The Circle

by Dave Eggers

  Today, she pulled off the highway and made her way to the beach, and there she found the water placid, glassine.

  “Hey you,” said a voice.

  Mae turned to find an older woman, bowlegged and frizzy-haired. This was Marion, owner of Maiden’s Voyages. She was the maiden, and had been for fifteen years, since she’d opened the business, after striking it rich in stationery. She’d told Mae this during her first rental, and told everyone this story, which Marion assumed was amusing, that she’d made money selling stationery and opened a kayak and paddle-board rental operation. Why Marion thought this was funny Mae never knew. But Marion was warm and accommodating, even when Mae was asking to take out a kayak a few hours before closing, as she was this day.

  “Gorgeous out there,” Marion said. “Just don’t go far.”

  Marion helped her pull the kayak across the sand and rocks and into the tiny waves. She clicked on Mae’s life preserver. “And remember, don’t bother any of the houseboat people. Their living rooms are at your eye level, so no snooping. You want footies or a windbreaker today?” she asked. “Might get choppy.”

  Mae declined and got into the kayak, barefoot and wearing the cardigan and jeans she wore to brunch. In seconds she had paddled beyond the fishing boats, past the breakers and paddle-boarders and was in the open water of the bay.

  She saw no one. That this body of water was so seldom used had confounded her for months. There were no jetskis here. Few casual fishermen, no waterskiers, the occasional motorboat. There were sailboats, but not nearly as many as one would expect. The frigid water was only part of it. Maybe there were simply too many other things to do outdoors in Northern California? It was mysterious, but Mae had no complaint. It left more water to her.

  She paddled into the belly of the bay. The water did indeed get choppier, and cold water washed over her feet. It felt good, so good she reached her hand down and scooped a handful and drenched her face and the back of her neck. When she opened her eyes she saw a harbor seal, twenty feet in front of her, staring at her as would a calm dog whose yard she’d walked into. His head was rounded, grey, with the glossy sheen of polished marble.

  She kept her paddle on her lap, watching the seal as it watched her. Its eyes were black buttons, unreflective. She didn’t move, and the seal didn’t move. They were locked in mutual regard, and the moment, the way it stretched and luxuriated in itself, asked for continuation. Why move?

  A gust of wind came her way, and with it the pungent smell of the seal. She had noticed this the last time she had kayaked, the strong smell of these animals, a cross between tuna and unwashed dog. It was better to be upwind. As if suddenly embarrassed, the seal ducked underwater.

  Mae continued on, away from shore. She set a goal to make it to a red buoy she spotted, near the bend of a peninsula, deep in the bay. Getting to it would take thirty minutes or so, and en route, she would pass a few dozen anchored barges and sailboats. Many had been made into homes of one kind or another, and she knew not to look into the windows, but she couldn’t help it; there were mysteries aboard. Why was there a motorcycle on this barge? Why a Confederate flag on that yacht? Far off, she saw a seaplane circling.

  The wind picked up behind her, sending her quickly past the red buoy and closer to the farther shore. She hadn’t planned to land there, and had never made it across the bay, but soon it was in sight and coming quickly upon her, eelgrass visible beneath her as the water went shallow.

  She jumped out of the kayak, her feet landing on the stones, all rounded and smooth. As she was pulling the kayak up, the bay rose up and engulfed her legs. It wasn’t a wave; it was more of a sudden uniform rising of the water level. One second she was standing on a dry shore and the next the water was at her shins and she was soaked.

  When the water fell again, it left a wide swath of bizarre, bejeweled seaweed—blue, and green, and, in a certain light, iridescent. She held it in her hands, and it was smooth, rubbery, its edges ruffled extravagantly. Mae’s feet were wet, and the water was snow cold but she didn’t mind. She sat on the rocky beach, picked up a stick and drew with it, clicking through the smooth stones. Tiny crabs, unearthed and annoyed, scurried to find new shelters. A pelican landed downshore, on the trunk of a dead tree, which had been bleached white and leaned diagonally, rising from the steel-grey water, pointing lazily to the sky.

  And then Mae found herself sobbing. Her father was a mess. No, he wasn’t a mess. He was managing it all with great dignity. But there had been something very tired about him that morning, something defeated, accepting, as if he knew that he couldn’t fight both what was happening in his body and the companies managing his care. And there was nothing she could do for him. No, there was too much to do for him. She could quit her job. She could quit and help make the phone calls, fight the many fights to keep him well. This is what a good daughter would do. What a good child, an only child, would do. A good only child would spend the next three to five years, which might be his last years of mobility, of full capability, with him, helping him, helping her mother, being part of the family machinery. But she knew her parents wouldn’t let her do all that. They wouldn’t allow it. And so she would be caught between the job she needed and loved, and her parents, whom she couldn’t help.

  But it felt good to cry, to let her shoulders shake, to feel the hot tears on her face, to taste their baby salt, to wipe snot all over the underside of her shirt. And when she was done, she pushed the kayak out again and she found herself paddling at a brisk pace. Once in the middle of the bay, she stopped. Her tears were dry now, her breathing steady. She was calm and felt strong, but instead of reaching the red buoy, which she no longer had any interest in, she sat, her paddle on her lap, letting the waves tilt her gently, feeling the warm sun dry her hands and feet. She often did this when she was far from any shore—she just sat still, feeling the vast volume of the ocean beneath her. There were leopard sharks in this part of the bay, and bat rays, and jellyfish, and the occasional harbor porpoise, but she could see none of them. They were hidden in the dark water, in their black parallel world, and knowing they were there, but not knowing where, or really anything else, felt, at that moment, strangely right. Far beyond, she could see where the mouth of the bay led to the ocean and there, making its way through a band of light fog, she saw an enormous container ship heading into open water. She thought about moving, but saw no point. There seemed no reason to go anywhere. Being here, in the middle of the bay, nothing to do or see, was plenty. She stayed there, drifting slowly, for the better part of an hour. Occasionally she would smell that dog-and-tuna smell again, and turn to find another curious seal, and they would watch each other, and she would wonder if the seal knew, as she did, how good this was, how lucky they were to have all this to themselves.

  By the late afternoon, the winds coming from the Pacific picked up, and getting back to shore was trying. When she got home her limbs were leaden and her head was slow. She made herself a salad and ate half a bag of chips, staring out the window. She fell asleep at eight and slept for eleven hours.

  The morning was busy, as Dan had warned her it would be. He’d gathered her and the hundred-odd other CE reps at eight a.m., reminding them all that opening the chute on Monday morning was always a hazardous thing. All the customers who wanted answers over the weekend certainly expected them on Monday morning.

  He was right. The chute opened, the deluge arrived, and Mae worked against the flood until eleven or so, when there was something like respite. She’d handled forty-nine queries and her score was at 91, her lowest aggregate yet.

  Don’t worry, Jared messaged. Par for the course on Monday. Just go after as many follow-ups as you can.

  Mae had been following up all morning, with limited results. The clients were grumpy. The only good news that morning came from the intra-company feed, when a message from Francis appeared, asking her to lunch. Officially she and the other CE staff were given an hour for the meal, but she hadn’t seen anyone else leave their de
sk for more than twenty minutes. She gave herself that much time, though her mother’s words, equating lunch with a monumental breach of duty, rattled in her mind.

  She was late getting to the Glass Eatery. She looked around, and up, and finally saw him sitting a few levels above, his feet dangling from a high lucite stool. She waved, but couldn’t get his attention. She yelled up to him, as discreetly as she could, to no avail. Then, feeling foolish, she texted him, and watched as he received the text, looked around the cafeteria, found her, and waved.

  She made her way through the line, got a veggie burrito and some kind of new organic soda, and sat down next to him. He was wearing a wrinkled clean button-down shirt and carpenter’s pants. His perch overlooked the outdoor pool, where a group of staffers were approximating a game of volleyball.

  “Not such an athletic group,” he noted.

  “No,” Mae agreed. As he watched the chaotic splashing below, she tried to overlay this face in front of her with the one she remembered from her first night. There were the same heavy brows, the same prominent nose. But now Francis seemed to have shrunk. His hands, using a knife and fork to cut his burrito in two, seemed unusually delicate.

  “It’s almost perverse,” he said, “having so much athletic equipment here when there’s no athletic aptitude at all. It’s like a family of Christian Scientists living next to a pharmacy.” Now he turned to her. “Thanks for coming. I wondered if I’d see you again.”

  “Yeah, it’s been so busy.”

  He pointed to his food. “I had to start already. Sorry about that. To be honest, I didn’t totally expect you to show up.”

  “I’m sorry for being late,” she said.

  “No, believe me, I get it. You need to handle the Monday flow. The customers expect it. Lunch is pretty secondary.”

  “I have to say, I’ve felt bad about the end of our conversation that night. Sorry about Annie.”

  “Did you guys actually make out? I tried to find a spot where I could watch from, but—”

  “No.”

  “I thought if I climbed a tree—”

  “No. No. That’s just Annie. She’s an idiot.”

  “She’s an idiot who happens to be in the top one percent of people here. I wish I was that kind of idiot.”

  “You were talking about when you were a kid.”

  “God. Can I blame it on the wine?”

  “You don’t have to tell me anything.”

  Mae felt terrible, already knowing what she did, hoping he would tell her, so she could take the previous, secondhand, version of his story and write over it with the version directly from him.

  “No, it’s fine,” he said. “I got to meet a lot of interesting adults who were paid by the government to care for me. It was awesome. What do you have left, ten minutes?”

  “I have till one.”

  “Good. Eight more minutes then. Eat. I’ll talk. But not about my childhood. You know enough. I assume Annie filled in the gory stuff. She likes to tell that story.”

  And so Mae tried to eat as much as she could as fast as she could, while Francis talked about a movie he’d seen the night before in the campus theater. Apparently the director had been there to present it and had answered questions afterward.

  “The movie was about a woman who kills her husband and kids, and during the Q&A we find out this director’s involved in this protracted custody battle with her own ex-husband. So we were all looking around, thinking, Is this lady working out some issues on-screen, or …”

  Mae laughed, and then, remembering his own horrible childhood, she caught herself.

  “It’s fine,” he said, knowing immediately why she’d paused. “I don’t want you to think you have to tiptoe around me. It’s been a long time, and if I didn’t feel comfortable in this territory, I wouldn’t be working on ChildTrack.”

  “Well, still. I’m sorry. I’m bad at knowing what to say. But so the project is going well? How close are you to—”

  “You’re still so off-balance! I like that,” Francis said.

  “You like a woman who’s off-balance.”

  “Especially in my presence. I want you on your toes, off-balance, intimidated, handcuffed, and willing to prostrate yourself at my command.”

  Mae wanted to laugh, but found she couldn’t.

  Francis was staring at his plate. “Shit. Every time my brain parks the car neatly in the driveway, my mouth drives through the back of the garage. I’m sorry. I swear I’m working on this.”

  “It’s fine. Tell me about …”

  “ChildTrack.” He looked up. “You really want to know?”

  “I do.”

  “Because once you get me started, it’ll make your Monday deluge look like a tinkle.”

  “We have five and a half minutes left.”

  “Okay, remember when they tried to do the implants in Denmark?”

  Mae shook her head. She had some vague recollection of a terrible child abduction and murder—

  Francis checked his watch, as if knowing that explaining Denmark would steal a minute from him. He sighed and started in: “So a couple years ago, the government of Denmark tried a program where they inserted chips in kids’ wrists. It’s easy, takes two seconds, it’s medically sound, and instantly it works. Every parent knows where their kid is at all times. They limited it to under-fourteens, and at first, everyone’s fine. The court challenges are dropped because there are so few objections, the polling is through the roof. The parents love it. I mean, love it. These are kids, and we’d do anything to keep them safe, right?”

  Mae nodded, but suddenly remembered that this story ended horribly.

  “But then seven kids go missing one day. The cops, the parents, think, Hey, no problem. We know where the kids are. They follow the chips, but when they get to the chips, all seven tracking to some parking lot, they find them all in a paper bag, all bloody. Just the chips.”

  “Now I remember.” Mae felt sick.

  “They find the bodies a week later, and by then the public is in a panic. Everyone’s irrational. They think the chips caused the kidnapping, the murders, that somehow the chips provoked whoever did this, made the task more tempting.”

  “That was so horrible. That was the end of the chips.”

  “Yeah, but the reasoning was illogical. Especially here. We have, what, twelve thousand abductions a year? How many murders? The problem there was how shallow the chips were placed. Anyone can just cut it out of someone’s wrist if they wanted to. Too easy. But the tests we’re doing here—did you meet Sabine?”

  “I did.”

  “Well, she’s on the team. She won’t tell you that, because she’s doing some related stuff she can’t talk about. But for this, she figured out a way to put a chip in the bone. And that makes all the difference.”

  “Oh shit. What bone?”

  “Doesn’t matter, I don’t think. You’re making a face.”

  Mae corrected her face, tried to look neutral.

  “Sure, it’s insane. I mean, some people freak out about chips in our heads, our bodies, but this thing is about as technologically advanced as a walkie-talkie. It doesn’t do anything but tell you where something is. And they’re everywhere already. Every other product you buy has one of these chips. You buy a stereo, it has a chip. You buy a car, it’s got a bunch of chips. Some companies put chips in food packaging, to make sure it’s fresh when it gets to market. It’s just a simple tracker. And if you embed it in bone, it stays there, and can’t be seen with the naked eye—not like the wrist ones.”

  Mae put down her burrito. “Really in the bone?”

  “Mae, think about a world where there could never again be a significant crime against a child. None possible. The second a kid’s not where he’s supposed to be, a massive alert goes off, and the kid can be tracked down immediately. Everyone can track her. All authorities know instantly she’s missing, but they know exactly where she is. They can call the mom and say ‘Hey, she just went to the mall,’ or the
y can track down some molester in seconds. The only hope an abductor would have is to take a kid, run into the woods with her, do something and run off before the world descends upon him. But he would have about a minute and a half to do it.”

  “Or if they could jam the transmission from the chip.”

  “Sure, but who has that expertise? How many electronic-genius pedophiles are there? Very few, I’m guessing. So immediately you take all child abduction, rape, murder, and you reduce it by 99 percent. And the price is that the kids have a chip in their ankle. You want a living kid with a chip in his ankle, a kid who you know will grow up safe, a kid who can again run down to the park, ride his bike to school, all that?”

  “You’re about to say or.”

  “Right, or do you want a dead kid? Or years of worry every time your kid walks to the bus stop? I mean, we’ve polled parents worldwide, and after they get over the initial squeamishness, we get an 88 percent approval. Once they get it in their head that this is possible, we have them yelling at us, ‘Why don’t we already have this? When’s it coming?’ I mean, this will begin a new golden age for young people. An age without worry. Shit. Now you’re late. Look.”

  He pointed to the clock. 1:02.

  Mae ran.

  The afternoon was relentless, and her score barely reached 93. By the end of the day, she was exhausted, and she turned to her second screen to find a message from Dan. Got a second? Gina from CircleSocial was hoping to grab a few minutes with you.

  She wrote him back: How about in fifteen? I have a handful of follow-ups to do, and haven’t peed since noon. This was the truth. She hadn’t left her chair in three hours, and she also wanted to see if she could get the score above 93. She was sure this, her low aggregate, was why Dan wanted her to meet with Gina.

  Dan wrote only, Thank you Mae, words that she turned over in her mind as she made her way to the bathroom. Was he thanking her for being available in fifteen minutes, or thanking her, grimly, for an unwanted level of hygienic intimacy?

  Mae was almost at the bathroom door when she saw a man, in skinny green jeans and a snug long-sleeved shirt, standing in the hallway, under a tall narrow window, staring at his phone. Bathed in a blue-white light, he seemed to be waiting for instructions from his screen.