After thirty years, the only human engagement with Area X?a seemingly malevolent landscape surrounded by an invisible border and mysteriously wiped clean of all signs of civilization?has been a series of expeditions overseen by a government agency so secret it has almost been forgotten: the Southern Reach. Following the tumultuous twelfth expedition chronicled in Annihilation, the agency is in complete disarray.John Rodrigues (aka "Control") is the Southern Reach's newly appointed head. Working