The Circle

eighth site she visited, she felt the tear opening up in her again. For no good reason,
     she checked to see if Mercer’s site was still down, and found it was. She looked for
     any recent mention of him online or news of his whereabouts, and found none. The tear
     was growing within her, opening quickly, a fathomless blackness spreading under her.
     In her fridge she had some of the sake Francis had introduced her to, so she got up,
     poured herself far too much, and drank it down. She went to the SeeChange portal and
     watched feeds from beaches in Sri Lanka and Brazil, feeling calmer, feeling warmer,
     and then remembered that a few thousand college kids, calling themselves ChangeSeers,
     had spread themselves all over the planet, installing cameras in the most remote regions.
     Sofor a time she watched the view from a camera in a Namibian desert village, a pair
     of women preparing a meal, their children playing in the background, but after a few
     minutes watching, she found the tear opening wider, the underwater screams getting
     louder, an unbearable hiss. She looked again for Kalden, spelling his name in new
     and irrational ways, scanning, for forty-five minutes, the company directory by face,
     finding no one like him at all. She turned off the SeeChange cameras, poured more
     sake, drank it down and got into bed, and, thinking of Kalden and his hands, his thin
     legs, his long fingers, she circled her nipples with her left hand while, with her
     right, she moved her underwear to the side and simulated the movements of a tongue,
     of his tongue. It had no effect. But the sake was draining her mind of worry, and
     finally, at just before twelve, she found something like sleep.
    “Okay, everyone,” Mae said. The morning was bright and she was feeling chipper enough
     to try out a phrase she hoped might catch on Circle-wide or beyond. “This is a day
     like every other day, in that it is unlike any other day!” After she said it, Mae
     checked her wrist, but saw little sign it had struck a nerve. She was momentarily
     deflated, but the day itself, the unlimited promise it offered, buoyed her. It was
     9:34 a.m., the sun was again bright and warm, and the campus was busy and abuzz. If
     the Circlers needed any confirmation that they were in the middle of everything that
     mattered, the day had already brought it. Starting at 8:31, a series of helicopters
     had shaken the campus, bringing leaders from all the major health insurance companies,
     world health agencies, the Centers for DiseaseControl, and every significant pharmaceutical company. Finally, it was rumored, there
     would be complete information-sharing among all of these previously disconnected and
     even adversarial entities, and when they were coordinated, and once all the health
     data they’d collected was shared, most of this made possible through the Circle and
     more importantly, TruYou, viruses could be stopped at their sources, diseases would
     be tracked to their roots. All morning Mae had watched these executives and doctors
     and officials stride happily through the grounds, heading for the just-built Hippocampus.
     There, they’d have a day of meetings—private this time, with public forums promised
     in the future—and, later, there would be a concert from some aging singer-songwriter
     only Bailey cared for, who had come in the night before, for dinner with the Wise
     Men.
    Most important for Mae, though, was that one of the many morning helicopters contained
     Annie, who was finally coming home. She’d been gone for almost a month in Europe and
     China and Japan, ironing out some regulatory wrinkles, meeting with some of the transparent
     leaders there, the results of which seemed good, judging from the number of smiles
     Annie had posted on her Zing feed at the trip’s conclusion. But more meaningful conversation
     between Mae and Annie had been difficult. Annie had congratulated her on her transparency,
     on her
ascension
, as Annie put it, but then had become very busy. Too busy to write notes of consequence,
     too busy to have phone calls she could be proud of, she’d said. They’d exchanged brief
     messages every day, but Annie’s schedule had been, in her words,
madcap
, and the time difference meant they were rarely in sync and able to exchange anything
     profound.
    Annie had promised to arrive in the morning, direct from Beijing,and Mae was having trouble concentrating while waiting. She’d been watching the