The Circle

softly, as if reluctant to get in her way.
    “You had a way of putting it that I’d like you to repeat.”
    “Well, it’s embarrassing, but I said that sharing is caring.”
    The audience laughed. Bailey smiled warmly.
    “I don’t think it’s embarrassing. This expression has been around for a while, but
     it applies here, doesn’t it, Mae? Maybe uniquely apropos.”
    “I think it’s simple. If you care about your fellow human beings, you share what you
     know with them. You share what you see. You give them anything you can. If you care
     about their plight, their suffering, their curiosity, their right to learn and know
     anything the world contains, you share with them. You share what you have and what
     you see and what you know. To me, the logic there is undeniable.”
    The audience cheered, and while they did so, three new words, S HARING I S C ARING , appeared on the screen, below the previous three. Bailey was shaking his head, amazed.
    “I love that. Mae, you have a way with words. And there’s one more statement you made
     that I think should cap off what I think everyone here would agree has been a wonderfully
     enlightening and inspiring talk.”
    The audience clapped warmly.
    “We were talking about what you saw as the impulse to keep things to yourself.”
    “Well, it’s not something I’m proud of, and I don’t think it rises above the level
     of simple selfishness. Now I really understand that. I understand that we’re obligated,
     as humans, to share what we see and know. And that all knowledge must be democratically
     accessible.”
    “It’s the natural state of information to be free.”
    “Right.”
    “We all have a right to know everything we can. We all collectively own the accumulated
     knowledge of the world.”
    “Right,” Mae said. “So what happens if I deprive anyone or everyone of something I
     know? Aren’t I stealing from my fellow humans?”
    “Indeed,” Bailey said, nodding earnestly. Mae looked to the audience, and saw the
     entire first row, the only faces visible, nodding, too.
    “And given your way with words, Mae, I wonder if you can tell us this third and last
     revelation you made. What did you say?”
    “Well, I said, privacy is theft.”
    Bailey turned to the audience. “Isn’t that an interesting way of putting it, guys?
     ‘Privacy is theft.’ ” The words now appeared on the screen behind him, in great white
     letters:
    P RIVACY I S T HEFT
    Mae turned to look at the three lines together. She blinked back tears, seeing it
     all there. Had she really thought of all that herself?
    S ECRETS A RE L IES
S HARING I S C ARING
P RIVACY I S T HEFT
    Mae’s throat was tight, dry. She knew she couldn’t speak, so she hoped Bailey wouldn’t
     ask her to. As if sensing how she felt, that she was overcome, he winked at her and
     turned to the audience.
    “Let’s thank Mae for her candor, her brilliance, and her consummate humanity, can
     we please?”
    The audience was on its feet. Mae’s face was on fire. She didn’tknow if she should sit or stand. She stood briefly, then felt silly, so sat down again,
     and waved from her lap.
    Somewhere in the stampeding applause, Bailey managed to announce the capper to it
     all—that Mae, in the interest of sharing all she saw and could offer the world, would
     be going transparent immediately.

BOOK II

    I T WAS A BIZARRE creature, ghostlike, vaguely menacing and never still, but no one who stood before
     it could look away. Mae was hypnotized by it, its slashing form, its fins like blades,
     its milky skin and wool-grey eyes. It was certainly a shark, it had its distinctive
     shape, its malevolent stare, but this was a new species, omnivorous and blind. Stenton
     had brought it back from his trip to the Marianas Trench, in the Circle submersible.
     The shark was not the only discovery—Stenton had retrieved heretofore unknown jellyfishes,
     seahorses, manta rays, all of them near-translucent, ethereal in their movements,
     all on display in a series of enormous aquariums he’d had constructed, nearly overnight,
     to house them.
    Mae’s tasks were to show her watchers the beasts, to explain when necessary, and to
     be, through the lens worn around her neck, a window into this new world, and the world,
     generally, of the Circle. Every morning Mae put on a necklace, much like Stewart’s,
     but lighter, smaller, and with the lens worn over her heart. There, it presented the
     steadiest view, and the