Fluorite The Anarchist
Part 2
"Hey we got a runner over here!" "I got it!" Facet 4 was littered with more insects than we thought. They burrowed everywhere and when you get rid of three, it feels like a dozen more pop up. Seven rubies, three quartz, five fluorites, and several peridots had been sent in to assist me and the rest of the rubies. I cornered a beetle looking one and hacked it to pieces with my poleaxe. It's not the cleanest weapon, and it's no battle axe, but it's mine. "Rubies!" I shouted back into the cavern. "Come clean this up!" I ordered them. Quickly three rubies ran over to me and started gathering up the pieces. "Is there anymore that are popping up?" I asked them. "There's a pack over near the south side! We saw two fluorites run over to that side however." One of them reported to me. "Alright, I'll go over and check on them." I outranked the rubies, and it felt good to be in charge. However, my fellow fluorites were something different.
"Hey look! You can ride them!" As soon as I reached the pair, I already saw that they were messing around with the insects. One was riding one of the insects and the other was letting the rest crawl all over her. "What is this! You were sent here by our manager to eradicate these things! Not socialize with them!" I shouted at them. The one riding snickered. "But this is so much fun! Look you don't have to walk on your feet if you ride this beetle thing! And look! It does what I tell it to do! March!" The insect lunged forward and ran around me while she held on tight to its antennas. "These guys are pretty chill anyways. They're so calm they just wanna snuggle up with you. I think they are just anger that we're messing up their home." The other one told me. I groaned. "Look, we aren't here to socialize with these things. We are suppose to kill these things to get the injectors working without interruption and so that none of the injection points aren't burrowed through!" I reminded them. That's when a small one started crawling up my leg. I picked it up and glared at it. "These things are disgusting anyways. I mean look at them. Multiple eyes, several legs, a shell and they drool!" The insect stared back at me, and then made a cooing sound. It broke free of my grasp and jumped onto my shoulder, and it curled up around my neck. "Wha- what's in the world?" I touched the shell and it started to started to coo again. "How odd, it seems to like me." I told them. "We told you, these things are cool." They reminded me. I sighed. "Well they're still in the way, if we could catch them all and relocate that it'd be great, but this colony is almost completed. There's no place to put them." I grabbed the insect and put it back on the ground where it scuttled away to it's mother. "But these things are awesome! We can't just kill them just because they are in the way." The rider said to me. I sighed and pulled out my poleaxe. "But we have orders to do. We can't just not do them." The insects were okay, but what are we suppose to do. "We could not follow orders." I looked up to see the Fluorite on the ground had stood up. Her one eye stared into mine and she smiled. "I mean like, how bad would it be if we didn't kill them? It's just this one thing. Our manager won't notice." She said to me. "Disobey an order? But we'll get into trouble if we do that! Fluorite will strike us where we stand if we don't do what we're told!" I shouted at her. The other Fluorite stood up with her and wrapped an arm around my shoulder. "We won't get in trouble with the manager if we don't get caught. Plus she's not here." She said. I crossed my arms and sighed. "I guess." I told them. The other two rejoiced and started playing with the insects again, but I just stood still. I had a bad feeling.
"Have all of you been slacking off?!" My bad feeling was correct. It wasn't even a day after I stopped killing the bugs with the other two Fluorites, and our manager came back for a check up. She had her bow out already loaded with an arrow, and each of us, from quartz to rubies, to us lined up in a row, ready to be picked off.
"Tell me! It's been two weeks and it still seems like none of you have even put a dent in the population! I've had defective rubies that couldn't even fuse do a better job than you all!" She shouted at us. "First gem to give me a reason, get's there form destroyed the quickest!" 'This is bad. This is bad. This is very very bad.' I panicked in my head. She stood in front of me, arrow drawn, and asked me a question. "What's been going on around here?" She asked me. "W-Well from what I can guess, and from what I know, it seems like it's a hive living here. W-With a queen and drones." I stuttered. She sighed. "I knew that. This planet is infested with them. I was hoping us gems could get rid of them." She stepped back and looked up and down the row, and then back at me. "You all failed. Now we have to use actual eradication devices for these things! Do you know how costly those things are!" I could see that she was both filled with angry and disappointed, and for us, shame. All except for two. Both of the Fluorites from yesterday stepped forward. "Do these things really need to be killed?" The one with one eye asked. The manager turned to her and glared. "Because. They are in the way! This colony is way past it's finish date! It's not making new gems with all of these monstrosities crawling around! Destroying the soil! Attacking us!" She screamed at her. "But when you let them, these things aren't dangerous! Can't we . . . co-exist?" The other one spoke, and the manager's eye started to twitch. "What? We can't co-exist! This planet is for Blue Diamond and her gems! Are you two committing treason?!" "No! We aren't! We are just suggesting that we can leave these things alone." They argued back. "I'll suggest you something!" The manager shouted before shooting an arrow at them. Then another, and another and another. They were spectral arrows, so the only thing they did, was paralyze the gems and fall to the ground. The manager walked over them, and shot another arrow into each of their forms. This time, it got them. She picked up both gems and turned back to us.
"Whoever agrees with them, step forward." She spoke. I shuffled my feet, and she must've noticed. She crushed the gems in her hands, cracking them, then shattering them. "Anyone?" She asked again. This time, no one moved. "Go to the terminal while I get the devices. At ease." She dismissed us. I let out a sigh and looked at the gem shards on the ground. 'Disobeying caused this? We just didn't kill a few insects and they died.' "Cut 7W2 Facet 3B! Why are you still standing here!" I looked up and saw the manager glaring at me. "I'm sorry! I'll get going!" I blurted out. She walked up to me, grabbed my arm and put pulled me closer to her face. Her eyes were filled with anger. "Those Fluorites I shattered, they were formed way before you. They lacked what a true gem has. Discipline." She grabbed my other arm with a death grip. "Every Fluorite I've seen as ended up the same. They lack something important. Discipline, loyalty, and devotion. Instead every time I get lazy, treason thinking Fluorites!" She shouted at me. "You failed today. Don't do it again." Letting me go, she walked away, letting me fall backwards.
In the terminal, everyone else were minding their business. They stood and talked, and some of the rubies were rough housing as well, but I stayed in a corner, knees clutched to my chest. "No wonder there was so many of us." I was putting two and two together, and I was whispering to myself. No one bothered to ask if I was okay. "So many Fluorites, just so we all can get purged later after we're useless. Lazy and rebellious." I whispered. "That's not me. I'm not lazy yet. I didn't do what I was ordered only with the two fluorites, nothing big . . . only I lived." It scared me how close I was to being shattered, how I ignored an order and got lazy, how I would've just ended up being a pathetic Fluorite. Not as common as a Ruby, but less than a quartz.
The worse was yet to come, because it wasn't long before you could hear the screeches of the insects and the devices going off. I tried my best to shut them out, but this was going to happen at some point. If or without me doing what I was suppose to do. It's just in a massive killing, not one by one.
I leaned on my poleaxe, my eyes tired and my strength not at it's finest. I felt numb, and awful. As soon as the screeches and death of the insects was done, only I and the few rubies that were stationed here originally were ordered to stay. The manager is still around, her and her quartz guard. But that wasn't a good thing. She ordered us to clean up the scraps and kill the lone insects that survived. And it was disgusting, I still smell like the insides of the insects, and it's been a week. Ever since then, the Peridots were working overtime, and so us guards. Lifting up injectors knocked over by the insects and to do the dirty work. I was picked on the most.
Tired and bored, I yawned and closed my eyes. The kindergarten, despite the noises and drilling and shouting, was boring and dull.
"Fluorite!" I jumped up and stood at attention. I flinched to see the manager glaring at me. "We you slacking off?" She asked. "No! I was just thinking about how that . . ." I looked around and saw an injector high above the cavern, trying to drill into the wall. "That the injector up there has a dull drill! It's been trying to dig into the ground for a while now without a scratch on the wall!" "You think so?" She asked me. "Yes!" 'It's a poor excuse.' I thought. She stood back and shouted "Technician!". A Peridot rushed over, a worried look on her face. "Yes?" The manager snapped her fingers and pointed up the the injector. "This one says that drill is dull. Check it out." The Peridot took off with a sprint and walked up the side of the wall. I watched as the Peridot checked the machine and spot, and I watched the manager's face light up with a smirk. "You sure you weren't slacking off?" She asked me again. "8Y2! Bring this drill down!" The peridot shouted down from above. Quickly, the injector was taken down and the drill was taken off. "Looks like the drill wasn't only dull, but it was cracked and several pieces had broken off. Takes a gem with a good eye to see that from up there." The Peridot reported back to the manager. She left and I smirked. But a cold icy stare made me regret it. "Lucky guess. Don't expect to be so lucky next time." The manager warned me before leaving. I looked up at the spot where the injector was. Before I didn't even notice, but there were shards of the drill stuck in the rock. "I thought those were apart of the rock." I said out loud.
It was another week later, and with that week, I had spotted nine more defects in injectors. It was becoming like a game to me. Stand at attention and when the manager is nearby I spot out defects. Turns out I'm a good eye, better than the manager. But it turns out, she doesn't like it. Always reminding me that it was just luck.
"And then I said 'Oh! Looks like I've spotted another mistake that was missed by the manager!' and the face she made was priceless!" I boasted about my new found skill to a Ruby guard. We both had a laugh when we joke about the manager, and this time she was howling with laughter. "Oh if I only could!" She told me. Smiling with pride I let out a chuckle. "So have you found any broken injectors today?" She asked me. I sighed and swung my poleaxe. "Nothing now, but it seems like this kindergarten was given poor injectors. Either that or those insects did some damage, or the devices . . ." I trailed off remembering that day, then Ruby started talking again. "Well I over heard one of the technicians talking to another about that. They knew that if the Manager had used the bombs or whatever they were that it would break the injectors exposed to it." Ruby told me. "Ha! So it's her fault for all of these injectors being broken! And I thought she was really good at her job!" I laughed. Having heard that from a Ruby, it didn't really matter if it was actually true or not, but thinking that the manager had messed up was laughable. "I know right!" She started laughing with me. We must've been loud enough that it caught the attention of a nearby Peridot. "What are you two laughing about?" She asked us. "Oh nothing, just about how the manager did something wrong and-" "Oh her. We all told her that if she used the devices without moving out the injectors that it would cause damage. Not only did she ignore us, the panicking insects started trying to burrow into anything to get away from the blasts. So they chipped at the injectors and ruined them! We didn't even get time to check before we were ordered to set them up! Now this is taking even longer to do!" The Peridot complained. We both let out a few chuckles, but the Peridot kept talking. "And then since you keep finding the things we've missed that Fluorite is making our job even harder! As if we don't know that we are already behind schedule for this kindergarten! All of this is her fault!" She began to get angry, and shouted out the last sentence.
"Who's fault?"
All three of us froze and turned to see the manager walking our way. Sweat beaded my face when I saw her face. Rage. 'She was listening.' I thought. I clutched my pole axe tighter as she stopped in front of us. "So, who's the one that said it's my fault?" She hissed. The Peridot raised her hand hesitantly. "It was I. But I take it back!" She begged. "You can apologize when you reform." She said. In a swift motion, the manager summoned her bow and before she could run, she shot down the peridot. It was her lethal arrow. "Now," She said while picking up the gem and forming a bubble around it. "if you two don't get back to work I'll personally shatter you!" We didn't need to hear anything else. Ruby ran off and I stood straight and tall. But she didn't leave. She glared at me with her narrow eyes, and smirked. "Seen anymore broken injectors today?" She asked. I shook my head. Her smirk widened. "Good. Keep it that way." She told me. "W-Why?" "Didn't you hear the Peridot? We're behind schedule as is. We can work with what we have, so don't find anything." She ordered. "Don't find anything." I told myself. For the rest of the day I kept my eyes to the ground.
Shouting, screaming, running, and crashes were heard at the other side of the cavern. It shocked me and in a panic I ran to the source. What I saw was a disaster. A rogue injector was running, but it was horribly broken and damaged. It was sprawling around, leaking the ingredients to make gems, and the drill was active and causing holes and gashes on the ground. Then I saw the worse part. Gems around it were running and trying to destroy the machine. Gemstones laid on the ground, cracked, shattered, or just there. The manager was there as well, shooting arrow after arrow to down the rampaging machine. I stood in shock. and started shouting angrily without realizing it. "It's your fault! Your fault! You shouldn't be this arrogant!" That's when I saw the injector charge at the manager. It's leg stabbed through her form. Her gem fell to the ground, left alone by the injector. This made the injector pause and spasm out. I saw it. A panel was opened, the wires chewed up and melted. It was near the top, and no gem was bothering to even try and mount the machine. "Found something." I whispered as a smile crept at the corner of my mouth. I looked around quickly at what I had around me. Another destroyed injector with wires hanging out, my poleaxe still in my hands, and me. My mind pieced together a plan and how it could work. I smiled as I ran to grab the long wires, tying them around the handle of my weapon and then around myself. I ran toward the rampaging injector and got into position. "Here goes nothing!" I said before chucking the weapon at the injector. The blade lodged itself into the surface, it was hooked, and it took me with it. Throwing me back and forth and around. I felt sick, but I grabbed the wires and started pulling myself to it. My feet on the machine, I reached the panel and then a new problem came. 'How do I fix this?' I asked myself. I started pulling the wires apart and it revealed a circuit underneath. It was overheating. "Ah ha!" I grabbed the circuit and threw it out.
Instantly the machine stopped, and I fell.
When I opened my eyes next, the gems that remained were staring at me. They were in awe and relief. I stood up and stared up at the injector. "A Fluorite deactivated an injector? That's impossible." I heard someone say. I smirked. "Who's responsible for this!?" I heard someone shout. I turned around and saw a Topaz walking the center of the attention. She was the same Topaz from the day I was assigned. That's when the manager reformed. She gasped and stood up. She saw that the injector was offline, me standing before it, and the upcoming Topaz. She ran and stood next to me at attention. "Topaz." She said with respect. She crossed her hands and formed the salute. Feeling out of place I did it too. "Fluorite, what happened here?" She asked her. "The insects had taken longer to clear out than we thought. My Fluorites who were in charge didn't do their job right so I was forced to use the devices and-"
What happened next baffled me. Topaz slapped the manager across the face, interrupting her and knocking her backwards. "You thought that was a good idea!" She shouted at her. "Yes! It was the only way we would keep on schedule Topaz!" Fluorite shouted back at her. "Well the kindergarten at facet 6 has been up and running since it was started. They cleared out the insects living there in no time! They just used something called effort!" I was staring at both of them, and so was every other gem around us. "I thought you could do a decent job at this, but seems like you and your recklessness took the easy route and ruined each injector with it!" Topaz shouted, then looked up at the injector behind us. "Who's the one that activated this one!" She asked. Every gem pointed to me, and I was finally noticed by my two superiors. "You?" They both asked. The manager glared at me while Topaz had a genuine smile. "Well that's new! Fluorites aren't suppose to be anything but a sentry or a guard. How'd you do it?" She asked. "I saw the injector going crazy, then stab through her," I pointed to the manager, glaring at me intensely. "and then I saw a loose panel with wires hanging out and sparking. I used some wires and climbed to pull out a broken circuit!" I continued. Topaz almost let out a loud chuckle, but it came out hushed and forced. "I'll be sure to report about both you Fluorites. The one that failed, and the one that actually did something!" It must've hurt the manager when she was compared to me. Her glare softened to a wince of pain or regret. Topaz left the kindergarten a little while after that, she helped set up five new injectors and left us to the repairs. For the rest of the time I was there, I was asked dozens of questions by the other gems, but all the while, the manager avoided me. It felt nice to be left alone, but it also felt a sense of uneasiness.
