The Circle (40 page)

Mae was watching the Annie-like figure walk into the Industrial Revolution. When the
door closed, and Annie, or Annie’s twin, disappeared within, Mae smiled at Rinku,
thanked her and Gino, and checked the time.

It was 1:49. She had to be with Dr. Villalobos in eleven minutes.

“Annie!”

The figure continued to walk. Mae was torn between really yelling, which typically
upset the viewers, or running after Annie, which
would cause the camera to shake violently—which also upset the viewers. She settled
on a kind of speed walking while holding the camera against her chest. Annie turned
another corner and then was gone. Mae heard the click of a door, the door to a stairway,
and rushed to it. If she didn’t know better, she would have thought Annie was avoiding
her.

When Mae entered the stairway, she looked up, saw Annie’s distinctive hand, and yelled
up. “Annie!”

Now the figure stopped. It was Annie. She turned, slowly made her way down the steps,
and when she saw Mae, she smiled a practiced, exhausted smile. They hugged, Mae knowing
any embrace always provided for her viewers a semi-comical, and occasionally mildly
erotic, moment, as the other hugger’s body swooped toward and eventually subsumed
the camera’s lens.

Annie pulled back, looked down at the camera, stuck out her tongue and looked up at
Mae.

“Everyone,” Mae said, “this is Annie. You’ve heard about her—Gang of 40 member, world-strider,
beautiful colossus and my close personal friend. Say hi, Annie.”

“Hi,” Annie said.

“So how was the trip?” Mae asked.

Annie smiled, though Mae could tell, through the briefest of grimaces, that Annie
was not enjoying this. But she conjured a happy mask and put it on. “It was great,”
she said.

“Anything you’d like to share? How did things go with everyone in Geneva?”

Annie’s smile wilted.

“Oh, you know we shouldn’t talk about much of that stuff, given so much of it is—”

Mae nodded, assuring Annie she knew. “I’m sorry. I was just talking about Geneva as
a location. Nice?”

“Sure,” Annie said. “Just great. I saw the Von Trapps, and they’ve gotten some new
clothes. Also made of drapes.”

Mae glanced at her wrist. She had nine minutes until she had to see Dr. Villalobos.

“Anything else you’d like to talk about?” she asked.

“What else?” Annie said. “Well let me think …”

Annie tilted her head, as if surprised, and mildly annoyed, that this faux-visit was
still continuing. But then something came over her, as if finally settling into what
was happening—that she was stuck on camera and had to assume her mantle as company
spokesperson.

“Okay, there’s another very cool program that we’ve been hinting at for a while, a
system called PastPerfect. And in Germany I was working out some last hurdles to help
it happen. We’re currently looking for the right volunteer here within the Circle
to try it out, but when we find the right person, it’ll mean the start of a very new
era for the Circle, and, not to be overly dramatic about it, for humankind.”

“Not dramatic at all!” Mae said. “Can you say anything more about it?”

“Sure, Mae. Thank you for asking,” Annie said, looking briefly at her shoes before
raising her eyes back to Mae, with a professional smile. “I can say that the basic
idea is to take the power of the Circle community and to map not just the present
but the past, too. We’re right now digitizing every photo, every newsreel, every amateur
video in every archive in this country and Europe—I mean, we’re doing our best at
least. The task is herculean, but once we have a critical mass,
and with facial recognition advances, we can, we hope, identify pretty much everyone
in every photo and every video. You want to find every picture of your great-grandparents,
we can make the archive searchable, and you can—we expect, we bet—then gain a greater
understanding of them. Maybe you catch them in a crowd at the 1912 World’s Fair. Maybe
you find video of your parents at a baseball game in 1974. The hope, in the end, is
to fill in your memory and the historical record. And with the help of DNA and far
better genealogical software, within the year we’re hoping that anyone can quickly
access every available piece of information about their family lineage, all images,
all video and film, with one search request.”

“And I imagine that when everyone else joins in, the Circle participants that is,
the gaps will quickly be filled.” Mae smiled, her eyes telling Annie she was doing
great.

“That’s right, Mae,” Annie said, her voice stabbing at the space between them, “like
any project online, most of the completion will be done by the digital community.
We’re gathering our own millions of photos and videos, but the rest of the world will
provide billions more. We expect that with even partial participation, we’ll be able
to fill in most historical holes easily. If you’re looking for all the residents of
a certain building in Poland, circa 1913, and you’re missing one, it won’t take long
to triangulate that last person by cross-referencing from all the other data we’ll
get.”

“Very exciting.”

“Yes, it is,” Annie said, and flashed the whites of her eyes, urging Mae to wrap all
this up.

“But you don’t have the guinea pig yet?” Mae asked.

“Not yet. For the first person, we’re looking for someone whose family goes back pretty
far in the United States. Just because we know we’ll have more complete access to
records here than in some other countries.”

“And this is part of the Circle’s plan to complete everything this year? It’s still
on schedule?”

“It is. PastPerfect is just about ready to use now. And with all the other aspects
of Completion, it looks like the beginning of next year. Eight months and we’ll be
done. But you never know: the way things are going, with the help of so many Circlers
out there, we could finish ahead of time.”

Mae smiled, nodded, and she and Annie shared a long, strained moment, when Annie’s
eyes again asked how long they needed to go on with this semiperformative dialogue.

Outside, the sun broke through the clouds, and the light through the window shone
down on Annie’s face. Mae saw, then, for the first time, how old she looked. Her face
was drawn, her skin pale. Annie was not yet twenty-seven but there were bags under
her eyes. In this light, she seemed to have aged five years in the last two months.

Annie took Mae’s hand, and dug her fingernails into her palm just enough to get her
attention. “I actually have to use the bathroom. Come with?”

“Sure. I have to go, too.”

Though Mae’s transparency was complete, in that she could not turn off the visual
or audio feeds at any time, there were a few exceptions, insisted upon by Bailey.
One was during bathroom usage, or at least time spent on the toilet. The video feed
was to remain on,
because, Bailey insisted, the camera would be trained on the back of the stall door,
so it hardly mattered. But the audio would be turned off, sparing Mae, and the audience,
the sounds.

Mae entered the stall, Annie entered the one next to her, and Mae deactivated her
audio. The rule was that she had up to three minutes of silence; more than that would
provoke concern from viewers and Circlers alike.

“So how are you?” Mae asked. She couldn’t see Annie, but her toes, looking crooked
and in need of a pedicure attention, were visible under the door.

“Great. Great. You?”

“Good.”

“Well, you
should
be good,” Annie said. “You are killing it!”

“You think?”

“C’mon. False modesty won’t work here. You should be psyched.”

“Okay. I am.”

“I mean, you’re like a meteor here. It’s insane. People are coming to
me
trying to get to
you
. It’s just … so crazy.”

Something had crept into Annie’s voice that Mae recognized as envy, or its close cousin.
Mae ran through a string of possibilities of what she could say in response. Nothing
was right.
I couldn’t have done it without you
would not work; it sounded both self-aggrandizing and condescending. In the end,
she chose to change the subject.

“Sorry about asking stupid questions back there,” Mae said.

“It’s okay. But you put me on the spot.”

“I know. I just—I saw you and wanted to spend time with you. And I didn’t know what
else to ask about. So are you really okay? You look wiped out.”

“Thank you, Mae. You know how much I like to be told seconds after I appear in front
of your millions that I look terrible. Thank you. You’re sweet.”

“I’m just worried. Have you been sleeping?”

“I don’t know. Maybe I’m off-schedule. I’m jet-lagged.”

“Is there anything I can do? Let me take you out to eat.”

“Take me out to eat? With your camera and me looking so terrible? That sounds fantastic,
but no.”

“Let me do something for you.”

“No, no. I just need to get caught up.”

“Anything interesting?”

“Oh you know, the usual.”

“The regulatory stuff went well? They were really putting a lot on you out there.
I worried.”

A chill swept through Annie’s voice. “Well, you had no reason to worry. I’ve been
doing this for a while now.”

“I didn’t mean I was worried in that way.”

“Well, don’t worry in
any
way.”

“I know you can handle it.”

“Thank
you
! Mae, your confidence in me will be the wind beneath my wings.”

Mae chose to ignore the sarcasm. “So when do I get to see you?”

“Soon. We’ll make something happen.”

“Tonight? Please?”

“Not tonight. I’m just gonna crash and get fresh for tomorrow. I have a bunch of stuff.
There’s all the new work on Completion, and …”

“Completing the Circle?”

There was a long pause, during which Mae was sure that Annie was relishing this piece
of news, unknown to Mae.

“Yeah. Bailey didn’t tell you?” Annie said. A certain exasperating music had entered
her voice.

“I don’t know,” Mae said, her heart burning. “Maybe he did.”

“Well, they’re feeling very close now. I was out there removing some of the last barriers.
The Wise Men think we’re down to the last few hurdles.”

“Oh. I think I might have heard that,” Mae said, hearing herself, hearing how petty
she sounded. But she
was
jealous. Of course she was. Why would she have access to information that Annie did?
She knew she had no right to it, but still, she wanted it, and felt she was closer
to it than this, than hearing about it from Annie, who had been halfway around the
world for three weeks. The omission threw her back to some ignominious spot at the
Circle, some plebeian place of being a spokeswoman, a public shill.

“So you’re sure I can’t do anything for you? Maybe some kind of mudpack to help with
the puffiness under your eyes?” Mae hated herself for saying it, but it felt so good
in that moment, like an itch scratched hard.

Annie cleared her throat. “You’re so kind,” she said. “But I should get going.”

“You sure?”

“Mae. I don’t want this to sound rude, but the best thing for me right now is to get
back to my desk so I can get back to work.”

“Okay.”

“I’m not saying that in a rude way. I actually just need to get caught up.”

“No, I know. I get it. That’s fine. I’ll see you tomorrow anyway. At the Concept Kingdom
meeting.”

“What?”

“There’s a Concept King—”

“No. I know what it is. You’re going?”

“I am. Bailey thought I should go.”

“And broadcast it?”

“Of course. Is that a problem?”

“No. No,” Annie said, clearly stalling, processing. “I’m just surprised. Those meetings
are full of sensitive intellectual property. Maybe he’s planning to have you attend
the beginning or something. I can’t imagine …”

Annie’s toilet flushed, and Mae saw that she’d stood up.

“You leaving?”

“Yeah. I’m really so late I want to puke now.”

“Okay. Don’t puke.”

Annie hurried to the door and was gone.

Mae had four minutes to get to Dr. Villalobos. She stood, turned her audio back on,
and left the bathroom.

Then she walked back in, silenced her audio, sat down in the same stall, and gave
herself a minute to get herself together. Let people think she was constipated. She
didn’t care. She was sure Annie was crying by now, wherever she was. Mae was sobbing,
and was cursing Annie, cursing every blond inch of her, her smug sense of entitlement.
So what that she’d been at the Circle longer. They were peers now, but Annie couldn’t
accept it. Mae would have to make sure she did.

It was 2:02 when she arrived.

“Hello Mae,” Dr. Villalobos said, greeting her in the clinic lobby. “I see your heart
rate is normal, and I imagine with your jog over here, all your viewers are getting
some interesting data, too. Come in.”

In retrospect, it shouldn’t have been a surprise that Dr. Villalobos had become a
viewers’ favorite, too. With her extravagant curves, her sultry eyes and harmonica
voice, she was volcanic onscreen. She was the doctor everyone, especially straight
men, wished they’d had. Though TruYou had made lewd comments almost impossible for
anyone wanting to keep their job or spouse, Dr. Villalobos brought out a genteel,
but no less demonstrative, brand of appreciation.
So good to see the good doctor!
one man wrote as Mae entered the office.
Let the examination begin
, said another, braver, soul. And Dr. Villalobos, while putting on a show of brisk
professionalism, seemed to enjoy it, too. Today she was wearing a zippered blouse
that displayed an amount of her ample chest that at a proper distance was appropriate
but, seen through Mae’s close camera, was somehow obscene.

“So your vitals have been looking good,” she said to Mae.

Mae was sitting on the examination table, the doctor standing before her. Looking
at her wrist, Mae checked the image her viewers were getting, and she knew the men
would be pleased. As if realizing the picture might be getting too provocative, Dr.
Villalobos turned to the wallscreen. On it, a few hundred data points were displayed.