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

The strangling cord bit deep into his flesh. Dr. Corwin jerked and bucked, slipping on the wet floor, unable to free himself. The assailant’s grip was enormously strong. In the back of Dr. Corwin’s mind, he caught the aroma of rum and citrus.

How did Hans arrive so quickly? He must have entered from another direction.

Clawing at the cord, Dr. Corwin tried to bend at the waist and flip the German over his back. Hans resisted by lowering his weight and bending his quarry backward, keeping him off-balance. Dr. Corwin tried to twist his torso and sweep one of his assailant’s legs out from under him, but Hans kept dragging him backward, relentless, tightening the cord with each step.

Dr. Corwin had some limited training in boxing and Okinawan karate, but more importantly, he had engaged in countless brawls on the streets of Kingston as a youth. Though a skinny and cerebral child, he had never backed down, and suffered a beating on many an occasion.

Which taught him how to deal with pain and not panic—invaluable skills in a real fight.

Yet nothing he did seemed to work. Hans knew how to hold a strangle, and Dr. Corwin was starting to see black. He kept trying to insert his fingers beneath the leather cord, but it was drawn too tight.

To his left, one of the blinking red lights drew his attention. He might have one last play. Summoning a burst of adrenaline, he jerked to that side, bringing them both closer to the wall. When Hans leaned him over even farther, Dr. Corwin didn’t resist. Instead he gave in and threw his legs high on the wall. Hans jerked him back down—but not before Dr. Corwin managed to lash out with a foot, kick the red emergency light, and shatter the glass case.

An alarm sounded at once.

Hans cursed under his breath and tried to retighten his grip, but Dr. Corwin had managed to slip his fingers beneath the cord, allowing him to catch a precious few breaths and relieve the pressure of the strangle. When Hans noticed and tried to rip Dr. Corwin’s fingers away, Dr. Corwin bucked so hard they both fell to the ground. Quick as a cat, Hans leaped to his feet and drew the cord taut in his hands.

A door slammed nearby. Shouts emanated from the outside hallway. Hans took a step forward, thought better of it, and backed away with a snarl.

Still gasping for breath, barely able to feel his legs, Dr. Corwin slumped on the floor as Hans fled into the murky recesses of the grotto.

Shanghai, China   4   

As thin and delicate as a lotus stalk, her straight black hair streaming to her waist, Daiyu walked with a hunch through the crowded nightclub, the contorted posture a product of her lifelong battle with scoliosis.

Black lights strobing the club exposed a psychedelic range of colors on the painted walls and ceiling. A former slaughterhouse built in the 1920s, rivers of blood had once flowed in the vast concrete hall, pouring through grated canals lining the floor. The slaughterhouse had been discovered in a forgotten corner of Shanghai and resurrected by a tribe of urban worshippers called biohackers—a tribe to which Daiyu and her brother, Jianyu, belonged.

Biohackers. Grinders. Upgraders.

Synonyms for adherents to a group who believed in augmenting the human body through the use of machines and technology.

The world was full of biohackers, though most people cringed at the term. Anyone who used a pacemaker, voice modulator, implanted electrodes to treat Parkinson’s disease, or even a hearing aid belonged. Contraceptive coils and prosthetic limbs counted as well.

Yet true biohackers took the practice much further, surgically implanting chips and magnets and other devices beneath their skin that could do all manner of things: connect to PCs and cell phones and voice assistants, give directions to personal robots, fire smartguns, even detect seismic tremors. Major companies aiming to connect the human brain to a computer interface had already surfaced. The movement was in its infancy, and the possibilities were endless.

Wincing at the pain shooting down her back and through the sciatic nerve, Daiyu approached one of the raised daises near the center of the room, where her brother held court. In their religion, Daiyu was the high priestess, and Jianyu her warrior protector. Though born only a few hours ahead, Daiyu’s beloved twin dwarfed her in size. He was tall, handsome, and blessed with a narrow waist and muscular physique that could have graced the cover of a bodybuilding magazine.

No, not blessed, Daiyu knew. Given.

The twins had a special status among the biohacker community. In addition to their talents—Daiyu was a computer specialist, and Jianyu a living weapon—their parents were geneticists who had dreamed of gene editing long before it had become a reality. They were among the earliest adopters of IVF in human beings, and the Chinese government supported their ambitions. Jianyu’s biological father was a world-class gymnast whom the government had ordered to submit to the procedure. Daiyu’s DNA stemmed from a genius nuclear physicist. She was grateful for her intelligence, but bitter about her physical deformity, and blamed the limitations of science at the time. Oh, what she wouldn’t give for a perfectly aligned spine!

At the time, the twins’ birth was the most sophisticated body modification available. Now CRISPR and other gene editing techniques made IVF seem as sophisticated as a videocassette recorder. A Chinese scientist had already engineered the DNA of a human embryo. Soon computer chips would enter the DNA in vitro. The transmogrification of humankind was not the future: it was the present.

A beast of a man with steel horns implanted in his head and a fleet of nose rings scurried out of Daiyu’s way. Bombarded by flashing light and color, she stepped onto a bronze dais with a love seat and a wraparound railing. The acid house playlist was constructed by an artificial intelligence DJ,