by Dave Eggers
He turned again toward the screen and read it, inviting the audience to commit it to memory.
ALL THAT HAPPENS MUST BE KNOWN.
He turned back to the audience and smiled.
“Okay, now I want to bring it back home. My mother’s eighty-one. She doesn’t get around as easily as she once did. A year ago she fell and broke her hip, and since then I’ve been concerned about her. I asked her to have some security cameras installed, so I could access them on a closed circuit, but she refused. But now I have peace of mind. Last weekend, while she was napping—”
A wave of laughter rippled through the audience.
“Forgive me! Forgive me!” he said, “I had no choice. She wouldn’t have let me do it otherwise. So I snuck in, and I installed cameras in every room. They’re so small she’ll never notice. I’ll show you really quick. Can we show cameras 1 to 5 in my mom’s house?”
A grid of images popped up, including his mom, padding down a bright hallway in a towel. A roar of laughter erupted.
“Oops. Let’s drop that one.” The image disappeared. “Anyway. The point is that I know she’s safe, and that gives me a sense of peace. As we all know here at the Circle, transparency leads to peace of mind. No longer do I have to wonder, ‘How’s Mom?’ No longer do I have to wonder, ‘What’s happening in Myanmar?’
“Now, we’re making a million of this model, and my prediction is that within a year we’ll have a million accessible live streams. Within five years, fifty million. Within ten years, two billion cameras. There will be very few populated areas that we won’t be able to access from the screens in our hands.”
The audience roared again. Someone yelled out, “We want it now!”
Bailey continued. “Instead of searching the web, only to find some edited video with terrible quality, now you go to SeeChange, you type in Myanmar. Or you type in your high school boyfriend’s name. Chances are there’s someone who’s set up a camera nearby, right? Why shouldn’t your curiosity about the world be rewarded? You want to see Fiji but can’t get there? SeeChange. You want to check on your kid at school? SeeChange. This is ultimate transparency. No filter. See everything. Always.”
Mae leaned toward Annie. “This is incredible.”
“I know, right?” Annie said.
“Now, do these cameras have to be stationary?” Bailey said, raising a scolding finger. “Of course not. I happen to have a dozen helpers all over the world right now, wearing the cameras around their necks. Let’s visit them, shall we? Can I get Danny’s camera up?”
An image of Machu Picchu appeared onscreen. It looked like a postcard, a view perched high above the ancient ruins. And then it started moving, down toward the site. The crowd gasped, then cheered.
“That’s a live image, though I guess that’s obvious. Hi Danny. Now let’s get Sarah on Mount Kenya.” Another image appeared on the great screen, this one of the shale fields high on the mountain. “Can you point us toward the peak, Sarah?” The camera panned up, revealing the peak of the mountain, enshrouded in fog. “See, this opens up the possibility of visual surrogates. Imagine I’m bedridden, or too frail to explore the mountain myself. I send someone up with a camera around her neck, and I can experience it all in real time. Let’s do that in a few more places.” He presented live images of Paris, Kuala Lumpur, a London pub.
“Now let’s experiment a bit, using all of this together. I’m sitting at home. I log on and want to get a sense of the world. Show me traffic on 101. Streets of Jakarta. Surfing at Bolinas. My mom’s house. Show me the webcams of everyone I went to high school with.”
At every command, new images appeared, until there were at least a hundred live streaming images on the screen at once.
“We will become all-seeing, all-knowing.”
The audience was standing now. The applause thundered through the room. Mae rested her head on Annie’s shoulder.
“All that happens will be known,” Annie whispered.
“You have a glow.”
“You do.”
“I do not have a glow.”
“Like you’re with child.”
“I know what you meant. Stop.”
Mae’s father reached across the table and took her hand. It was Saturday, and her parents were treating her to a celebratory dinner commemorating her first week at the Circle. This was the kind of sentimental slop they were always doing—at least recently. When she was younger, the only child of a couple who long considered the possibility of having none at all, their home was more complicated. During the week, her father had been scarce. He’d been the building manager at a Fresno office park, working fourteen-hour days and leaving everything at home to her mother, who worked three shifts a week at a hotel restaurant and who responded to the pressure of it all with a hair-trigger temper, primarily directed at Mae. But when Mae was ten, her parents announced they’d bought a parking lot, two stories near downtown Fresno, and for a few years, they took turns manning it. It was humiliating to Mae to have her friends’ parents say, “Hey, saw your mom at the lot,” or “Tell your dad thanks again for comping me the other day,” but soon their finances stabilized, and they could hire a couple guys to trade shifts. And when her parents could take a day off, and could plan more than a few months ahead, they mellowed, becoming a very calm, exasperatingly sweet older couple. It was as if they went, in the course of a year, from being young parents in over their heads, to grandparents, slow-moving and warm and clueless about what exactly their daughter wanted. When she graduated from middle school, they’d driven her to Disneyland, not quite understanding that she was too old, and that her going there alone—with two adults, which was effectively alone—was at cross-purposes with any notion of fun. But they were so well-meaning that she couldn’t refuse, and in the end they had a mindless kind of fun that she didn’t know was possible with one’s parents. Any lingering resentment she might direct at them for the emotional uncertainties of her early life was doused by the constant cool water of their late middle age.
And now they’d driven to the bay, to spend the weekend at the cheapest bed and breakfast they could find—which was fifteen miles from the Circle and looked haunted. Now they were out, at some fake-fancy restaurant the two of them had heard about, and if anyone was aglow, it was them. They were beaming.
“So? It’s been great?” her mother asked.
“It has.”
“I knew it.” Her mother sat back, crossing her arms.
“I don’t ever want to work anywhere else,” Mae said.
“What a relief,” her father said. “We don’t want you working anywhere else, either.”
Her mother lunged forward, and took Mae’s arm. “I told Karolina’s mom. You know her.” She scrunched her nose—the closest she could come to an insult. “She looked like someone had stuck a sharp stick up her behind. Boiling with envy.”
“Mom.”
“I let your salary slip.”
“Mom.”
“I just said, ‘I hope she can get by with a salary of sixty thousand dollars.’ ”
“I can’t believe you told her that.”
“It’s true, isn’t it?”
“It’s actually sixty-two.”
“Oh jeez. Now I’ll have to call her up.”
“No you won’t.”
“Okay, I won’t. But it’s been very fun,” she said, “I just casually slip it into conversation. My daughter’s at the hottest company on the planet and has full dental.”
“Please don’t. I just got lucky. And Annie—”
Her father leaned forward. “How is Annie?”
“Good.”
“Tell Annie we love her.”
“I will.”
“She couldn’t come tonight?”
“No. She’s busy.”
“But you asked her?”
“I did. She says hi. But she works a lot.”
“What does she do exactly?” her mother asked.
“Everything, really,” Mae said. “S
he’s in the Gang of 40. She’s part of all the big decisions. I think she specializes in dealing with regulatory issues in other countries.”
“I’m sure she’s got a lot of responsibility.”
“And stock options!” her father said. “I can’t imagine what she’s worth.”
“Dad. Don’t imagine that.”
“Why is she working with all those stock options? I’d be on a beach. I’d have a harem.”
Mae’s mother put her hand on his. “Vinnie, stop.” Then to Mae she said, “I hope she has time to enjoy it all.”
“She does,” Mae said. “She’s probably at a campus party as we speak.”
Her father smiled. “I love that you call it a campus. That’s very cool. We used to call those places offices.”
Mae’s mother seemed troubled. “A party, Mae? You didn’t want to go?”
“I did, but I wanted to see you guys. And there are plenty of those parties.”
“But in your first week!” her mother looked pained. “Maybe you should have gone. Now I feel bad. We took you away from it.”
“Trust me. They have them every other day. They’re very social over there. I’ll be fine.”
“You’re not taking lunch yet, are you?” her mother asked. She made the same point when Mae had started at the utility: don’t take lunch your first week. Sends the wrong message.
“Don’t worry,” Mae said. “I haven’t even used the bathroom.”
Her mother rolled her eyes. “Anyway, let me just say how proud we are. We love you.”
“And Annie,” her father said.
“Right. We love you and Annie.”
They ate quickly, knowing that Mae’s father would soon tire. He’d insisted on going out to dinner, though back at home, he rarely did anymore. His fatigue was constant, and could come on suddenly and strong, sending him to near-collapse. It was important, when out like this, to be ready to make a quick exit, and before dessert, they did so. Mae followed them back to their room and there, amid the B&B owners’ dozens of dolls, spread about the room and watching, Mae and her parents were able to relax, unafraid of eventualities. Mae hadn’t gotten used to her father having multiple sclerosis. The diagnosis had come down only two years earlier, though the symptoms had been visible years before that. He’d been slurring his words, had been overshooting when reaching for things and, finally, had fallen, twice, each time in the foyer of their house, reaching for the front door. So they’d sold the parking lot, made a decent profit, and now spent their time managing his care, which meant at least a few hours a day poring over medical bills and battling with the insurance company.
“Oh, we saw Mercer the other day,” her mother said, and her father smiled. Mercer had been a boyfriend of Mae’s, one of the four serious ones she’d had in high school and college. But as far as her parents were concerned, he was the only one who mattered, or the only one they acknowledged or remembered. It helped that he still lived in town.
“That’s good,” Mae said, wanting to end the topic. “He still makes chandeliers out of antlers?”
“Easy there,” her father said, hearing her barbed tone. “He’s got his own business. And not that he’d brag, but it’s apparently thriving.”
Mae needed to change the subject. “I’ve averaged 97 so far,” she said. “They say that’s a record for a newbie.”
The look on her parents’ faces was bewilderment. Her father blinked slowly. They had no idea what she was talking about. “What’s that, hon?” her father said.
Mae let it go. When she’d heard the words leave her mouth, she knew the sentence would take too long to explain. “How are things with the insurance?” she asked, and instantly regretted it. Why did she ask questions like this? The answer would swallow the night.
“Not good,” her mother said. “I don’t know. We have the wrong plan. I mean, they don’t want to insure your dad, plain and simple, and they seem to be doing everything they can to get us to leave. But how can we leave? We’d have nowhere to go.”
Her father sat up. “Tell her about the prescription.”
“Oh, right. Your dad’s been on Copaxone for two years, for the pain. He needs it. Without it—”
“The pain gets … ornery,” he said.
“Now the insurance says he doesn’t need it. It’s not on their list of pre-approved medications. Even though he’s been using it two years!”
“It seems unnecessarily cruel,” Mae’s father said.
“They’ve offered no alternative. Nothing for the pain!”
Mae didn’t know what to say. “I’m sorry. Can I look up some alternatives online? I mean, have you seen if the doctors could find another drug that the insurance will pay for? Maybe a generic …”
This went on for an hour, and by the end, Mae was wrecked. The MS, her helplessness to slow it, her inability to bring back the life her father had known—it tortured her, but the insurance situation was something else, was an unnecessary crime, a piling-on. Didn’t the insurance companies realize that the cost of their obfuscation, denial, all the frustration they caused, only made her father’s health worse, and threatened that of her mother? If nothing else, it was inefficient. The time spent denying coverage, arguing, dismissing, thwarting—surely it was more trouble than simply granting her parents access to the right care.
“Enough of this,” her mother said. “We brought you a surprise. Where is it? You have it, Vinnie?”
They gathered on the high bed covered with a threadbare patchwork quilt, and her father presented Mae with a small wrapped gift. The size and shape of the box suggested a necklace, but Mae knew it couldn’t be that. When she got the wrapping off, she opened the velvet box and laughed. It was a pen, one of the rarefied kind that’s silver and strangely heavy, requiring care and filling and mostly for show.
“Don’t worry, we didn’t buy it,” Mae’s father said.
“Vinnie!” her mother wailed.
“Seriously,” he said, “we didn’t. A friend of mine gave it to me last year. He felt bad I couldn’t work. I don’t know what kind of use he thought I’d have for a pen when I can barely type. But this guy was never so bright.”
“We thought it would look good on your desk,” her mother added.
“Are we the best or what?” her father said.
Mae’s mother laughed, and most crucially, Mae’s father laughed. He laughed a big belly laugh. In the second, calmer phase of their lives as parents, he’d become a laugher, a constant laugher, a man who laughed at everything. It was the primary sound of Mae’s teenage years. He laughed at things that were clearly funny, and at things that would provoke just a smile in most, and he laughed when he should have been upset. When Mae misbehaved, he thought it was hilarious. He’d caught her sneaking out of her bedroom window one night, to see Mercer, and he’d practically keeled over. Everything was comical, everything about her adolescence cracked him up. “You should have seen your face when you saw me! Priceless!”
But then the MS diagnosis arrived and most of that was gone. The pain was constant. The spells where he couldn’t get up, didn’t trust his legs to carry him, were too frequent, too dangerous. He was in the emergency room weekly. And finally, with some heroic efforts from Mae’s mom, he saw a few doctors who cared, and he was put on the right drugs and stabilized, at least for a while. And then the insurance debacles, the descent into this health care purgatory.
This night, though, he was buoyant, and her mother was feeling good, having found some sherry in the B&B’s tiny kitchen, which she shared with Mae. Her father was soon enough asleep in his clothes, over the covers, with all the lights on, with Mae and her mother still talking at full volume. When they noticed he was out cold Mae arranged a bed for herself at the foot of theirs.
In the morning they slept late and drove to a diner for lunch. Her father ate well, and Mae watched her mother feign nonchalance, the two of them talking about a wayward uncle’s latest bizarre business venture, something about raising lobsters in
rice paddies. Mae knew her mother was nervous, every moment, about her father, having him out for two meals in a row, and watched him closely. He looked cheerful but his strength faded quickly.
“You guys settle up,” he said. “I’m going to the car to recline for a moment.”
“We can help,” Mae said, but her mother hushed her. Her father was already up and headed for the door.
“He gets tired. It’s fine,” her mother said. “It’s just a different routine now. He rests. He does things, he walks and eats and is animated for a while, then he rests. It’s very regular and very calming, to tell you the truth.”
They paid the bill and walked out to the parking lot. Mae saw the white wisps of her father’s hair through the car window. Most of his head was below the windowframe, reclined so far he was in the back seat. When they arrived at the car, they saw that he was awake, looking up into the interlocking boughs of an unremarkable tree. He rolled down the window.
“Well, this has been wonderful,” he said.
Mae made her goodbyes and left, happy to have the afternoon free. She drove west, the day sunny and calm, the colors of the passing landscape simple and clear, blues and yellows and greens. As she approached the coast, she turned toward the bay. She could get a few hours of kayaking in if she hurried.
Mercer had introduced her to kayaking, an activity that until then she’d considered awkward and dull. Sitting at the waterline, struggling to move that strange ice-cream-spoon paddle. The constant twisting looked painful, and the pace seemed far too slow. But then she’d tried it, with Mercer, using not professional-grade models but something more basic, the kind the rider sits on top of, legs and feet exposed. They’d paddled around the bay, moving far quicker than she’d expected, and they’d seen harbor seals, and pelicans, and Mae was convinced this was a criminally underappreciated sport, and the bay a body of water woefully underused.
They’d launched from a tiny beach, the outfitter requiring no training or equipment or fuss; you just paid your fifteen dollars an hour and in minutes were on the bay, cold and clear.