The Circle

Conversion and Retail Raw numbers—
    “Mae. Stop. Please stop.” Mercer was staring at her, his eyes small and round. “I
     don’t want to get loud here, in your parents’ home, but either you stop or I have
     to walk out.”
    “Just hold on a sec,” she said, and scrolled through her messages, looking for one
     that she was sure would impress him. She’d seen a message come in from Dubai, and
     if she found it, she knew, his resistance would fall away.
    “Mae,” she heard her mother say. “Mae.”
    But Mae couldn’t locate the message. Where was it? While she scrolled, she heard the
     scraping of a chair. But she was so close to finding it that she didn’t look up. When
     she did, she found Mercer gone and her parents staring at her.
    “I think it’s nice you want to support Mercer,” her mother said, “but I just don’t
     understand why you do this now. We’re trying to enjoy a nice dinner.”
    Mae stared at her mother, absorbing all the disappointment and bewilderment that she
     could stand, then ran outside and reached Mercer as he was backing out of the driveway.
    She got into the passenger seat. “Stop.”
    His eyes were dull, lifeless. He put the car in park and rested his hands in his lap,
     exhaling with all the condescension he could muster.
    “What the hell is your problem, Mercer?”
    “Mae, I asked you to stop, and you didn’t.”
    “Did I hurt your feelings?”
    “No. You hurt my brain. You make me think you’re batshit crazy. I asked you to stop
     and you wouldn’t.”
    “I wouldn’t stop trying to help you.”
    “I didn’t ask for your help. And I didn’t give you permission to post a photo of my
     work.”
    “Your
work
.” She heard something barbed in her voice that she knew wasn’t right or productive.
    “You’re snide, Mae, and you’re mean, and you’re callous.”
    “What? I’m the
opposite
of callous, Mercer. I’m trying to help you because I believe in what you do.”
    “No you don’t. Mae, you’re just unable to allow anything to live inside a room. My
     work exists in one room. It doesn’t exist anywhere else. And that’s how I intend it.”
    “So you don’t want business?”
    Mercer looked through his windshield, then leaned back. “Mae, I’ve never felt more
     that there is some cult taking over the world. Youknow what someone tried to sell me the other day? Actually, I bet it’s somehow affiliated
     with the Circle. Have you heard of Homie? The thing where your phone scans your house
     for the bar codes of every product—”
    “Right. Then it orders new stuff whenever you’re getting low. It’s brilliant.”
    “You think this is okay?” Mercer said. “You know how they framed it for me? It’s the
     usual utopian vision. This time they were saying it’ll reduce waste. If stores know
     what their customers want, then they don’t overproduce, don’t overship, don’t have
     to throw stuff away when it’s not bought. I mean, like everything else you guys are
     pushing, it sounds perfect, sounds progressive, but it carries with it more control,
     more central tracking of everything we do.”
    “Mercer, the Circle is a group of people like me. Are you saying that somehow we’re
     all in a room somewhere, watching you, planning world domination?”
    “No. First of all, I
know
it’s all people like you. And that’s what’s so scary.
Individually
you don’t know what you’re doing
collectively
. But secondly, don’t presume the benevolence of your leaders. For years there was
     this happy time when those controlling the major internet conduits were actually decent
     enough people. Or at least they weren’t predatory and vengeful. But I always worried,
     what if someone was willing to use this power to punish those who challenged them?”
    “What are you saying?”
    “You think it’s just a coincidence that every time some congresswoman or blogger talks
     about monopoly, they suddenly become ensnared in some terrible sex-porn-witchcraft
     controversy? For twenty years, the internet was capable of ruining anyone in minutes,
     but notuntil your Three Wise Men, or at least one of them, was anyone willing to do it. You’re
     saying this is news to you?”
    “You’re so paranoid. Your conspiracy theory brain always depressed me, Mercer. You
     sound so ignorant. And saying that Homie is some scary new thing, I mean, for a hundred
     years there were milkmen who brought you milk. They knew when you needed it. There
     were