Concatenation (n) a series of links united; a series of things depending on or resulting from each other

Example: "As I said to Kurt on Sunday, it is clear that a concatenation of events has brought us to this point."

Most of what I feel I ought to tell you, it transpires, you know already. That's good, I suppose. It means I can keep things brief. I'm not sure I even mind that you knew things about my sister that I didn't know. She's safe home now, and it's not like any of us could have done a great deal when she was several thousand miles away hanging out with potential psychopaths. I'm saying words in my own mind like "high spirits" and "girls will be girls", whilst at the same time working out with Kurt how we can put a trace on her key, her clothes, heck even into her bloodstream to make sure it doesn't happen again. And, yes, I sound like my father. But he's not so stupid so I'm not sure I mind that either.

In any case, after I had a lengthy chat with Scarlett, I decided to call a meeting. Me and Scarlett and Anna and Kurt. (He's doing much better, by the way, was even fiddling around with some puzzle ideas over the weekend.) It seemed to me that each of us held a piece of this puzzle but that we hadn't been able to put them together yet, not properly, calmly, turning each one to see how it might fit with the others, spotting where a piece was missing and where the others might point to.

We sat in my apartment for about six hours on Sunday, scribbling things on pieces of paper and making charts and diagrams. Kurt and I told Scarlett what we know: about Monica Grand and Pietro Salk, about the Granier diary, about Cymbalisty's death, about Helena Frye and the clean room at Gillit Road, about Hesh records and the mysterious Cyrus Quinton, otherwise known as V. Scarlett started at the mention of the name V.

She told us about Viendenbourg, about the mining there and about how she found it through Pietro's note mentioning the Reynolds ionizers. She told us about the Castille family, about the military involvement and about the link to my father. And even though I'd heard it before, it still made me shiver. Kurt checked the security of the room again. We're all getting paranoid.

So, this is how it seems to us. There is a secret organization - the Third Power - working in this city, perhaps more than one. They tried to steal the Cube. And they're willing to kill again and again to achieve their aims. Miranda might have said those aims were noble, but we're agreed that the way this group goes about things makes that claim highly suspect. In any case, we're evidently on the wrong side of them now. And they go broad, and they go deep across the city. And we can't be sure who to trust anymore. And we can't discuss it with my father because, well, we don't know if he's one of them.

Even writing that last sentence was difficult. He's my father. I can't believe that he'd ever, ever....

But we're trying to be careful. We have to be careful.

So we're going back through our old leads, trying to find anything that will lead us to more information about the Third Power, about V and about what they're planning to do - because they're obviously planning something. It's become clear to all of us that we're not going to be safe until the Cube is back in the Academy where it belongs; we need to get it back soon, before more lives are put at risk.

We've identified three main leads to follow up:

· Alejo Jackson said, in a webchat with you on Earth, that he'd worked with Cyrus Quinton on the day after the Cube was stolen and that Quinton had telephoned someone in the Academy. It's a long shot, but we're going to try to see if the information about who he telephoned is still stored somewhere in the Hesh systems. The others have agreed that I can ask Caine to help with this, but we're not going to tell him too much - we don't want to put him in the same danger we're in.

· Items of extremely esoteric kit stolen from the Academy were found in Bernardo Holyoke's bar after he died. We need to know what else has been going missing from the Academy, and where it might be going. Anna's going to make some preliminary investigations into that.

· Helena Frye obviously knows more than she's told Kurt. He's going to try to talk to her again, to find out as much as he can about the clean rooms in the tunnels.

I'm sure it'll come as no surprise to any of you that we're going to need your help pretty soon. We'll keep you posted.