by Dave Eggers
Then Mae ruined it. “He did this for the company?” she said, nodding at the massive red box.
Kalden laughed, then looked at her, his interest in her not gone, but certainly in retreat. “No, no. He’s been dead for decades. This was just inspired by his aesthetic. This is actually a machine. Or inside it is. It’s a storage unit.”
He looked at Mae, expecting her to complete the thought.
She couldn’t.
“This is Stewart,” he finally said.
Mae knew nothing about data storage, but had been under the general idea that storing such information could be done in a far smaller space.
“All this for one person?” she asked.
“Well, it’s the storage of the raw data, and then the capacity to run all kinds of scenarios through it. Every bit of video is being mapped a hundred different ways. Everything Stewart sees is correlated with the rest of the video we have, and it helps map the world and everything in it. And of course, what you get through Stewart’s cameras is exponentially more detailed and layered than any consumer device.”
“And why have it here, as opposed to stored in the cloud or in the desert somewhere?”
“Well, some people like to scatter their ashes and some like to have a plot close to home, right?”
Mae wasn’t precisely sure what that meant but she didn’t feel she could admit that. “And the pipes are for electricity?” she asked.
Kalden opened his mouth, paused, then smiled. “No, that’s water. A ton of water’s needed to keep the processors cool. So the water runs through the system, cooling the overall apparatus. Millions of gallons every month. You want to see Santos’s room?”
He led her through a door to another, identical, room, with another great red box dominating the space. “This was supposed to be for someone else, but when Santos stepped up, it was assigned to her.”
Mae had already said too many silly things that night, and was feeling light-headed, so she didn’t ask the questions she wanted to ask, such as, How could these things take up so much space? And use so much water? And if even a hundred more people wanted to store their every minute—and surely millions would opt to go transparent, would beg to—how could we do this when each life took up so much space? Where would all these great red boxes go?
“Oh wait, something’s about to happen,” Kalden said, and he took her hand and led her back into Stewart’s room, where the two of them stood, listening to the hum of the machines.
“Has it happened?” Mae asked, thrilling at the feel of his hand, his palm soft and his fingers warm and long.
Kalden raised his eyebrows, telling her to wait.
A loud rush came from overhead, the unmistakable movement of water. Mae looked up, briefly thinking they would be drenched, but realized it was only the water coming through the pipes, heading for Stewart, cooling all he’d done and seen.
“Such a pretty sound, don’t you think?” Kalden said, looking to her, his eyes seeming to want to get back to the place where Mae was something more than ephemeral.
“Beautiful,” she said. And then, because the wine had her teetering, and because he’d just held her hand, and because something about the rush of water set her free, she took Kalden’s face in her hands and kissed his lips.
His hands rose from his sides and held her, tentatively, around the waist, just his fingertips, as if she were a balloon he didn’t want to pop. But for a terrible moment, his mouth was inanimate, stunned. Mae thought she’d made a mistake. Then, as if a bundle of signals and directives had finally reached his cerebral cortex, his lips awakened and returned the force of her kiss.
“Hold on,” he said after a moment, and pulled away. He nodded toward the red box containing Stewart, and led her by the hand out of the room and into a narrow corridor she hadn’t seen before. It was unlit, and as they stepped further, the light from Stewart no longer penetrated.
“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. S
he 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?”<
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“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.
“Good,” Pete said. “So we’re done. You get back to your desk, and the first bell will come on. Then you run through as many as you can this afternoon—certainly the first five hundred. Good?”
