But that was just it. Control had a fairly crude report, including the intel that the director had conducted the exit interviews … which were astonishingly vague in their happy-happy nothing-bad-happened message. “Well, it was the expedition before the director’s special trip. I thought you might have some insight.”
Cheney shook his head, seemed now to very much regret his intrusion. “No, nothing much. Nothing that comes to mind.” Did the director’s office somehow make him uncomfortable? His gaze couldn’t seem to fix on one thing, ricocheted from the far wall to the ceiling and then, ever so briefly, like the brush of a moth’s wings, touched upon the mounds of unprofessional evidence circling Control. Did Cheney think of them as piles of gold Control would steal or piles of shit sandwiches he was being forced to eat?
“Let me ask you about Lowry, then,” Control said, thinking about the ambiguous “L.” notes he’d found and the video he’d be watching all too soon. “How did Lowry and the director get along?”
Cheney seemed just as uncomfortable with this question but more willing to answer. “How does anyone get along, when you think about it, really? Lowry didn’t like me personally but we got along fine professionally. He had an appreciation for our role. He knew the value of having good equipment.” Which probably meant Lowry had approved every purchase order Cheney ever wrote.
“But what about him and the director?” Control asked. Again.
“Bluntly? Lowry admired her in his way, tried to make her his protégé, but she didn’t want to be. She was very much her own person. And I think she thought he got too much credit for just surviving.”
“Wasn’t he a hero?” A glorious hero of the revolution plastered on a wall, remade in the image created by a camera lens and doctored documents. Rehabilitated from his awful experiences. Made productive. Booted up to Central after a while.
“Sure, sure,” Cheney said. “Sure enough. But, you know, maybe overrated. He liked to drink. He liked to throw his weight around. I remember the director once said something unkind, compared him to a prisoner of war who thinks just because he suffered he knows a lot. So, some friction. But they worked together, though. They did work together. Respect in opposition.” Quick flash of a smile, as if to say, “We’re all comrades here.”
“Interesting.” Although not really. Another tactical discovery: Evidence of infighting in the Southern Reach, a breakdown in organizational harmony because people weren’t robots, couldn’t be made to act like robots. Or could they?
“Yes, if you say so,” Cheney said, and trailed off.
“Is there anything else?” Control asked, a pointed stare beneath a frozen smile daring Cheney to ask again about his investigation into the director’s trip.
“No, I guess not. Nope. Not that I can think of,” Cheney said, clearly relieved. He tossed his goodbyes in classic convoluted Cheneyesque fashion as he backed out, amble-stumbling over the chairs and out of sight down the corridor.
After that, Control concentrated on nothing but basic sorting, until all the bits of paper had been accounted for and the piles safely stored in separate filing boxes for further categorizing. Although Control had noticed numerous references to the Séance & Science Brigade, he had found only three brief mentions of Saul Evans to go with the photo. As if the director’s interests had led her elsewhere.
He had, however, uncovered and set aside a sheet handwritten by the director, of seemingly random words and phrases, which he eventually realized, by taking a cross-referencing peek at Grace’s DMP file, had been used as hypnotic commands on the twelfth expedition. Now that was interesting. He almost buzzed Cheney to ask him about it, but something made him put the phone receiver down before punching in the extension.
* * *
At a quarter past six, Control felt a compulsion to wander out into the corridor for a good stretch. Everything lay under a hush and even a distant radio sounded like a garbled lullaby. Roaming farther afield, he was crossing the end of the now-empty cafeteria when he heard sounds coming from a storage room close to the corridor that led to the science division. Almost everyone had left, and he’d planned to leave soon himself, but the sounds distracted him. Who was in there? The elusive janitor, he hoped. The horrible cleaning product needed to be switched out. He was convinced it was a health hazard.
So he grasped the knob, receiving a little electric shock as he turned it, and then wrenched outward with all of his strength.
The door flew open, knocking Control back.
A pale creature was crouched in front of shelves of supplies, revealed under the sharp light of a single low-swinging lightbulb.