The Circle

few days, unreachable
     but presumably somewhere on campus, provided a jolt of welcome frisson to her hours.
     The week’s workload was heavy but while thinking of Kalden, every query was some glorious
     aria. The customers sang to her and she sang back. She loved them all. She loved Risa
     Thomason in Twin Falls, Idaho. She loved Mack Moore in Gary, Indiana. She loved the
     newbies aroundher. She loved Jared’s occasionally worried visage appearing in his doorway, asking
     her to see how they could keep their aggregate over 98. And she loved that she had
     been able to ignore Francis and his constant contacting of her. His mini videos. His
     audio greeting cards. His playlists, all of them songs of apology and woe. He was
     a memory now, obliterated by Kalden and his elegant silhouette, his strong searching
     hands. She loved how she could, alone, in the bathroom, simulate the effect of those
     hands, could, with her own hand, approximate the pressure he applied to her. But where
     was he? What had been intriguing on Monday and Tuesday was approaching annoying by
     Wednesday and exasperating by Thursday. His invisibility began to feel intentional
     and even aggressive. He’d promised to be in touch, hadn’t he? Maybe he hadn’t, she
     thought. What
had
he said? She searched her memory and realized, with a kind of panic, that all he’d
     said, at the end of the night, was “Good night.” But Annie would be coming back on
     Friday, and together, with even an hour together, they could find him, know his name,
     lock him in.
    And finally, on Friday morning, Annie returned, and they made plans to meet just before
     the Dream Friday. There was supposed to be a presentation about the future of CircleMoney—a
     way to send all online purchases through the Circle and, eventually, obviate the need
     for paper currency at all—but then the presentation was cancelled. All staffers were
     asked to watch a press conference being held in Washington.
    Mae hurried down to the lobby of the Renaissance, where a few hundred Circlers were
     watching the wallscreen. A woman in ablueberry-colored suit stood behind a podium festooned with microphones, surrounded
     by aides and a pair of American flags. Below her the ticker: S ENATOR W ILLIAMSON SEEKING TO BREAK UP THE C IRCLE . It was too loud at first to hear anything, but a series of hissing shushes and volume
     increases made her voice audible. The senator was in the middle of reading a written
     statement.
    “We are here today to insist that the Senate’s Antitrust Task Force begin an investigation
     into whether or not the Circle acts as a monopoly. We believe that the Justice Department
     will see the Circle for what it is, a monopoly in its purest sense, and move to break
     it up, just as they did with Standard Oil, AT&T and every other demonstrated monopoly
     in our history. The dominance of the Circle stifles competition and is dangerous to
     our way of free-market capitalism.”
    After she was finished, the screen went back to its usual purpose, to celebrate the
     thoughts of the Circle staff, and amid the throngs that day were many thoughts. The
     consensus was that this senator was known for her occasionally outside-the-mainstream
     positions—she had been against the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan—and thus she would
     not get much traction with this antitrust crusade. The Circle was a company popular
     on both sides of the aisle, known for its pragmatic positions on virtually every political
     issue, for its generous donations, and thus this left-of-center senator wouldn’t get
     much support from her liberal colleagues—much less among the Republican ranks.
    Mae didn’t know enough about antitrust laws to have an off-the-cuff opinion. Was there
     really no competition out there? The Circle had 90 percent of the search market. Eighty-eight
     percent of the free-mail market, 92 percent of text servicing. That was, in herperspective, a simple testament to their making and delivering the best product. It
     seemed insane to punish the company for its efficiency, for its attention to detail.
     For succeeding.
    “There you are,” Mae said, seeing Annie coming toward her. “How was Mexico? And Peru?”
    “That idiot,” Annie scoffed, narrowing her eyes at the screen where the senator had
     recently appeared.
    “So you’re not concerned about this?”
    “You mean, like she’s going to actually get somewhere with this? No. But personally,
     she’s in a world