The Circle

and appeared onscreen, showing
     a very clear picture of Mercer driving.
    Mae knew this camera had only one-way audio, so she couldn’t speak to Mercer. But
     she knew she had to. He wouldn’t know, yet, that it was she who was behind this. She
     needed to assure him this wasn’t some creepy stalking expedition. That it was his
     friend Mae, simply demonstrating their SoulSearch program, and all she wanted was
     to talk to him for a second, to laugh about this together.
    But as the woods raced past his window, a blur of brown and white and green, Mercer’s
     mouth was a terrible slash of anger and fear. He was turning the truck frequently,
     recklessly, and seemed to be rising through the mountains. Mae worried about the ability
     of the participants to catch up to him, but knew they had the SeeChange camera, which
     was offering a view so clear and cinematic that it was wildly entertaining. He looked
     like his hero, Steve McQueen, furious but controlled while operating his heaving truck.
     Mae briefly had the thought of some kind of streaming show they could create, where
     people simply broadcast themselves driving through interesting landscapes at high
     velocity.
Drive, She Said
, they could call it. Mae’s reverie was interrupted by Mercer’s voice, filled with
     venom: “Fuck!” he yelled. “Fuck you!”
    He was looking at the camera. He’d found it. And then the camera’s view was descending.
     He was rolling down the window. Mae wondered if it would hold, if its adhesive would
     trump the strength of the automatic window, but the answer arrived in seconds, as
     the camera was shaved off the window, its eye swinging wildly as it descended and
     fell, showing woods, then pavement, then, as it settled on the road, sky.
    The clock read 11:51.
    For a long few minutes, there were no views of Mercer at all. Mae assumed that at
     any moment, one of the cars in pursuit would find him, but the views from all four
     cars showed no sign of him at all. They were all on different roads, and their audio
     made clear they had no idea where he was.
    “Okay,” Mae said, knowing she was about to wow the audience. “Release the drones!”
     she roared in a voice meant to invoke and mock some witchy villain.
    It took agonizingly long—three minutes or so—but soon all the available private drones
     in the area, eleven of them, were in the air, each operated by its owner, and all
     were on the mountain where, it had been surmised, Mercer was driving. Their own GPS
     systems kept them from colliding, and, coordinating with the satellite view, they
     found his powder-blue truck in sixty-seven seconds. The clock was at 15:04.
    The drones’ camera views were now brought onscreen, giving the audience an incredible
     grid of images, all of the drones well-spaced, providing a kaleidoscopic look at the
     truck racing up the mountain road through heavy pines. A few of the smaller drones
     were able to swoop down and get close, while most of them, too large to weavebetween the trees, followed from above. One of the smaller drones, called ReconMan10,
     had dropped through the tree canopy and seemed to attach itself to Mercer’s driver-side
     window. The view was steady and clear. Mercer turned to it, realizing its presence
     and tenacity, and a look of unmitigated horror transformed his face. Mae had never
     seen him look like this before.
    “Can someone get me on audio for the drone called ReconMan10?” Mae asked. She knew
     his window was still open. If she spoke through the drone’s speaker, he’d hear her,
     know it was her. She received the signal that the audio was activated.
    “Mercer. It’s me, Mae! Can you hear me?”
    There was some faint sign of recognition on his face. He squinted, and looked toward
     the drone again, disbelieving.
    “Mercer. Stop driving. It’s just me. Mae.” And then, almost laughing, she said, “I
     just wanted to say hi.”
    The audience roared.
    Mae was warmed by the laughter in the room, and expected that Mercer would laugh,
     too, and would stop, and would shake his head, in admiration for the wonderful power
     of the tools at her disposal. What she wanted him to say was, “Okay, you got me. I
     surrender. You win.”
    But he wasn’t smiling, and he wasn’t stopping. He wasn’t even looking at the drone
     anymore. It was as if he’d decided on a new path, and was locked into it.
    “Mercer!” she said, in mock-authoritative voice. “Mercer, stop the car and surrender.