The Circle

untenable position. Can you see where we’re coming from? I say that,
     again, with all due respect and gratitude to everyone who has wished us well.”
    After dinner, her parents wanted to watch a movie, and they did so,
Basic Instinct
, at her father’s insistence. He’d seen it more than any other film, always citing
     the nods to Hitchcock, the many witty homages—though he’d never made clear his love
     of Hitchcock in thefirst place. Mae had long suspected that the movie, with its constant and varied sexual
     tensions, made him randy.
    As her parents watched the film, Mae tried to make the time more interesting by sending
     a series of zings about it, tracking and commenting on the number of moments offensive
     to the LGBT community. She was getting a great response, but then saw the time, 9:30,
     and figured she should get on the road and back to the Circle.
    “Well, I’m gonna head out,” she said.
    Mae thought she caught something in her father’s eye, some quick look to her mother
     that might have said
at last
, but she could have been mistaken. She put on her coat and her mother met her at
     the door, an envelope in her hand.
    “Mercer asked us to give this to you.”
    Mae took it, a simple business-sized envelope. It wasn’t even addressed to her. No
     name, nothing.
    She kissed her mother’s cheek, left the house, the air outside still warm. She pulled
     out and drove toward the highway. But the letter was on her lap, and her curiosity
     overtook her. She pulled over and opened it.
    Dear Mae,
    Yes, you can and should read this on camera. I expected that you would, so I’m writing
     this letter not only to you, but to your “audience.” Hello, audience.
    She could almost hear his introductory intake of breath, his settling in before an
     important speech.
    I can’t see you anymore, Mae. Not that we had such a constant or perfect friendship
     anyway, but I can’t be your friend and also part of your experiment. I’ll be sad to
     lose you, as you have been important in my life. But we’ve taken very different evolutionary
     paths and very soon we’ll be too far apart to communicate.
    If you saw your parents, and your mom gave you this note, then you saw the effect
     all your stuff has had on them. I wrote this note after seeing them, both of them
     strung out, exhausted by the deluge you unleashed on them. It’s too much, Mae. And
     it’s not right. I helped them cover some of the cameras. I even bought the fabric.
     I was happy to do it. They don’t want to be smiled upon, or frowned upon, or zinged.
     They want to be alone. And not watched. Surveillance shouldn’t be the tradeoff for
     any goddamn service we get.
    If things continue this way, there will be two societies—or at least I hope there
     will be two—the one you’re helping create, and an alternative to it. You and your
     ilk will live, willingly, joyfully, under constant surveillance, watching each other
     always, commenting on each other, voting and liking and disliking each other, smiling
     and frowning, and otherwise doing nothing much else.
    Already there were comments pouring through her wrist.
Mae, were you ever so young and dumb? How did you end up dating a zero like this?
That was the most popular, soon superseded by
Just looked up his picture. Does he have some Sasquatch somewhere in the family tree?
    She continued reading the letter:
    I will always wish all good things for you, Mae. I also hope, though I realize how
     unlikely it is, that somewhere down the line, when the triumphalism of you and your
     peers—the unrestrained Manifest Destiny of it all—goes too far and collapses into
     itself, that you’ll regain your sense of perspective, and your humanity. Hell, what
     am I saying? It’s already gone too far. What I should say is that I await the day
     when some vocal minority finally rises up to
say
it’s gone too far, and that this tool, which is far more insidious than any human
     invention that’s come before it, must be checked, regulated, turned back, and that,
     most of all, we need options for opting out. We are living in a tyrannical state now,
     where we are not allowed to—
    Mae checked how many pages were left. Four more double-sided sheets, likely containing
     more of the same directionless blather. She threw the pile on the passenger seat.
     Poor Mercer. He’d always been a blowhard, and he never knew his audience. And though
     she knew he was using her parents against her,