‘Yeah, I’m not sure about that. When this happened before, a dot showed up in Spain,’ I say. ‘Then the globe went all fuzzy and we heard someone who sounded panicked yelling the name Adelina. We assumed she was another member of the Garde. That’s when Six decided to go to Spain, to try to find her. I figured this was how you planned to contact the others, but I guess not if you’ve never seen it before.’

Nine’s eyes go wide. ‘Wait. Oh my God, man. I haven’t seen this thing before, but I think Sandor told me about it. To be honest, when we opened my Chest the first time, the silver staff and the yellow porcupine ball were so amazing I only half listened to anything he said after. But now I remember, he told me some of us had a red crystal – which I do, and that’s what I thought I’d use to communicate with the others – and some of us have the solar system.’

‘I don’t get it.’

He turns to his Chest, grabs a glowing red crystal the size of a cigarette lighter, slams the lid of his Chest, and turns back to me. I glance at the solar system and gasp. One of the blue dots in West Virginia has disappeared.

‘Whoa, hold on. Open up your Chest again. I want to see something.’

Nine obeys and a second blue dot reappears on the globe in West Virginia.

‘Okay. Now, close it.’

He closes it and the dot disappears again. ‘This is boring,’ he says. When Nine speaks, the Earth globe grows fuzzy and vibrates with a half-second delay of his voice. ‘Wait, what was that? Why is my voice echoing?’ The Earth vibrates again.

‘This is not boring. This is incredible,’ I say, staring at the globe. ‘The reason we don’t see all six of the Garde members on the globe is because the orb only reveals the members of the Garde who have their Chests open at that exact moment. Watch.’ I lift the lid of Nine’s Chest.

Nine whistles. ‘Very cool, Four, very cool.’ Half a second later we hear his voice through the globe again. Nine puts his crystal down, having figured it out.

‘But judging by the speed of this guy here,’ I say, pointing to the dot in motion, ‘whoever is in South America has to be on a plane. It’s covering too much ground too fast to be doing anything else.’

‘Why would they have their Chest open on a plane?’ Nine asks. ‘That’s stupid.’

‘Maybe they’re in trouble. Maybe they’re hiding in the bathroom trying to figure out what all this stuff actually does, just like we are.’

‘Can they see us right now, too?’