Chorus
Chapter Eight
Note: After the silliness of last chapter, it's back to your regularly scheduled gut punches and general meanness from yours truly. While I'm here, I'd like to thank the people who have reviewed recently, a good review always motivates me to work faster.
…..
Steven passed a thankfully dreamless sleep in the rest pod, even inadvertently catching Ginger in the middle of a crying fit couldn't keep him awake. He was concerned, sure, but all he could really afford to be worried about was that their pace was so slow it felt like time was running out for Pearl, wherever she was. Not to mention every 'cycle' he spent on Homeworld was approximately one day he spent away from his loved ones on Earth. They were probably frantic by now.
Murder Pearl wasn't there when he woke up, but Ginger was. She pushed a glass of that murky liquid towards him without a word and went back to what she was doing; scanning a screen full of long lines of data that looked pretty incomprehensible.
"Where's Orthoclase?" he asked, daring a sip of the liquid. It tasted kind of good this time.
"She is making arrangements to see a Jade in the west quarter," Ginger replied, eyes still on those rapidly scrolling lines. "The Jade's operations are invite only, she's trying to secure us a place for middle quadrant."
"Is it another pearl?" Steven asked, though he sort of knew the answer already.
"Yes. Jade has a pearl that sings publicly on a regular basis. It would improve the anchor to borrow her."
"Okay," Steven said, fidgeting. "Where's Murder Pearl?"
It was the first time he'd spoken the nickname out loud, and he watched Ginger carefully for a sign that she disapproved. Nothing.
"She released her form," Ginger replied. "She has a hairline fracture at the base of her gem, she releases when she's not on call."
That made a lot of sense, and it also made Steven feel really, really bad for Murder Pearl. He didn't doubt all those knocks she took in the arena made the fracture worse, and she'd also been saddled with a really awful nickname. She seemed like a good gem; she had saved Ginger, after all.
I could have used my healing spit to fix her fracture. I'll use it next time I see her.
That next time would be a while; Orthoclase burst through the door a moment later.
"I got two tickets," she announced. "They're not great seats but I can put you on a box if you want, pebble."
"What about Ginger?" Steven asked.
"She doesn't need a ticket. Pearls don't count."
…..
They passed a couple of hours with Orthoclase doing what she called a 'standard rejigging' on a pearl that seemed to be asleep. Steven was in the next room and Orthoclase had blocked off the operating table by a curtain, but from what he could see it looked pretty brutal. By the time she was finished the sleeping pearl was nearly a foot shorter and a completely different colour.
"I have to ask," Steven said quietly as they were preparing to leave. "It seems like we're going a bit...slow with gathering the pearls. Is there any way we can get them faster?"
"I hear you, pebble," Orthoclase told him, helping Ginger out of the culvert entrance and locking the door. "This thing is complex, more complex than even I thought. We need to get the important components together first, and we have almost all of them. After that, any pearl will do. Once we have this pearl, it'll speed us up."
That was such a relief to hear Steven felt faint.
"How complex is it?" he asked, genuinely curious now.
"Lapis' pearl made a diagram," Orthoclase said. "The anchor is important, and there's a radiating pattern that has to be matched. Anchor in the centre, three pearls forming the column, and six around them to fan it out. Then the rest of the pearls make it grow."
"Oh." He was already confused.
"Not only that, but they all have to be in a particular position, they all have to move at the same time and to the same beat, otherwise it all falls apart. Lapis' pearl seems to think we've got a good chance though."
"It will work," Ginger assured him. "We won't let her down."
Strange, even though she said it in that airy, vague way she had of speaking, something about Ginger's words held a steely determination.
They weren't heading for the bad area of town, which was why Orthoclase seemed happy to let Ginger walk with them. They hit two checkpoints on the way in and Ginger's jaw was once again cracked. No matter how many times he saw it, Steven couldn't get used to seeing it. It looked horrifically painful.
"When was the last time you cleaned that thing?" Orthoclase growled at the Topaz performing the check.
"It's iodine washed every cycle," the Topaz replied smoothly, not even looking at Orthoclase.
"Yeah right," Orthoclase snorted.
Their destination was a set of buildings stacked in, on and around each other so tightly that they had to pass through single file to get to the place they were going. They stopped at a tall building at the top of a long escalator; to Steven's eye it looked like a nightclub of some sort but did gems have clubbing on Homeworld?
On the inside, it was fancy. Red and gold interior, mirrored floors and ceilings, and full of gems in formal wear. He, Orthoclase and to a lesser extent Ginger looked very out of place. A glamorous-looking gem with orange skin and a flicker of flame-like red hair was singing on a small stage, cheered on by a number of drunken-looking tall gems.
"You should have taken the back entrance," a voice informed them snidely. They all looked down.
Aquamarine?
It wasn't the one he'd met before, this one was just as tiny but her hair was pulled back in a tight bun and she looked merely irritated and not furious by their presence.
"Sorry," Orthoclase shrugged, clearly not sorry at all. "First time here and all. You wanna show us where to go?"
The aquamarine sighed heavily, turned sharply on her heel and beckoned for them to follow her.
"Have your tickets ready," she said. "You can leave your pearl in the holding pen..."
"I'd rather keep her with us, thanks."
"Of course you would," Aquamarine sighed again. "Any weapons or sharp objects?"
"No," Orthoclase answered, and Steven shook his head.
"You'll be going through the scanner, if you are found to be lying we'll be calling the authorities to report intoxication and general assault."
"We've got nothing on us," Orthoclase told her.
"Good. There is a general ban on manifesting weapons, if you manifest a weapon..."
"Intoxication and assault, we get it," Orthoclase grumbled.
There was a scanner like the one Steven had seen once at the airport in front of a large set of double doors. Several gems were already proceeding through it; they were a mix of clearly well-heeled gems along with a number of rougher types, including himself and Orthoclase.
"The nanobytes won't set off the scanner, will they?" Steven whispered to Ginger.
"Not while I'm within ten pelmetres of you," she whispered back.
Sure enough, they got through the scanner with no problems and were filtered into some seats in a coliseum-type arrangement. The seats were shabby, foam-covered and covered in little holes but even the clearly rich gems didn't seem to care. As the seats filled, two young-looking short gems handed out objects from a black box.
Are those...knives?
When the box was brought around to them (Orthoclase took three, offered one to Ginger, who refused) he got a closer look and they were, in fact, knives. Specifically, they looked like the kind of knives he'd seen ninjas use in movies before. Small, thick, balanced. A red-coloured band was wrapped around the hilt. He held the one given to him by Orthoclase gingerly. What kind of show was this?
The lights dimmed, and into the centre of the room walked a pale green gem dressed in flowing robes. She smiled and waved at the cheering audience, then called for silence.
"Do we have any new-hatches in the audience?"
A number of gems hooted and waved their arms.
"My reputation precedes me," the green gem laughed. "Well, I'll keep it simple so we can get on with the show. You're holding a tenner blade in your hands. When you see the colour on the band pop up on the screen, you throw it into the ring. Simple, right?"
The audience laughed indulgently.
"But that's not much fun on its own," the green gem continued. "We need something to aim at. Come on out!"
A crawling feeling had been building in Steven's stomach since being handed the blade, he knew it would be something like this. Sure enough, a pearl stepped lightly into the ring. Draped in some sort of silky trailing fabric, her hair elaborately pinned up...
Her eyes are closed. Why are her eyes closed?
…shimmer dust coating her exposed arms, legs and face, right down to the furrows under her closed eyes.
"Throw from anywhere in the audience, pearl here will hear it and dodge. As you can see, she lacks eyes to see what's coming, but there's nothing wrong with her hearing. It's has been specially tailored to allow for super-sensitive hearing...but we can't make it too easy on her, can we?"
The audience roared that no, they couldn't.
The curtain fell on an enormous drum overlooking the arena. A large hulking gem that Steven couldn't identify stood with a gong, ready to strike. The Jade took her bow and scurried away to cheering, and the pearl took her position in the centre.
"Did you remodel her?" Steven whispered to Orthoclase.
Orthoclase snorted, annoyed.
"Not me," she hissed. "That's Spinel's work. If I'd done it, I wouldn't have left those marks under her eyes."
"Is she really blind?" Steven asked.
"Of course. Standard eye removal, one of the easiest jobs there is," Orthoclase answered. "'Course, when I do it I usually replace the eyes instead of just leaving them out..."
"Ssh!" a gem from behind them hissed, and although she made what was probably a rude gesture Orthoclase went silent.
The overhead screen went blue, and the burly gem hammered the drum. A flurry of sharp metal objects flew into the arena, but the pearl spun, dipped and cartwheeled until the last one hit the ground. None had hit her.
The screen turned purple, and another flurry descended on the arena. The blind pearl somersaulted gracefully out of the path of most of them, sank to the floor on her knees to avoid the others, and leaped over one that had been kept back and thrown at the last minute. She landed neatly on the hilt of one of the previously thrown blades, stood there on tiptoe with one leg stretched out behind her. She gave the audience the tiniest of smiles as they roared their approval.
When the red screen came up, Steven couldn't bear to throw his blade so he just dropped it over the side. The pearl dodged these blades as easily as the others, rolling out of their path and nimbly side-stepping the ones stuck into the floor. She finished each throw with a beautifully-cut balletic pose and a raucous applause from the watching gems.
A little too raucous, at least for one gem.
Steven's attention had been turned to Ginger, when he noticed she wasn't watching the blind pearl perform but watching another gem in the audience. He turned to look at this gem himself.
It was a dark green gem, not particularly big but intimidating all the same. She seemed drunk, or whatever the gem equivalent was. The pale blue gem beside her looked mortified to be in her company.
Out of the corner of his eye, Steven saw Ginger's fingers go to her mouth. Her lips moved, but he couldn't hear any sound come out of them. Her fingers flickered, as though she was breathing something into them. With one audible exhale, she dropped her hands and looked to the blind pearl.
The blind pearl's head tilted slightly. The drumming hadn't started, the screen was waiting for a new colour to be picked, but her body seemed poised to move...
There was a rush of wind as a blade, far too large to be one of the handed-out blades, rocketed right towards the blind pearl. It should have been moving too fast for her to dodge it...
...and yet she did, throwing herself backwards into the air just above where the blade should have skewered her. It missed her by a hair, just catching her cheek and slicing a long cut there. The blade clattered to the arena floor and the blind pearl landed just behind it. A green bloodlike substance trickled from her face to soak her robes.
"You!" the Jade screamed as she suddenly reappeared, pointing at the intoxicated gem. "You've been warned, for Core's sake! Who let you in here?"
"I'm sorry, Jade," the pale blue gem moaned. "She promised me she'd be on her best behavior!"
"This performance is canceled," Jade hissed. "Everyone out before the Amethyst squad gets here!"
The gems moaned and bitched, but they left. The two young gems collected the blades and Jade ushered the pearl out of the arena, oblivious to Orthoclase, Steven and Ginger following them.
"That was quite a show," Orthoclase drawled, catching Jade as she dabbed at the blind pearl's face muttering darkly to herself.
"Oh...this is all I need," she groaned. "What in Core's name do you want?"
"Relax, I can help you," Orthoclase told her. "I need to borrow your pearl for a while."
"Borrow?" Jade snorted. "What for?"
"Top secret," Orthoclase shrugged. "I need her voice. You'll get her back in one piece...actually, you'll get her back in better condition. I can fix that cut...and I'll even get rid of those marks under her eyes, and all for free."
Jade looked from Orthoclase to the blind pearl, and touched the blind pearl's facial markings gingerly with her thumb.
"I suppose," she groaned. "Show's canceled for a while anyway. I got your word on this?"
"On my honour as a remodeler."
Jade snorted derisively, but she handed over the blind pearl in the end.
…..
They dropped Steven off at the workshop, but Orthoclase and Ginger went off somewhere together because apparently fixing the blind pearl was going to take some special equipment. He was a little taken aback to find Murder Pearl sitting on the couch, not really doing anything besides staring into space.
"Uh, hi," he said awkwardly.
"Hello," she replied, unblinking and utterly still.
"I'm...I'm actually glad you're here," he continued. "I wanted to thank you for what you did for Ginger...and for me, I guess. I would've been in big trouble if they found me, right? But mostly for Ginger."
"I did what I was supposed to," Murder Pearl said in that same airy, vague way Ginger had of speaking.
"I guess, but I still owe you. So I was thinking...Ginger said you had a fracture in your gem somewhere?"
She stared at him, not nodding or shaking her head. Just staring.
"I've got healing powers. Like, I have healing spit, and I already used it to fix some pearls...I can fix you, if you want?"
It seemed like the air suddenly turned thick, heavy. Murder Pearl didn't say a word.
"So, do you want to be fixed?" he asked, wishing she would say something.
"Do you want to fix me?" she asked instead.
"Well, sure I do!" he answered. "You deserve it!"
"Then I will accept."
Relieved, and thinking that once she was fixed he stood a better chance of having an actual conversation with her, Steven licked his hand and pressed it over her gem. He didn't know what to expect. Maybe a smile, maybe even some tears...
Nothing.
No, there was something. Her face didn't change but something about the way she held herself was different.
"Thank you," she said to him. "I will be back soon."
Before he could ask what that meant, she had taken the hook she'd used to attack that Amethyst back at the old workshop and scaled the wall with uncanny ease. She pulled the grate off of the upper vent and disappeared into it.
Oh no.
The next hour or however long it took was unbearably tense. He'd messed up badly, and he didn't even know why. When somebody did come back, it was Ginger and she noticed straight away that something was wrong.
"Where is Murder Pearl?" she asked, still airy and vague but with a note of tension undercutting it.
"I'm sorry," Steven said through gritted teeth, trying hard not to cry. "I just wanted to thank her for saving us, so I healed her...then she said she'd be back and she went out the vent!"
He didn't think it was possible for a pearl to go paler than they already were. Ginger proved him wrong.
"That was a mistake," she told him, not scolding but matter-of-fact, which only made him feel worse.
"What's going to happen?" he asked, dreading the answer.
"Normally, a pearl's spike keeps her under control," Ginger explained, as she pulled out a tablet and started furiously typing. "Murder Pearl's is no longer effective, but her damaged gem kept her from attacking other gems outside of the arena. She has nothing to hold her back now."
That sounded really bad, even when said in Ginger's soft smooth tone. It sounded disastrous.
"I've messaged Orthoclase to tell her to stay away from the workshop," Ginger continued. "We should wait until Murder Pearl returns. When she does, stay behind me and don't move. Understand?"
Gulping, Steven nodded.
