Dave Eggers - The Circle

By midmorning that Friday, her aggregate for the week was at 97, and the affirmations were coming from everyone in the Circle. The work was demanding, and the flow did not stop, but it varied just enough, and the validation was frequent enough, that she settled into a comfortable rhythm.

Just as she was about to take another request, a text came through her phone. It was Annie: Eat with me, fool .

They sat on a low hill, two salads between them, the sun making intermittent appearances behind slow-moving clouds. Mae and Annie watched a trio of young men, pale and dressed like engineers, attempting to throw a football.

“So you’re already a star. I feel like a proud mama.”

Mae shook her head. “I’m not at all. I have a lot to learn.”

“Of course you do. But a 97 so far? That’s insane. I didn’t get above 95 the first week. You’re a natural.”

A pair of shadows darkened their lunch.

“Can we meet the newbie?”

Mae looked up, shielding her eyes.

“Course,” Annie said.

The shadows sat down. Annie jabbed her fork at them. “This is Sabine and Josef.”

Mae shook their hands. Sabine was blond, sturdy, squinting. Josef was thin, pale, with comically bad teeth.

“Already she’s looking at my teeth!” he wailed, pointing to Mae. “You Americans are obsessed! I feel like a horse at an auction.”

“But your teeth are bad,” Annie said. “And we have such a good dental plan here.”

Josef unwrapped a burrito. “I think my teeth provide a necessary respite from the eerie perfection of everyone else’s.”

Annie tilted her head, studying him. “I’m sure you should fix them, if not for you for the sake of company morale. You give people nightmares.”

Josef pouted theatrically, his mouth full of carne asada. Annie patted his arm.

Sabine turned to Mae. “So you’re in Customer Experience?” Now Mae noticed the tattoo on Sabine’s arm, the symbol for infinity.

“I am. First week.”

“I saw you’re doing pretty well so far. I started there, too. Just about everyone did.”

“And Sabine’s a biochemist,” Annie added.

Mae was surprised. “You’re a biochemist?”

“I am.”

Mae hadn’t heard about biochemists working at the Circle. “Can I ask what you’re working on?”

“Can you ask? ” Sabine smiled. “Of course you can ask . But I don’t have to tell you anything.”

Everyone sighed for a moment, but then Sabine stopped.

“Seriously though, I can’t tell you. Not right now, anyway. Generally I work on stuff for the biometric side of things. You know, iris scanning and facial recognition. But right now I’m on something new. Even though I’d like to—”

Annie gave Sabine an imploring, quieting look. Sabine filled her mouth with lettuce.

“Anyway,” Annie said, “Josef here is in Educational Access. He’s trying to get tablets into schools that right now can’t afford them. He’s a do-gooder. He’s also friends with your new friend. Garbonzo.”

“Garaventa,” Mae corrected.

“Ah. You do remember. Have you seen him again?”

“Not this week. It’s been too busy.”

Now Josef’s mouth was open. Something had just dawned on him. “Are you Mae?”

Annie winced. “We already said that. Of course this is Mae.”

“Sorry. I didn’t hear it right. Now I know who you are.”

Annie snorted. “What, did you two little girls tell each other all about Francis’s big night? He’s been writing Mae’s name in his notebook, surrounded by hearts?”

Josef inhaled indulgently. “No, he just said he’d met someone very nice, and her name was Mae.”

“That’s so sweet,” Sabine said.

“He told her he was in security,” Annie said. “Why would he do that, Josef?”

“That’s not what he said,” Mae insisted. “I told you that.”

Annie didn’t seem to care. “Well, I guess you could call it security. He’s in child safety. He’s basically the core of this whole program to prevent abductions. He actually could do it.”

Sabine, her mouth full again, was nodding vigorously. “Of course he will,” she said, spraying fragments of salad and vinaigrette. “It’s a done deal.”

“What is?” Mae asked. “He’s going to prevent all abductions?”

“He could,” Josef said. “He’s motivated.”

Annie’s eyes went wide. “Did he tell you about his sisters?”

Mae shook her head. “No, he didn’t say he had siblings. What about his sisters?”

All three Circlers looked at each other, as if to gauge if the story had to be told there and then.

“It’s the worst story,” Annie said. “His parents were such fuckups. I think there were like four or five kids in the family, and Francis was youngest or second-youngest, and anyway the dad was in jail, and the mom was on drugs, so the kids were sent all over the place. I think one went to his aunt and uncle, and his two sisters were sent to some foster home, and then they were abducted from there. I guess there was some doubt if they were, you know, given or sold to the murderers.”

“The what?” Mae had gone limp.

“Oh god, they were raped and kept in closets and their bodies were dropped down some kind of abandoned missile silo. I mean, it was the worst story ever. He told a bunch of us about it when he was pitching this child safety program. Shit, look at your face. I shouldn’t have said all this.”

Mae couldn’t speak.

“It’s important that you know,” Josef said. “This is why he’s so passionate. I mean, his plan would pretty much eliminate the possibility of anything like this ever happening again. Wait. What time is it?”

Annie checked her phone. “You’re right. We gotta scoot. Bailey’s doing an unveiling. We should be in the Great Hall.”

The Great Hall was in the Enlightenment, and when they entered the venue, a 3,500-seat cavern appointed in warm woods and brushed steel, it was loud with anticipation. Mae and Annie found one of the last pairs of seats in the second balcony and sat down.

“Just finished this a few months ago,” Annie said. “Forty-five million dollars. Bailey modeled the stripes off the Duomo in Siena. Nice, right?”

Mae’s attention was pulled to the stage, where a man was walking to a lucite podium, amid a roar of applause. He was a tall man of about forty-five, round in the gut but not unhealthy, wearing jeans and blue V-neck sweater. There was no discernible microphone, but when he began speaking, his voice was amplified and clear.

“Hello everyone. My name is Eamon Bailey,” he said, to another round of applause that he quickly discouraged. “Thank you. I’m so glad to see you all here. A bunch of you are new to the company since I last spoke, one whole month ago. Can the newbies stand up?” Annie nudged Mae. Mae stood, and looked around the auditorium to see about sixty other people standing, most of them her age, all of them seeming shy, all of them quietly stylish, together representing every race and ethnicity and, thanks to the Circle’s efforts to ease permits for international staffers, a dizzying range of national origins. The clapping from the rest of the Circlers was loud, a sprinkling of whoops mixed in. She sat down.

“You’re so cute when you blush,” Annie said.

Mae sunk into her seat.

“Newbies,” Bailey said, “you’re in for something special. This is called Dream Friday, where we present something we’re working on. Often it’s one of our engineers or designers or visionaries, and sometimes it’s just me. And today, for better or for worse, it’s just me. For that I apologize in advance.”

“We love you Eamon!” came a voice from the audience. Laughter followed.