The Circle

different. You
     want to choose a second?”
    And so they ran through the signals again, and she chose a distant foghorn.
    “Or,” he said, “there’s a random one that some people choose. Listen to this. Actually,
     hold on a second.” He lost his focus on Mae and talked into his headset. “Demo Mae
     voice M-A-E.” Now he turned to Mae again. “Okay, here it goes.”
    Mae heard her own voice say her name, in something just above a whisper. It was very
     intimate and sent a strange swirling wind through her.
    “That’s your own voice, right?”
    Mae was flushed, bewildered—it didn’t sound like her at all—but she managed to nod.
    “The program does a voice capture from your phone and then we can form any words.
     Even your own name! So that should be your second signal?”
    “Yes,” Mae said. She wasn’t sure she wanted to hear her own voice saying her own name,
     repeatedly, but she knew, too, that she wanted to hear it again as soon as possible.
     It was so odd, just a few inches from normal.
    “Good,” Pete said. “So we’re done. You get back to your desk, and the first bell will
     come on. Then you run through as many as you can this afternoon—certainly the first
     five hundred. Good?”
    “Good.”
    “Oh, and when you get back to your desk, you’ll see a new screen. Every so often,
     one of the questions will be accompanied by an image if it’s necessary. We keep these
     to a minimum, though, because we know you need to concentrate.”
    When Mae got back to her desk, a new screen, her fifth, had been set up just to the
     right of her newbie-question screen. She had a few minutes before one o’clock, so
     she tested the system. The first bell rang, and she nodded. A woman’s voice, sounding
     like a newscaster’s, asked her, “For vacations, are you inclined toward one of relaxation,
     like a beach or luxury hotel, or are you inclined toward adventure, like a white-water
     rafting trip?”
    Mae answered “Adventure.”
    A tiny bell rang, faint and pleasant.
    “Thank you. What sort of adventure?” the voice asked.
    “White-water rafting,” Mae answered.
    Another tiny bell. Mae nodded.
    “Thank you. For white-water rafting, do you prefer a multi-day trip, with overnight
     camping, or a day trip?”
    Mae looked up to find the room filling with the rest of the pod, returning from lunch.
     It was 12:58.
    “Multi-day,” she said.
    Another bell. Mae nodded.
    “Thank you. How does a trip down the Grand Canyon sound?”
    “Smile.”
    The bell sang faintly. Mae nodded.
    “Thank you. Would you be willing to pay 1,200 dollars for a weeklong trip down the
     Grand Canyon?” the voice asked.
    “Meh,” Mae said, and looked up to see Jared, standing on his chair.
    “The chute is open!” he yelled.
    Almost immediately twelve customer queries appeared. Mae answered the first, got a
     92, followed up, and it rose to 97. She answered the next two, for an average of 96.
    “Mae.”
    It was a woman’s voice. She looked around, thinking it might be Renata. But there
     was no one near her.
    “Mae.”
    Now she realized it was her own voice, the prompt she’d agreed to. It was louder than
     she’d expected, louder than the questions or the bell, and yet it was seductive, thrilling.
     She turned the volume down on the headset, and again the voice came: “Mae.”
    Now, with it turned down, it wasn’t nearly as intriguing, so she returned the volume
     to the previous level.
    “Mae.”
    It was her voice, she knew, but then somehow it sounded less like her and more like
     some older, wiser version of herself. Mae had the thought that if she had an older
     sister, an older sister who had seen more than she had, that sister’s voice would
     sound like this.
    “Mae,” the voice said again.
    The voice seemed to lift Mae off her seat and spin her around. Every time she heard
     it, her heart sped up.
    “Mae.”
    “Yes,” she said finally.
    But nothing happened. It was not programmed to answer questions. She hadn’t been told
     how to respond. She tried nodding. “Thank you, Mae,” her voice said, and the bell
     rang.
    “Would you be willing to pay 1,200 dollars for a weeklong trip down the Grand Canyon?”
     the first voice asked again.
    “Yes.”
    The bell rang.
    It was all easy enough to assimilate. The first day, she’d gotten through 652 of the
     survey questions, and congratulatory messages came from Pete Ramirez, Dan and Jared.
     Feeling strong and wanting to impress them