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

After relaying the address of the house, Dane signed off, leaving Cal deep in thought as he watched the countryside pass by. An abandoned house full of secrets, with a room no one else has entered.

What the hell is behind that door? Firm documentation on the LYS or the Ascendants? Names? Bank accounts? Blackmail evidence? Something Waylan is keeping from the Ascendants for some reason? Research too bizarre and explosive for public consumption?

Whatever it was, Cal had a very strong feeling that if he kept tugging on that thread, a piece of carefully woven tapestry was about to unravel.

By the time Andie woke, Cal was dozing beside her. Realizing she had been using his shoulder as a pillow, she sat up as best she could in the cramped seat. Outside the window, in the soft light of dusk, fields of rice paddies undulated over low hills, backed by the shadow of a mountain range. Villagers in conical hats traversed the narrow footpaths dissecting the emerald squares, returning with the day’s harvest or guiding water buffaloes on rope leads. There was a timelessness to the scene that made Andie contemplate the quiet nature of all things—and yet, with the message of the Rickshaw Obscura fresh in her mind, she remembered these were elderly women performing backbreaking labor in the fields, and that colonialism and inequality had shaped this land of ethereal beauty.

Still, her thoughts did not spoil the view. If so, she would have to stop looking at the entire world, because every culture she had ever studied was guilty of some type of violent conquest. The Viet people had conquered the Chams. The French had colonized the Vietnamese, who in turn ravaged the Cambodians during the Vietnam War. On and on it went, throughout history.

When the light failed, she climbed over Cal to use the restroom, then stood in the aisle to stretch her legs. Only the quiet hum of the engine broke the silence. Her thoughts turned to their escape from the Temple of Literature, and whether the street magician had gotten away safely. Did the ends ever justify the means? By putting the safety of her mother and Dr. Corwin above everyone else, was she any better than those colonizers and rampaging tribes? How far would she go, what taboos would she break, to save the ones she loved?

Feeling very alone, she pulled up her inbox on Zawadi’s phone, hoping against hope for a message from Dr. Corwin or her mother. Even if she had one—which she knew she wouldn’t—she knew she couldn’t open the message or send a reply, for fear of being tracked.

But to her shock, Andie did have an email from her mother, from the same address as before: [email protected].

The email had been sent three hours ago. Her mother must have been forced to send it in response to the loss of the Star Phone. Still, a rush of emotion poured through Andie. She cast a furtive glance around the bus before staring down at the subject line.

I seem to have no true identity without you.

Andie’s first thought was one of pure joy. Her mother had not abandoned her after all! She loved her daughter so much that she did not feel complete without her.

Almost at once, Andie stuffed that emotion down a deep, dark hole, knowing her mother’s every word was being watched, and that whatever she said had to be filtered through the controlling lens of the Ascendants. The sentiment meant nothing. Even worse, her mother was playing with Andie’s emotions.

And then, with a gasp, she parsed the true meaning behind the message, a clue from her childhood just like the last email had been.

The import of it hit her like a wrecking ball.

Before her parents had started fighting, they had shared a snarky sense of humor. They both loved Jack Handey and The Far Side, and often went to see live comedy shows. On their bedroom wall, each of her parents kept a framed comic from their respective disciplines. Her father’s was a short strip with three frames, titled “How to Be a Writer.” The triptych depicted a frazzled man at a typewriter, and each frame bore a heading.

Drink. Loathe yourself. Repeat day and night.

Her mother’s choice—Andie remembered it clearly, because she had never understood it as a child—was a subatomic particle, drawn as a stick figure, gazing into its reflection in the mirror. The full comic read:

Help me! I seem to have no true identity without you.

Yours truly,

Quantum particle

The cartoon was referring to Heisenberg’s famous uncertainty principle, which held that quantum particles cannot truly be measured until observed, raising the question of whether a particle exists in the same manner—or at all—before the moment of observation. The comic put an ironic, yet also very deep, spin on the topic by asking whether a quantum particle could look into a mirror and become its own observer.

The subject line of the email was clearly designed to tug at Andie’s heartstrings, a cruel version of clickbait that no doubt presaged a tracking cookie and a message imploring Andie to hand over the Star Phone. She couldn’t risk opening it. Yet whatever the actual body of the email read was irrelevant, because Andie felt certain the Ascendants had dictated her mother’s words.

She also knew her mother had used the opportunity to send her daughter another secret message, embodied in the first two words of the comic, which her mother had omitted from the subject line but which rang loud and clear in Andie’s head.

Help me!

More determined than ever, Andie remained wide-awake for the duration of the journey, all through the long night, the remote countryside glistening like an oil stain beneath the moon. After learning everything there was to know about Hoi An on Zawadi’s phone, she wished she had something more concrete to research.

Where were they supposed to go in the city? What were they supposed to do?

She supposed they had no choice but to start with the hotel on the