plot
Control, a third-generation spy, has been appointed the acting director of the Southern Reach. He's replacing the previous director who went on the 12th expedition and never returned. His handler is called the Voice, and the Voice works at Central.
The book begins on his first Monday in the Southern Reach compound located outside of Area X.
spoilers
The director of the Southern Reach herself was the psychologist from the 12th expedition, the same expedition as the biologist. After she fails to return, the Voice dispatches Control to "acclimate, assess, analyze, and then dig in deep." Control's mother, Jackie Severance, a spy, warns him that this is his last chance. Control didn't even know he needed a last chance.
The anthropologist, the surveyor, and the biologist of the 12th expedition were found and taken from places outside of Area X. Control questions the biologist, who had been found in an empty lot, but she doesn't give him many answers and claims amnesia.
Grace, the assistant director, does not like Control, and this is made known quickly. Because Control interviewed the biologist by herself against Grace's wishes, she sends the anthropologist and surveyor away to Central as a warning not to do anything she doesn't like.
Message received, Control tours the science division and watches the infamous videos of one of the earliest experiments done by the Southern Reach: herding over two thousand white rabbits into the mysterious border, where they disappeared in the blink of an eye. But even many experiments later, they don't know much about the border at all. They didn't even make the door that they use to send expeditions inside.
Whitby, the "science division's jack-of-all-trades," a "cohesive naturalist and holistic scientist specializing in biospheres," invites Control to see a special room.
"I can show you something interesting in one of the rooms near the science division that pertains to this," Whitby said in a dreamy tone, still following the path of the bird. "Would you like to see it?" His disconnected gaze clicked into hard focus and settled on Control, who had a sudden jarring impression of there being two Whitbys, one lurking inside the other. Or even three, nestled inside one another.
The next morning, Control starts to get acquainted with the rest of the Southern Reach and digs deeper into the director's files. He discovers an old cell phone in a drawer along with a strange plant. While cleaning and sorting, he also discovers the director had written the words that are written on the walls of the topological anomaly on a wall in her office, proof that she had an affinity for Area X that extended beyond the norm. Considering this, Control goes for a tour with Cheney, chatty physicist, head of the science department, and Whitby to the border and sees the door for the first time. On his side, it is thunderstorming. On the other side, it is a golden day.
Beyond the red wooden frame, Control could see a roughly rectangular space forming an arch at the top, through which winded a scintillating, questing white light, a light that fizzed and flickered and seemed always on the point of being snuffed out but never was... there was a kind of spiraling effect to it, as it continually circled back in on itself. If you blinked quickly it almost looked as if the light consisted of eight or ten swiftly rotating spokes, but this was an illusion.
Control comes back and interviews the biologist again and notices that she's acting much differently than before. She admits to more memories of Area X. They discuss the picture she found in the lighthouse while on her expedition of the lighthouse keeper, his assistant, and a little girl.
Later, Control opens the door to a storage closet and finds Whitby inside wearing an expression of abject agony. Horrified, Control manages to steady the conversation, and Whitby takes the opportunity to introduce the idea of parallel universes. Awkwardly, Control jokes that maybe Whitby's presence is the reason why they haven't solved the mystery of Area X in this universe.
Control finally sees the videos from the first expedition. There was only one survivor: Lowry.
In the foreground, a woman, the expedition leader, was shouting, "Get her to stop!" Her face was made a mask by the light from the recorder and the way it formed such severe shadows around her eyes and mouth. Opposite, across a kind of crude picnic table that appeared fire-burned, a woman, the expedition leader, shouded, "Get her to stop! Please stop! Please stop!"
Yet for a good twenty seconds the camera flew above the glimmering marsh reeds, the deep blue lakes, the ragged white cusp of the sea, toward the lighthouse.
Dipped and rose, fell again and soared again.
With what seemed like a horrifying enthusiasm.
An all-consuming joy.
He goes to interrogate the biologist; however, she says she's not the biologist. Chewing on that, he goes to the cafeteria where Grace confronts him with a story from his early career, one where things went horribly wrong, airing all his dirty laundry for Cheney, Whitby, and Hsyu, a staff linguist. Grace hates him, and Control no longer has any secrets.
"And around the time that he's excited he helped crack the case wide open, and a judge is issuing warrants, the boyfriend has shot McCarthy in the head, twice, and let her fall, dead, into the shallow water below."
The Voice and Control have an argument. During their next call, Control screams obscenities until the Voice hypnotizes him to shut him up. A bullhorn goes off and Control screams obscenities and ticks off an item on his list on the neon orange paper in front of him. This repeats until the last line, when Control repeats all of the hypnotic prompts back at the Voice, who screams.
"Here's a joke for you," Control said. "What's the difference between a magician and a spy?" Then he hung up.
Control gets a call from his mother and he learns that the Voice is actually Lowry.
Control throws away the old cell phone he found in the director's desk.
He visits the director's house to see if he can find anything that Central or the Southern Reach missed on their own searches. He finds the words written on the wall in an obvious place, but there had been no mention of it in the search details, and the front door unlocked. He calls his mother and recommends they send a team in to investigate.
After the weekend, Control bluffs and tells Grace that the biologist has confessed a lot of information about the director taking an unauthorized trip across the border. Grace listens and reveals all that she knows about the trip, which is only enough to help him understand the director's good intentions. They stop for cigarettes and Grace reveals that the biologist left on Friday, pulled away by Central, so he's caught in his lie.
Betrayed and embarrassed, Control doesn't know what to do until he decides to return to the storage closet and investigate. He discovers a trap door in the ceiling and opens it to find paintings on the walls.
Along the wall and part of the ceiling, someone had painted a vast phantasmagoria of grotesque monsters with human faces. More specifically, oils splotched and splashed in a primitive style, in rich, deep reds and blues and greens and yellows, to form approximations of bodies. The pixelated faces were blown-up security head shots of Southern Reach staff.
Control realizes that Whitby was living in the Southern Reach building. Taking in the impressive oil paintings, he hears breathing noises. He turns his head and learns that all this time he has been looking at the monstrosities, Whitby has been tucked into the shelves uncannily and watching him. They make eye contact. Whitby reaches out and pets him on the head, and Control escapes.
After some time studying the director's notes and the pictures he'd gathered over his week as acting director, Control tries to leave a room but discovers that there isn't a door. And the walls are breathing. When he gets outside, he sees the director approaching from Area X, emerald dust trailing behind her. The border is advancing to the Southern Reach.
Control runs away and as he does so he realizes that the girl in the picture with the lighthouse keeper is the director as a child.
After driving away, he goes home and speaks with his mother for the last time. She tells him the biologist escaped.
Control guesses that the biologist will be at Rock Bay, a place she'd worked before. Clutching Whitby's terroir manuscript, he spends long days finding and catching up to her. He finds her along the coast along with a jagged, sharp, deep hole. She tells him she's not the biologist again, and he believes her. She jumps into the hole.
"Jump," said a voice in his head.
Control jumps, too.
