The Circle

by Dave Eggers

  Denise squinted at Mae. “That’s an interesting choice of words: Passion. You’ve heard of PPT? Passion, Participation and Transparency?”

  Mae had seen the letters PPT around campus and had not, until that moment, connected the letters to these three words. She felt like a fool.

  Denise put her palms on the desk, as if she might get up. “Mae, you know this is a technology company, correct?”

  “Of course.”

  “And that we consider ourselves on the forefront of social media.”

  “Yes.”

  “And you know the term Transparency, correct?”

  “I do. Absolutely.”

  Josiah looked at Denise, hoping to calm her. She put her hands in her lap. Josiah took over. He smiled and swiped his tablet, turning a new page.

  “Okay. Let’s go to Sunday. Tell us about Sunday.”

  “I just drove back.”

  “That’s it?”

  “I kayaked?”

  Josiah and Denise registered dual looks of surprise.

  “You kayaked?” Josiah said. “Where?”

  “Just in the bay.”

  “With who?”

  “No one. Just alone.”

  Denise and Josiah looked hurt.

  “I kayak,” Josiah said, and then typed something in his tablet, pressing very hard.

  “How often do you kayak?” Denise asked Mae.

  “Maybe once every few weeks?”

  Josiah was looking intently at his tablet. “Mae, I’m looking at your profile, I’m finding nothing about you and kayaking. No smiles, no ratings, no posts, nothing. And now you’re telling me you kayak once every few weeks?”

  “Well, maybe it’s less than that?”

  Mae laughed, but Denise and Josiah did not. Josiah continued to stare at his screen, while Denise’s eyes probed into Mae.

  “When you go kayaking, what do you see?”

  “I don’t know. All kinds of things.”

  “Seals?”

  “Sure.”

  “Sea lions?

  “Usually.”

  “Waterbirds? Pelicans?”

  “Sure.”

  Denise tapped at her tablet. “Okay, I’m doing a search now of your name for visual documentation of any of these trips you’ve taken. I’m not finding anything.”

  “Oh, I’ve never brought a camera.”

  “But how do you identify all these birds?”

  “I have this little guide. It’s just a thing my ex-boyfriend gave me. It’s a little foldable guide to local wildlife.”

  “So it’s just a pamphlet or something?”

  “Yeah, I mean, it’s waterproof and—”

  Josiah exhaled loudly.

  “I’m sorry,” Mae said.

  Josiah rolled his eyes. “No, I mean, this is a tangent, but my problem with paper is that all communication dies with it. It holds no possibility of continuity. You look at your paper brochure, and that’s where it ends. It ends with you. Like you’re the only one who matters. But think if you’d been documenting. If you’d been using a tool that would help confirm the identity of whatever birds you saw, then anyone can benefit—naturalists, students, historians, the Coast Guard. Everyone can know, then, what birds were on the bay on that day. It’s just maddening, thinking of how much knowledge is lost every day through this kind of shortsightedness. And I don’t want to call it selfish but—”

  “No. It was. I know it was,” Mae said.

  Josiah softened. “But documentation aside, I’m just fascinated why you wouldn’t mention anything about kayaking anywhere. I mean, it’s a part of you. An integral part.”

  Mae let out an involuntary scoff. “I don’t think it’s all that integral. Or interesting, really.”

  Josiah looked up, his eyes fiery. “But it is!”

  “Lots of people kayak,” Mae said.

  “That’s exactly it!” Josiah said, quickly turning red. “Wouldn’t you like to meet other people who kayak?” Josiah tapped at his screen. “There are 2,331 people near you who also like to kayak. Including me.”

  Mae smiled. “That’s a lot.”

  “More or less than you expected?” Denise asked.

  “More, I guess,” Mae said.

  Josiah and Denise smiled.

  “So should we sign you up to hear more about the people near you who like to kayak? There are so many tools …” Josiah seemed to be opening a page where he could sign her up.

  “Oh, I don’t know,” Mae said.

  Their faces plummeted.

  Josiah seemed angry again. “Why not? Do you think your passions are unimportant?”

  “That’s not quite it. I just …”

  Josiah leaned forward. “How do you think other Circlers feel, knowing that you’re so close to them physically, that you’re ostensibly part of a community here, but you don’t want them to know your hobbies and interests. How do you think they feel?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t think they’d feel anything.”

  “But they do!” Josiah said. “The point is that you’re not engaged with the people around you!”

  “It’s just kayaking!” Mae said, laughing again, trying to bring the discussion back to a place of levity.

  Josiah was at work on his tablet. “Just kayaking? Do you realize that kayaking is a three-billion-dollar industry? And you say it’s ‘just kayaking’! Mae, don’t you see that it’s all connected? You play your part. You have to part-icipate.”

  Denise was looking at Mae intensely. “Mae, I have to ask a delicate question.”

  “Okay,” Mae said.

  “Do you think … Well, do you think this might be an issue of self-esteem?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Are you reluctant to express yourself because you fear your opinions aren’t valid?”

  Mae had never thought about it quite this way, but it made a certain sense. Was she too shy about expressing herself? “I don’t know, actually,” she said.

  Denise narrowed her eyes. “Mae, I’m no psychologist, but if I were, I might have a question about your sense of self-worth. We’ve studied some models for this kind of behavior. Not to say this kind of attitude is antisocial, but it’s certainly sub-social, and certainly far from transparent. And we see that this behavior sometimes stems from a low sense of self-worth—a point of view that says, ‘Oh, what I have to say isn’t so important.’ Do you feel that describes your point of view?”

  Mae was too off-balance to see herself clearly. “Maybe,” she said, buying time, knowing she shouldn’t be too pliant. “But sometimes I’m sure that what I say is important. And when I have something significant to add, I definitely feel empowered to do it.”

  “But notice you said ‘sometimes I’m sure,’ ” Josiah said, wagging a finger. “The ‘sometimes’ is interesting to me. Or concerning, I should say. Because I think you’re not finding that ‘sometime’ frequently enough.” He sat back, as if resting after the hard work of solving her was complete.

  “Mae,” Denise said, “we’d love if you could participate in a special program. Does that sound appealing?”

  Mae knew nothing about it, but knew, because she was in trouble, and had already consumed so much of their time, she should say yes, so she smiled and said, “Absolutely.”

  “Good. As soon as we can, we’ll hook you up. You’ll meet Pete Ramirez, and he’ll explain it. I think it might make you feel sure not just sometimes, but always. Does that sound better?”

  After the interview, at her desk, Mae scolded herself. What kind of person was she? More than anything, she was ashamed. She’d been doing the bare minimum. She disgusted herself and felt for Annie. Surely Annie had been hearing about her deadbeat friend Mae, who took this gift, this coveted job at the Circle—a company that had insured her parents! had saved them from familial catastrophe!—and had been skating through. Goddamnit, Mae, give a shit! she thought. Be a person of some value to the world.

  She wrote to Annie, apologizing, saying she wo
uld do better, that she was embarrassed, that she didn’t want to abuse this privilege, this gift, and telling her that there was no need to write back, that she would simply do better, a thousand times better, immediately and from then on. Annie texted back, told her not to worry, that it was just a slap on the wrist, a correction, a common thing for newbies.

  Mae looked at the time. It was six o’clock. She had plenty of hours to improve, there and then, so she embarked on a flurry of activity, sending four zings and thirty-two comments and eighty-eight smiles. In an hour, her PartiRank rose to 7,288. Breaking 7,000 was more difficult, but by eight o’clock, after joining and posting in eleven discussion groups, sending another twelve zings, one of them rated in the top 5,000 globally for that hour, and signing up for sixty-seven more feeds, she’d done it. She was at 6,872, and turned to her InnerCircle social feed. She was a few hundred posts behind, and she made her way through, replying to seventy or so messages, RSVPing to eleven events on campus, signing nine petitions, and providing comments and constructive criticism on four products currently in beta. By 10:16 her rank was 5,342, and again, the plateau—this time at 5,000—was hard to overcome. She wrote a series of zings about a new Circle service, allowing account holders to know whenever their name was mentioned in any messages sent from anyone else, and one of the zings, her seventh on the subject, caught fire and was rezinged 2,904 times, and this brought her PartiRank up to 3,887.

  She felt a profound sense of accomplishment and possibility that was accompanied, in short order, by a near-complete sense of exhaustion. It was almost midnight and she needed sleep. It was too late to go all the way home, so she checked the dorm availability, reserved one, got her access code, walked across campus and into HomeTown.

  When she closed the door to her room, she felt like a fool for not taking advantage of the dorms sooner. The room was immaculate, awash in silver fixtures and blond woods, the floors warm from radiant heat, the sheets and pillowcases so white and crisp they crackled when touched. The mattress, explained a card next to the bed, was organic, made not with springs or foam but instead a new fiber that Mae found was both firmer and more pliant—superior to any bed she’d ever known. She pulled the blanket, cloud-white and full of down, around her.

  But she couldn’t sleep. Now, thinking about how much better she could do, she logged on again, this time on her tablet, and pledged to work till two in the morning. She was determined to break 3,000. And she did so, though it was 3:19 a.m. when it happened. Finally, not quite exhausted but knowing she needed rest, she tucked herself in and turned off the lights.

  In the morning, Mae looked through the closets and dressers, knowing that the dorms were stocked with an array of clothes, all new, available to be borrowed or kept. She chose a cotton T-shirt and a pair of capri pants, both pristine. On the sink there were new bottles of moisturizer and mouthwash, both organic and local, and she sampled each. She showered, dressed, and was back at her desk by 8:20.

  And immediately the fruits of her labors were evident. There was a river of congratulatory messages on her third screen, from Dan, Jared, Josiah, Denise, five or so messages from each of them, and at least a dozen from Annie, who seemed so proud and excited she might burst. Word spread through the InnerCircle, and Mae was sent 7,716 smiles by noon. Everyone had known she could do it. Everyone saw great things for her at the Circle, everyone was certain she would graduate from CE in no time, as soon as September, because rarely had anyone risen so quickly through the PartiRank and with such laser-like focus.

  Mae’s new feeling of competence and confidence carried her through the week, and given how close she was to the top 2,000, she stayed at her desk late through the weekend and early the next week, determined to crack through, sleeping in the same dorm room every night. She knew the upper 2,000, nicknamed T2K, was a group of Circlers almost maniacal in their social activity and elite in their corresponding followers. The members of the T2K had been more or less locked in place, with few additions or movements within their ranks, for almost eighteen months.

  But Mae knew she needed to try. By Thursday night, she’d gotten to 2,219, and knew she was among a group of similar strivers who were, like her, working feverishly to rise. She worked for an hour and saw herself climb only two spots, to 2,217. This would be difficult, she knew, but the challenge was delicious. And every time she’d risen to a new thousand, she received so many accolades, and felt she was repaying Annie in particular, that it drove her on.

  By ten o’clock, just when she was tiring, and when she’d gotten as high as 2,188, she had the revelation that she was young, and she was strong, and if she worked through the night, one night without sleep, she could crack the T2K while everyone else was unconscious. She fortified herself with an energy drink and gummy worms, and when the caffeine and sugar kicked in, she felt invincible. The third screen’s InnerCircle wasn’t enough. She turned on her OuterCircle feed, and was handling that without difficulty. She pushed forward, signing up for a few hundred more Zing feeds, starting with a comment on each. She was soon at 2,012, and now she was really getting resistance. She posted 33 comments on a product-test site and rose to 2,009. She looked at her left wrist to see how her body was responding, and thrilled at the sight of her pulse-rate increasing. She was in command of all this and needed more. The total number of stats she was tracking was only 41. There was her aggregate customer service score, which was at 97. There was her last score, which was 99. There was the average of her pod, which was at 96. There was the number of queries handled that day thus far, 221, and the number of queries handled by that time yesterday, 219, and the number handled by her on average, 220, and by the pod’s other members: 198. On her second screen, there were the number of messages sent by other staffers that day, 1,192, and the number of those messages that she’d read, 239, and the number to which she’d responded, 88. There was the number of recent invitations to Circle company events, 41, and the number she’d responded to, 28. There was the number of overall visitors to the Circle’s sites that day, 3.2 billion, and the number of pageviews, 88.7 billion. There was the number of friends in Mae’s OuterCircle, 762, and outstanding requests by those wanting to be her friend, 27. There were the number of zingers she was following, 10,343, and the number following her, 18,198. There was the number of unread zings, 887. There was the number of zingers suggested to her, 12,862. There was the number of songs in her digital library, 6,877, number of artists represented, 921, and based on her tastes, the number of artists recommended to her: 3,408. There was the number of images in her library, 33,002, and number of images recommended to her, 100,038. There was the temperature inside the building, 70, and the temperature outside, 71. There was the number of staffers on campus that day, 10,981, and number of visitors to campus that day, 248. Mae had news alerts set for 45 names and subjects, and each time any one of them was mentioned by any of the news feeds she favored, she received a notice. That day there were 187. She could see how many people had viewed her profile that day, 210, and how much time on average they spent: 1.3 minutes. If she wanted, of course, she could go deeper, and see precisely what each person had viewed. Her health stats added a few dozen more numbers, each of them giving her a sense of great calm and control. She knew her heart rate and knew it was right. She knew her step count, almost 8,200 that day, and knew that she could get to 10,000 with ease. She knew she was properly hydrated and that her caloric intake that day was within accepted norms for someone of her body-mass index. It occurred to her, in a moment of sudden clarity, that what had always caused her anxiety, or stress, or worry, was not any one force, nothing independent and external—it wasn’t danger to herself or the constant calamity of other people and their problems. It was internal: it was subjective: it was not knowing. It wasn’t that she had an argument with a friend or was called on the carpet by Josiah and Denise: it was not knowing what it meant, not knowing their plans, not knowing the consequences, the future. If she knew these, there would be calm. She knew, with some deg
ree of certainty, where her parents were: home, as always. She could see, with her CircleSearch, where Annie was: in her office, probably still working, too. But where was Kalden? It had been two weeks since she’d seen or heard from him. She texted Annie.

  You awake?

  Always.

  Still haven’t heard from Kalden.

  The old man? Maybe he died. He had a good long life.

  You really think he was just some interloper?

  I think you dodged a bullet. I’m glad he hasn’t come back. I was worried about the espionage possibilities.

  He wasn’t a spy.

  Then he was just old. Maybe some Circler’s grandfather came to visit and got lost? It’s just as well. You were too young to be a widow.

  Mae thought of his hands. His hands had ruined her. All she wanted at that moment was his hands upon her again. His hand on her sacrum, pulling her close. Could her desires be so simple? And where in the hell had he gone? He had no right to disappear like this. She checked CircleSearch again; she’d looked for him a hundred times this way, with no success. But she had a right to know where he was. To at least know where he was, who he was. This was the unnecessary, and antiquated, burden of uncertainty. She could know, instantly, the temperature in Jakarta, but she couldn’t find one man on a campus like this? Where is that man who touched you a certain way? If she could eliminate this kind of uncertainty—when and by whom would you be touched a certain way again—you would eliminate most of the stressors of the world, and maybe, too, the wave of despair that was gathering in Mae’s chest. She’d been feeling this, this black rip, this loud tear, within her, a few times a week. It didn’t usually last long, but when she closed her eyes she saw a tiny tear in what seemed to be black cloth, and through this tiny tear she heard the screams of millions of invisible souls. It was a very strange thing, she realized, and it wasn’t anything she’d mentioned to anyone. She might have described it to Annie, but didn’t want to worry her so soon into her time at the Circle. But what was this feeling? Who was screaming through the tear in the cloth? She’d found the best way to get past it was to redouble her focus, to stay busy, to give more. She had a brief, silly thought that she might find Kalden on LuvLuv. She checked, and felt stupid when her doubts were confirmed. The tear was opening up inside her, a blackness overtaking her. She closed her eyes and heard underwater screams. Mae cursed the not-knowing, and knew she needed someone who could be known. Who could be located.