The Circle

of the groups we have working together on this. Let’s see the
     University of East Anglia.” A feed showing many hundreds of students, in a large auditorium,
     appeared. They cheered. “Let’s see the city of Leeds.” Now a shot of a public square,
     full of people, bundled up in what appeared to be cold and blustery weather. “We have
     dozens of groups all over the country, who will be banding together, in addition to
     the power of the network as a whole. Everyone ready?” The Manchester crowd raised
     their hands and cheered, and the students of East Anglia did, too.
    “Good,” Mae said. “Now on your mark, get set. Go.”
    Mae drew her hand down, next to the photo of Fiona Highbridge, a series of columns
     showed the comment feed, the highest-ranked appearing at the top. The most popular
     thus far was from a man named Simon Hensley, from Brighton:
Are we sure we want to find this hag? She looks like the Scarecrow from Wizard of
     Oz
.
    There were laughs throughout the auditorium.
    “Okay. Time to get serious,” Mae said.
    Another column featured users’ own photos, posted according to relevance. Within three
     minutes, there were 201 photos posted, most of them close corollaries to the face
     of Fiona Highbridge. On screen, votes were tallying, indicating which of the photos
     were most likely her. In four minutes it was down to five prime candidates. One was
     in Bend, Oregon. Another was in Banff, Canada. Another in Glasgow. Then something
     magical happened, something only possible when the full Circle was working toward
     a single goal: two of the photos, the crowd realized, were taken in the same town:
     Carmarthen, in Wales. Both looked like the same woman, and both looked exactly like
     Fiona Highbridge.
    In another ninety seconds someone identified this woman. She was known as Fatima Hilensky,
     which the crowd voted was a promising indicator. Would someone trying to disappear
     change their name completely, or would they feel safer with the same initials, with
     a name like this—different enough to throw off any casual pursuers, but allowing her
     to use a slight variation on her old signature?
    Seventy-nine watchers lived in or near Carmarthen, and three of them posted messages
     claiming they saw her more or less daily. This was promising enough, but then, in
     a comment that quickly shot to the top with hundreds of thousands of votes, a woman,
     Gretchen Karapcek, posting from her mobile phone, said she worked with the woman in
     the photo, at a commercial laundry outside Swansea. The crowd urged Gretchen to find
     her, there and then, and capture her by photo or video. Immediately, Gretchen turned
     on the video function on her phone and—though there were still millions of people
     investigatingother leads—most viewers were convinced Gretchen had the right person. Mae, and most
     watchers, were riveted, watching Gretchen’s camera weave through enormous, steaming
     machines, coworkers looking curiously at her as she passed quickly through the cavernous
     space and ever-closer to a woman in the distance, thin and bent, feeding a bedsheet
     between two massive wheels.
    Mae checked the clock. Six minutes, 33 seconds. She was sure this was Fiona Highbridge.
     There was something in the shape of her head, something in her mannerisms, and now,
     as she raised her eyes and caught sight of Gretchen’s camera gliding toward her, a
     clear recognition that something very serious was happening. It was not a look of
     pure surprise or bewilderment. It was the look of an animal caught rooting through
     the garbage. A feral look of guilt and recognition.
    For a second, Mae held her breath, and it seemed that the woman would give up, and
     would speak to the camera, admitting her crimes and acknowledging she’d been found.
    Instead, she ran.
    For a long moment, the holder of the camera stood, and her camera showed only Fiona
     Highbridge—for there was no doubt now that it was her—as she fled quickly through
     the room and up the stairs.
    “Follow her!” Mae finally yelled, and Gretchen Karapcek and her camera began pursuit.
     Mae worried, momentarily, that this would be some botched effort, a fugitive found
     but then quickly lost by a fumbling coworker. The camera jostled wildly, up the concrete
     stairs, through a cinderblock hallway, and finally approached a door, the white sky
     visible through its small square window.
    And when the door broke open, Mae saw, with great relief,