by Dave Eggers
“Oh god, who cares?” Annie’s mother had said, when Mae had pressed for more details. “Some random guy got on a boat. He probably owed money all over the Old Country.”
And they had proceeded with dinner. Afterward, Annie had, at Mae’s insistence, shown her some documents, ancient yellowed papers detailing their family history, a beautiful black portfolio of genealogies, scholarly articles, pictures of grave old men with extravagant sideburns standing near rough-hewn cabins.
In other visits to Annie’s house, her family was equally generous, unassuming and careless with their name. But when Annie’s sister was married, and the extended family arrived, Mae saw a different side. She was seated at a table of single men and women, most of them Annie’s cousins, and next to Annie’s aunt. She was a wiry woman in her forties, her features similar to Annie’s but arranged with lesser results. She was recently divorced, having left a man “beneath my station,” she said with pretend haughtiness.
“And you know Annie from …?” She’d first turned to Mae fully twenty minutes into dinner.
“College. We were roommates.”
“I thought her roommate was Pakistani.”
“That was freshman year.”
“And you saved the day. Where are you from?”
“Middle of the state. Central Valley. A small town no one’s heard of. Sort of near Fresno.”
Mae drove on, remembering all this, some of it injecting fresh pain into her, something still wet and raw.
“Wow, Fresno!” the aunt had said, pretending to smile. “I haven’t heard that word in a long time, thank god.” She’d taken a swallow from her gin and tonic and squinted out at the wedding party. “The important thing is that you got out. I know good colleges look for people like you. That’s probably why I didn’t get in where I wanted to. Don’t let anyone tell you Exeter helps. So many quota spots to fill with people from Pakistan and Fresno, right?”
The first time she’d gone home transparent had been revelatory and had burnished Mae’s faith in humanity. She’d had a simple evening with her parents, making and eating dinner and while doing so, they’d discussed the differences in her father’s treatment before and after they became insured through the Circle. Viewers could see both the triumphs of his treatment—her father seemed vibrant and moved with ease through the house—but they also saw the toll the disease was taking on him. He fell awkwardly while trying to make his way upstairs, and afterward there was a flood of messages from concerned viewers, followed by thousands of smiles from all over the world. People suggesting new drug combinations, new physical therapy regimens, new doctors, experimental treatments, Eastern medicine, Jesus. Hundreds of churches put him in their weekly prayers. Mae’s parents felt confident in their doctors, and most viewers could see that her father’s care was exceptional, so what was more important and plentiful than the medical comments were those simply cheering him and the family on. Mae cried reading the messages; it was a flood of love. People sharing their own stories, so many living with MS themselves. Others spoke of their own struggles—living with osteoporosis, with Bell’s palsy, with Crohn’s disease. Mae had been forwarding the messages to her parents, but after a few days decided to make their own email and mailing address public, so her parents could be emboldened and inspired by the outpouring themselves, every day.
This, the second time she’d gone home, would, she knew, be even better. After she addressed the issue with the cameras, which she expected was some sort of misunderstanding, she planned to give all those who had reached out the chance to see her parents again, and to give her parents a chance to thank all those who had sent them smiles and help.
She found the two of them in the kitchen, chopping vegetables.
“How are you guys?” she said, while forcing them into a three-way embrace. They both smelled of onions.
“You’re sure affectionate tonight, Mae!” her father said.
“Ha ha,” Mae said, and tried to indicate, with a rolling back of her eyelids, that they should not imply that she was ever less affectionate.
As if remembering that they were on camera, and that their daughter was now a more visible and important person, her parents adjusted their behavior. They made lasagna, with Mae adding a few ingredients Additional Guidance had asked her to bring and display to watchers. When dinner was ready, and Mae had given adequate camera time to the products, they all sat down.
“So there’s a slight concern from the health folks that some of your cameras aren’t working,” Mae said, keeping it light.
“Really?” her father said, smiling. “Maybe we should check the batteries?” He winked at her mother.
“You guys,” Mae said, knowing she had to make this statement very clear, knowing this was a pivotal moment, for their own health and the overall health data-gathering system the Circle was trying to make possible. “How can anyone provide you with good health care when you don’t allow them to see how you’re doing? It’s like going to see a doctor and not allowing her to take your pulse.”
“That’s a very good point,” her father said. “I think we should eat.”
“We’ll get them fixed right away,” her mother said, and that began what was a very strange night, during which Mae’s parents agreed readily with all of Mae’s arguments about transparency, nodded their heads vigorously when she talked about the necessity for everyone to be onboard, the corollary to vaccines, how they only worked with full participation. They agreed heartily with it all, complimenting Mae repeatedly on her powers of persuasion and logic. It was odd; they were being far too cooperative.
They sat down to eat, and Mae did something she’d never done before, and which she hoped her parents wouldn’t ruin by acting like it was unusual: she gave a toast.
“Here’s a toast to you two,” she said. “And while we’re at it, a toast to all the thousands of people who reached out to you guys after the last time I was here.”
Her parents smiled stiffly and raised their glasses. They ate for a few moments, and when her mother had carefully chewed and swallowed her first bite, she smiled and looked directly into the lens—which Mae had told her repeatedly not to do.
“Well, we sure did get a lot of messages,” her mother said.
Mae’s father joined in. “Your mom’s been sorting through them, and we’ve been making a little dent in the pile every day. But it’s a lot of work, I have to say.”
Her mother rested her hand on Mae’s arm. “Not that we don’t appreciate it, because we do. We surely do. I just want to go on record as asking everyone’s forgiveness for our tardiness in answering all the messages.”
“We’ve gotten thousands,” her father noted, poking at his salad.
Her mother smiled stiffly. “And again, we appreciate the outpouring. But even if we spent one minute on each response, that’s a thousand minutes. Think of it: sixteen hours just for some basic response to the messages! Oh jeez, now I sound ungrateful.”
Mae was glad her mother said this, because they did sound ungrateful. They were complaining about people caring about them. And just when Mae thought her mother would reverse herself, would encourage more good wishes, her father spoke and made it worse. Like her mother, he spoke directly into the lens.
“But we do ask you, from now on, to just send your best wishes through the air. Or if you pray, just pray for us. No need to put it into a message. Just”—and he closed his eyes and squeezed them tight—“send your good wishes, your good vibes, our way. No need to email or zing or anything. Just good thoughts. Send ’em through the air. That’s all we ask.”
“I think you just mean to say,” Mae said, trying to hold her temper, “that it’ll just take you a little while to answer all of the messages. But you’ll get to them all eventually.”
Her father didn’t hesitate. “Well, I can’t say that, Mae. I don’t want to promise that. It’s actually very stressful. And we’ve already had many people get angry when they don’t hear back from us in a given amount of t
ime. They send one message, then they send ten more in the same day. ‘Did I say something wrong?’ ‘Sorry.’ ‘I was only trying to help.’ ‘Up yours.’ They have these neurotic conversations with themselves. So I don’t want to imply the kind of immediate message turnaround that most of your friends seem to require.”
“Dad. Stop. You sound terrible.”
Her mother leaned forward. “Mae, your dad’s just trying to say that our lives are already pretty fraught, and we have our hands full just working, paying bills and taking care of the health stuff. If we have sixteen hours more work to do, then that puts us in an untenable position. Can you see where we’re coming from? I say that, again, with all due respect and gratitude to everyone who has wished us well.”
After dinner, her parents wanted to watch a movie, and they did so, Basic Instinct, at her father’s insistence. He’d seen it more than any other film, always citing the nods to Hitchcock, the many witty homages—though he’d never made clear his love of Hitchcock in the first place. Mae had long suspected that the movie, with its constant and varied sexual tensions, made him randy.
As her parents watched the film, Mae tried to make the time more interesting by sending a series of zings about it, tracking and commenting on the number of moments offensive to the LGBT community. She was getting a great response, but then saw the time, 9:30, and figured she should get on the road and back to the Circle.
“Well, I’m gonna head out,” she said.
Mae thought she caught something in her father’s eye, some quick look to her mother that might have said at last, but she could have been mistaken. She put on her coat and her mother met her at the door, an envelope in her hand.
“Mercer asked us to give this to you.”
Mae took it, a simple business-sized envelope. It wasn’t even addressed to her. No name, nothing.
She kissed her mother’s cheek, left the house, the air outside still warm. She pulled out and drove toward the highway. But the letter was on her lap, and her curiosity overtook her. She pulled over and opened it.
Dear Mae,
Yes, you can and should read this on camera. I expected that you would, so I’m writing this letter not only to you, but to your “audience.” Hello, audience.
She could almost hear his introductory intake of breath, his settling in before an important speech.
I can’t see you anymore, Mae. Not that we had such a constant or perfect friendship anyway, but I can’t be your friend and also part of your experiment. I’ll be sad to lose you, as you have been important in my life. But we’ve taken very different evolutionary paths and very soon we’ll be too far apart to communicate.
If you saw your parents, and your mom gave you this note, then you saw the effect all your stuff has had on them. I wrote this note after seeing them, both of them strung out, exhausted by the deluge you unleashed on them. It’s too much, Mae. And it’s not right. I helped them cover some of the cameras. I even bought the fabric. I was happy to do it. They don’t want to be smiled upon, or frowned upon, or zinged. They want to be alone. And not watched. Surveillance shouldn’t be the tradeoff for any goddamn service we get.
If things continue this way, there will be two societies—or at least I hope there will be two—the one you’re helping create, and an alternative to it. You and your ilk will live, willingly, joyfully, under constant surveillance, watching each other always, commenting on each other, voting and liking and disliking each other, smiling and frowning, and otherwise doing nothing much else.
Already there were comments pouring through her wrist. Mae, were you ever so young and dumb? How did you end up dating a zero like this? That was the most popular, soon superseded by Just looked up his picture. Does he have some Sasquatch somewhere in the family tree?
She continued reading the letter:
I will always wish all good things for you, Mae. I also hope, though I realize how unlikely it is, that somewhere down the line, when the triumphalism of you and your peers—the unrestrained Manifest Destiny of it all—goes too far and collapses into itself, that you’ll regain your sense of perspective, and your humanity. Hell, what am I saying? It’s already gone too far. What I should say is that I await the day when some vocal minority finally rises up to say it’s gone too far, and that this tool, which is far more insidious than any human invention that’s come before it, must be checked, regulated, turned back, and that, most of all, we need options for opting out. We are living in a tyrannical state now, where we are not allowed to—
Mae checked how many pages were left. Four more double-sided sheets, likely containing more of the same directionless blather. She threw the pile on the passenger seat. Poor Mercer. He’d always been a blowhard, and he never knew his audience. And though she knew he was using her parents against her, something was bothering her. Were they really that annoyed? She was only a block away, so she got out and walked back home. If they were truly upset, well, she would and could address it.
When she walked in, she didn’t see them in the two most likely places, the living room and the kitchen, and peeked around the corner into the dining room. They were nowhere. The only sign of them at all was a pot of water boiling on the stove. She tried not to panic, but that pot of boiling water, and the otherwise eerie quiet of the house, arranged itself in a crooked way in her mind, and very suddenly she was thinking of robberies, or suicide pacts, or kidnappings.
She ran up the stairs, taking them three at a time, and when she reached the top and turned left quickly, into their bedroom, she saw them, their eyes turned to her, round and terrified. Her father was sitting on the bed, and her mother was kneeling on the floor, his penis in her hand. A small container of moisturizer rested against his leg. In an instant they all knew the ramifications.
Mae turned away, directing the camera toward a dresser. No one said a word. Mae could think only of retreating to the bathroom, where she pointed the camera at the wall and turned off the audio. She rewound her spool to see what had been caught on camera. She hoped the lens swinging from her neck had somehow missed the offending image.
But it had not. If anything, the angle of the camera revealed the act more clearly than she’d witnessed it. She turned the playback off. She called AG.
“Is there anything we can do?” she asked.
Within minutes she was on the phone with Bailey himself. She was glad to get him, because she knew that if anyone would agree with her on this, it would be Bailey, a man of unerring moral compass. He didn’t want a sex act like that broadcast around the world, did he? Well, that had already been done, but surely they could erase a few seconds, so the image wouldn’t be searchable, wouldn’t be made permanent?
“Mae, c’mon,” he said. “You know we can’t do that. What would transparency be if we could delete anything we felt was embarrassing in some way? You know we don’t delete.” His voice was empathetic and fatherly, and Mae knew she would abide by whatever he said. He knew best, could see miles further than Mae or anyone else, and this was evident in his preternatural calm. “For this experiment, Mae, and the Circle as a whole, to work, it has to be absolute. It has to be pure and complete. And I know this episode will be painful for a few days, but trust me, very soon nothing like this will be the least bit interesting to anyone. When everything is known, everything acceptable will be accepted. So for the time being, we need to be strong. You need to be a role model here. You need to stay the course.”
Mae drove back to the Circle, determined that when she got back to campus, she would stay there. She’d had enough of the chaos of her family, of Mercer, her wretched hometown. She hadn’t even asked her parents about the SeeChange cameras, had she? Home was madness. On campus, all was familiar. On campus there was no friction. She didn’t need to explain herself, or the future of the world, to the Circlers, who implicitly understood her and the planet and the way it had to be and soon would be.
Increasingly, she found it difficult to be off-campus anyway. There were homeless people, and th
ere were the attendant and assaulting smells, and there were machines that didn’t work, and floors and seats that had not been cleaned, and there was, everywhere, the chaos of an orderless world. The Circle was helping to improve it, she knew, and so many of these things were being addressed—homelessness could be helped or fixed, she knew, once the gamificaton of shelter allotment and public housing in general was complete; they were working on this in the Nara Period—but in the meantime, it was increasingly troubling to be amid the madness outside the gates of the Circle. Walking through San Francisco, or Oakland, or San Jose, or any city, really, seemed more and more like a Third World experience, with unnecessary filth, and unnecessary strife and unnecessary errors and inefficiencies—on any city block, a thousand problems correctible through simple enough algorithms and the application of available technology and willing members of the digital community. She left her camera on.
She made the drive in less than two hours and it was only midnight when she arrived. She was wired from the trip, from her nerves on constant alert, and needed relaxation, and distraction. She went to CE, knowing there she could be useful and that there, her efforts would be appreciated, immediately and demonstrably. She entered the building, looking briefly up at the slow-turning Calder, and rose through the elevator, breezed across the catwalk and to her old station.
At her desk, she saw a pair of messages from her parents. They were still awake, and they were despondent. They were outraged. Mae tried to send them the positive zings she’d seen, messages that celebrated that an older couple, dealing with MS no less, could still be sexually active. But they weren’t interested.
Please stop, they asked. Please, no more.
And they, like Mercer, insisted that she cease to contact them unless privately. She tried to explain to them that they were on the wrong side of history. But they weren’t listening. Mae knew that eventually she’d convince them, that it was only a matter of time, for them and for everyone—even Mercer. He and her parents had been late to get PCs, late to buy a cellphone, late to everything. It was comical and it was sad, and it served no purpose, to put off the undeniable present, the unavoidable future.