The Circle

collaborative workspaces.
    “Oh, here’s Jackie,” Terry said.
    Jackie, a sleek woman in her mid-thirties, emerged and shookMae’s hand. She was wearing a sleeveless dress, highlighting her broad shoulders and
     mannequin arms. She had a small cast on her right wrist.
    “Hi Mae, I’m so glad you could visit today.” Her voice was polished, professional,
     but with something flirtatious in it. She stood in front of the camera, her hands
     clasped before her.
    “So Jackie,” Terry said, clearly enjoying being near her. “Can you tell us a bit about
     what you’re doing here?”
    Mae saw an alert on her wrist, and interrupted. “Maybe first tell us where you came
     from. Before heading up this project. That’s an interesting story.”
    “Well, thank you for saying that, Mae. I don’t know how interesting it is, but before
     joining the Circle, I was in private equity, and before that I was part of a group
     that started—”
    “You were a swimmer,” Mae prompted. “You were in the Olympics!”
    “Oh, that,” Jackie said, throwing a hand in front of her smiling mouth.
    “You won a bronze medal in 2000?”
    “I did.” Jackie’s sudden shyness was endearing. Mae checked to confirm, and saw the
     accumulation of a few thousand smiles.
    “And you had said internally that your experience as a world-class swimmer informed
     your plan here?”
    “Yes it did, Mae,” Jackie said, now seeming to grasp where Mae was going with the
     dialogue. “There are so many things we could talk about here in the Protagorean Pavilion,
     but one interesting one for your viewers is what we’re calling YouthRank. Come over
     here for a second. Let’s look at the big board.” She led Mae over to a wallscreen,about twenty feet square. “We’ve been testing a system in Iowa for the last few months,
     and now that you’re here, it seems a good time to demonstrate it. Maybe one of your
     viewers, if they’re currently in high school in Iowa, would like to send you their
     name and school?”
    “You heard the woman,” Mae said. “Anyone out there watching from Iowa and currently
     in high school?”
    Mae checked her wrist, where eleven zings came through. She showed them to Jackie,
     who nodded.
    “Okay,” Mae said. “So you just need her name?”
    “Name and school,” Jackie said.
    Mae read one of the zings. “I have here Jennifer Batsuuri, who says she attends Achievement
     Academy in Cedar Rapids.”
    “Okay,” Jackie said, turning back to the wallscreen. “Let’s bring up Jennifer Batsuuri
     from Achievement Academy.”
    The name appeared on the screen, with a school photo accompanying it. The photo revealed
     her to be an Indian-American girl of about sixteen, with braces and wearing a green
     and tan uniform. Beside her photo, two numerical counters were spinning, the numbers
     rising until they slowed and stopped, the upper figure at 1,396, the one below it
     at 179,827.
    “Well, well. Congratulations, Jennifer!” Jackie said, her eyes to the screen. She
     turned to Mae. “It seems we have a real achiever here from Achievement Academy. She’s
     ranked 1,396 out of 179,827 high school students in Iowa.”
    Mae checked the time. She needed to speed Jackie’s demonstration up. “And this is
     calculated—”
    “Jennifer’s score is the result of comparing her test results, herclass rank, her school’s relative academic strength, and a number of other factors.”
    “How’s that look to you, Jennifer?” Mae asked. She checked her wrist, but Jennifer’s
     feed was silent.
    There was a brief awkward moment where Mae and Jackie expected Jennifer to return,
     expressing her joy, but she did not come back. Mae knew it was time to move on.
    “And can this be compared against all the other students in the country, and maybe
     even the world?” she asked.
    “That’s the idea,” Jackie said. “Just as within the Circle we know our Participation
     Rank, for example, soon we’ll be able to know at any given moment where our sons or
     daughters stand against the rest of American students, and then against the world’s
     students.”
    “That sounds very helpful,” Mae said. “And would eliminate a lot of the doubt and
     stress out there.”
    “Well, think of what this would do for a parent’s understanding of their child’s chances
     for college admission. There are about twelve thousand spots for Ivy League freshmen
     every year. If your child is in the top twelve thousand nationally,