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.

“Does Area X have unfinished business with you? Is there something you haven’t told us about the first expedition?”

“Nothing that would help you.” Bitter now. Directed at you for ambushing him, or at someone else?

“Lowry, if you don’t tell me whether or not this is your cell phone, I am going to go to Central and tell them all about the S&SB, all about where I came from, how you covered it up. I’m going to scuttle you for good.”

“You’d be done for yourself then.”

“I’m done for anyway—you know that.”

Lowry gives you a look that’s equal parts aggression and some secret hurt coming to the surface.

“I get it now, Gloria,” he says. “You’re going on a suicide mission and you just want everything out in the open, even if it’s unimportant. Well, you should know that if you share with anyone, I’ll—”

“You’re corrupted data,” you tell him. “If we used your own techniques on you, Lowry, what would we find in your brain? Coiled up in there?”

“How the fuck dare you.” He’s trembling with anger, but he’s not moving, he’s not retreating one inch. It’s not a denial, although it probably should be. Guilt? Does Lowry believe in guilt?

Pushing now, probing now, not certain if what you’re saying is true: “While on the first expedition, did you communicate with them? With Area X?”

“I wouldn’t call it communication. It’s all in the files you’ve already seen.”

“What did you see? How did you see it?” Were we doomed when you came back, or before?

“There will never be a grand unified theory, Gloria. We will never find it. Not in our lifetime, and it’ll be too late.” Lowry trying to confuse things, escape the spotlight. “You know, they’re looking at water on the moons of Jupiter right now, out there, our not-so-secret sister organizations. There might be a secret sea out there. There might be life, right under our noses. But there’s always been life right under our noses—we’re just too blind to see it. These fucking questions—they don’t matter.”