The Circle

the other has been, given the car logs where it’s
     been driven. But my point is, what if we
all
behaved as if we were being watched? It would lead to a more moral way of life. Who
     would do something unethical or immoral or illegal if they were being watched? If
     their illegal money transfer was being tracked? If their blackmailing phone call was
     being recorded? If their stick-up at the gas station was being filmed by a dozen cameras,
     and even their retinas identified during the robbery? If their philandering was being
     documented in a dozen ways?”
    “I don’t know. I’m imagining all that would be greatly reduced.”
    “Mae, we would finally be compelled to be our best selves. And I think people would
     be relieved. There would be this phenomenal global sigh of relief. Finally, finally,
     we can be good. In a world where bad choices are no longer an option, we have no choice
but
to be good. Can you imagine?”
    Mae nodded.
    “Now, speaking of relief, is there anything you’d like to tell me before we wrap up?”
    “I don’t know. So many things, I guess,” Mae said. “But you’ve been so nice to spend
     all this time with me, so—”
    “Mae, is there something specific that you’ve kept hidden from me as we’ve been together
     here in this library?”
    Mae knew, instantly, that lying was not an option.
    “That I’ve been here before?” she said.
    “Have you?”
    “Yes.”
    “But you implied when you entered that you hadn’t.”
    “Annie brought me. She said it was some kind of secret. I don’t know. I didn’t know
     what to do. I didn’t see either way as being ideal. I get in trouble either way.”
    Bailey smiled extravagantly. “See, that’s not true. Only lies get us in trouble. Only
     the things we hide. Of
course
I knew you’d been here. Give me some credit! But I was curious that you hid this
     from me. It made me feel distant from you. A secret between two friends, Mae, is an
     ocean. It’s wide and deep and we lose ourselves in it. And now that I know your secret,
     do you feel better or worse?”
    “Better.”
    “Relief?”
    “Yes, relief.”
    Mae did feel relief, a surge of it that felt like love. Because she still had her
     job, and she would not have to go back to Longfield, and because her father would
     stay strong and her mother unburdened, she wanted to be held by Bailey, to be subsumed
     by his wisdom and generosity.
    “Mae,” he said, “I truly believe that if we have no path but the right path, the best
     path, then that would present a kind of ultimate and all-encompassing relief. We don’t
     have to be tempted by darkness anymore. Forgive me for putting it in moral terms.
     That’s the Midwestern church-goer in me. But I’m a believer in the perfectibility
     of human beings. I think we can be better. I think we can be perfect or near to it.
     And when we become our best selves, the possibilities are endless. We can solve any
     problem. We can cure any disease, end hunger,everything, because we won’t be dragged down by all our weaknesses, our petty secrets,
     our hoarding of information and knowledge. We will finally realize our potential.”
    Mae had been dizzy from the conversation with Bailey for days, and now it was Friday,
     and the thought of going onstage at lunch made concentration almost impossible. But
     she knew she had to work, to set an example for her pod, at the very least, given
     this would likely be her last full day at CE.
    The flow was steady but not overwhelming, and she got through 77 customer queries
     that morning. Her score was 98 and the pod aggregate was 97. All respectable numbers.
     Her PartiRank was 1,921, another fine figure, and one she felt comfortable taking
     into the Enlightenment.
    At 11:38, she left her desk and walked to the side door of the auditorium, arriving
     ten minutes before noon. She knocked and the door opened. Mae met the stage manager,
     an older, almost spectral man named Jules, who brought her into a simple dressing
     room of white walls and bamboo floors. A brisk woman named Teresa, enormous eyes outlined
     in blue, sat Mae down, looked over her hair and blushed her face with a feathery brush,
     and applied a lavalier microphone to her blouse. “No need to touch anything,” she
     said. “It’ll be activated once you go out onstage.”
    It was happening very quickly, but Mae felt this was best. If she had more time she
     would only get more nervous. So she listened to Jules and Teresa,