Acceptance(88)

“Did we recruit, or—”

“Some operatives embedded—and some folks we persuaded to work for us because they liked the idea of playing spy. Some folks who got a thrill out of it. Didn’t need a deeper reason, like God and country. Probably just as well.”

“Was Jackie involved, too?”

“Jack wasn’t just protecting himself,” Lowry says. “When Jackie was starting out, she helped him a bit—and then she came to the Southern Reach later and helped Jack again, to make sure none of this came out. Except I found out, as I do, sometimes. As you know.”

“Ever come across a Henry or Suzanne in the files?”

“Never any names used in what I saw. Just code names like, I dunno, ‘Big Hawler’ and ‘Spooky Action’ and ‘Damned Porkchop.’ That kind of crap.”

But none of this is the real question, the first of the real questions.

“Did the S&SB facilitate, knowingly or unknowingly, the creation of Area X?”

Lowry looks both stunned and amused beyond reason or good sense. “No, of course not. No no no! That’s why Jack could keep it secret, snuff it out. Strictly in the wrong place at the wrong time—because otherwise I would have … I would have taken measures.” But you think he meant to say would have killed them all. “And it turns out Jack was running it mostly on his own initiative, which is something I think we can both appreciate, right?”

Above you loom the old barracks, the warrens, gun slits from concrete bunkers.

Do you believe Lowry? No, you don’t.

* * *

The little gravel beach where you both stand is some distance from the fake lighthouse. It has a fringe of anemic grass and, right before the water, a line of rocks covered in white lichen. The brilliant sun for a moment becomes lost in a depression of clouds and shadow, the pale blue surface of the sea a sudden gray. The otter that has been trailing you has come closer. Its constant chattering monologue of clicks and whistles Lowry finds somehow disrespectful, perhaps because of prior encounters. He starts yelling at the otter and the otter keeps “talking” and popping up somewhere unexpected so Lowry can never adjust to throw the pebble he plans on caroming off the otter’s head. You sit down on the rocks, watch the show.

“Goddamn fucking creature. Goddamn stupid fucking animal.”

The otter shows off a fish it’s caught, swimming on its back, eyes full of a kind of laughter, if that’s possible.

The otter skims and zags and disappears and comes back up. Lowry’s pebbles skip and plop without effect, the otter apparently thinking it’s a game.

But it’s a game that bores the otter after a while, and it submerges for a long time, Lowry standing there with one hand on his hip, the other a fist around a rock, searching for a new ripple in the water, seeming to want to guess how long the otter can hold its breath, what range of options the animal has for where it can come up for air. Except it never reappears, and Lowry’s left standing there, holding a rock.

Is Lowry a monster? He is monstrous in your eyes, because you know that by the time his hold on Central, the parts of Central he wants to make laugh and dance the way he wants them to laugh and dance … by the time this hold, the doubling and mirroring, has waned as most reigns of terror do, the signs of his hand, his will, will have irrevocably fallen across so many places. His ghost will haunt so much for so many years to come, imprint upon so many minds, that if the details about the man known as Lowry are suddenly purged from all the systems, those systems will still reconstruct his image from the very force and power of his impact.

You take out a photo of the cell phone, nudge his arm with it, make him take it. Lowry blanches, tries to hand back the photograph, but you’re going to make him keep it. He’s stuck holding it and the rock meant for the otter. He drops the rock, but won’t look at the photograph again.

“Lowry, I think you lied about this phone. I think this is your phone. From the first expedition.” You’ve a sense as you say the words that you’re going too far, but you’ll be going even farther soon.

“You don’t know that’s my phone.”

“It’s got a long history now.”

Lowry: “No.” Stark. Final. Letting in no light. A kind of self-damnation. No protest. No outrage. None of the usual Lowry drama. “No.” Without any way to pry loose some light between the letters of that word, so you’ll have to try yourself, across the border.

“Are you working for them? Is that the problem?” You leave the “them” vague on purpose.

“For ‘them’?” A laugh that burned. “Why, is there a problem with the phone?” Still not an admission.