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

only for a few moments, as you consider all that I have said.”

The Archon walked out of the room and shut the door, leaving Daiyu standing in stupefied awe, afraid to move and break the spell, hardly able to believe that, for once in her life, she was not at the mercy of her broken vessel of a body.

Hanoi, Vietnam   18   

Hours after Andie and Cal received the text from Zawadi with the Star Phone clue, Rajani arranged a car transfer with one of the villagers. They drove through dense jungle on two lane roads for most of the journey to the tiny helipad in the hinterlands of West Bengal.

After boarding a small commuter plane, Andie gripped the pilot’s arm before he entered the cockpit. “Change in plans. We need to go to Hanoi, not Hong Kong. Can you do that?”

The pilot, Darsha, was a diminutive, clean-shaven Indian man with quick eyes and an air of competence. Andie thought he might refuse, or try to contact Zawadi, but instead he leveled his gaze at her and said, “You’re certain?”

Andie resisted the urge to bite a nail, not certain of anything. “Yes.”

“I’m not cleared to land in Hanoi. There could be a delay.”

“How long?”

“Hours, maybe more.”

“That’s fine. Please do your best.”

With a curt nod, Darsha told them to buckle in and enjoy the flight, then closed the cockpit door.

Cal regarded Andie with a shocked expression as they sat across from each other on the front two aisle seats. Rajani had given them a hemp travel bag for their few items, and Cal set it on the seat beside him. “I’m sorry, did I miss a memo? Hanoi?”

Andie reached across the aisle to lay a hand on his arm. “I was afraid to tell you before we got in the air. I didn’t trust that villager, or the car, or even Rajani.”

“Or me,” Cal said after a moment. “After what happened at the temple.”

She squeezed his arm. “I don’t know what to think about that. I have no reason to think Rajani wasn’t telling the truth . . . but why not take precautions if we can?”

“What’s going on? How far is Vietnam?”

“An hour closer than Hong Kong.” Andie reclined in her seat, curled her legs beneath her, and reached for a bottle of water the pilot had left in the seat back. “According to Zawadi’s spy—”

“Can we trust this person?”

“Are we any worse off if we can’t? Especially since we’re changing the location?”

Cal steepled his fingertips on his forehead. “Go on.”

After a drink of water, she said, “We know the next clue is an old-fashioned world map with a spider walking across a path of lotus petals on the back of a dragon.”

“That’s a mouthful.”

“There are four doors in the corners of the map, and one cracked door in the center. I have no idea what the doors or the dragon mean, and I agree that a spider walking across a map on a path of lotus petals is likely symbolic of the Silk Road. The lotus petals imply an Asian destination, and China is the obvious choice. But I don’t think it’s the right one.”

“Too easy?”

“Yes. But it’s more than that.” Andie fell silent for a moment, recalling her flash of insight at Rajani’s guesthouse, which concerned a long-ago conversation with her mentor. “Last semester, Dr. Corwin gave a lecture on the two types of knowledge: observation and revelation. He stressed that while science has revealed incredible amounts of data about the universe, we need to be careful not to misinterpret that data, and realize it’s no replacement for direct experience.”

“Like when scientists tell us the entire universe was once smaller than a single atom and that one day, just for the hell of it, I suppose, exploded to create all of this”—Cal swept a hand toward the synthesis of azure-blue sky and ocean outside the window—“they’re making a huge unsubstantiated guess that could very well be absolute nonsense?”

“Please don’t tell me you’re a big-bang denier.”

“Let me tell you what I’m not: a big-bang affirmer. That theory’s about as fulfilling as having just one beer.”

“Do you even understand the level of substantiation we’ve achieved on that? Ever heard of cosmic background rays?”

“Ever heard of Y2K? The flat Earth theory? Phrenology? Science screwed the pooch with those too. How many scientists have actually been to the edge of the universe?”

“When did you become an armchair physicist?” she said.

“I did a show on this once. Observation versus revelation. Trust me, it’s a pillar in the conspiracy-theory community. I’m obviously no scientist, but I do know that each of us has very little direct, observational experience of anything. Have you ever been to Vietnam? I haven’t. I know that India exists now, so that’s cool. But our reliance on secondhand knowledge opens the door to huge potential frauds, especially in the digital age. Deep fakes, anyone? Listen, Andie: the world as the citizens of North Korea know it is not the world we know. And who’s to say who’s right, unless you’ve actually observed the thing itself? Who’s to say our worldview isn’t being controlled by some shadowy corporation or government or alien society and we’re just as in the dark as North Korea? I know that’s a reach, but think smaller. Who really controls the flow of day-to-day information? Now that we’ve seen what we’ve seen, we have to ask ourselves what the Leap Year Society and the Ascendants know about world history and science that everyone else doesn’t.”

She waved a hand. “I told you before: I don’t do conspiracy theories.”

“Okay, answer me this. Assuming the universe is expanding, what the hell is driving it? Dark energy? Dark matter? A big rubber band?”

After a moment, Andie was forced to admit the truth. “We don’t know for sure.”

“Because the math from the big bang doesn’t really work out? Or because there’s an enormous amount of unexplained dark matter and dark energy unaccounted for in the theory?