The Circle

by Dave Eggers

  She was trying to hold it together. She smiled when she passed fellow Circlers. She accepted their congratulations and gratitude, each time wondering which of them was two-faced, which of them had pushed that frown button, each push of that button the pull of a trigger. That was it, she realized. She felt full of holes, as if every one of them had shot her, from behind, cowards filling her with holes. She could barely stand.

  And then, just before reaching her old building, she saw Annie. They hadn’t had a natural interaction in months, but immediately something in Annie’s face spoke of light and happiness. “Hey!” she said, catapulting herself forward to take Mae in a wraparound hug.

  Mae’s eyes were suddenly wet, and she wiped them, feeling silly and elated and confused. All her conflicted thoughts of Annie were, for a moment, washed away.

  “You’re doing well?” she asked.

  “I am. I am. So many good things happening,” Annie said. “Did you hear about the PastPerfect project?”

  Mae sensed something in Annie’s voice then, an indication that Annie was talking, primarily, to the audience around Mae’s neck. Mae went along.

  “Well, you told me the gist before. What’s new with PastPerfect, Annie?”

  While looking at Annie, and appearing interested in what Annie was saying, Mae’s mind was elsewhere: Had Annie frowned at her? Maybe just to knock her down a notch? And how would Annie fare in a Demoxie poll? Could she beat 97 percent? Could anyone?

  “Oh gosh, so many things, Mae. As you know, PastPerfect has been in the works for many years. It’s what you might call a passion project of Eamon Bailey. What if, he thought, we used the power of the web, and of the Circle and its billions of members, to try to fill in the gaps in personal history, and history generally?”

  Mae, seeing her friend trying so hard, could do nothing but try to match her glossy enthusiasm.

  “Whoa, that sounds incredible. Last we talked, they were looking for a pioneer to be the first to have their ancestry mapped. Did they find that person?”

  “Well, they did, Mae, I’m glad you asked. They found that person, and that person is me.”

  “Oh, right. So they really didn’t choose yet?”

  “No, really,” Annie said, her voice lowering, and suddenly sounding more like the actual Annie. Then she brightened again, rising an octave. “It’s me!”

  Mae had become practiced in waiting before speaking—transparency had taught her to measure every word—and now, instead of saying, “I expected it to be some newbie, someone without a whole lot of experience. Or at the very least a striver, someone trying to make some PartiRank leaps, or curry favor with the Wise Men. But you?” She realized that Annie was, or felt she was, in a position where she needed a boost, an edge. And thus she’d volunteered.

  “You volunteered?”

  “I did. I did,” Annie said, looking at Mae but utterly through her. “The more I heard about it, the more I wanted to be the first. As you know, but your watchers might not, my family came here on the Mayflower”—and here she rolled her eyes—“and though we have some high-water marks in our family history, there’s so much I don’t know.”

  Mae was speechless. Annie had gone haywire. “And everyone’s onboard with this? Your parents?”

  “They’re so excited. I guess they’ve always been proud of our heritage, and the ability to share it with people, and along the way find out a bit about the history of the country, well, it appealed to them. Speaking of parents, how are yours?”

  My god, this was strange, Mae thought. There were so many layers to all this, and while her mind was counting them, mapping them and naming them, her face and mouth had to carry on this conversation.

  “They’re fine,” Mae said, even though she knew, and Annie knew, that Mae hadn’t been in touch with them in weeks. They had sent word, through a cousin, of their health, which was fine, but they had left their home, “fleeing” was the only word they used in their brief message, telling Mae not to worry about anything.

  Mae wrapped up the conversation with Annie and walked slowly, foggy-headed, back through campus, knowing Annie was satisfied in how she’d communicated her news, and trumped and thoroughly confused Mae, all in one brief encounter. Annie had been appointed the center of PastPerfect and Mae hadn’t been told, and was made to look idiotic. Certainly that would have been Annie’s goal. And why Annie? It didn’t make sense to go to Annie, when it would have been easier to have Mae do it; Mae was already transparent.

  Mae realized that Annie had asked for this. Begged the Wise Men for this. Her proximity to them had made it possible. And so Mae was not as close as she’d imagined; Annie still held some particular status. Again Annie’s lineage, her head start, the varied and ancient advantages she enjoyed, were keeping Mae second. Always second, like she was some kind of little sister who never had a chance of succeeding an older, always older sibling. Mae was trying to remain calm, but messages were coming through her wrist that made clear her viewers were seeing her frustration, her distraction.

  She needed to breathe. She needed to think. But there was too much in her head. There was Annie’s ludicrous gamesmanship. There was this ridiculous PastPerfect thing, which should have gone to Mae. Was it because Mae’s parents had slipped off the path? And where were her parents, anyway? Why were they sabotaging everything Mae was working for? But what was she working for, anyway, if 368 Circlers didn’t approve of her? Three hundred and sixty-eight people who apparently actively hated her, enough to push a button at her—to send their loathing directly to her, knowing she would know, immediately, their sentiments. And what about this cellular mutation some Scottish scientist was worried about? A cancerous mutation that might be happening inside Mae, provoked by mistakes in her diet? Had that really happened? And shit, Mae thought, her throat tightening, did she really send a frown to a group of heavily armed paramilitaries in Guatemala? What if they had contacts here? Certainly there were plenty of Guatemalans in California, and certainly they would be more than happy to have a trophy like Mae, to punish her for her opprobrium. Fuck, she thought. Fuck. There was a pain in her, a pain that was spreading its black wings inside her. And it was coming, primarily, from the 368 people who apparently hated her so much they wanted her gone. It was one thing to send a frown to Central America, but to send one just across campus? Who would do that? Why was there so much animosity in the world? And then it occurred to her, in a brief and blasphemous flash: she didn’t want to know how they felt. The flash opened up into something larger, an even more blasphemous notion that her brain contained too much. That the volume of information, of data, of judgments, of measurements, was too much, and there were too many people, and too many desires of too many people, and too many opinions of too many people, and too much pain from too many people, and having all of it constantly collated, collected, added and aggregated, and presented to her as if that all made it tidier and more manageable—it was too much. But no. No, it was not, her better brain corrected. No. You’re hurt by these 368 people. This was the truth. She was hurt by them, by the 368 votes to kill her. Every one of them preferred her dead. If only she didn’t know about this. If only she could return to life before this 3 percent, when she could walk through campus, waving, smiling, chatting idly, eating, sharing human contact, without knowing what was deep in the hearts of the 3 percent. To frown at her, to stick their fingers at that button, to shoot her that way, it was a kind of murder. Mae’s wrist was flashing with dozens of messages of concern. With help from the campus SeeChange cameras, watchers were noticing her standing, stock-still, her face contorted into some raging, wretched mask.

  She needed to do something. She went back to CE, waved to Jared and the rest, and logged herself into the chute.

  In minutes she had helped with a query from a small jewelry maker in Prague, had checked out the maker’s website, had found the work intriguing and wonderful and had said so, aloud and in a zing, which produced an astronomical Conversion Rate and a Retail Raw, in
ten minutes, of 52,098 euros. She helped a sustainably sourced furniture wholesaler in North Carolina, Design for Life, and after answering their query, they wanted her to fill out a customer survey, which was especially important given her age and income bracket—they needed more information about the preferences of customers in her demographic. She did that, and also commented on a series of photos her contact at Design for Life, Sherilee Fronteau, had sent her of her son at his first T-ball practice. When Mae commented on those photos, she received a message from Sherilee thanking Mae, and insisting that she come to Chapel Hill sometime, to see Tyler in person and eat some genuine barbecue. Mae agreed she would, feeling very good to have this new friend on the opposite coast, and moved on to her second message, from a client, Jerry Ulrich, in Grand Rapids, Michigan, who ran a refrigerated truck company. He wanted Mae to forward a message to everyone on her list about the company’s services, that they were trying very hard to increase their presence in California, and any help would be appreciated. Mae zinged him that she would tell everyone she knew, starting with the 14,611,002 followers she had, and he sent word back that he was thrilled to have been so introduced, and that he welcomed business or comments from all 14,611,002 people—1,556 of whom instantly greeted Jerry and said they, too, would spread the word. Then, as he was enjoying the flood of messages, he asked Mae how his niece, who was graduating from Eastern Michigan University in the spring, might go about getting a job at the Circle; it was her dream to work there, and should she move out west to be closer, or should she hope to get an interview based on her résumé alone? Mae directed him to the HR department, and gave him some hints of her own. She added the niece to her contact list, and made a note to keep track of her progress, if she indeed applied for work there. One customer, Hector Casilla of Orlando, Florida, told Mae about his interest in birding, sent her some of his photos, which Mae praised and added to her own photo cloud. Hector asked her to rate them, for this might get him noticed in the photo-sharing group he was trying to join. She did so, and he was ecstatic. Within minutes, Hector said, someone in his photo-sharing group had been deeply impressed that an actual Circler was aware of his work, so Hector thanked Mae again. He sent her an invitation to a group exhibition he was part of that winter, in Miami Beach, and Mae said if she found herself down that way in January, she would certainly attend, and Hector, perhaps misconstruing the level of her interest, connected her with his cousin, Natalia, who owned a bed and breakfast only forty minutes from Miami, and who could absolutely get Mae a deal if she chose to come out—her friends, too, were welcome. Natalia then sent a message, with the B&B’s rates, which, she noted, were flexible if she wanted to stay during the week. Natalia followed up a moment later with a long message, full of links to articles and images of the Miami area, elucidating the many activities possible in winter—sport fishing, jet-skiing, dancing. Mae worked on, feeling the familiar tear, the growing blackness, but working through it, killing it, until she finally noticed the time: 10:32.

  She’d been in CE for over four hours. She walked to the dorms, feeling far better, feeling calm, and found Francis in bed, working on his tablet, pasting his face into his favorite movies. “Check this out,” he said, and showed her a sequence from an action movie where, instead of Bruce Willis, the protagonist now seemed to be Francis Garaventa. The software was near-perfect, Francis said, and could be operated by any child. The Circle had just purchased it from a three-person startup out of Copenhagen.

  “I guess you’ll see more new stuff tomorrow,” Francis said, and Mae remembered the meeting with the plankton pitchers. “It’ll be fun. Sometimes the ideas are even good. And speaking of good ideas …” And then Francis pulled her down to him, and kissed her, and pulled her hips into him, and for a moment she thought they were about to have something like a real sexual experience, but just when she was taking off her shirt, she saw Francis clench his eyes and jerk forward, and she knew he was already done. After changing and brushing his teeth, he asked Mae to rate him, and she gave him a 100.

  Mae opened her eyes. It was 4:17 a.m. Francis was turned away from her, sleeping soundlessly. She closed her eyes, but could think only of the 368 people who—it seemed self-evident now—would rather she’d never been born. She had to get back into the CE chute. She sat up.

  “What’s the matter?” Francis said.

  She turned to find him staring at her.

  “Nothing. Just this Demoxie vote thing.”

  “You can’t worry about that. It’s a few hundred people.”

  He reached for Mae’s back, and, attempting to comfort her from the other side of the bed, achieved more of a wiping motion across her waist.

  “But who?” Mae said. “Now I have to walk around campus not knowing who wants me dead.”

  Francis sat up. “So why don’t you check?”

  “Check what?”

  “Who frowned at you. Where do you think you are? The eighteenth century? This is the Circle. You can find out who frowned at you.”

  “It’s transparent?”

  Instantly Mae felt silly even asking.

  “You want me to look?” Francis said, and in seconds he was on his tablet, scrolling. “Here’s the list. It’s public—that’s the whole thing with Demoxie.” His eyes narrowed as he read the list. “Oh, that one’s no surprise.”

  “What?” Mae said, her heart jumping. “Who?”

  “Mr. Portugal.”

  “Alistair?”

  Mae’s head was on fire.

  “Fucker,” Francis said. “Whatever. Fuck him. You want the whole list?” Francis turned the tablet to her, but before she knew what she was doing, she was backing away, her eyes clenched. She stood in the corner of the room, covering her face with her arms.

  “Whoa,” Francis said. “It’s not some rabid animal. They’re just names on a list.”

  “Stop,” Mae said.

  “Most of these people probably didn’t even mean it. And some of these people I know actually like you.”

  “Stop. Stop.”

  “Okay, okay. You want me to clear the screen?”

  “Please.”

  Francis complied.

  Mae went into the bathroom and closed the door.

  “Mae?” Francis was on the other side.

  She turned on the shower and took off her clothes.

  “Can I come in?”

  Under the pounding water, Mae felt calmer. She reached the wall and turned on the light. She smiled, thinking her reaction to the list was foolish. Of course the votes were public. With actual democracy, a purer kind of democracy, people would be unafraid to cast their votes, and, more importantly, unafraid to be held accountable for those votes. It was up to her, now, to know who those who frowned at her were, and to win them over. Maybe not immediately. She needed time before she’d be ready, but she would know—she needed to know, it was her responsibility to know—and once she knew, the work to correct the 368 would be simple and honest. She was nodding, and smiled realizing she was alone in the shower, nodding. But she couldn’t help it. The elegance of it all, the ideological purity of the Circle, of real transparency, gave her peace, a warming feeling of logic and order.

  The group was a gorgeous rainbow coalition of youth, dreadlocks and freckles, eyes of blue and green and brown. They were all sitting forward, their faces alight. Each had four minutes to present his or her idea to the Circle braintrust, including Bailey and Stenton, who were in the room, talking intently to other members of the Gang of 40, and Ty, who was appearing via video feed. He sat somewhere else, in a blank white room, wearing his oversized hoodie and staring, not bored and not visibly interested, into the camera and into the room. And it was he, as much or more than any other Wise Men or senior Circlers, that the presenters wanted to impress. They were his children, in some sense: all of them motivated by his success, his youth, his ability to see ideas into execution, while remaining himself, perfectly aloof and yet furiously productive. They wanted that, too, and they wanted the
money they knew went along with the role.

  This was the assembly Kalden had been talking about, where, he was certain, there would be a maximum viewing audience, and where, he insisted, Mae should tell all her watchers that the Circle could not complete, that Completion would lead to some kind of armageddon. She had not heard from him since that conversation in the bathroom, and she was glad for it. Now she was sure, more than ever, that he was some kind of hacker-spy, someone from a would-be competitor, trying to turn Mae and whoever else against the company, to blow it up from within.

  She shook all thoughts of him from her mind. This forum would be good, she knew. Dozens of Circlers had been hired this way: they came to campus as aspirants, presented an idea, and that idea was bought on the spot and the aspirant was thereafter employed. Jared had been hired this way, Mae knew, and Gina, too. It was one of the more glamorous ways to arrive at the company: to pitch an idea, have it acquired, be rewarded with employment and stock options and see their idea executed in short order.

  Mae explained all of this to her watchers as the room settled. There were about fifty Circlers, the Wise Men, the Gang of 40 and a few assistants in the room, all of them facing a row of aspirants, a few of them still in their teens, each of them sitting, waiting for his or her turn.

  “This will be very exciting,” Mae said to her watchers. “As you know, this is the first time we’ve broadcast an Aspirant session.” She almost said “plankton” and was happy to have caught the slur before uttering it. She glanced down at her wrist. There were 2.1 million watchers, though she expected that to climb quickly.