Eventually, our holiday drew to a close, and Mandy and I needed to get back to our work and classes, so, after some farewells, we boarded the RV, and headed back, albeit with more passengers than we'd come with. We planned to visit Emily's aunts once we got back to the city, and Steven, Garnet and Peridot had requested that they come with us, Garnet, so that she could ensure her war buddies were being taken care of, and Steven and Peridot, so they could meet the other Gems on earth, and introduce themselves.
As far as travel companions went, I'd had worse. Steven entertained us with various car games, while Peridot made the occasional snarky remark about the RV's outdated technology, compared to Gem machines like the Warp Pad. Emily spent a lot of the time angrily arguing with Peridot, as it turned out she'd put a lot of work into the machine, herself.
Eventually, Emily parked the RV in a parking lot, underneath a skyscraper in the heart of Empire City, and we disembarked, and took the elevator to the 21st floor, where Emily unlocked a sturdy metal and glass door, with an electronic keycard. On the other side, was a large, but modest laboratory. It wasn't as science-fiction as I was expecting. There were several counters and surfaces, with neatly arranged lab equipment, glass cabinets displaying various chemicals and tools, and an enormous monitor, which spanned the entire wall, opposite the door we came in through.
We only had a moment to take all this in, before two Gems came shooting into the lab, through another door, one with a desperate looks in her eyes.
"Emily! You're unharmed! Oh, thank the cosmos!" The agitated one cried, before sprinting over and throwing her arms around Emily, almost tackling her to the ground.
The other Gem strolled over, folded her arms and rolled her eyes. I saw why Mandy had been fooled by their human disguises. I could tell they were Gems, since Emily had already filled us in, but were I in the dark, I probably would have just assumed they were strange-looking humans. They were slender, and tall, almost as tall as Garnet, with ghostly pale skin, and wore lab coats over plain sweaters, one blue, and one orange. Their faces were very similar, meaning the easiest way to tell them apart, besides their sweaters was their hair. They were both a vibrant, lime-green, like Emily, but the one squeezing her affectionately had a bushy pair of pigtails, which reached her lower back, while the other had a very 80's, spherical bob.
"Of course I'm okay, Perry! Why wouldn't I be!" Emily protested, while gently pushing the Gem off her.
"You were with potentially hostile Gems!" Perry argued, in the same nasal whine I'd heard the shorter Peridot use on occasion. "No offense." She quickly added, shooting a fleeting glance at Garnet.
"None taken." Garnet affirmed.
"I texted you a bunch of times to say I was okay!" Emily said.
"Well... yes... but I was..." Perry awkwardly began to reply.
"She was worried that you'd been kidnapped, and the Crystal Gems had stolen your phone." The other Peridot finished, with a coy smile.
Perry bit her bottom lip, fumed angrily, and rounded in her colleague. "I speculated that that could happen! I never committed to it as a viable possibility!"
"Oh please, I had to hide the car keys to keep you from rushing to her rescue."
"Well excuse me for loving and caring about our niece!"
"I will, but I won't excuse you for embarrassing her in front of her new colleagues!"
"Speaking of which!" Emily angrily interrupted.
The Peridots froze, and their angry expressions gave way to embarrassed smiles.
"Yes, welcome, Crystal Gems..." The Peridot with the bob greeted us. "My name is Peridot 18HQ-85T and this is 2L57-V42, but Emily got tired of calling us that when she was a child, so dubbed us Dorothy and Perry."
"Ooh! Perry and Dot! I get it!" Steven laughed.
"Yes, but Dorothy is fine..." Dorothy irritably corrected.
Steven, Mandy, Garnet and I introduced ourselves, and then, Peridot took her turn.
"Peridot 2F5L-5XG. I rebelled from Homeworld myself, not that long ago. Yellow Diamond, am I right? What a piece of work!"
The other Peridots shared a confused and thoughtful look, and Dorothy mouthed Peridot's number, before her eyes widened and she snapped her fingers. "That's where I know you from!"
She tapped rapidly on a small keyboard, and the lab's monitor burst into life, displaying Peridot, anxiously recording what looked like a distress message. I vaguely remembered people talking about such a thing last year. A strange message showing up on every TV. Mandy and I don't watch live TV since everything can be streamed online, so we didn't see it, and I hadn't been interested enough to look it up. I'd assumed it was just a weird commercial or something.
"We saw your message last year." Perry explained. "We tried to keep tabs on you, in case you were a precursor to a Homeworld incident, but we never found you."
"Yes, I had something of a... conflict... with the Crystal Gems after that, then I spent a while building a drill, and now I'm living in a barn with my friend, Lapis!"
The other Peridots spent a moment politely reacting to Peridot's story, before changing the subject.
"Anyway!" Dorothy said. "Let's get to why we're all here. Perry, why don't you show Garnet our containment units, for her approval, and I'll show the others what we've been working on!" She said, excitedly.
"You've been working on something?" Emily asked.
Before Dorothy could elaborate, Perry interrupted. "Why do you get to show them?"
Dorothy sighed irritably. "I don't know, it doesn't matter!"
"Then you show Garnet the containment room, and I'll show them the... other thing."
"Well... it was my idea, and I'm proud of it!"
"But I put more work into it!"
"Like heck you did!"
"Guys!" Emily angrily shouted.
Dorothy and Perry looked at Emily apologetically, then sternly at each other.
"Lapis, Fire Quartz, Turquoise?" Perry suggested.
"Let's do it!"
The two slammed their fists into their palms three times, while counting upwards, and then each made an obscure hand gesture, and cried out the name of a Gem.
"Lapis!" Shouted Dorothy.
"Fire Quartz!" Was Perry's choice.
Based on their reactions, it seemed Dorothy had won. She cackled nasally, and shoed Perry away. "Poor Perry, you always choose Fire Quartz. Now off you go."
While Perry bitterly led Garnet towards the door through which she and Dorothy had entered the lab, Emily leaned over to me and Mandy, and whispered, "Twenty-four years I've been living with this..." making Mandy giggle.
"Now, since we found out there's not one, but at least three Gem-human hybrids living on Earth, I have been buzzing with the idea of exactly how many there could be!" Dorothy filled us in, as she led us to the back of the lab.
Dorothy tapped on another keyboard, and a series of diagrams and illustrations appeared on the monitor, corresponding with what she was saying.
"Now, all organic life, gives off a biometric signature, unique not only to each individual, but in a more general sense, its entire species!"
Behind us, Perry stuck her head into the lab. "Are you watching the slideshow yet? I did the graphic design!" She said, proudly.
"Get back to work!" Dorothy snapped.
"You're not the boss of me!" Perry snapped back.
"I would be, if..."
"GUYS!" Emily shouted again.
Perry sighed, and stormed back to the containment room, and Dorothy continued.
"Now, we've known for a long time, that Emily's hormones are completely unique to her. We've tried scanning the planet for others of the same species dozens of times, and nothing! But now we know that it's not because she's the only Gem hybrid... it's because she's the only Peridot hybrid!"
"So...?" I asked, trying not to sound rude, but unsure of what the significance was.
"So... If we're able to establish a baseline between three hybrids of humans, and completely separate Gems, I believe we'll be able to run a tracking algorithm, and locate every geo-organic hybrid on the earth!"
"Wow, that sounds great!" Steven said. "We're gonna have so many new friends!"
"So, how do we do that?" I asked Dorothy.
"Simple, I cooked these up while Emily was away." Dorothy reached into a drawer and produced three metallic wristbands, each with a simple, LED screen on it.
"We!" Perry shouted from the other room. "We cooked them up!"
Dorothy ignored her. "As long as those three wristbands are being worn by Gem hybrids, our computer should instantly be able to calculate where the others are! Put them on! Put them on! Put them on!" She hopped on the spot, anxiously.
I was somewhat off put by Dorothy's eagerness, but Steven and Emily immediately put their bands on their wrists, so I resignedly did the same. The LED screen burst into life. "JET ERA 2 HUMAN FEMALE 25 YEARS VITAL SIGNS NORMAL."
I looked over, and Saw Emily's wristband had a similar reading. Steven was tapping on his and frowning in concern. "I don't think mine is working right." He said.
We all gathered round. Steven's wristband read, "PRXCNRMVO DIANCKENI ERA 0398174983MAN MALE 15 YEARS VITAL SIGNS NORMAL"
"Huh, must be a technical glitch..." Dorothy noted. "At any rate, the baseline has been established, so nothing to worry about."
The lab monitor switched to a map of the earth, and a vertical line swept across its surface, back and forth, like when people scan for signals in spy movies. Dorothy had exaggerated when she said 'instantly', but eventually, one by one, pinpricks of light began to pop. My heart raced as they climbed in numbers. 2, 5, 9, 16, 20, 30. When the lights stopped popping up, there seemed to be at least a hundred.
"This is incredible!" I gasped. "There are so many of us!"
"It's extraordinary!" Dorothy agreed.
Perry came running into the lab. "What? What are the results!?" She joined us in gaping in wonder at the screen.
"And... and look here!" Dorothy dragged a mouse across the counter, and zoomed in on a small island, near Beach City, which was crawling with dots. "There's a whole community of them on Mask Island!"
Steven cringed. "Oh, erm... Those aren't Gem hybrids... they're watermelon Stevens..."
Dorothy squinted at him in disappointment. "What...?"
Steven seemed reluctant to tell Dorothy that her experiment had flaws. "I have the power to bring plants to life. That island's got a bunch of watermelons, that look like me, living on it... Sorry..."
Perry gave a loud, snorting laugh. "Who was it who said they put more work into the scanners, Dorothy?" She teased.
"You did!" Dorothy angrily reminded her.
"Yeah... well you disagreed with me!"
"ALRIGHT!" Dorothy said, loudly, before Emily interrupted them again. "Clearly there's a margin of error, but it's statistically likely that at least half of these signals are coming from Gem hybrids like you three."
"Are we gonna do an X-Men: First Class- style recruitment montage?" Mandy asked, excitedly.
"I suppose that would be appropriate." Dorothy agreed. "I recommend we start with lone signals, to rule out... watermelon communities... Like here."
The screen zoomed in on a stretch of country, outside a town, to the south of America, where a solitary signal was found.
"Anyone got reason to think that that's not a Gem hybrid?" Dorothy asked.
We all looked around, getting no affirmation.
"Well then." Dorothy said, triumphantly. "Looks like you hybrids have a mission!"