- One day after Mae receives Mercer's letter, Annie arranges another covert meeting in the bathroom.
- This time, the details that have been turned up by the PastPerfect program are even worse than the ones before (from Annie's perspective, anyway). As Annie now knows, her American ancestors were slave owners, too.
- Mae tries to comfort Annie, but it's clear that her friend is grappling with unprecedented stress.
- A couple of days later, the PastPerfect program turns up new information that seems worst of all, and Annie sends out a "zing" that suggests that maybe people shouldn't know everything, after all.
- Mae can't believe that Annie would say something like that, and, in yet another covert meeting in the bathroom, Annie explains what's up.
- First of all, the PastPerfect program has revealed that Annie's parents had an open marriage, or were swingers of some kind, back in the 1970s. Annie thinks it's gross, but that's not what's really bothering her.
- The news that really has her rattled is the fact that the PastPerfect program has found video footage of her parents witnessing a man's death by drowning—and doing nothing to help. Not only do they make no attempt to reach him in the water, but they don't even call 911.
- Annie knows that her world is going to be ripped apart when the news goes public, and she doesn't know what to do. She wants to shut the program down, but Eamon Bailey won't let her.
- Mae tries to think of something she can do to help, but, for the moment, she finds that she's coming up short.
- After parting with Annie, Mae continues to rack her brains for a way that she can help.
- Finally, Mae gets a bright idea: she decides that Annie needs support—and lots of it.
- Mae heads back to the bathroom and stands in front of the mirror so that her viewers can get a good look at her.
- There, she confesses to having had a secret conversation with Annie, and she tells her viewers about the terrible time that Annie has been going through lately.
- Mae asks her viewers to send Annie an outpouring of love and support—to let her know that, no matter what the PastPerfect program reveals, they'll still love her for who she is.
- Mae wraps things up by making sure that everyone has Annie's contact information, and then she watches the online reaction.
- People respond in droves, just as Mae expected, and she waits eagerly for some kind of warm thank-you message from Annie to come her way.
- Contrary to Mae's expectations, she doesn't hear from Annie at all.
- Later that day, Eamon Bailey commends Mae for her actions as the two of them get ready to deliver another of the Circle's Dream Friday presentations.
- This is going to be Mae's first time delivering a Dream Friday presentation on her own, and she's stoked to be demonstrating a brand-new search program that the Circle has developed.
- As Mae starts moving through the presentation in front of a live audience of thousands and an online audience of millions, she announces that the Circle's database is going to randomly choose a known fugitive who could be anywhere in the world.
- Once the fugitive has been chosen at random, Mae predicts that the Circle's new search program—which they've decided to call SoulSearch, natch—will find that person in 20 minutes or less.
- When the computer picks a fugitive by the name of Fiona Highbridge—a woman who was convicted of starving her three children to death and who later escaped from prison in England—Mae starts the clock and initiates the search.
- As average citizens throughout the world snap and post photos of women who look like Fiona Highbridge, millions of the Circle's users vote online to determine which of the photographs seems most likely to be an actual picture of Highbridge.
- Once the Circle's users choose the most likely suspect, other users posting in the comments feed identify her.
- When one user announces that she works with the woman in the photograph, Mae instructs her to go and get video footage of the alleged Highbridge right away.
- All of the Circle's viewership is watching as the Circle user searches her workplace for the coworker who may well be Fiona Highbridge. She soon finds her, and, when the alleged Highbridge sees that her coworker is filming her, she bolts.
- The Circle user chases the alleged Highbridge, and soon the alleged Highbridge has been cornered by a large group of Circle users who are holding out their camera phones and capturing her on film.
- Mae insists that the crowd keep the alleged fugitive safe, and soon the British police arrive.
- After the alleged Fiona Highbridge has been handcuffed, Mae looks at the timer.
- The whole thing has taken less than 11 minutes.
- The live crowd at the Circle is jazzed, and someone shouts out that they should do another.
- Mae looks into the wings to see what Eamon Bailey thinks, and he doesn't give any sign that they shouldn't. Then, from her headset, she gets more specific instructions from Tom Stenton, who tells her that they should test the program on a civilian now.
- Suddenly, Mae gets a bright idea. She pulls out her tablet and finds a picture of Mercer Medeiros, then brings it up on the stage's large screen.
- Within seconds, Mae has sicced the Circle's global membership on her ex.
- It doesn't take long before a Circle user in Jasper, Oregon, comments that he's seen someone who looks like Mercer coming into the nearby grocery store.
- Pretty soon, the Circle's database has cross-referenced rental histories, credit card records, and all kinds of other personal information to turn up whatever it can on Mercer, and it comes up with two possible addresses in Oregon.
- Almost immediately, Circle users in Oregon go to both addresses to see if Mercer is at either one.
- The first one is a bust, but the second address—a cabin in the woods—has Mercer's pickup truck parked in the driveway.
- The Circle users who are at the cabin call for Mercer to come out, and they stalk around the house calling for him.
- Mercer doesn't come to the door. Instead, he sneaks around the side of the cabin and makes a break for his truck.
- Mercer gets out of the driveway before the Circle's users can get to their cars, but they decide to give chase.
- Someone has attached a SeeChange camera to Mercer's truck, and so Mae and her viewers get to watch Mercer drive for a while. The view doesn't last long, though, because he soon spots the camera and tears it off.
- As she starts to worry that the Circle's users won't be able to follow Mercer through the winding mountain roads, Mae asks any Circle users who have private drones to send them up into the area to get aerial views.
- Pretty soon, Mercer's truck has been spotted, and the drones fly low enough for him to see them clearly.
- Mae asks the Circle's tech geniuses to patch her audio through the drone that's flying closest to Mercer's window, and it's done almost instantaneously.
- Happily and excitedly, Mae announces to Mercer that she's the one behind this whole shenanigan, and that Mercer can feel free to stop driving now.
- Mercer doesn't stop, and Mae isn't sure that he can hear her. She continues to laugh and tease him, determined to wait for some kind of sign that he respects the Circle's power.
- Mae asks for the microphone to be turned up, and her request is granted immediately. She shouts at Mercer to stop driving, and, this time, she's sure that he can hear her.
- Mercer still doesn't stop.
- One of the Circlers operating another of the drones starts to shout at Mercer to stop, and Mae can see that Mercer is starting to panic for real.
- A voice from another drone starts to cajole and threaten Mercer, and as Mae watches, she sees Mercer's facial expressions shift from panic to determination as he reaches a decision.
- Before Mae can process what's happening, Mercer aims his truck for the concrete barrier that separates the highway from the steep, steep mountain gorge on the other side.
- In seconds, Mercer is through the barrier, his truck is falling, and then, finally, he has crashed into the bottom of the gorge.
- It's now been a full week since Mercer's death, and Mae is sitting in Eamon Bailey's office.
- There, Bailey is reassuring Mae that Mercer's death wasn't her fault.
- As Bailey puts it, Mercer was a troubled, asocial young man, and Mae was only trying to help. She can't be blamed for Mercer's determination to isolate himself from his fellow human beings.
- After they talk about Mercer, Bailey asks Mae how Annie is doing.
- We readers don't know exactly what Annie's condition is, but it's clear that something is very wrong.
- After chatting about Mercer and Annie, Mae and Eamon Bailey head to the Circle's new aquarium together, where they expect to witness a great event.
- Tom Stenton is going to put all of the creatures that he found in the Mariana Trench together in one giant tank, ostensibly with the hope of learning what their deep-sea ecology was really like.
- Mae and Eamon Bailey meet Tom Stenton at the aquarium, and, after a few moments, they're joined by the Circle's third Wise Man—Ty Gospodinov.
- As Eamon Bailey introduces Mae to Ty, Mae realizes with shock that she's looking at Kalden.
- Spoiler alert, Shmoopers: Kalden and Ty are one and the same dude.
- Mae and Ty, alias Kalden, both do their best to play it cool in front of Mae's viewers, and, pretty soon, the aquarium experiment starts to get underway.
- Eamon Bailey starts to narrate events for Mae's viewers, and he explains that the three biggest stars from the Mariana Trench—the seahorse, the octopus, and the shark—are meant to live together in one shared world.
- The aquarium's caretaker starts by bringing the seahorse and its babies into the giant tank that has been specially constructed for the event.
- Next, the octopus is added.
- Finally, the shark is brought to the tank. Before the aquarium's caretaker puts the shark in with the other creatures, he adds six tuna—one of the shark's favorite foods—hoping that the tuna will prevent the shark from turning on its fellow creatures from the Mariana Trench.
- When the shark is finally released into the tank, it devours the tuna immediately.
- The octopus and the seahorses in the tank hide quickly, but it doesn't take long for the shark to discover the octopus's hiding place.
- In seconds, the shark tears the octopus apart.
- After that, the shark whirls through the tank, eating the seahorse and its "thousand babies" (2.25.62), until every other creature in the aquarium has been devoured.
- Eamon Bailey is nearly crying by now, but Tom Stenton looks as though he's filled with fierce admiration.
- After watching the events, Ty remarks that he expected nothing less.
- As he bids his farewells, he slips a note into Mae's hand. Then, he leaves quickly and is soon followed by Eamon Bailey.
- Tom Stenton stays to observe the shark for a little while longer, and Mae remains with him until he leaves.
- After Mae leaves the aquarium, she heads to a bathroom and reads the note that Ty slipped into her hand.
- Ty has asked Mae to meet him secretly, and he's given her specific instructions for how to do so.
- Mae decides to go along with his plan, but she also decides that this will be the very last time.
- When Mae gives a prearranged signal, Ty cuts her video and audio feeds, and Mae makes her way down to the same underground storage room that he showed her weeks and weeks before.
- When Mae reaches Ty, she confronts him about the lies he's told her. He apologizes, but he has something more pressing to talk about—he wants Mae's help to begin dismantling the Circle.
- Ty insists that Mae is helping to create totalitarian state, but Mae just scoffs at his paranoia and says that he sounds like Mercer. According to her, there's no way that the awful things he's predicting could ever come true.
- Ty begs to differ, but Mae won't grant him his points no matter how many arguments he makes.
- Finally, Mae asks Ty to tell her what, exactly, he wants her to do.
- In response, Ty tells Mae that he wants her to read—to her worldwide audience of millions—a declaration that he's prepared on "The Rights of Humans in a Digital Age" (2.27.71).
- After that, Ty says, he's going to take a series of steps to break up the Circle—including exposing some of the illegal activities that Tom Stenton has used to discredit the Circle's opponents.
- Then, Ty concludes, he and Mae can run away together. They can travel the world, see exotic locations—do whatever they want.
- After taking a few more moments to consider everything that Ty has told her, Mae tells him that she understands what needs to be done.