The Circle

Jared, Josiah, and Denise arrange for Mae to start answering CircleSurveys. Through this new aspect of her job, she will become “one of the Circlers asked about her tastes, her preferences, her buying habits and plans, for use by the Circle’s clients” (228). Mae is expected to answer 500 survey questions per day. When she goes too long without responding to a survey question, a voice comes on in her headset that says, “Mae.” She successfully integrates the surveys into her shifts and receives compliments from her bosses. She appreciates that this additional work is helping keep her mind off Kalden, who still is not answering her calls. In her mind, his unavailability has gone from intriguing to disappointing. She decides that she needs to dismiss her lust for Kalden and instead find someone who is “available, familiar, locatable” (236).

Mae is answering well over 1,000 CircleSurvey questions per day. This helps her PartiRank, which is now within T2K, hovering in the 1,900s. On a Tuesday afternoon, Kalden appears in her office doorway. She waves and he waves back, but then he is gone. She gets up and tries to find him but has no luck. Upon returning to her desk, Francis is sitting in her chair.