The Circle

chip.”
    “Sure, but who has that expertise? How many electronic-genius pedophiles are there?
     Very few, I’m guessing. So immediately you take all child abduction, rape, murder,
     and you reduce it by 99 percent. And the price is that the kids have a chip in their
     ankle. You want a living kid with a chip in his ankle, a kid who you know will grow
     up safe, a kid who can again run down to the park, ride his bike to school, all that?”
    “You’re about to say
or
.”
    “Right, or do you want a dead kid? Or years of worry every time your kid walks to
     the bus stop? I mean, we’ve polled parents worldwide, and after they get over the
     initial squeamishness, we get an 88 percent approval. Once they get it in their head
     that this is possible, we have them yelling at us, ‘Why don’t we already have this?
     When’s it coming?’ I mean, this will begin a new golden age for young people. An age
     without worry. Shit. Now you’re late. Look.”
    He pointed to the clock. 1:02.
    Mae ran.
    The afternoon was relentless, and her score barely reached 93. By the end of the day,
     she was exhausted, and she turned to her second screen to find a message from Dan.
Got a second? Gina from CircleSocial was hoping to grab a few minutes with you
.
    She wrote him back:
How about in fifteen? I have a handful of follow-ups to do, and haven’t peed since
     noon
. This was the truth. She hadn’t left her chair in three hours, and she also wanted
     to see if she could get the score above 93. She was sure this, her low aggregate,
     was why Dan wanted her to meet with Gina.
    Dan wrote only,
Thank you Mae
, words that she turned over in her mind as she made her way to the bathroom. Was
     he thanking her for being available in fifteen minutes, or thanking her, grimly, for
     an unwanted level of hygienic intimacy?
    Mae was almost at the bathroom door when she saw a man, in skinny green jeans and
     a snug long-sleeved shirt, standing in thehallway, under a tall narrow window, staring at his phone. Bathed in a blue-white
     light, he seemed to be waiting for instructions from his screen.
    Mae went inside.
    When she was finished, she opened the door to find the man in the same place, now
     looking out the window.
    “You look lost,” Mae said.
    “Nah. Just figuring out something before, you know, heading upstairs. You work over
     here?”
    “I do. I’m new. In CE.”
    “CE?”
    “Customer Experience.”
    “Oh right. We used to just call it Customer Service.”
    “So I take it you’re not new?”
    “Me? No, no. I’ve been here a little while. Not so much in this building.” He smiled
     and looked out the window, and with his face turned away, Mae took him in. His eyes
     were dark, his face oval, and his hair was grey, almost white, but he couldn’t have
     been older than thirty. He was thin, sinewy, and his skinny jeans and tight long-sleeve
     jersey gave his silhouette the quick thick-thin brushstrokes of calligraphy.
    He turned back to her, blinking, scoffing at himself and his poor manners. “Sorry.
     I’m Kalden.”
    “Kalden?”
    “It’s Tibetan,” he said. “It means golden something. My parents always wanted to go
     to Tibet but never got closer than Hong Kong. And your name?”
    “Mae,” she said, and they shook hands. His handshake was sturdy but perfunctory. He’d
     been taught how to shake hands, Mae guessed, but had never seen the point.
    “So you’re not lost,” Mae said, realizing she was expected back at her desk; she’d
     already been late once today.
    Kalden sensed it. “Oh. You have to go. Can I walk you there? Just to see where you
     work?”
    “Um,” Mae said, now feeling very unsettled. “Sure.” If she hadn’t known better, and
     couldn’t see the ID cord around his neck, she would have assumed Kalden, with his
     pointed but unfocused curiosity, was either someone who’d wandered off the street,
     or some kind of corporate spy. But she didn’t know anything. She’d been at the Circle
     a week. This could be some sort of test. Or just an eccentric fellow Circler.
    Mae led him back to her desk.
    “It’s very clean,” he said.
    “I know. I just started, remember.”
    “And I know some of the Wise Men like the Circle desks very tidy. You ever see those
     guys around here?”
    “Who? The Wise Men?” Mae scoffed. “Not here. Not yet at least.”
    “Yeah, I guess not,” Kalden said and crouched, his head at the level of Mae’s shoulder.
     “Can I see what you