When the glow of the warp pad faded, Connie had to wonder if they had somehow ended up at the wrong farm. It had only been a few weeks since her last visit. She had expected some change, but she had not expected a full tactical makeover.

The crooked silo was gone. Its metal had been harvested to cover the barn in irregular plates, their weight supported by makeshift braces that lined the exterior. Thick ceramic tiles made from what looked like local mud had replaced the tar paper and shingles on the roof. If the entire structure wasn't perfectly fireproof, Connie still wouldn't have bet against it in a wildfire.

A large section of the cornfield had been cleared and smoothed to accommodate the thick struts of a freestanding satellite dish as big as a backyard swimming pool. The device had been cobbled from scrap and was held together by bailing wire, and appeared to be powered by the rusty truck husk that had previously run Peridot's experiment. Several cables trailed from the base of the dish into a device that might have been a computer if it had been crafted by Victorian steampunk supervillains.

Then a cylindrical garbage can riding on a tiny set of caterpillar treads rolled up to the warp pad. An antenna punched through its lid swiveled around to examine Connie, Steven, and Pearl before they could take a single step. "Intruders detected. Commencing with dissipation," the can informed them in a synthetic replication of Peridot's voice. "Please remain still and do not blink."

Pearl lifted an eyebrow at the can as its lid cracked open to reveal a long, tined instrument that extended toward them menacingly. "She can't be serious," the pale Gem deadpanned.

"Wait!" a shout from the open barn commanded. Peridot sprinted out, waving her arms overhead. "Stand down! Authorization code: Ottawa! Poutine! Pound sign zero-one!"

The garbage can lid swallowed its forked tine and backed away, allowing the three arrivals to step into the yard, who waited with varying degrees of patience for Peridot to reach them, all while the can's antenna followed their every movement with suspicion. Connie had a brief impulse to dart back and forth to watch the antenna wiggle, but she didn't want to find out the hard way what else the can could do if it became annoyed with her.

Finally reaching them, Peridot slapped the side of the can. "Take it easy, Pierre. These are our new recruits. Let's register them before they get themselves shattered."

"Registration mode activated, Brilliant Commander Peridot," the can replied.

Pearl's other eyebrow rose to join the first. "Commander Peridot?" she echoed. "This is ridiculous. How do you expect this thing to stand any chance of stopping anyone?"

"For the first time, I find myself in agreeance with the Pearl," Jade muttered silently to Connie, who clenched her face to keep from smirking.

Rather than offended, though, Peridot looked pleased by the question. She gestured with her chin back behind the warp pad and said, "Well, if Pierre here wasn't enough for you, her sisters would have stepped in before things got rough."

Connie twisted her head, then jumped at the sight of five more roving garbage cans identical to the first, all of them spread in a semicircle, watching the warp pad with the bulbous antennae swinging atop their lids. As ridiculous as the cans looked, they had still surrounded the new arrivals without giving themselves away. Even Pearl seemed surprised at their presence, her hand twitching as if to draw a spear from her gemstone.

"Allow me to introduce the campers," Peridot announced, and then pointed to each of her identical creations. "Versions Two of Pierre and Percy, and their new sisters, Max, Nikki, and Neil. They'll be protecting you from wayward Quartzes while you're here."

Steven waved awkwardly, smiling as he said, "Hi! Please don't shoot us."

"Campers, connect visual recognition to the following existing ID files," Peridot instructed her cans. Then, pointing to each of them in turn, she said, "Steven Quartz. Connie Jade. And Renegade Ownerless Pearl."

"Ownerless?" Pearl barked, her cheeks blue with anger. Then, with a second thought, she cooled and added, "Though I do like the sound of 'Renegade.'"

"Being descriptive helps the campers avoid misunderstandings. Resume patrol!" Peridot commanded. Her garbage can legion lurched to obey, rolling toward different corners of the barnyard. Only the soft sound of dirt crunching under their treads and the nigh-inaudible whine of electric motors gave them away.

Twisting ribbons of bemusement and begrudging admiration fluttered in Connie's chest. As she looked around the farm, she heard Jade sub-vocalize, "Well, no one can question the Peridot's work ethic, if nothing else."

At Peridot's insistence, they ventured into the barnyard along a twisting path. A few times, the green Gem stopped them to stare at the ground and mutter to herself in thought.

"Is everything okay, Peridot?" Steven asked. "You're talking to yourself more than usual."

"It's fine, Steven. I just don't want anyone to get accidentally glooped," said Peridot.

"Glooped?" Connie heard herself say in unison with Steven and Pearl, and with the confused voice in her head.

Peridot couldn't answer before the ground in front of them erupted with a spray of mud. The brown slurry coalesced into a lithe, graceful shape that spread its wings and arms. Two glimmering blue eyes opened in the mud and brightened at the sight of the three newcomers. With a gesture, she compelled the mud to slither off her body and into the soup at her bare feet. "Steven! Jade! Connie!" Lapis said, stepping delicately out of the burbling slurry without a speck on her. "It's nice to see you again!"

Connie grinned at the sight of the blue Gem, so surprised that she didn't fully hear the sharp ptff sound hissing out of the ground behind her. "You too, Lapis! You're looking very subterranean today."

Smirking back at the mud hole, Lapis said, "It's Peridot's idea. I found a lake nearby that nobody was using, and we made an underground reservoir with it."

With a cocky swipe at her nose, Peridot bragged, "We also deepened the central pond. The next time some Flint walks into our barn and tries to dehydrate Lapis, she's in for a rude awakening. And that's If we don't gloop her first."

"But what is 'glooping?'" Steven insisted. "It sounds bad, but it also sounds like something that happens on kids' gameshows."

Peridot's gaze flickered behind them, and her eyes went wide. A braying laugh doubled her over as she pointed and shouted, "You should ask Pearl!"

When Connie turned, she backpedaled in surprise. Pearl stood frozen, petrified in a thick, crystalizing layer of golden translucent sludge. The last of its wet surface hardened, immobilizing the graceful Gem. Pearl's flickering eyes were the only thing able to move within the sludge. They zeroed on Peridot's laughter and narrowed, and the statuesque trap began to shake.

"Whoops," Lapis said, abashed. "Hang on, Pearl." She reached back toward the pool in the yard and pulled a large globule of water from its surface. Then she arced the water to Pearl, swallowing the immobilized Gem in a whirlpool.

In seconds, the crystal sludge dissolved, and Pearl collapsed out of the churning water. The yellow residue splashed into the dirt behind her, leaving a sticky pool. "What," Pearl heaved, sputtering out flecks of amber crystal, "was that?"

Peridot picked up a stone. "They're my own invention: a concealed underground delivery system for an organic concoction of quick-drying petrification gel." By way of demonstration, she chucked her stone across the yard. It had barely touched the ground when more amber sludge burst from the ground with an explosive ptff. The sludge hardened itself into a frozen moment, its spray standing seven feet tall with Peridot's rock frozen at the center.

Gesturing to the field, Lapis added, "We made it out of corn! That's why you can clean it off with water. After we saw it work, we named it 'gloop!'"

"Lapis's idea," Peridot said, nodding deferentially. "And she handles the cleanup. Speaking of…" She cupped her hands over her mouth and shouted out toward the field. "Hey, Max! Swap the modules on Gloop Zee-Nineteen and Vee-Thirteen!"

Combing flecks of gloop from her hair, Pearl said, "These are all fascinating innovations, Peridot, but we came here because you said you had something new to separate Jade from Connie."

"No, please, by all means. Let us continue this showcase of cobbled defenses. It may waylay a few clumsy Rubies for a moment," Jade said, snickering inside Connie's head. "Though in fairness, I do applaud the use of local resources. In all my travels, I had yet to see weaponized agriculture, so at least that one is new."

Peridot led them into the barn. Glancing around, Connie noticed another set of tines mounted above the doors' interior, looking exactly like the ones built into the new can campers, and all too similar to the one from Peridot's makeshift Destabilizer. Cables stapled to the wood led from the tines to a large stack of daisy-chained car batteries peering out from under a tarp in the corner.

Most of the barn's scrap had been cleared or probably scavenged. Even the meep morps were gone, leaving the barn looking stark and barren. A work table remained with tools and half-finished projects. The far corner still had its hammock and a short bookshelf laden with comics and novels. And in the other corner, a television remained as the only piece of machinery not devoted to protecting the farm, with boxed DVD sets featuring pine trees on the cover stacked lovingly atop the set.

"This place looks…clean?" Steven said, looking around the sparse barn interior.

Her delicate face creased with regret, Lapis said, "We had to recycle all of our fun stuff to make Peridot's safety stuff." Then, brightening, she added, "But we can always find more, I guess. Jade told me in one of her emails that humans are making junk faster than they can get rid of it, so there must be plenty more out there for us."

"It is humanity's most plentiful, highest-quality product," Jade agreed inside Connie.

Smiling, Connie said, "I'm glad the emailing is working out. Jade won't admit it, but she likes having a pen pal."

Lapis brushed a lock of her hair back behind her ear. Her eyes grew a little distant as she said, "Sometimes when you're feeling trapped, what you need most is for somebody to just talk to you, even if you're not nice enough to deserve it."

"The Lazuli is too hard on herself. I find her demeanor more than pleasant enough to deserve my correspondence," said Jade.

Loud, pointed clattering from the worktable drew attention back to Peridot, who cleared space on the tabletop with little regard for her projects. When she was done, all that remained at the end of the table was a loose collection of plush, oblong green shapes, each one with wispy trails of stuffing at their ends, and with a bow tie and top hat stacked next to them.

"Aw, Peridot," Steven said, his eyes glistening at the sight of the dismembered toy. "Is that your little buddy from Funland? You worked so hard to cheat to win him!"

A knowing smirk crossed Peridot's face. She gestured to the table and said, "Yes, it didn't fare too well in my last experiment. Perhaps you'd like to use your healing powers to put it back together for me?"

"Would I!" Steven exclaimed, brightening instantly. He bounced to the table and began to sort the jumbled pieces. With each pair he matched, he put the torn end into his mouth, coating it in saliva before jamming it into the torso, where the fabric knitted itself whole again.

"I am at a complete loss," Jade said, sounding dazed as Connie grimaced at the drooling repair. "What is this? What is happening?"

Rubbing at the bridge of her nose, Pearl said, "Steven, don't put that in your mouth. You have no idea what she did to it." Her frustrated glare swung on the smug Peridot, and she asked, "Was this why you told us to come? I thought you said you had a new solution for our Jade dilemma."

"How dare she downgrade my presence to a 'dilemma?' To any rebel on this planet I insist on being, at bare minimum, a menace," Jade huffed.

As Steven finished, revealing the completed shape of a little green man in a top hat and bow tie, Peridot gestured to them both as if presenting an accomplishment of her own. "I do. And it's Steven," she said.

"Meh?" Steven said, his words slurred by dry-tongue.

"Yeh," Peridot agreed. She held out her hands expectantly, and Steven handed her the freshly assembled plush alien. "Connie Jade's predicament started when Steven tried to heal them both at the same time without realizing it. His mouth mucus, instead of healing them as their individual selves, combined them into an amalgamation not unlike Steven himself."

Cupping the gemstone under her T-shirt, Connie said dryly, "We're pretty familiar with that part."

"Indeed."

"But what we haven't asked is why," Peridot insisted. "Why did Steven's power combine them? He's never combined a healed Gem with any particulate matter in contact with her form or gemstone. I also assume he's never healed any clothes into a human."

Connie suddenly had the funny, incredibly disturbing vision of Steven's backwash juice box fusing her old glasses to her eyes instead of healing the eyes alone. She might have ended up looking like an owl, and getting fitted for new lenses would have been an even worse ordeal than usual.

Scratching his head, Steven said, "Maybe it's because the clothes were okay?"

"No, Steven," Peridot said. "It's because of what you are. You're a human and a Gem."

"Yeah. Half-human, half-Gem," Steven said.

"But what if you're not?" Peridot said. "You possess a fully human body, but you have all the abilities inherent to your gemstone. What if you're not half of anything, but two wholes coexisting in one body?"

Frowning in thought, Pearl said, "Let's assume you're not just quibbling over terminology here. What are you getting at, Peridot?"

In reply, Peridot tore the head off her plushy, then plunged her hand deep into the neck hole, her tongue protruding as she rooted inside the body. Steven gasped in horror and cried, "No! I've never lost a patient before!"

Then Peridot pulled a large, smooth river stone out of the stuffing. The word Jade had been painted on the stone's face in green lettering. Holding the stone aloft, Peridot said, "Steven healed our two subjects together into what he is: a human and a Gem. So if he healed them together, I believe he can heal them apart."

Stunned silence rang through the barn as Peridot huffed excitedly. Then, tilting his head, Steven said, "I can?"

Lowering her hands, Peridot shrugged and said, "Maybe? Since Steven was the one to put them together, I figure Steven is our best option to get them apart."

"More educated speculation?" said Pearl.

"Now you're getting it," Peridot said, and winked.

Connie took the stone from Peridot and ran her hands over its face. The freshly dried name on its face felt bumpy under her thumb. "Steven? Jade? What do you think?" she asked.

"Any new attempt will mean progress in some form," Jade admitted.

Steven smacked his lips. "I might need a glass of water first, but let's do it!"

But Peridot shoved herself between them, cradling her decapitated plushy. "Not so fast! Steven's reckless impulse to heal every pathetic creature in need is exactly what got Connie Jade into this mess in the first place."

"Pathetic?" Connie echoed, scowling.

"Before you go smearing your face drippings all over them, you need practice." She snatched back the stone from Connie and plunged it into the plushy's neck hole, then shoved the plush halves into Steven's hands. "If you can heal this practice model without sealing the dummy gemstone inside it, then we'll be ready for a trial run."

Steven clutched the pieces to his chest, giving Connie and Peridot both a solemn look. "I'll practice every day until I can fix this. I promise." Then he licked the plushy's head and pressed it back onto the neck, knitting it whole again.

"Thanks, Steven. That's really sweet…and a little weird," Connie said, grinning.

"That's exactly my style," Steven boasted. Then he frowned and tucked the plushy under his arm. "Peridot, is it okay if I wait a little while to start practicing? We're supposed to take Jade on her first Earth adventure after we're done here."

Lapis brightened. "Oh, that's today? She mentioned that in her last letter. Where are you going?"

Smirking, Connie said, "We're letting Jade decide, even though she keeps telling us that it's 'beneath her.' Would you like to come with? I'm sure Jade would like a little non-human support on her forced death march toward fun."

"You are relentless in your testing of my promise to remain cordial, human," Jade groused. "Though you are also correct. I would be glad to have the Lazuli accompany us."

The invitation made Lapis smile. Then her expression darkened with concern as she glanced down at Peridot. "I don't want to leave Peridot by herself in case that saucer comes back," she said.

Peridot scoffed and waved off the notion. "Are you joking me? As long as I'm here, I'm the safest Gem on the planet. Just let those clods try to come back. They'll gloop themselves before they set one photon inside this barn."

Lapis didn't look convinced until Pearl spoke up, adding, "I'll stay here for a while. I'd like to see more of these security measures. At least then maybe I won't step in any more of them."

"Woohoo!" cheered Steven. "That means it's adventure time! So how about it, Jade? We've got a whole world full of warp pads to explore."

Bouncing on her toes, Lapis added, "Or I can fly us somewhere! I mean, if Steven and Connie don't mind riding in a bubble of water. I promise I'll even leave some air in there so you can breathe."

Connie touched the gemstone at her throat, giving in to her friends' excitement. "Where to, Jade?" she asked.