Summary

0023

The director renews her interest in the people. As a child she'd never liked Henry, even less Suzanne. She pours through all of the records from pre-Area X to the present and there is no mention of them, specifically. Grace questions her about her fixation on these records and the video footage from the first expedition. They argue about Cynthia's fitness to run the SB. What Cynthia cannot bring herself to tell Grace is that Southern Reach has been a long con from the beginning. Central had, for a long while, she tells Grace, been broadcasting and listening for extraterrestrial chatter on a bandwidth that corresponds to that frequency used by hydrogen, or water. Laughing cynically, she tells Grace that all this time, Central has known what Area X was, and has been trying to contact it. BUT, what they were unaware...