The Circle

smile, meh, yes, Prada, Converse, no, frown, frown, smile, Paris.”
    Watching him, the solution to Annie’s problem seemed obvious. She needed support.
     Annie needed to know she wasn’t alone. And then it all clicked. Of course the solution
     was built into the Circle itself. There were millions of people out there who no doubt
     wouldstand behind Annie, and would show their support in myriad unexpected and heartfelt
     ways. Suffering is only suffering if it’s done in silence, in solitude. Pain experienced
     in public, in view of loving millions, was no longer pain. It was communion.
    Mae turned from the doorway and made her way to the roofdeck. She had a duty here,
     not only to Annie, her friend, but to her watchers. And being witness to the honesty
     and openness of the newbies, of this young man with his wild hair, made her feel hypocritical.
     As she climbed the stairs, she assessed her options and herself. Moments ago, she’d
     purposely obfuscated. She’d been the opposite of open, the opposite of honest. She’d
     hidden audio from the world, which was tantamount to lying to the world, to the millions
     who assumed she was being straightforward always, transparent always.
    She looked out over the campus. Her watchers wondered what she was looking at, why
     the silence.
    “I want you all to see what I see,” she said.
    Annie wanted to hide, to suffer alone, to cover up. And Mae wanted to honor this,
     to be loyal. But could loyalty to
one
trump loyalty to
millions
? Wasn’t it this kind of thinking, favoring the personal and temporary gain over the
     greater good, that made possible any number of historical horrors? Again the solution
     seemed in front of her, all around her. Mae needed to help Annie and re-purify her
     own practice of transparency, and both could be done with one brave act. She checked
     the time. She had two hours until her SoulSearch presentation. She stepped onto the
     roofdeck, organizing her thoughts into some lucid statement. Soon she made her way
     to the bathroom, to the scene of the crime, as it were, and by the time she’d arrived,
     and saw herself in the mirror, she knew what she needed to say. She took a breath.
    “Hello, watchers. I have an announcement to make, and it’s a painful one. But I think
     it’s the right thing to do. Just an hour ago, as many of you know, I entered this
     bathroom, ostensibly under the auspices of doing my business in the second stall you
     see over here.” She turned to the row of stalls. “But when I entered, I sat down,
     and with the audio off, I had a private conversation with a friend of mine, Annie
     Allerton.”
    Already a few hundred messages were shooting through her wrist, the most-favored one
     thus far already forgiving her:
Mae, bathroom talk is allowed! Don’t worry. We believe in you
.
    “To those sending your good words to me, I want to thank you,” Mae said. “But more
     important than my own admission is what Annie and I talked about. You see, many of
     you know that Annie’s been part of an experiment here, a program to trace one’s ancestry
     as far back as technology will allow. And she’s found some unfortunate things in the
     deep recesses of her history. Some of her ancestors committed serious misdeeds, and
     it’s got her sick about it all. Worse, tomorrow, another unfortunate episode will
     be revealed, this one more recent, and perhaps more painful.”
    Mae glanced at her bracelet, seeing that the active viewers had nearly doubled in
     the last minute, to 3,202,984. She knew that many people kept her feed on their screens
     as they worked, but were rarely actively watching. Now it was clear her impending
     announcement had the focused attention of millions. And, she thought, she needed the
     compassion of these millions to cushion tomorrow’s fall. Annie deserved it.
    “So my friends, I think we need to harness the power of the Circle. We need to harness
     the compassion out there, of all the people outthere who already know and love Annie, or who can empathize with Annie. I hope you
     can all send her your good wishes, your own stories of finding out about some dark
     spots in your family past, and make Annie feel less alone. Tell her you’re on her
     side. Tell her you like her just the same, and that some distant ancestor’s crimes
     have no bearing on her, don’t change the way you think about Annie.”
    Mae finished by providing Annie’s email address, Zing feed and profile page. The