Part 1: The Mission
Chapter 6: Experiment
The two gems stared at it, taking in the twisting grey complex of canyons; it was not at all like the sandy cliffs of Homeworld's Kindergarten.
"Am I the only one noticing the contrast between the rest of this planet and here?" Sapphire could not find a single sign of Earth's life; no plants or animals. This desolation seemed to spread far past the edges of the actual Kindergarten.
"Yeah, who cares?" Ruby started to circle the edge of the furthest chasms, "we need to keep moving." Sapphire didn't move to follow her, staring down at the faint lights at the bottom of the gray chasms.
"Actually… I think we should go down there." She took a few steps closer, looking down and around the crack in the Earth.
Ruby turned to stare at her charge, jaw dropped, "Are you crazy?! We'd get in so much trouble, you KNOW we don't have the clearance for that!"
"I think they'd make an exception, for this." Sapphire gestured up and down Ruby's arm, "If that gem monster came from here, the scientists of the Kindergarten likely know what it is. They're probably working on a cure right now."
Ruby sighed, "I guess that makes sense…. And hey, I think they have a warp pad to the Sea Spire in here…"
"Exactly," Sapphire took Ruby's gem hand in hers, "this is the end of our wandering, can't you see?"
Ruby, sighed, then smiled, "fine ok, but how are we getting down there? And do not say you'll carry me again." Before Sapphire could respond by laughing, the two heard a mechanical whir near the edge of the chasm. Looking over the edge, they found a large, strange device climbing up the wall of the chasm. Its legs dug into the rock and pulled its center mass to the surface, five drills boring into the surface of the cliff.
"Is that… a mechanized injector?" Ruby watched it work; no technology she'd seen from Homeworld had ever had this level of autonomy. Sapphire was already floating down to it, resting on its upper gem component.
"Are you coming, Ruby?" She asked, as the biotech inside the injector undulated implanting a gem into the rock. Ruby shook her head and jumped onto the machine, sitting next to her charge.
"Heh, I guess this thing is pretty convenient." She held on to the device as it dislodged itself and began climbing back into the gorge. Sapphire looked out across the many gouges into the earth; there were hundreds of injectors like this one all working in concert.
"There are so many of them though…." She pursed her lips, trying to figure out why this fact seemed to bother her.
"Huh…. Guess that explains why it's so big." The deeper they went, the more of a sense of scale they got. The rumors were true, earth truly this was the biggest Kindergarten ever built.
"I wonder how much energy it's taking up." Sapphire mused, as they approached the bottom. Ruby's face fell slightly, and she turned to face Sapphire; her concern was evident.
"You think that's why there's no life around here?" she asked, as they leapt from the injector to the bottom of the kindergarten, a few feet below.
"It would make sense…" the blue gem sighed, something about that implication making both of them uncomfortable. The living things of this world, monsters and all, held a unique appeal to both gems unparalleled by anything seen or written of on Homeworld.
"Ah… let's just try to find a gem that's in charge, ok?" Ruby gently patted her charge on the back, taking her first steps ahead.
"Fine….. Ok." Sapphire agreed, moving through the dusty grey expanse before them.
"Does anyone even work here?" Ruby growled and turned another corner, only to be met with more injectors and more emptiness.
"Well…." Sapphire ran her hand over a mound of rock, one that would one day give way to a gem, "this Kindergarten seems almost entirely automated. I imagine most of the workers patrol the outer rim and the warp pads…"
Ruby groaned, "yeah, but I want to get this over with," she ran her gem hand through her hair, looking up at the height of the canyon walls, "this place…. I don't know why but it's freaking me out."
"I know," Sapphire's visions were maddeningly vague, but at the same time threatening, "I think…. Maybe we should leave soon."
Ruby groaned, but before she could agree to this plan they heard to muffled voices from behind the next bend of rock. The two gems ducked into the shadows, silently agreeing that they were just as likely to walk into rebels as actual workers of the Kindergarten.
"Our current emergence rate is sixty percent, discounting the corium–infected individuals." the voice sounded withered and yet sharp.
"Corium infection?" Ruby looked down at her arm, flexing a bit to observe the tensing of the yellow veins, "so they know what this is…"
"Very well," another voice, gruff and muffled, answered, "send out the uninfected as soon as you can, and incinerate ALL infected individuals."
Both gems shared a brief look of pure horror; Ruby dared in that instant to peek around the corner towards the voice. She saw that one gem was large and green, with a head covered in spiky hair and was coated in armor commanding authority, save for a strange mask covering her eyes and face. The other was a slight, grey gem; she was very plain and dwarfed by the green gem.
She shook her head ant the taller gem, "come now general, can we really afford that much waste? At the very least we could take a few as samples, play around with it a bit."
Ruby's eyes widened, "General? HIGH General Emerald?!" she had heard that Emerald had been sent to Earth, but never once expected to SEE them in person. What they were doing here, with a war to fight, Ruby could not fathom.
"Professor, with all due respect this stuff is no toy," The general sighed, "and no weapon of war either. Some of the initiatives you've presented me make me question your dedication to your station, to your sanity even-"
"YOU do not have vision, General!" the grey gem howled, throwing up her thin arms in a taunting manner, "but I know the Authority does. If you won't approve my proposals I will petition for audience with them. You'll see, my initiatives will have the rebellion to its knees!"
Both Ruby and Sapphire were stuck in stunned silence; neither were sure if they'd walked into a conspiracy or if the grey gem's words held any weight. But ignoring the possibility that this 'corium-infection' could be weaponized, a bigger implication dawned upon the two gems.
"There's no cure." Sapphire said aloud, amidst the silence following the Professor's outburst. In the echoing channels of the Kindergarten, her tiny voice seemed to impossibly echo. The grey gem turned to the noise, her snarl revealing her gem to be a grey row of upper teeth; all were unevenly sized and shaped into points and cubes and razor-thin edges. The General tilted her head, then turned away.
"Go see what that was, will you Galena?" she sighed, moving towards a set of warp pads in the distance, "I have to get out of here." Professor Galena's eyes widened, pinpricks of black in a field of grey and underlined by black crescents of eyeliner as she tried to focus on where the noise had come from. Ruby and Sapphire tried to slip away into one of the abandoned holes of a formerly incubating gem, but the grey gem proved to be faster than they expected. Ruby felt a cold, slender hand wrap around her infected wrist, pulling her screaming from the rock.
"Oooh, what do we have here?" Galena looked Ruby over, positively glowing with excitement, "You emerged only partially infected, now that's unique. I've always wanted to study how the corruption spreads." Ruby squirmed in her grasp until she felt Sapphire grabbing her legs, trying to pull her free. Galena merely smiled and lifted Sapphire as well, by the back of her dress
"Oh, and a seer gem!" Galena's mad smile grew as she held Sapphire's gem to her face, "I could really use you, at least a fragment or two-" Ruby leaned up and bit into Galena's arm, which caused her to drop the red gem in disgust. Ruby wasted no time summoning her Bracer and slamming it into the gray gem's stomach.
"Let go of my Sapphire!" she growled, and as Galena doubled over she pried open her hand and the two small gems ran as fast as they could from the Professor. The Grey gem leaned up, laughing dryly.
"We lose so many gems this way…" she distended her jaw and summoned her gem weapon; it was an impossibly large metallic syringe topped with a long thin needle and came filled with a white milky substance, "some liquid gem-destabilant should calm you two down!" she cackled with excitement and gave chase.
/
Ruby collapsed after nearly an hour of close-calls, cornering and nonstop running; quickly thinking Sapphire dragged her into an enclave before Galena could round the next corner and spot them. They held their breaths, waiting for the mad gem to pass.
"Where did you go my lovelies?" the grey gem brandished her needle, searching for the two, "Why must you hide from SCIENCE?!" her ranting grew more distanced as she continued her search away from the hiding place of the two gems.
"She's gone," Ruby sighed, "but she'll be back. I could distract her, and you'd be able to make a break for the warp pads-"
"No, absolutely not." Sapphire placed a hand on her escort's which were already firmly planted on the sides of her hair, "You'll be tortured until the infection spreads. And I don't even want to see your fate after that."
"But my mission was just to get you to the Sea Spire," the stress alone sent little cracks of corruption over the shoulder of the scared brute gem. Sapphire sighed pushing her hair aside to look Ruby in the eye.
"I am NOT leaving you here Ruby." Her eye stared deep into the red gem's, before glazing over with a vision of the future "There's another way out of this place. A tunnel that leads into the mountains…. The only problem is it's encircled in lava, and the bridge only appears for registered gems…"
Ruby thought for a moment, then gritted her teeth, "alright, let's go for it." Sapphire nodded, and the two crawled out; Ruby looked over her shoulder in the direction Galena had gone.
"Alright Sapphire, lead the w- AAAAAaaah!" Sapphire had taken Ruby's gem arm and had begun dragging her in the direction of the tunnel, so fast Ruby's feet barely touched the ground
"A-are you running or flying right now?" Ruby asked, panting.
"A bit of both, we're almost there." The blue gem assured her escort, as they entered a branch of the Kindergarten away from the rest and began running uphill, before coming to a dead stop. The two small gems felt their faces fall as they stared at the expanse of molten rock. It was several times longer than the both of them combined, and its depth could not be known.
"I…. haven't worked out how to cross it yet…. I don't think I can fly both of us over." Sapphire admitted, just as the ravings of Professor Galena began to grow in the distance behind them. Ruby shook her head, then raised it, a plan forming.
"Sapphire, when I tell you to fly, fly, ok?"
"Wha-" Sapphire squeaked out just as the brute gem lifted her over her head and threw her as hard as she could. Sapphire tumbled halfway across the expanse, confused and surprised.
"FLY!" Ruby commanded, and just as Sapphire neared the surface of the boiling rock, she corrected herself and made the distance to the other side, just at the mouth of the tunnel
"I-I made it?" the blue gem wondered, then turned back towards the other side of the molten divide. She caught a glimpse of Ruby making a running start towards her before leaping towards the other edge, only for her to plummet into the lava, sinking quickly into the boiling rock.
"RUBY!" Sapphire cried; as she dropped to her knees and felt burning tears come. She stayed that way for a moment, unwilling to go on. And then Ruby's gem arm emerged from the surface of the lava, curling its fingers into a thumbs-up. Then another arm surfaced, and then her head popped out, gasping for air and laughing with relief.
"HA! I knew it, I am resistant to lava!" Ruby gloated, swimming to the edge. Sapphire jaw hung loose, but as she pulled her escort from the boiling rock she too could not help but laugh.
"I thought I just saw my best friend die!" she chuckled, still crying and hugging the Red hot gem tightly. Ruby ruffled her hair gently, secretly relieved her foolish plan had worked out as it had.
"It takes more than lava to kill me." She winked, and the two smiled at each other.
"Theeeere you two are!" Galena cackled, activating the proper sensors to summon the bridge across the lava. The two small gems yelped and ran into the tunnel as quickly as they could, and Galena followed them into the darkness in what would be many more hours of running.