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

“Not if they don’t know about it.”

“What if Waylan simply renovated the room? Or maybe you didn’t see what you think you saw in those photos.”

“I did. I can show you.”

“Don’t bother. There’s a flight from Danang to Bangkok in three hours. I’m taking it. Bangkok has direct flights to the States.”

“You’re just going to fly right into New York?” he said, incredulous. “After what Zawadi said?”

“I’ll pick another city to fly into, and then drive.” She knew her eyes betrayed her uncertainty at what she was about to do, and she didn’t care. In her mind, there was no real choice. The longer they waited, the more time they gave the Ascendants to find them, and to torture Dr. Corwin. “I’ll figure something out.”

Half an hour later, Andie asked the hotel concierge to call her a cab, then hoisted her backpack and waited on the veranda beneath a bank of clouds pillowing the Vietnam sky. The midday heat was oppressive, sapping her energy, and the charms of Hoi An now seemed gauche, the hustle and bustle of street artists and doe-eyed tourists a cloying reminder of a life that was not hers to live.

Despite the insanity of recent events, she had thought for a moment that she and Cal had forged something, a common mind and purpose, a bubble of normalcy in a world gone mad.

She knew Cal was making a mercenary choice for his future just like she was, and that she was being reckless by going to New York. But she felt she had no choice. She had to follow the Star Phone puzzle, and fair or not, she couldn’t shake the feeling he was abandoning her.

Just like her mother had done.

“Miss?” A driver in a black sedan called out. “You are traveling to the Danang airport?”

Andie hesitated, mistrustful of the car. When she looked over at the concierge, he gave her a thumbs-up. Plus the driver of the sedan was a skinny Vietnamese kid in designer sunglasses who barely looked twenty.

If he’s an Ascendant, then I’m Joan of Arc.

She walked over as the driver opened the door. She had kept the Star Phone and a backpack, as well as Zawadi’s cell and one of the credit cards.

“Andie!”

She turned, hope swelling inside her, but she quickly noticed Cal was not carrying his backpack. His flight didn’t leave until the evening, and they had decided it was better to split up before the airport, since the Ascendants were looking for a man and a woman traveling together. They had exchanged a curt goodbye in the room that left Andie feeling even more hurt than before.

“I thought you might need this,” he said.

“A toothbrush?”

He handed her the cheap brush she had bought at the night market in Hanoi. “I’m told they’re essential to dental hygiene.”

“Thanks,” she said in a wooden voice.

After a moment, he said, “I didn’t like the way we said goodbye.”

Andie paused by the open car door. She knew she was being unreasonable, and reckless, and that she could not expect someone else to take the risks she was about to take. But when her mother had left Andie in her bed that night so long ago, and never returned, it had saddled Andie with a deep mistrust of anyone who left her for any reason.

She wanted to ask Cal to come with her again, and tell him she didn’t want to do this by herself, beg him even, but she couldn’t expose herself in that way. Instead she met his eyes, held her chin steady, and said nothing.

“Here,” he said, handing her a piece of paper. “Dane gave me a secure web address for us to use. Can we please keep in touch?”

She took the paper, nodded, and put it in her pocket. “Of course.”

He put a hand on her arm. “Take care of yourself.”

She looked down at his hand and bit her lip, her voice coming out as a whisper. “You too.”

“Don’t take unnecessary risks. Stay out of sight.” His mouth opened and then closed, as if he had changed his mind about whatever he was going to say. “I’m hoping there aren’t any puzzles to solve in Asheville. I won’t get very far without you.”

“Somehow, I think you’ll manage just fine.”

“I paid for those drinks last night, you know. Granted, it was Zawadi’s money. But the next one’s on you, and I’m holding you to it.”

“Sure,” she said again, and stepped into the car before her emotions got the better of her.

Ushuaia, ArgentinaNovember 1988

In his search for Ettore Majorana, Dr. Corwin had traveled, quite literally, to the ends of the Earth.

Located near the bottom of Tierra del Fuego, an archipelago at the tip of South America, Ushuaia was known as the southernmost town in the world, closer to Antarctica than to Argentina’s neighboring countries to the north. On a cloudy Saturday morning in November, frazzled by the long journey, Dr. Corwin parked his Land Rover in front of a wood beam house at the edge of town. The house had a corrugated iron roof painted cobalt blue, in keeping with the style of the other homes. In truth, the isolated settlement was little more than a collection of log cabins with pretty roofs.

As he stepped out of the truck, buffeted by a stiff breeze, the moment felt surreal. Could the elusive physicist at the center of Dr. Corwin’s twenty-year search truly live inside this simple dwelling? Ettore was born in August 1906. If still alive, he would be an old man now.

Beyond the house, Dr. Corwin glimpsed the icy blue waters of a bay near the convergence of the south Pacific and south Atlantic oceans. A succession of towering glacial peaks ringed the town on three sides, a crown of kings impassable except for a single road snaking through the Garibaldi Pass.

Though belonging in name to Argentina, no one but extreme adventurers, and perhaps an ornithologist in search of the natural habitat of the