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?’
‘I don’t know, but maybe they can hear us. I think if you hold on to that red crystal, any of us with this macrocosm Earth can hear you.’
‘If half of us have a crystal, and the other half have the power to get this big glowing globe up and running, then –’
‘The only way for us to actually communicate back and forth would be if a couple of us teamed up first,’ I interrupt.
‘Well, now that we’re together, maybe we should try to talk to the others. You know, in case their macrocosms are going,’ I say. ‘Maybe another pair has gotten together like us.’
Nine grabs the red crystal and holds it near his mouth like a microphone. ‘Hello? Testing one, two, three.’ He clears his throat. ‘Okay, if any of you Garde members are out there standing in front of a glowing ball, listen up. Four and Nine are together and we’re ready to meet up with you. We want to train and end all this bullshit and get back to Lorien. Pronto. We’re not going to say exactly where we are in case any Mogs are listening in, but if you have your macrocosm going you’ll see two dots together, and they are, uh, us. So, um …’ Nine looks at me and shrugs his shoulders. ‘That is all. Over and out and stuff.’
The skin on my wrist suddenly feels numb under the bracelet. I shake it and my arm begins to tingle. ‘Wait. Say we’re about to get out of here and for them to make their way to the United States. That’s where Setrákus Ra, the Mogadorian leader, is. Tell them we’re going after him and we’re going to rescue our friends as soon as we can.’
The Earth in front of me buzzes to life with Nine’s echoing voice. ‘Everyone come to America ASAP. Setrákus Ra has shown his ugly face over here and we’re aiming to smash it in and take him down real soon. We’ll send out another message tomorrow. Stay tuned.’
Nine drops the red crystal back into his Chest, looking way too pleased with himself, then kind of embarrassed that he just talked into a ball. I frown. My right arm has gone ice cold, and I’m about to rip off this bracelet before putting the orbs back into the velvet bag when the Earth grows fuzzy again. Then there’s the sound of an explosion, followed by a voice I know well. It’s the same girl I heard before, the girl Six went to Spain to seek out. She’s yelling. ‘Six! You okay?’
We hear a scream and two more explosions rock the fuzzy edges of the globe. I grab Nine’s crystal out of his chest, frantic to try to communicate with her.
‘Six!’ I yell. I would jump into the thing if I could figure out how. ‘It’s me, John! Can you hear me?’
There’s no response. We hear the faint sounds of the blades of a helicopter before the globe goes silent again and the Earth’s edges grow solid. The pulsing light in India is now gone. Suddenly, the globe shrinks and reforms into the seven orbs, each of which falls to the ground.
‘That did not sound good,’ Nine says, scooping up the stones. He drops them back into my Chest, and takes his crystal out of my frozen hand.
Six is in trouble – the kind of trouble that involves explosions and helicopters and mountains. And all of this is happening now, halfway around the world. How am I going to get to India? Where can I get on a plane?
‘Six is the chick who gave you the map to the mountain? The one who abandoned you and your boy to jet off to Spain?’ Nine asks.
‘That’s her,’ I say, kicking my Chest shut, fists clenched tight. My head is swimming. What’s wrong with Six? Who is the other girl, the one I’ve now heard twice? I notice my arm feels strange. Hearing her voice distracted me so much I forgot about the growing discomfort there. I try to remove the bracelet from my wrist, and it burns my fingers. ‘Something’s going on with this thing. I think something may be wrong with it.’
Nine shuts his Chest and reaches over. ‘The bracelet?’ As soon as he touches it he rips his hand away. ‘Damn! It zapped me!’
‘Well, what do I do?’ I try snapping my arm out, hoping I can fling the bracelet off.
Bernie Kosar trots over to smell the bracelet, but stops midstride and jerks his head up to stare at the front door. His ears rise and the fur on his back bristles.
Someone’s here, he says.
Nine and I look at each other and start to back slowly into the room, away from the door. We’d been so engrossed in everything in our Chests, and in hearing the voice through the globe, that we’d let our guard down, and weren’t paying attention to our surroundings.
Suddenly, the door is blown off its hinges. Smoke bombs fly through the windows sending glass shards everywhere. I want to fight, but the pain from the bracelet is now so intense I can’t move. I fall to my knees.
I see a flash of green light and hear Nine shout out in pain. He falls down next to me. I’ve seen that green light before. That is the unmistakable green light of a Mogadorian cannon.
7
Bullets whistle by, exploding in the dirt all around us. Ella and I take cover behind the wreckage of one of the trucks. The bullets seem to be coming from everywhere, from every direction, from every angle. Ella’s been hit. The air is so thick with dust from all the commotion, I can’t even see her wounds. I gently run my hands over her body until I feel the wet, sticky blood and find a bullet hole in her lower thigh. When I touch it, she cries out in pain.
I use the most soothing voice I can muster, given the circumstances. ‘It’s going to be okay. Marina can help you. We just need to find her.’ I pick Ella up and start carefully moving away from the truck, shielding her with my body. I almost trip over Marina and Crayton, who are huddled behind another piece of debris.