The Circle

of actual change, they said. Change at the speed that our hearts demand.

---

But throughout the morning, the calls from the blocked number continued. She knew it
was Kalden, and she knew she wanted no part of him. Talking to him, much less seeing
him, would be a signi cant step back now. By noon, Sharma and her team announced that
they were ready for the rst actual all-campus Demoxie tryout. At 12:45 everyone would
receive ve questions, and the results would not only be tabulated immediately, but, the
Wise Men promised, the will of the people would be enacted within the day.
Mae was standing in the center of the campus, amid a few hundred Circlers eating
lunch, all of them buzzing about the imminent Demoxie demonstration, and she thought
of that painting of the Constitutional Convention, all those men in powdered wigs and
waistcoats, standing sti y, all of them wealthy white men who were only passably
interested in representing their fellow humans. They were purveyors of an innately
awed kind of democracy, where only the wealthy were elected, where their voices were
heard loudest, where they passed their seats in Congress to whatever similarly entitled
person they deemed appropriate. There had been some incremental improvements in the
system since then, maybe, but Demoxie would explode it all. Demoxie was purer, was the
only chance at direct democracy the world had ever known.
It was twelve thirty, and because Mae was feeling strong, and feeling so con dent, she
finally succumbed and answered her phone, knowing it would be Kalden.
“Hello?” she said.
“Mae,” he said, his voice terse, “this is Kalden. Don’t say my name. I’ve rigged it so the
incoming audio isn’t working.”
“No.”
“Mae. Please. This is life or death.”
Kalden held a power over her that shamed her. It made her feel weak and pliable. In
every other facet of her life she was in control, but his voice alone disassembled her, and
opened her to an array of bad decisions. A minute later she was in the stall, her audio was
off, and her phone rang again.
“I’m sure someone is tracing this,” she said.
“No one is. I bought us time.”
“Kalden, what do you want?”
“You can’t do this. Your mandatory thing, and the positive reaction it’s gotten—this is
the last step toward closing the Circle, and that can’t happen.”
“What are you talking about? This is the whole point. If you’ve been here so long, you
know more than anyone that that’s been the goal of the Circle since the beginning. I
mean, it’s a circle, stupid. It has to close. It has to be complete.”
“Mae, all along, for me at least, this kind of thing was the fear, not the goal. Once it’s
mandatory to have an account, and once all government services are channeled through
the Circle, you’ll have helped create the world’s rst tyrannical monopoly. Does it seem
like a good idea to you that a private company would control the ow of all information?
That participation, at their beck and call, is mandatory?”
“You know what Ty said, right?”
Mae heard a loud sigh. “Maybe. What did he say?”
“He said the soul of the Circle is democratic. That until everyone has equal access, and

---

that access is free, no one is free. It’s on at least a few tiles around campus.”
“Mae. Fine. The Circle’s good. And whoever invented TruYou is some kind of evil
genius. But now it has to be reined in. Or broken up.”
“Why do you care? If you don’t like it, why don’t you leave? I know you’re some spy
for some other company. Or Williamson. Some loony anarchist politician.”
“Mae, this is it. You know this a ects everyone. When were you last able to
meaningfully contact your parents? Obviously things are messed up, and you’re in a
unique position to in uence very crucial historical events here. This is it. This is the
moment where history pivots. Imagine if you could have been there before Hitler became
chancellor. Before Stalin annexed Eastern Europe. We’re on the verge of having another
very hungry, very evil empire on our hands, Mae. Do you understand?”
“Do you know how crazy you sound?”
“Mae, I know you’re doing that big plankton meeting in a couple days. The one where
the kids pitch their ideas, hoping the Circle buys them and devours them.”
“So?”
“The audience will be big. We need to reach the young, and the plankton pitching is
when your watchers will be young and vast. It’s perfect. The Wise Men will be there. I
need you to take that opportunity to warn everyone. I need you to say, ‘Let’s think about
what closing the Circle means.’ ”
“You mean completing?”
“Same thing. What it means for personal liberties, for the freedom to move, do
whatever one wants to do, to be free.”
“You’re a lunatic. I can’t believe I—” Mae meant to nish that sentence with “slept
with you” but now, even the thought of it seemed sick.
“Mae, no entity should have the power those guys have.”
“I’m hanging up.”
“Mae. Think about it. They’ll write songs about you.”
She hung up.
By the time she made it to the Great Hall, it was raucous with a few thousand Circlers.
The rest of the campus had been asked to stay at their workspaces, to demonstrate to the
world how Demoxie would work across the whole company, with Circlers voting from
their desks, from their tablets and phones and even retinally. On the screen in the Great
Room, a vast grid of SeeChange cameras showed Circlers at the ready in every corner of
every building. Sharma had explained, in one of a series of zings, that once the Demoxie
questions were sent, each Circler’s ability to do anything else—any zing, any keystroke—
would be suspended until they voted. Democracy is mandatory here! she said, and added,
much to Mae’s delight, Sharing is caring. Mae planned to vote on her wrist, and had
promised her watchers that she would take into account their input, too, if they were
quick enough. The voting, Sharma suggested, shouldn’t take longer than sixty seconds.
And then the Demoxie logo appeared on the screen, and the rst question arrived
below it.