The Circle

Parliament lackeys. I think one just pulled out a monocle. Give me distraction.
While she decided just how much to tell Annie, Mae teased out details. In a bathroom.
Annie replied immediately.
The old man? In a bathroom? Did you use the diaper-changing station?
No. In a stall. And he was VIGOROUS.
A voice behind Mae said her name. Mae turned to nd Gina and her enormous nervous
smile. “You have a second?” Mae attempted to turn away the screen containing the
dialogue with Annie, but Gina had already seen it.
“You’re talking to Annie?” she said. “You guys really are tight, huh?”
Mae nodded, turned her screen, and all light left Gina’s face. “Is this still a good time to
explain Conversion Rate and Retail Raw?”
Mae had forgotten, entirely, that Gina was supposed to come to demonstrate a new
layer.
“Sure,” Mae said.
“Has Annie told you about this stuff already?” Gina said, her face looking very fragile.
“No,” Mae said, “she hasn’t.”
“She didn’t tell you about Conversion Rate?”
“No.”
“Or Retail Raw?”
“No.”

---

Gina’s face brightened. “Oh. Okay. Good. So we’ll do it now?” Gina’s face searched
Mae’s, as if looking for the slightest sign of doubt, which Gina would take as reason to
collapse entirely.
“Great,” Mae said, and Gina brightened again.
“Good. Let’s start with the Conversion Rate. This is fairly obvious anyway, but the
Circle would not exist, and would not grow, and would not be able to get closer to
completing the Circle, if there were not actual purchases being made, actual commerce
spurred. We’re here to be a gateway to all the world’s information, but we are supported
by advertisers who hope to reach customers through us, right?”
Gina smiled, her large white teeth brie y overtaking her face. Mae was trying to
concentrate, but she was thinking of Annie, in her Parliament meeting, who was no doubt
thinking of Mae and Kalden. And when Mae thought of herself and Kalden, she thought of
his hands on her waist, pulling her gently down onto him, her eyes closed, her mind
enlarging all—
Gina was still talking. “But how to provoke, how to stimulate purchases—that’s the
conversion rate. You can zing, you could comment on and rate and highlight any product,
but can you translate all this into action? Leveraging your credibility to spur action—this
is crucial, okay?”
Now Gina was sitting next to Mae, her ngers on her keyboard. She brought up a
complex spreadsheet. At that moment, another message from Annie arrived on Mae’s
second screen. She turned it slightly. Now I have to be the boss. You got his last name this
time?
Mae saw that Gina was reading the message, too, making no pretense of doing
otherwise.
“Go ahead,” Gina said. “That looks important.”
Mae reached over Gina, to her keyboard, and typed the lie she knew, moments after
leaving the bathroom, she would tell Annie. Yes. I know all.
Immediately Annie’s reply arrived: And his name is?
Gina looked at this message. “That must be so crazy, to just get messages from Annie
Allerton.”
“I guess so,” Mae said, and typed Can’t tell.
Gina read Mae’s message and seemed less interested in the content of it than the fact
that this back-and-forth was actually happening in front of her. “You guys just message
each other like it’s no big deal?” she asked.
Mae softened the impact. “Not all day.”
“Not all day?” Gina’s face came alive with a tentative smile.
Annie burst through. You’re actually not telling me? Tell me now.
“Sorry,” Mae said. “Almost done.” She typed No. You’ll hassle him.
Send me a picture, Annie wrote.
No. But I have one, Mae typed, executing the second lie she knew was necessary. She
did have a photo of him, and once she realized she did, and that she could tell Annie this,
and be telling the truth without telling all of it, and that this photo, along with the white
lie of knowing his actual last name, would allow her to continue with this man, Kalden,

---

who very well might be a danger to the Circle, she knew she would use this second lie
with Annie, and it would buy her more time—more time to rise and fall on Kalden, while
trying to ascertain exactly who he was and what he wanted from her.