The Circle

they assumed we were
blue
bloods, Mae! Not when they thought we were
Mayflower
people with this unimpeachable lineage! Now they take it
really
fucking seriously. My mom hasn’t left the house in two days. I don’t want to know
     what they find next.”
    What they found next, two days later, was far worse. Mae didn’t know, ahead of time,
     precisely what it was, but she did know that Annie knew, and that Annie had sent a
     very strange zing out into the world. It said
Actually, I don’t know if we should know everything
. When they met in the stalls, Mae couldn’t believe Annie’s fingers had actually typed
     that sentence. The Circle couldn’t delete it, of course, but someone—Mae hoped it
     was Annie—had amended it to say
We shouldn’t know everything—without the proper storage ready. You don’t want to lose
     it!
    “Of course I sent it,” Annie said. “The first one anyway.”
    Mae had held out hope that it was some terrible glitch.
    “How could you have sent that?”
    “It’s what I believe, Mae. You have no idea.”
    “I
know
I don’t. What idea do you have? You know what kind of shit you’re in? How can you
     of all people espouse an idea like that? You’re the poster child for open access to
     the past and now you’re saying … What are you saying, anyway?”
    “Oh fuck, I don’t know. I just know I’m done. I need to shut it down.”
    “Shut what down?”
    “PastPerfect. Anything like it.”
    “You know you can’t.”
    “I’m planning to try.”
    “You must
already
be in deep shit.”
    “I am. But the Wise Men owe me this one favor. I can’t handle this. I mean, they’ve
     already quote-unquote relieved me of some of my duties. Whatever. I don’t even care.
     But if they don’t shut it down I’ll go into some kind of coma. I already feel like
     I can barely stand or breathe.”
    They sat in silence for a moment. Mae wondered if she shouldn’t leave. Annie was losing
     her hold on something very central about herself; she felt volatile, capable of rash
     and irrevocable acts. Talking to her, at all, was a risk.
    Now she heard Annie gasping.
    “Annie. Breathe.”
    “I just told you I can’t. I haven’t slept in two days.”
    “So what happened?” Mae asked.
    “Oh fuck, everything. Nothing. They found some weird stuff with my parents. I mean,
     a lot of weird stuff.”
    “When does it go live?”
    “Tomorrow.”
    “Okay. Maybe it’s not as bad as you think.”
    “It’s so much worse than you can imagine.”
    “Tell me. I bet it’s fine.”
    “It’s not
fine
, Mae. It’s anything but
fine
. The first thing is that I found out my dad and mom had some kind of open marriage
     or something. I haven’t even asked them about it. But there are photos andvideo of them with all kinds of other people. I mean, like, serial adultery on both
     sides. Is that
fine
?”
    “How do you know it was an affair? I mean, if they were just walking next to someone?
     And it was the eighties, right?”
    “More like the nineties. And trust me. It’s definitive.”
    “Like sex photos?”
    “No. But kissy photos. I mean, there’s one with my dad with his hand around some woman’s
     waist, his other hand on her tit. I mean, sick shit. Other pictures with Mom and some
     bearded guy, a series of naked photos. Apparently the guy died, had this stash of
     photos, they were bought at some garage sale and scanned and put in the cloud. Then
     when they did the global facial-rec, ta-da, Mom’s naked with some biker guy. I mean,
     the two of them just standing there sometimes, naked, like posing for prom.”
    “I’m sorry.”
    “And who
took
the pictures? There’s some third guy in the room? Who
was
that? A helpful neighbor?”
    “Have you asked them about it?”
    “No. But that’s the better part of it. I was about to confront them when this other
     thing popped up. It’s so much worse that I don’t even care about the affairs. I mean,
     the pictures were nothing compared to the video they found.”
    “What about the video?”
    “Okay. This was one of the rare times the two of them were actually together—at night
     at least. This is from some video taken at some pier. There was a security camera
     there, because I guess they store stuff in the warehouses there on the water. So there’s
     a tape of my parents hanging around this pier at night.”
    “Like a sex tape?”
    “No, it’s much worse. Oh fuck, it’s so bad. Mae, it’s fucking so twisted. You know
     my