking of the lock on the
door. A lock she didn’t know existed. Then she heard the sound of Kalden’s long strides.
The footsteps stopped near the stalls, giving way to a dark squeaking, the strain
of bolts and steel. She felt a shadow above her and craned her neck to see a figure
descending to it. Kalden had climbed the high stall wall, and had crawled across the
grid to get to hers. She felt him slip in behind her. The heat of his body warmed
her back, his breath hot on the nape of her neck.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

His mouth opened on her ear, his tongue diving. She gasped and leaned into him. Kalden’s
hands came around her stomach, traced her waist, traveled quickly to her thighs, holding
them firmly. She pushed his hands inward and up, her mind battling, and finally asserting
her right to do this. She was twenty-four, and if she did not do this kind of thing
now—did not do exactly
this
, exactly
now
—she never would. It was the imperative of youth.

“Mae,” he whispered, “stop thinking.”

“Okay.”

“And close your eyes. Picture what I’m doing to you.”

His mouth was on her neck, kissing it, licking it, while his hands were busy with
her skirt and panties. He eased both off her hips
and to the floor and brought her to him, filling her at once. “Mae,” he said, as she
pushed herself into him, his hands holding her hips, bringing him so deep she could
feel his swollen crown somewhere near her heart. “Mae,” he said, as she held the walls
on either side of them, as if holding back the rest of the world.

She came, gasping, and he finished, too, shuddering but silent. And immediately they
both laughed, quietly, knowing they’d done something reckless and career-threatening
and that they needed to leave. He turned her toward him and kissed her mouth, his
eyes open, looking astounded and full of mischief. “Bye,” he said, and she only waved,
feeling his shape rise again behind her, climb the walls and make his way out.

And because he paused at the door to unlock it, and because she thought she might
never see him again, Mae found her phone, reached over the stall wall, and took a
picture, not knowing whether or not she would catch any semblance of him. When she
looked at what she’d captured, it was only his right arm, from the elbow to his fingertips,
the rest of him already gone.

Why lie to Annie? Mae asked herself, not knowing the answer, but knowing she would
lie to her anyway. After composing herself in the bathroom, Mae had gone back to her
desk, and immediately, unable to control herself, had messaged Annie, who was flying
somewhere to or over Europe:
Again with grey-hair
, she wrote. Telling Annie at all would precipitate a series of lies, big and small,
and Mae found herself, in the minutes between when she sent the message and Annie’s
inevitable reply, wondering just how much to conceal, and why.

Finally Annie’s message came.
Must know everything now. I’m in London with some Parliament lackeys. I think one
just pulled out a monocle. Give me distraction
.

While she decided just how much to tell Annie, Mae teased out details.
In a bathroom
.

Annie replied immediately.

The old man? In a bathroom? Did you use the diaper-changing station?

No. In a stall. And he was VIGOROUS
.

A voice behind Mae said her name. Mae turned to find Gina and her enormous nervous
smile. “You have a second?” Mae attempted to turn away the screen containing the dialogue
with Annie, but Gina had already seen it.

“You’re talking to Annie?” she said. “You guys really are tight, huh?”

Mae nodded, turned her screen, and all light left Gina’s face. “Is this still a good
time to explain Conversion Rate and Retail Raw?”

Mae had forgotten, entirely, that Gina was supposed to come to demonstrate a new layer.

“Sure,” Mae said.

“Has Annie told you about this stuff already?” Gina said, her face looking very fragile.

“No,” Mae said, “she hasn’t.”

“She didn’t tell you about Conversion Rate?”

“No.”

“Or Retail Raw?”

“No.”

Gina’s face brightened. “Oh. Okay. Good. So we’ll do it now?” Gina’s face searched
Mae’s, as if looking for the slightest sign of doubt, which Gina would take as reason
to collapse entirely.

“Great,” Mae said, and Gina brightened again.

“Good. Let’s start with the Conversion Rate. This is fairly obvious anyway, but the
Circle would not exist, and would not grow, and would not be able to get closer to
completing the Circle, if there were not actual purchases being made, actual commerce
spurred. We’re here to be a gateway to all the world’s information, but we are supported
by advertisers who hope to reach customers through us, right?”

Gina smiled, her large white teeth briefly overtaking her face. Mae was trying to
concentrate, but she was thinking of Annie, in her Parliament meeting, who was no
doubt thinking of Mae and Kalden. And when Mae thought of herself and Kalden, she
thought of his hands on her waist, pulling her gently down onto him, her eyes closed,
her mind enlarging all—

Gina was still talking. “But how to provoke, how to stimulate purchases—that’s the
conversion rate. You can zing, you could comment on and rate and highlight any product,
but can you translate all this into action? Leveraging your credibility to spur action—this
is crucial, okay?”

Now Gina was sitting next to Mae, her fingers on her keyboard. She brought up a complex
spreadsheet. At that moment, another message from Annie arrived on Mae’s second screen.
She turned it slightly.
Now I have to be the boss. You got his last name this time?