The Circle

Annie is Annie. It didn’t make perfect sense, but Mae appreciated the sentiment. Another
message gaining traction said, Not to rain on the parade, but I think there is evil in DNA, and
I would worry about Annie. Annie needs to try doubly hard to prove to someone like myself, an
African-American whose ancestors were enslaved, that she’s on the path of justice.
That comment had 98,201 smiles, and almost as many frowns, 80,198. But overall, as
Mae scrolled through the messages, there was—as always when people were asked for
their feelings—love, and there was understanding, and there was a desire to let the past
be the past.
As Mae followed the reaction, she watched the clock, knowing she was only an hour
away from her presentation, her rst in the Enlightenment’s Great Room. She felt ready,
though, with this Annie business emboldening her, making her feel, more than ever, that
she had legions at her back. She also knew that the technology itself, and the Circle
community, would determine the success of the demonstration. As she prepared, she
watched her bracelet for any sign of Annie. She had expected some reaction by now,
certainly something like gratitude, given that Annie was no doubt inundated by, buried
under, an avalanche of goodwill.
But there was nothing.
She sent Annie a series of zings, but heard no reply. She checked Annie’s whereabouts,
and found her, a pulsing red dot, in her o ce. Mae thought, brie y, about visiting her—
but decided against it. She had to focus, and perhaps it was better to let Annie take it all
in, alone. Certainly by the afternoon, she would have taken in and synthesized the
warmth of the millions who cared for her, and would be ready to properly thank Mae, to
tell her how, now with the new perspective, she could put the crimes of her relatives in
context, and could move forward, into the solvable future, and not backward, into the
chaos of an unfixable past.
“You did a very brave thing today,” Bailey said. “It was brave and it was correct.”
They were backstage in the Great Room. Mae was dressed in a black skirt and a red silk
blouse, both new. A stylist orbited around her, applying powder to Mae’s nose and
forehead, Vaseline to her lips. She was a few minutes away from her rst major

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presentation.
“Normally I would want to talk about why you’d chosen to obfuscate in the rst place,”
he said, “but your honesty was real, and I know you’ve already learned any lesson I could
give you. We’re very happy to have you here, Mae.”
“Thank you, Eamon.”
“Are you ready?”
“I think so.”
“Well, make us proud out there.”
As she stepped onto the stage, into the bright single spotlight, Mae felt con dent that
she could. Before she could get to the lucite podium, though, the applause was sudden and
thunderous and almost knocked her o her feet. She made her way to her appointed spot,
but the thunder only got louder. The audience stood, rst the front rows, then everyone.
It took Mae great effort to quell their noise and allow her to speak.
“Hello everyone, I’m Mae Holland,” she said, and the applause started again. She had to
laugh, and when she did, the room got louder. The love felt real and overwhelming.
Openness is all, she thought. Truth was its own reward. That might make a good tile, she
thought, and pictured it laser-cut in stone. This was too good, she thought, all of this. She
looked out to the Circlers, letting them clap, feeling a new strength surge through her. It
was strength amassed through giving. She gave all to them, gave them unmitigated truth,
complete transparency, and they gave her their trust, their tidal love.
“Okay, okay,” she said, nally, raising her hands, urging the audience into their seats.
“Today we’re going to demonstrate the ultimate search tool. You’ve heard about
SoulSearch, maybe a rumor here and there, and now we’re putting it to the test, in front
of the entire Circle audience here and globally. Do you feel ready?”
The crowd cheered its answer.
“What you’re about to see is completely spontaneous and unrehearsed. Even I don’t
know who we’ll be searching for today. He or she will be chosen at random from a
database of known fugitives worldwide.”
Onscreen, a giant digital globe spun.
“As you know, much of what we do here at the Circle is using social media to create a
safer and saner world. This has already been achieved in myriad ways, of course. Our
WeaponSensor program, for example, recently went live, and registers the entry of any
gun into any building, provoking an alarm that alerts all residents and the local police.
That’s been beta-tested in two neighborhoods in Cleveland for the last ve weeks, and
there’s been a 57 percent drop in gun crimes. Not bad, right?”
Mae paused for applause, feeling very comfortable, and knowing what she was about to
present would change the world, immediately and permanently.
“Fine job so far,” said the voice in her ear. It was Stenton. He’d let her know he would
be Additional Guidance today. SoulSearch was a particular interest of his, and he wanted
to be present to guide its introduction.
Mae took a breath.
“But one of the strangest facets of our world is how fugitives from justice can hide in a
world as interconnected as ours. It took us ten years to nd Osama bin Laden. D. B.

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Cooper, the infamous thief who leapt from an airplane with a suitcase of money, remains
on the lam, decades after his escape. But this kind of thing should end now. And I believe
it will, now.”
A silhouette appeared behind her. It was the shape of a human, torso and up, with the
familiar mug-shot measurements in the background.
“In seconds, the computer will select, at random, a fugitive from justice. I don’t know
who it will be. No one does. Whoever it is, though, he’s been proven a menace to our
global community, and our assertion is that whoever he or she is, SoulSearch will locate
him or her within twenty minutes. Ready?”
Murmurs filled the room, followed by scattered applause.
“Good,” Mae said. “Let’s select that fugitive.”
Pixel by pixel, the silhouette slowly became an actual and speci c person, and when
the selection was nished, a face had emerged, and Mae was shocked to nd it was a
woman. A hard-looking face, squinting into a police camera. Something about this
woman, her small eyes and straight mouth, brought to mind the photography of Dorothea
Lange—those sun-scarred faces of the Dust Bowl. But as the pro le data appeared beneath
this photo, Mae realized the woman was British and very much alive. She scanned the
information onscreen and focused the audience on the essentials.
“Okay. This is Fiona Highbridge. Forty-four years old. Born in Manchester, England.
She was convicted of triple murder in 2002. She locked her three children in a closet and
went to Spain for a month. They all starved. They were all under ve. She was sent to
prison in England but escaped, with the help of a guard who she apparently seduced. It’s
been a decade since anyone’s seen her, and police have all but given up on nding her.
But I believe we can, now that we have the tools and the participation of the Circle.”
“Good,” Stenton said into Mae’s ear. “Let’s focus now on the UK.”
“As you all know, yesterday we alerted all three billion Circle users that today we’d
have a world-changing announcement. So we currently have this many people watching
the live feed.” Mae turned back to the screen and watched a counter tick up to
1,109,001,887. “Okay, over a billion people are watching. And now let’s see how many
we have in the UK.” A second counter spun, and landed on 14,028,981. “All right. The
information we have says that her passport was revoked years ago, so Fiona is probably
still in the UK. Do you all think fourteen million Brits and a billion global participants can
find Fiona Highbridge in twenty minutes?”
The audience roared, but Mae didn’t, in fact, know if it would work. She wouldn’t have
been surprised, actually, if it didn’t—or if it took thirty minutes, an hour. But then again,
there was always something unexpected, something miraculous about the outcomes when
the full power of the Circle’s users was brought to bear. She was sure it would be done by
the end of lunch.
“Okay, everyone ready? Let’s bring up the clock.” A giant six-digit timer appeared in
the corner of the screen, indicating hours, minutes, and seconds.
“Let me show you some of the groups we have working together on this. Let’s see the
University of East Anglia.” A feed showing many hundreds of students, in a large
auditorium, appeared. They cheered. “Let’s see the city of Leeds.” Now a shot of a public

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square, full of people, bundled up in what appeared to be cold and blustery weather. “We
have dozens of groups all over the country, who will be banding together, in addition to
the power of the network as a whole. Everyone ready?” The Manchester crowd raised
their hands and cheered, and the students of East Anglia did, too.
“Good,” Mae said. “Now on your mark, get set. Go.”
Mae drew her hand down, next to the photo of Fiona Highbridge, a series of columns
showed the comment feed, the highest-ranked appearing at the top. The most popular
thus far was from a man named Simon Hensley, from Brighton: Are we sure we want to