It wasn't everyday a towering, terrifying Quartz showed up at your door, so you might as well take the credit offered while it's up for snatching.
"So, the great and mighty warrior Jasper needs assistance from the lowly servant? How fitting. Can I get it in handwriting?" Peridot tittered, voice getting higher and more sarcastic with each syllable that left her mouth. But her leaning-on-insults, that usually worked so well to chip at any gems' patience, were like flecks of sand bouncing off a brick wall with Jasper.
"Yeah, sure." Jasper muttered, setting down such an outdated piece of hardware that it took Peridot over half a second to identify with her almost implanted knowledgeability of machines.
"A Crystal Caller? Those have been off the market almost as long as the Hologem they gave me. I can't even be sure if those parts are still floating around in the junkyard!" While complaining, she took up the boxy device in her hands. Commonly used for recreation, such as calling and storing pictures and holographs on its enormous memory, it had burst in sales until cleverer gems had found ways to make it even smaller, and more portable, and just better to look at. At the very least it could be credited with the cornerstone for all Crystalar products to be built off of. But still, the shape was unflattering, the design and detail brought attention to neither, and even the color was insulting to her high-tech standards. Who would bring beige into a meeting and instantly be forwarded to the production lines? "So, uh, what's wrong with it?"
"You can't tell?" Jasper asked, mascara-lined eyes narrowing, as if she doubted her abilities! A lot of good her fingers (like bricks!) would do her with tinkering around with data-pads and wires.
"Well you could still give me a clue." She turned over the massive 'phone' in her hands, nearly dropping it to the floor, but she doubted it would have even jostled the data card. It was about as clunky as it was indestructible. Possibly some relics would outlive her, immortality and all. Without stripping the phone of its outer armor and digging and recovering files from the cards, however, she could find nothing out of the ordinary.
"I think it has something to do with the card… I keep trying to recall pictures but nothing will show up." Jasper said slowly, as if she didn't understand exactly the 'technical' terms that she was saying. Peridot snorted in return. Hardly a job for a high ranking gem such as herself when just about a Pearl could do the same thing!
"Simple, really." She muttered to herself, turning her back to Jasper to begin to the process of getting to the bare necessities. But the sight of screws and the tectonic plates of plastic that stood in her way almost stopped her cold. How barbaric! It would take her at least an hour to recover a piece of equipment that could do an adequate job, and it might even be recovered a museum.
She turned back to her guest of honor, who had barely moved a foot from the doorway the entirety of her inspection. "If you could just come back…?"
Jasper nodded and turned out of the door almost at the same time, and she nearly sighed. Not only were Quartz incredibly intimidating (though she wasn't scared!), they almost fogged up the room with their tension. Thankfully, they were trained to take orders without complaint. However, the instrument of torture before her wasn't getting any closer to the desired data she needed. It might be a long night.
…
Three favors she had to call in from almost 300 years ago (apparently, arguably 'expired'), 1 pass to the museum of technological history she hadn't used since she was just, ah, a few inches shorter, and a dumpster dive later brought her back to her desk, absorbed in the inscribed plates as if she could read them in their coded state. It was almost like being an archeologist, Peridot thought, though less with dusting off old cracked shards and more with just-as-old machinery. After experimenting with a few unsuccessful wirings to her holocomputer, she was finally able to get into the data storage she'd been hunting for.
Almost giggling with excitement, she quickly tied together the strings that had somehow been snipped apart. Some type of malfunction had occurred between putting in data and displaying it, and Peridot was amazed that it could even still put picture on a screen, being as old as it was. An upgrade was in the probable future, but either way, it was solved now, and after she reassembled the dissected Caller that lay dismembered on her desk, she would be able to call up Jasper triumphantly. Maybe the Quartz would even owe her a favor, be honor-bound to a helping hand. It would be something, alright, a Quartz and a technical servant being within the same five-foot vicinity for more than just an assigned task, but then others would really think about calling her work anything other than amazing with a giant warrior at her back and disposal. Maybe her fingers and voice were a bit too quick to call the gem back, but wasn't this what it was about, friends helping out friends?
…
"You finally done?" Jasper's question didn't even stall long enough for her entire body to make it through the doorway. She didn't sound impatient or annoyed, and her tone was that of an honest question, but her delivery made up for it. Maybe she wasn't used to politeness from being in the service, but Peridot could have sworn that exact thing was drilled into their heads.
"Yeah, no worries, only had to run all over town just to try to open the thing. But no, you're completely welcome, no thanks needed." Peridot's snappy sarcasm was lost on her as she lifted up the Caller, and flipped it (much easier than Peridot could have, with her smaller hands), seeming to inspect it, though she couldn't imagine what she could find out of the ordinary, unless she suspected her of switching the keys around and the screws put in backwards. "Though it would be appreciated."
"Yeah, thanks." For once, her gruff voice sounded sincere, and she nearly started from the surprise. What could she have on there that mattered so deeply to her that, even for a second, a bit of tenderness showed through her regular armor? Almost immediately, it returned with a fired question: "You didn't try to hack into it, did you?"
"Ha! I wouldn't need to 'try' with that model: if I just had a hammer it could do an adequate job. But no, I did not." Strangely, she almost winced from her words, as if she was on the receiving end, but Jasper didn't seem to notice anything but the last sentence. Still, she stared at that miniscule screen like it was the only point of focus in the entire room. The question she had thought of earlier nagged at the back of her mind. What kind of things did she have on her phone that could matter so much to even show the device to her? Her mouth almost protested as she forced the words out.
"So, uh, what kinds of pictures do you have on there?" For a second it seemed like Jasper wasn't going to respond: her body tensed as if she was expecting a blow, and her lips noticeably pursed. Had she tread a line even though she had been elbow deep in the exact data for hours? Peridot was silently cursing herself for goading on a soldier when her gravelly voice and words broke her concentration.
"Back at the start of the wars, I was there. I knew gems, and they knew me, but you don't remember much when they've been gone for over a thousand years. They were the first friends I've ever made since I was eligible to be in the troops, and now I can't even remember their designations. I'm with new groups now, and half of them don't even remember those wars, or old soldiers like me, but I don't want it to happen again, so…" The words were slow, and quiet, like if she spoke softly enough Peridot would tune out, but this was the longest she'd ever heard the Quartz speak, besides if she was barking exact orders. Even more surprising than that, was the glowing, pixelated screen turned towards her, clearly showing a group of gems smiling for the camera. There were obviously Quartz's, their stature and actual gems making it clear enough for even her squinting eyes to pick out, but she was even able to make out the scenery behind them: the barracks of Yellow Diamond's army.
The picture changed suddenly, and it took her a second to realize she was thumbing through the gallery. Another group of gems showed up, some with hands in front of their faces like they didn't want their picture taken, and others grinning wide while posing. A surprising lot of them were ready for the photo op, when she had always thought that Quartz's were like the modest and humble soldiers she had always seen patrolling about, stone-faced and indescribably distant. It was like she was looking into another world with other gems, because that seemed easier to believe. More and more of these types of photos passed by, and Peridot lost track of how many there were before they were even close to the end. She paid close attention, trying to be polite, but she just had to wonder how this side of Jasper had escaped her all the while they were assigned together. Finally, they reached the last photo, this one different from all the rest, as a familiar face appeared, and Peridot almost choked. A picture of her, taken from an awkward angle, most likely from Jasper's towering height less than her trying to be artistic, showed her at her desk, with a small date in the corner reading that exact day.
Both were silent for a while, Jasper waiting for a response, and Peridot scrambling for one. It was sweet and touching that she would be included into Jasper's little history montage, but what did that mean for them? Where they closer than she had thought, or was this the move to become so? Hopefully…
"I hope you're ready to take that one over, you know, my hair is not very flattering from that height."
Jasper's lips tugged in the corner of her mouth as she struggled not to smile. "Of course."