The Circle

passed on, but who had spent a few very happy years here, never far from his owner.
     Why should thousands of employees all leave their dogs at home when they could be
     brought here, to be around people, and other dogs, and be cared for and not alone?
     That had been Annie’s logic, quickly embraced and nowconsidered visionary. And they saw the nightclub—often used during the day for something
     called ecstatic dancing, a great workout, Annie said—and they saw the large outdoor
     amphitheater, and the small indoor theater—“there are about ten comedy improv groups
     here”—and after they saw all that, there was lunch in the larger, first-floor cafeteria
     where, in the corner, on a small stage, there was a man, playing a guitar, who looked
     like an aging singer-songwriter Mae’s parents listened to.
    “Is that …?”
    “It is,” Annie said, not breaking her stride, “There’s someone every day. Musicians,
     comedians, writers. That’s Bailey’s passion project, to bring them here to get some
     exposure, especially given how rough it is out there for them.”
    “I knew they came sometimes, but you’re saying it’s every day?”
    “We book them a year ahead. We have to fight them off.”
    The singer-songwriter was singing passionately, his head tilted, hair covering his
     eyes, his fingers strumming feverishly, but the vast majority of the cafeteria was
     paying little to no attention.
    “I can’t imagine the budget for that,” Mae said.
    “Oh god, we don’t
pay
them. Oh wait, you should meet this guy.”
    Annie stopped a man named Vipul, who, Annie said, would soon be reinventing all of
     television, a medium stuck more than any other in the twentieth century.
    “Try nineteenth,” he said, with a slight Indian accent, his English precise and lofty.
     “It’s the last place where customers do not, ever, get what they want. The last vestige
     of feudal arrangements between maker and viewer. We are vassals no longer!” he said,
     and soon excused himself.
    “That guy is on another level,” Annie said as they made their way through the cafeteria.
     They stopped at five or six other tables, meeting fascinating people, every one of
     them working on something Annie deemed
world-rocking
or
life-changing
or
fifty years ahead of anyone else
. The range of the work being done was startling. They met a pair of women working
     on a submersible exploration craft that would make the Marianas Trench mysterious
     no more. “They’ll map it like Manhattan,” Annie said, and the two women did not argue
     the hyperbole. They stopped at a table where a trio of young men were looking at a
     screen, embedded into the table, displaying 3-D drawings of a new kind of low-cost
     housing, to be easily adopted throughout the developing world.
    Annie grabbed Mae’s hand and pulled her toward the exit. “Now we’re seeing the Ochre
     Library. You heard of it?”
    Mae hadn’t, but didn’t want to commit to that answer.
    Annie gave her a conspiratorial look. “You’re not supposed to see it, but I say we
     go.”
    They got into an elevator of plexiglass and neon and rose through the atrium, every
     floor and office visible as they climbed five floors. “I can’t see how stuff like
     that works into the bottom line here,” Mae said.
    “Oh god, I don’t know, either. But it’s not just about money here, as I’m guessing
     you know. There’s enough revenue to support the passions of the community. Those guys
     working on the sustainable housing, they were programmers, but a couple of them had
     studied architecture. So they write up a proposal, and the Wise Men went nuts for
     it. Especially Bailey. He just loves enabling the curiosity of great young minds.
     And his library’s insane. This is the floor.”
    They stepped out of the elevator and into a long hallway, this one appointed in deep
     cherry and walnut, a series of compact chandeliers emitting a calm amber light.
    “Old school,” Mae noted.
    “You know about Bailey, right? He loves this ancient shit. Mahogany, brass, stained
     glass. That’s his aesthetic. He gets overruled in the rest of the buildings, but here
     he has his way. Check this out.”
    Annie stopped at a large painting, a portrait of the Three Wise Men. “Hideous, right?”
     she said.
    The painting was awkward, the kind of thing a high school artist might produce. In
     it, the three men, the founders of the company, were arranged in a pyramid, each of
     them dressed