34: The Zoo
x x x x
"You brought humans!" the blue Gem said, disgust rolling off her in waves. "Well, we need to put them in the containment area." She turned to the Amethysts, who straightened up, doing the salute. "Take them to be assimilated!"
Assimilated?! I thought, watching as the Amethysts nodded to the blue gem. They grabbed Steven and me, carrying us off through the halls.
"Why does Holly Blue Agate have to be so uptight all the time?" the Amethyst carrying Steven asked, stopping in front of a small door in the wall. She pressed a finger to the control panel, opening the door.
"She's a bitch, that's why," the Amethyst carrying me answered, dropping me through the door.
Immediately after the door closed, I started moving along a tunnel on a conveyor belt. A few moments in, floating fingers came up and started poking at me, presumably performing a health check.
After my temperature was taken, the fingers removed my shoes, followed by my socks and shirt.
"Oh, come on," I groaned, sitting there passively as my shorts were taken. Next, the fingers started trying to remove my bra, but were confused. "I'll get that," I grumbled, reaching back and unhooking it, then handing it over to the fingers.
Once I was mostly nude (my underwear wasn't taken, thank God), a new set of fingers appeared, spraying me with some weird mist.
"Agh! You stupid floaty phalanges!" I snapped, swatting at them as they left. When the mist cleared, I saw a large smashy thing smashing against the conveyor belt. "Well, fuck me. I'm about to get juiced."
However, instead of crushing me, the smashy thing clothed me in a uniform consisting of a blue vest and a long loincloth, which was held on by a brown belt. Then, the accursed fingers were back, jamming a set of earrings through my earlobes.
"Gah! That hurt, you-"
With a slam, a set of glass panes came down behind and in front of me. I rolled my eyes, standing up and moving to punch my way out when a rush of water came down from above.
Uh, humans can't breathe underwater, you dumbasses, I thought, crossing my arms and sighing internally. I heard a whoosh, and a hole opened up in the floor, taking me through it in a whirlpool.
Do they think humans are aquatic? I mused, letting the waterslide-esque tube take me wherever it went.
Finally, I was ejected into a shallow lake, a short distance from a beach where a pair of humans sat, talking and laughing.
"Hello?" I called, standing up and walking through the water toward the humans.
"Hello!" the man called back, raising a hand in greeting. The woman turned around, also raising a hand.
"Hello!" she said. "I am J Ten. What is your name?"
"Emma," I said, stepping onto the beach and looking down at the humans. "My name is Emma."
"I am Y Six," the man said, smiling up at me. "Come, sit down with us!"
"Okay," I said, sitting down and offering a nervous smile. The pure contentment of the captive humans was unsettling, especially since I couldn't detect any complex emotions from anywhere around me.
"Your hair is so long and pretty!" J10 said, reaching out to touch my hair. "May I braid it?"
"Uhm, sure," I said, turning my back to her. After a moment of her playing with my hair, I came to a startling realization.
What if she sees my gem? I thought, attempting to cool my panic by absorbing the surrounding calm and reasoning with myself. They probably don't know what Gems are. I mean, that blue Gem seemed disgusted by humans, and these ones have been in here their whole lives, so they haven't been assimilated like I was...
"Ooh, Y Six, get some flowers for her hair!" J10 said, and I could feel her twisting my hair into a thick braid. Her fingers almost brushed the gem on my neck, but luckily she managed to avoid it. "So, Emma, where did you come from?"
"I came from Earth," I said, adjusting the top of my loincloth to cover the gem on my chest. "That's where humans are naturally from."
"There are other humans?" Y6 asked, returning with a handful of blue and yellow flowers that he started adorning my head with.
"There are a lot of other humans," I replied, nodding. "In fact, another human came here with me. His name is Steven."
"Ste-von?" Y6 repeated, and I almost corrected him before remembering that the humans here had ID numbers instead of actual names.
"Yeah, Steven," I said, returning his smile and enjoying the feeling of my hair being braided.
x x x
"Emma!" Steven called from the lake, and I turned around to see him standing up to come over to me.
"Steven! You're here!" I crowed with delight, running over and picking him up in a hug. "It's so good to see you again!"
"Yeah, Emma... but we've gotta get out of here!" Steven said, wriggling his way out of my arms and trying to reopen the hole in the floor he'd entered through.
"I doubt that's going to work, Steven," I said, picking him up and carrying him to the beach. "Besides, I've got a plan."
"Emma! Is this Ste-von?" Y6 asked, smiling at us.
Holy fuck, do you guys have any emotions other than happy contentment? I thought, but I merely said, "Yeah, this is Steven."
"Ste-von! Welcome, welcome!" Y6 said, beaming down at Steven.
Suddenly, our earrings lit up, and a soothing voice played through them.
"Greetings, everyone. It's time to start the daily routine," the voice said, and I looked at one of my earrings in confusion. "Please enjoy your meal during this designated eating period."
"What was that?" Steven asked, just as confused as I was.
"Stevon does not know what a little voice is!" Y6 said, laughing.
"Our little voices guide us through life here," J10 explained, just as the earrings lit up again.
"You all must be hungry now," the voice said, and Y6 and J10 made noises of agreement, walking away.
Assuming that they were heading toward the food, and feeling a bit hungry myself, I followed them, carrying Steven with me.
"It'll be okay, Steven," I assured him as I walked. "We'll get out when everyone else is sleeping. There has to be a door here somewhere."
"Oh, all right," Steven grumbled, resigning himself to spending the day here.
"At least try to enjoy yourself, okay?" I said, looking down at him. "Or I'll channel these humans' overly simple emotions onto you."
"You wouldn't," Steven said, looking up at me incredulously.
"Nah, I won't," I said, grinning at him. "Their emotions are too suffocating for me, so I have to block them out."
"Why?" Steven asked as we came into a clearing where purple fruit magically grew on the trees.
"All they feel is contentment," I replied. "The only complex emotions here are from you and me, since they don't know anything but complete happiness."
"Here you go, Emma," J10 said, handing me a fruit. I accepted it, setting Steven down on his feet.
"Ah, thank you," I said, smiling.
"Stevon," Y6 said, giving a fruit to Steven. "Today the fruit is purple!"
That man is way too excited about purple fruit, I thought, looking around at the eating humans.
"Are you enjoying the food," the earring voice asked.
"Oh yes!" the humans chorused, smiling as they chewed. I took a bite of the fruit, expecting it to be heavenly, but was disappointed to find that it just tasted like an apple. A pretty damn good apple, but still just an apple.
"How is the food?" the voice pressed, "Is it good?"
"Yes," Y6 said. "It is delicious."
Once we were done eating, the voice came back.
"Now it's time to play," it instructed, and Y6 and J10 led Steven and me to a grassy hill, which they rolled down excitedly. I followed suit, but Steven wasn't happy to roll down the hill.
"Now everyone, reach up like you're going to touch outer space," the voice said, and all of us except Steven reached up to the sky. After a moment, Steven joined in, grumbling internally about how it was a waste of time.
"That's it! Reach up high!" the voice said, its tone reminding me of how someone would talk to a baby. "Wasn't that fun?"
"I have not had that much fun since yesterday!" Y6 laughed.
"It's time to stop and smell the flowers," the little voice said, heralding a move to a part of the forest where flowers grew in abundance.
"What if I... don't want to smell the flowers," Steven suggested, and I bit the inside of my cheek to prevent from delivering a snarky comment, instead letting J10 handle the situation.
"Why wouldn't you want to do that?" she asked, taking the flower she was smelling and sticking it in Steven's hair. He removed the flower, considering it with a small frown.
"Time to clean up, everyone," the voice said, and I picked Steven up, following the other humans to a waterfall pool where they were bathing. "Let's all take a refreshing bath."
Surprisingly, everyone was still clothed. A fact I was grateful for, since Steven was there, but it still confused me.
I surveyed the bathing humans for a moment before noticing that J10 was tiptoeing to the edge of a very shallow cliff at the edge of the pool.
"Watch my splash, Emma!" she called, and I focused on her, my interest piqued. She dove into the pool, making a very tiny splash as she entered the water.
"Nice one," I said, hiding my disappointment. I had expected a pretty big splash, not a perfect dive.
"Emma! Watch mine!" Y6 called, standing on a higher cliff. He dove, making a much smaller splash.
"Those are the tiniest splashes I've ever seen," Steven remarked, and I looked down at him with a conspiratorial grin, setting him on the ground.
"Watch this," I said, walking to the edge of the pool where Y6 surfaced. "Hey Y Six, you ever heard of a cannonball?"
"I have never heard it," he said, laughing. "Tell me what it is."
"Check this out," I said, backing up a few meters to get a running start. "I'll show you."
I ran to the edge of the pool, leaping over Y6's head with a cry of "Cannonball!" and landing in the pool with a huge splash. A few of the humans gathered around me, slightly concerned, but their concern turned to laughter when I surfaced.
The humans, inspired by my boldness, started doing cannonballs into the pool as well. Eventually, Steven jumped in as well, surfacing with a look of disappointment.
"Hey, you doing okay?" I asked, swimming over to him.
"I can't believe this," Steven said, gesturing to the humans. "They're all so happy. It's like, they don't even know that they're trapped here."
With a sigh, I let my mind wander through the area, picking up on the thoughts and feelings of the humans.
"They've never been anywhere else, Steven," I said, continuing, "they love it here. I mean, look at this place! They've got everything they need, and they never have to worry about a thing. They don't even have to think about what they're going to do
during the day, since it's all planned out already."
"I guess you're right," Steven sighed.
Suddenly, I noticed the sky darkening. Turning around, I found a dark circle sliding across the "sun" to form a crescent moon.
"And now it's time to say goodnight," the soothing voice said from our earrings, prompting the humans to leave the pool and find places to sleep on the ground. "Goodnight everyone. Sweet dreams."
I yawned, joining Steven in laying against a surprisingly comfortable flower bush and watching the humans fall asleep.
"Come on, most of them are out," I said quietly, standing up and starting through the forest with Steven following behind.
After a short walk, I bumped face-first into a hard surface. A step back revealed that it was a door, poorly concealed with giant leaves.
"It's a door," Steven said, stepping forward and beginning to beat on it in an attempt to open it.
"Emma!" Y6 said, popping up from behind a bush and startling me.
"Stevon!" J10 said, popping up beside Y6.
"So you are the ones making the noise," Y6 said with a smile.
"What are you doing?" J10 asked, continuing, "Is it a game?"
"Can we play too?" Y6 asked, both of them comically missing the point.
"It's not a game," Steven said. "We need to get this door open."
"What is a 'door'?" J10 asked.
"Like, this part of the wall, but open," Steven explained, gesturing to the door.
"Haha, walls don't open," Y6 laughed, "they're walls."
"There is a story of an opening wall," J10 said, catching everyone's attention. "A long time ago, a Gem came through a wall-hole to help someone who was 'hurt'."
"What do you mean, 'hurt'?" Y6 asked.
"I don't know," J10 replied. "I don't know what 'hurt' is."
"I know what hurt is!" Steven said, raising his hand into the air. The confused humans turned to him, curious.
"You do?" they asked in unison.
"Um, it's like when you feel... bad," Steven tried to explain.
"...Bad?" Y6 repeated.
"Yes!" Steven said. "Like, the opposite of good. Ach, if that's the only way out, then Emma, slug me in the face."
"What? I'm not gonna hit you!" I said, looking down at him in disbelief.
"It's our ticket outta here," Steven said. "One of us has to get hurt!"
"Okay, well, then you hit me," I said, gesturing to myself.
"You sure?" Steven asked.
"Yeah," I replied. "I'll take one for the team."
I closed my eyes, bracing myself for the impact, when I felt a light tap on my cheek.
"Come on, gimme all you got," I said. "I can take it."
Steven cocked his arm, throwing a punch that flung me backwards into a tree.
"Cannonball!" Y6 said, missing the point once again.
"How was that?" Steven asked, coming to my side.
"Good," I groaned. "Anyone coming?"
"Doesn't look like it," Steven said. "Should I try again?"
"I won't be able to get out of here if you do," I said, almost certain that I had at least a fractured rib.
"What do we do now?" Steven asked, dejected.
A familiar chime came from right beside my ears, and my eyes widened as the earrings began to glow.
"Whatever she says," I said, picking myself up off the ground and leaning against the tree.
"It is time for the Choosening," the voice said. "Please, gather around the Circle of Choosening."
"Stevon. Emma! The Choosening will start soon," J10 said, moving toward us.
"Come with us," Y6 said, excited. "It's finally time!"
Steven and I followed the pair to a clearing in the forest where there was a pair of large, glowing circles on the ground, one inside the other.
"Emma, step into the circle with us," J10 said, walking to the edge of the outer circle. I followed warily, uncertain of this "Choosening" thing.
"Stevon, wait here until the Choosening is complete," Y6 said, leaving Steven a short distance from the circle.
"The Choosening is a very special event to us," J10 said, and I gave a nervous smile.
"We're glad to have you with us at such a wonderful time," Y6 added.
"Glad to be here," I said with a shrug.
"Let the Choosening begin," the voice said, and everyone closed their eyes, waiting for something.
"U Twelve, please step into the center of the circle," the voice said, and a dark skinned woman moved into the smaller circle, grinning in excitement. "F Three, please step into the center of the circle," came the next selection, and
a blonde man went to stand in front of U12. "You have been Choosened for each other."
"Wait a second, is this some kind of matchmaking thing?" I said, appalled. "There's always a catch to these utopias."
"Emma, whoever is Choosened for you will be very lucky," Y6 said, smiling at me in admiration.
"Y Six, please step into the center of the circle," the voice said, and I looked back to the center circle to find that the first couple had left. Y6 entered the middle circle, and I looked around the outer circle, wondering who would be designated
for him.
"Em-ma, please step into the center of the circle," the voice said, and everyone turned to me. Y6 looked delighted that I had been Choosened for him, but I wasn't.
"Wait, maybe there's been a mistake?" I asked, grabbing one of my earrings and looking at it. I could feel Steven's shock from behind me, but also the excitement of the humans in front of me.
"Emma, Y Six is waiting for you!" J10 said, gesturing to the grinning man in the center of the circle. The humans cheered, and I looked around at them, uneasy.
"I know what is going on here," J10 said, grinning at me.
"You do?" I asked, confused.
"You are just shy!" J10 said, grabbing me by the shoulders and pushing me into the circle to stand in front of Y6. "Do not worry about it! Now, touch hands..."
"Hold on!" I cried, pulling my hands back to myself. "This isn't how it works on Earth! I... don't wanna be told who to be Choosened with."
I've already been Choosened, by two great Gems... I thought, biting the inside of my cheek to prevent myself from speaking.
"Emma, this makes no sense," J10 said. "Why wouldn't you want to be Choosened?"
"Look, back on Earth, there wasn't a voice to tell you who to be with," I explained. "It was your own decision."
"My mom and dad didn't get together because someone told them to," Steven said. "They spent time getting to know one another, and fell in love. They Choosened each other, because, that's what they Choosed."
"Hmm, I see," J10 said. "If that's how it is on Earth, then... I choose Emma!"
"And I also choose Emma!" Y6 said, starting a wave of people choosing me.
"Wait!" I cried, looking around at my admirers. "I get a say in this too! You're all very nice, and I'm flattered, and yes, you get to choose who you want, but I also get to say that I choose, uh.. none of you."
My rejection caused all the humans to start crying, with one man even ripping his vest apart in despair.
"Woah, hey, don't cry," I said. "You can choose someone else!"
"I feel not-good," J10 cried. "I feel... bad?"
"Could this be?" Y6 said through tears. "Is this 'hurt'?!"
"Why would Emma 'hurt' us?" J10 said, and the humans raised their hands to the sky. "Take this 'hurt' away!"
"I Choosen... to take Emma and run away!" Steven said, picking me up and running out of the clearing. He ran, with the humans following us, through the forest.
"Watch out for that-" I started, seeing a tree branch up ahead that I was pretty sure would clothesline me. "Oof!"
The force of impact with the branch knocked me out of Steven's hands and onto the ground, where he stopped running and dragged me off the path. We hid behind a bush as the humans ran past, watching them go by.
"I haven't broken this many hearts since I left England," I remarked, shocked at the sheer number of humans that had Choosened me.
Suddenly, the door out of the Zoo opened, letting in a flood of Amethysts, who chased down the crying humans.
"Hey, get back here!" one said, running right past our bush.
"This is crazy!" I said, watching the Amethysts attempt to console the humans.
"Just calm down," one called to a human in a tree. "Let's talk about it!"
"I'll never Choosen again!" a human sobbed to the Amethyst kneeling beside him.
"Sure you will," she said, putting an arm around him.
"Hey, the door's still open," I said, noticing the light from the open door.
"This might be our only chance!" Steven said, and we jumped out from behind the bush, running to the door.
"Oh, no you don't," an Amethyst said, grabbing Steven and I by our shirts and lifting us into the air.
"Put us down!" Steven cried, flailing about.
"You two are in big trouble," the Amethyst said, looking between Steven and me.
She tucked us under her arms, carrying us out of the zoo and through the halls to a large room, where she dropped us on the floor.
"Are these the ones?" she asked, and I looked up to see a bunch of Amethysts, as well as some Jaspers and a small red Gem that I couldn't identify, looking down at us. Our Amethyst and Jasper were nowhere to be seen, but at that moment, I didn't care.
X
(AN: Why doesn't Emma care that she can't find Amethyst and Jasper? Find out in the next chapter!
Yeah, I basically swapped Greg out for Emma in the zoo, also switching who was Choosened for Emma - the Choosening is the first part of a breeding program (in EU "canon"), so pairing two females would be counter-intuitive.
Originally, this chapter was longer, but I wanted to post as much as possible today, so I cut it at what I thought was a good point.
We're at the end of what I have completed so far. But not what I have planned! I've got another chapter and a half for EU planned, and I've also got the four prequel stories completely mapped out. I'm just having trouble writing them, since I've basically got to do all the worldbuilding myself. I mean, I've got a good foundation, and some of the big parts are in the plans, but the little details are going to be difficult to pin down.)
(AN 2: I think I'm gonna make the Beach City focused part - that I mentioned in the AN for chapter 32 - into a separate, shorter story. I still have to figure out who the others - apart from Connie and Ronaldo - will be. Lion will be there, as himself, but the other CGs' "replacements" are evading me. Maybe the Cool Kids? Yeah, that sounds good to me, especially since they canonically have parallels to the CGs.)