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reality to paranormal phenomenon.” Members of the S&S Brigade had written
     several self-published books that had collected dust on the counters of local businesses.
     It was the S&SB that had in effect named Area X, identifying that coast as “of particular
     interest” and calling it “Active Site X”—a name prominent on their bizarre science-inspired
     tarot cards. The Southern Reach had discounted S&SB early on as “not a catalyst or
     a player or an instigator” in whatever had caused Area X—just a bunch of (un)lucky
     “amateurs” caught up in something beyond the grasp of their imaginations. Except,
     almost every effective terrorist Control had encountered was an “amateur.”
    “We live in a universe driven by chance,” his father had said once, “but the bullshit
     artists all want causality.” Bullshit artist in this context meant his mother, but
     the statement had wide applications.
    So was all or any of it random coincidence—or part of some vast, pre–Area X conspiracy?
     You could spend years wading through the data, trying to find the answer—and it looked
     to Control as if that’s exactly what the former director had been doing.
    “And you think this is credible evidence?” Control still didn’t know how far into
     the mountain of bullshit the assistant director had fallen. Too far, given her natural
     animosity, and he wouldn’t be inclined to pull her out of it.
    “Not all of it,” she conceded, a thin smile erasing the default frown. “But tracking
     back from the events we know have occurred since the border came down, you begin to
     see patterns.”
    Control believed her. He would have believed Grace had she said visions appeared in
     the swirls of her strawberry gelato on hot summer days or in the fracturing of the
     ice in another of her favorites, rum-and-diet with a lime (her personnel file was
     full of maddeningly irrelevant details). It was in the nature of being an analyst.
     But what patterns had colonized the former director’s mind? And how much of that had
     infiltrated the assistant director? On some level, Control hoped that the mess the
     director had left behind was deliberate, to hide some more rational progression.
    “But how is that different from any other godforsaken stretch of coast half off the
     grid?” There were still dozens of them all across the country. Places that were poison
     to real-estate agents, with little infrastructure and a long history of distrust of
     the government.
    The assistant director stared at him in a way that made him feel uncomfortably like
     a middle-school student again, sent up for insolence.
    “I know what you’re thinking,” she said. “Have we been compromised by our own data?
     The answer is: Of course. That is what happens over time. But if there is something
     in the files that is useful, you might see it because you have fresh eyes. So I can
     archive all of this now if you like. Or we can use you the way we need to use you:
     not because you know anything but because you know so little.”
    A kind of resentful pride rose up in Control that wasn’t useful, that came from having
     a parent who did seem to know everything.
    “I didn’t mean that I—”
    Mercifully, she cut him off. Unmercifully, her tone channeled contempt. “We have been
     here a long time … Control. A very long time. Living with this. Unable to do very
     much about this.” A surprising amount of pain had entered her voice. “You don’t go
     home at night with it in your stomach, in your bones. In a few weeks, when you have
     seen everything, you will have been living with it for a long time, too. You will
     be just like us—only more so, because it is getting worse. Fewer and fewer journals
     recovered, and more zombies, as if they have been mind-wiped. And no one in charge
     has time for us.”
    It could have been a moment to commiserate over the vagaries and injustices perpetrated
     by Central, Control realized later, but he