“I’ll keep your mind occupied as we go,” Delaney said.

  “There’s more?” Mae asked.

  “There is,” Delaney said. “I was just laying out the consumption part. But it’s a piece of something far bigger.”

  They continued up, stepping over the occasional river of scree.

  “I think a lot of what’s driven the Every’s growth is certainty,” Delaney said. “We started with search, right? We answered the planet’s questions. You have a question, you type it into our search engine, you get an answer. Then we helped map and measure the world, and we made it safer by illuminating every dim corner. We improved our understanding of books, paintings, and poetry, dance and film, by translating all that was ineffable into numbers. Then Friendy helped us improve our relationships with our loved ones. FaceIt helped us see ourselves more clearly. Concensus and OwnSelf help us do better in our daily lives. There are dozens of ways we provide assurances to people—so many ways we clarify their lives, snuff out doubt, and help them self-optimize.”

  Mae turned slightly, looking over her shoulder, her eyes amused.

  “But it’s still not enough,” Delaney continued. “There’s still uncertainty, and I’m convinced that it’s because we’re not being bold enough. We’re leaving too much out there for people to wonder about, too much unsaid and unmeasured and, most importantly, unaggregated.”

  “Now I don’t see it,” Mae said. “The waterfall.”

  “It’s there.” The path had wound behind the cliff, Delaney explained. They’d soon climb the last few hundred feet and would come out where the stream began its final straightaway before the fall.

  “So you’re thinking of what? One number?” Mae asked.

  “I know it was tried before. I know the Chinese had their social credit score, but it was never properly developed. I mean, the government developed it, so …” They shared a laugh about the inability of any government to do anything.

  “We can do better,” Delaney said. “We have ten times the data that the Chinese government had, and we’re far more efficient. And remember, when the social credit score was introduced in China, there was almost no opposition. People want this.”

  “What, exactly?”

  “One number that includes everything, cradle to grave. Grades in school, childhood behavioral issues, missed days, college records, test scores, any criminal behavior, workplace demerits, traffic tickets, suspicious travel, anomalous walk patterns, TruVoice dings, HereMe revelations, PrefCom adherence …”

  “Your Shame Aggregate,” Mae suggested.

  “Right,” Delaney said, loving this. Mae was already adding on. Delaney had to invite more. “Personal Carbon Impact score. AnonComs, KisKis grades …” She paused, hoping Mae would jump in.

  “Demoxie numbers,” Mae said. “Purchasing history, payment history, credit issues, zip code, tavs.”

  “Yup. Every message sent and received. Eyeshames. OwnSelf health and exercise assessments. Quantity and quality of friendships. Everything would get factored into one number.”

  “And the scale would be …”

  “One to a thousand,” Delaney said. “To better reflect all the subtleties of a person. At birth, you’re in a pure state of nature—500. You misbehave in first grade, and you’re at 499. Help an old lady across the street, you’re at 502.”

  “People love credit scores,” Mae noted.

  “They’ve never fought them,” Delaney said. “They’ve been around for decades and they’ve never met any pushback. Why? Because they provide clarity. There’s never been any resistance, among any significant part of the human race, to attaching a number to any aspect of their existence. This one just …”

  “Sums it up,” Mae said.

  “Right. People want order,” Delaney said. “Above all things, they want order. And now we have the means to provide it. With a number, you always know where you stand. If you take an unnecessary trip to the Seychelles, you drop twenty points. Excessive meat-eating? Again, points are lost. Same with smoking, jaywalking, terseness of tone, looking somewhere you shouldn’t—it all figures in.”

  “What about moving up?”

  “If you’re at 688 and want to get to 750, the steps are clear. Regular purchases, regular movement patterns and payments and participation. You inch up through predictable behavior, and by avoiding anything problematic. This is how it intersects with the Consensual Economic Order. And it’s what PrefCom’s been doing all along behind the scenes, but now it’s more in keeping with the ethos of the Every: it’s transparent. The number is the number.”

  “The number is the number,” Mae repeated. “And it’s known.”

  “You start at 500, and if you act virtuously, then by the time you’re 18 or 21, you’re at 900. It incentivizes you …”

  “To be your best self,” Mae finished.

  “Yes,” Delaney said.

  “Because it’s public,” Mae noted.

  “Exactly. OwnSelf is great, but it’s private.”

  “Even kids’ scores would be known,” Mae said.

  “Especially kids,” Delaney said. “Their numbers would be public—and tracked closely by parents and schools and local law enforcement.”

  “Right, right,” Mae said, nodding vigorously. “Think about college admissions!”

  “Adults and children, they’ll all have to do the right thing. Because the 900s will have access to things others don’t. Access to medicine, housing, jobs. Who would employ someone under 900? Who would marry someone under 850? It won’t be some mystery anymore why some succeed and others don’t.”

  “It’ll be fair,” Mae said. “That’s the difference. It’ll finally be fair.”

  “Yes,” Delaney said. “Because it’s no longer subjective.”

  “And then we can aggregate social and professional networks.”

  “They’ll urge each other to be better,” Delaney agreed.

  “Social engineering through network shame,” Mae said. “It works the same for neighborhoods, cities, countries. For years we’ve measured the so-called happiness of each nation, but this will be far more accurate. This is, like, an all-encompassing virtue rating.”

  “And the high-scoring countries get rewarded.”

  “Naturally,” Mae said. “Carrot and stick.”

  Delaney could see the bend of the trail up ahead, where it would rise for the last hundred vertical feet and meet the stream. It was time to sum up. “All through human history,” she said, “people have wanted to know two things: What should I do? and Am I good? Religion has taken stabs at both, but their answers are never conclusive. Ask any question, and a dozen religious leaders will tell you a dozen different things.”

  “Or they won’t have answers at all,” Mae said. “Mysterious ways. Nothing quantitative.”

  “But now we have the ability to actually answer those questions. The first question is the easy one. We know people don’t want to make decisions, and we’re perfecting the tools to make them for people. Our tools already tell you when to exercise, what to eat, what to do and not do, what to buy and not buy, what to say and not say.”

  “And we help people live virtuously by controlling their choices,” Mae said.

  “Exactly,” Delaney said. “This is how we improve the individual. But more importantly, if we eliminate bad choices—which are most choices—we save the world.”

  Mae ran her tongue over her teeth, as if tasting all of this, the power it would afford her and the Every.

  “And we decide,” Mae said again.

  “And we decide,” Delaney repeated, then amended: “The data does, yes. ‘How do I live?’ The data will tell you. ‘What should I do?’ The numbers will know. I was even thinking that you could see the effect on your aggregate ahead of time, before you act. Like if you wanted to say some problematic thing, or buy a certain not-vetted thing, or take some unnecessary trip, you could see its potential effect on your score.”

  “Like how they have to list calories on a menu,” Mae said.

  “Right. Again, we end uncertainty. We kill the subjective.”

  “Subjectivity is just objectivity waiting for data,” Mae said. “You ever hear that phrase?”

  “I have,” Delaney said. “I’m pretty sure I have.”

  “And what were you thinking of calling the program?” Mae said.

  “Well, my first thought was WeGood?, because it gets at the central question. But then I figured if we’re preaching simplicity, the term needed to be simple, too. It’s a number that summarizes all other numbers, and encompasses the utter complexity and majesty of the human experience. So I thought, SumNum.”

  “SumNum. I like it,” Mae said. She walked on for a minute or two, then exhaled mournfully and stopped. She turned to Delaney. “You know, I’ve never been to church, but my parents used to go. And they told me that when my mom got pregnant, they were very young, and they went to their pastor—I think they were Episcopalian, or Presbyterian—anyway, they went in and wanted advice. Should they have me and keep me? Abort me? Put me up for adoption? They were twenty-one, twenty-two and just at sea.”

  “I’m sorry,” Delaney said.

  “It’s not like they expected a pastor to recommend an abortion, but he didn’t recommend anything. He talked, he listened, he told them to trust their hearts, to count on each other and the advice of their families. I mean, it was utterly useless. Can you imagine occupying that seat, that place of so-called authority, and having no answers?”

  “Criminal,” Delaney said.

  “Before my father died,” Mae said, “he kept asking if he was good. We thought it was part of the delirium, but he kept asking the question, day and night. ‘Was I good? Was I good?’ We said, ‘Of course, of course,’ but it didn’t assuage his doubts. He’d wake up in the middle of the night screaming the question.”

  “I’m so sorry,” Delaney said.

  “Now I can’t help regretting that we didn’t have this then. Sum-Num. He would have been in the 900s for sure.”

  “Of course,” Delaney said.

  “The number will tell you if your life has been lived right,” Mae said. “The number will rise and fall on the merits of your actions and words. It’s no longer subjective. You’ll know every day where you stand. It won’t be at the Gates of Heaven. It won’t be one guy with a book open to your name. The number will be there, every day. There will be no more questions. You’ll know it and control it, thank god.”

  “Thank us,” Delaney laughed.

  “Right,” Mae smiled. “Thank us.”

  Delaney turned the corner and scurried up the last few yards. When she stood, as always, her stomach spun from the dizzy height. She steadied herself and took in the view. The sky was vermillion and she could see for a hundred miles, sagebrush and white pines and blue cliffs. The air was bracing and clean.

  Mae followed her up to the summit, briefly scanned her surroundings, then sat down on the rocky boundary of the stream. “Just need to catch my breath.”

  “You did well,” Delaney said. “I’m impressed.”

  “I’m impressed with you,” Mae said. “So have you told anyone about this idea of yours?”

  “No one,” Delaney said.

  “Not Wes?” Mae asked.

  “We’ve both been busy.”

  Mae smiled warmly. “You know what I’m going to say?”

  “Sharing is caring?” Delaney said, and laughed. She looked over the waterfall’s edge, as the spray lifted into the air and was refracted by the high sun.

  “Anyway,” Mae said, “I’m glad you shared it with me.”

  “On that note, I wanted to mention,” Delaney said, “I know Stenton is elbowing himself in. I know the pressure you must be under.” She looked to Mae to gauge her reaction. Mae’s face was stiff, her eyes narrowed ever so slightly. Delaney did not feel her intrusion particularly welcome, but she pressed on. She wanted to make it clear that she would be giving this idea, like all her ideas, to the Every, and asking for no credit.

  “I just want to help,” she said. “If these ideas help you maintain control, fend off his power-grab, they’re yours.” Delaney had a brief vision of the two of them enacting the plan, side by side. She saw it in a frantic montage of inspired work and global impact. The rise of Stenton would be thwarted as Mae and Delaney inspired the Every and the world with their plan. Mae and Delaney—and Wes! And Agarwal! And Joan—would bring clean air to Beijing and Mexico City, would bring about the resurrection of the Great Barrier Reef, the cleaning of the Venetian canals. The end of landfills, plastic, waste, chaos, degradation, the rising seas. Yes, yes, she saw Wes’s way now. It was far better to be in the machine, with access to the levers, than outside, attempting juvenile sabotage. She looked over the landscape below, the white pines and sagebrush, all this irreplaceable splendor, and thought that with Mae’s power and her vision, they might have the ability to save it. And couldn’t there be room for them both in this world—the trogs and the techs? Certainly the Everyones could see their way to allowing humans to exist apart from their quest for order? Yes. There would be room to co-exist. Delaney could work within the system, and if she failed, she’d return to this life apart. Surely that could be allowed.

  “I guess I’m saying I’m here to help you,” Delaney said.

  Mae’s mouth spread into a smile that her eyes did not immediately reflect. The effect was unsettling. As if knowing the dissonance, she squinted amiably at Delaney.

  “Well, I think that’s wonderful,” she finally said.

  No, Delaney thought. Just a coincidence. Such a common phrase. But there was the slightest edge in her voice, a sprinkle of acid in how she said wonderful that gave Delaney pause.

  “How far down is it?” Mae asked.

  Delaney peered over the edge again. The recklessness of the falling water gave her a shudder. “I don’t know,” she said, though she knew it was at least three hundred feet. “This trail was cut eighty years ago and isn’t used much. I don’t think anyone but me has been here in ages. I’m guessing the waterfall’s never been measured.”

  As Mae watched Delaney’s back, a slashing hatred grew within her. For months she’d known about Delaney’s treachery; it was ludicrously obvious. How did this idiot think she could plot against the Every—within the Every? A spy within the global epicenter of surveillance? It was insulting. Gabriel had sniffed her out on day one. Observing the daily movements of a would-be saboteur on campus had yielded some insights, and they’d collected mountains of data about trogs, but more than anything it had been a pathetic demonstration—like watching a spider try to climb up from the downward swirl of a flushing toilet.

  Delaney Wells had ideas, this was undeniable, and these new ones, this braided pair that might truly save the planet and perfect the species—they would give Mae a thousand-year reign. But it was time for Delaney to go. Gabriel had found Delaney’s clumsy machinations vastly entertaining, even inventing an underground resistance within the Every, planting the idea that Mae was pregnant to see if Delaney would reveal it—he’d enjoyed toying with her while he could. But Mae was less amused. Delaney embodied everything she’d been trying to rid the world of—deceit, withholding, hidden agendas, lies. For months Mae had pictured a confrontation with Delaney, in some public forum, standing over her, finger wagging, thundering about betrayal, duplicity, and the pitiful hopelessness of Delaney’s scheme. But now that they were out here, alone, there was no point. Who would hear such a diatribe? Who would remember it? Only Delaney Wells, and Delaney Wells was about to be pushed off a cliff.

  XLV.

  ON THE PLANE home from Idaho, Mae scrolled through RememberMe, a eulogy aggregator and template. She wouldn’t be delivering any formal speech in Delaney’s honor—she barely knew Delaney—but she had to have at least a few sentences at the ready. She scrolled through the suggested phrases. A cherished colleague. A bright light. What else? Such limitless potential. No, too much. Keep the praise muted. Good worker. Valuable team member. A well-liked Everyone. Mae looked at the template. She touched the lives of so many. That worked, but so many was too much, implying outsized impact and popularity—which might provoke too much curiosity. Better would be to say simply, “She touched the lives of many.” That was the kind of faint praise that would end all intrigue.

  When Mae returned to the Every, though, there was nothing like the outpouring of grief she had expected. Certainly nothing remotely approaching what there had been for Bailey or Soren and the others killed in the bombing. And why would there be? Very few people at the Every knew Delaney well, or at all. Most of her social media interactions had been faked; that really was a new low, Mae thought. What about Delaney was authentic, after all? No wonder she had few friends. She was close with Wes Makazian and distantly connected with someone named Winnie Ochoa in Thoughts Not Things. She’d spent a month or so at AYS and seemed to be chummy with Joan Pham, who’d tried to parlay the bombing into some sickening settlement; like a small tumor, she would need to be excised. Otherwise, no one seemed to know Delaney Wells or would miss her. A memorial was unnecessary. Mae monitored the campus mood with a hundred metrics and found no reason to make a fuss.

  Such a shame, Mae told her followers. She decided her eulogy would be brief, twenty seconds, in between other, more glittering announcements. An Everyone has fallen to her death in a remote Idaho canyon, she said. She’d gone off the known path—had gone into the wilderness without a phone, untracked and unknown and unseen. Mae had been careful to create a second set of tracks, heavy and male, in case the police investigated, but they didn’t. Anything unfilmed was not pursued, and because there were no journalists, Delaney’s death was abstract and incomprehensible—yet more evidence that there were parts of the world that were unmapped and perilous; the unseen were putting themselves in perpetual danger. These unknown places must be brought to heel, and the people that go there, that scurry around in the shadows, must be brought to their senses.