Unknown 9 by Layton Green (each kindness read aloud txt) 📕

across the street was so close she thought she could jump to the balcony on the other side, where a shirtless old man was taking down a birdcage before the heat of the day settled in.

While the flirting from last night had not continued—and neither of them had brought it up—Cal’s relaxed nature made her feel less awkward. He was an easy guy to be around, she had to admit.

Most of the time.

She also had to admit she felt closer to him after their night of revelry. She reasoned it was only natural that two people in such dire circumstances would develop a bond, like two people adrift at sea, forced to lean on each other to survive.

“Check this out,” she said, pulling out the Star Phone to bring up the image of the sandstone disk. “This was easy to find online. It’s a famous Aztec relic called the Stone of the Sun. The thing is huge: more than twenty tons and twelve feet in diameter.”

He whistled. “When was it made?”

“Good question—and that raises another angle I’ve been pondering. The stone was unearthed beneath the Zócalo in Mexico City in 1790, but a glyph on the stone mentions Montezuma II, an Aztec ruler who reigned between 1502 and 1520 AD. So it’s at least that old.”

“Dude’s famous, right? Montezuma’s revenge and all?”

Andie rolled her eyes. “He ruled the Aztec Empire at its peak, when it stretched from Mexico to Honduras. Unfortunately, this coincided with the arrival of Cortés, and we know how that story goes.” She wagged a finger. “Bear with me for a sec. Let’s get meta. The Star Phone puzzle started with Democritus, a philosopher from fourth-century BCE. After that it was ancient Alexandria, marking the transition to the Common Era. Next up was Aryabhata in fourth century AD. We don’t know much about the next two sites, but Zawadi tells us the Ascendants went to Granada and Timbuktu, which presupposes the Islamic Golden Age—which started in roughly the eighth century. Then we moved to the Silk Road, which didn’t peak in Vietnam until the fourteenth century.”

“And the sixth location has something to do with this Aztec sun stone in the fifteen hundreds.”

“Right.”

“So what’s all that mean?” he asked.

“I don’t know, except we’re moving forward in time.”

“Maybe a better question,” Cal said quietly, “is what it all means for you.”

Andie looked down, unable to deny the truth of the insinuation. In fact, she had thought of little else that morning.

On the surface, the Star Phone puzzle was highlighting the achievements of humankind—both overt and hidden—across a variety of cultures and time periods. She knew there were other lessons as well. Veiled, interwoven threads in the tapestry of history.

Yet now, after what they had seen in Vietnam, an even deeper layer had been revealed, one unrelated to the world at large.

A layer personal to Andie.

It seemed that with every turn, she was becoming more and more involved in the events of this mysterious society, corkscrewing tighter and tighter into an unknown world.

What game are you playing with my life, Dr. Corwin? What’s your ultimate goal?

Why did you never tell me?

“I don’t know what it means,” Andie said, more roughly than she had intended. “We just need to solve it, and we’re getting closer. Like I said, I think I know where the puzzle leads next.”

Cal spread his hands. “Hit me.”

After a sip of chilled strawberry tea, she pulled up a web page on Zawadi’s phone for the National Museum of Anthropology in Mexico City. Cal stared at the photo of the Aztec sun stone, then watched as she toggled back and forth between the photo and the image on the Star Phone.

“They look the same to me,” he said. “No mystery there. So we’re going to Mexico?”

“Not so fast. As far as I can tell—and I studied it all morning—the two images are identical. But so is this one.” She pulled up another web page, this time for the Hall of Mexico and Central America in the American Museum of Natural History in New York, where another Aztec sun stone—an exact replica of the original—is on permanent display.

He looked up. “I guess that muddies the water. Though I’d think the original was more important.”

“I thought so too, until I started trying to figure out the images in the corners. There has to be a reason they were included, and it wasn’t too difficult to find them online. The eagle clutching the globe in its talons—if you look closely, that’s an anchor piercing the globe—is the symbol for the United States Marines.”

Cal frowned. “The US armed forces doesn’t seem to fit the themes here.”

“Not on its own. But that elaborate green headpiece on the eagle is actually a featherwork crown known as Montezuma’s headdress. It’s another important relic, and it’s held in the Museum of Ethnology in Vienna. Mexico, of course, wants it back.”

“The plot thickens.”

“Moving clockwise—there’s a reason for that—we come to the pair of concentric rings.” She pulled up a web page that depicted a smaller circle inside a larger one, connected at a single point on the right side of both circles. A number of tiny animal drawings, almost whimsical in nature, were spaced along the perimeter of the larger circle. The smaller circle was inset with dots, from one to thirteen, also along the perimeter.

“It’s a tonalpohualli, or day stone,” Andie said. “An Aztec calendar based on incredibly advanced astronomical observations. The Aztecs built their cities and temples to align with the sun and moon, and this calendar was a stunning achievement at the time.”

“Now that fits the theme. What about the last two?”

“As far as I can tell, the maps of Mexico and Central America are simply that: outlines of geographical entities. There are no other distinguishing features.”

Cal used his chopsticks to stab a spring roll. “You did all this before lunch?”

“Like I said, they weren’t that hard to find. Putting it all together was a different story. I was going in a million directions,