Zircon wasn't actually in the area to pick out the words of the yell that was so loud it nearly caused the entire Underworld to cave in, but she heard a good amount of its volume at a distance, and was told that it went something like this:

"She's doing WHAT?!"

It was, true to form, Raspberry.

By the time the zircons and the peridots returned to the terminal to see what had happened, the entire place was in such commotion that Zircon legitimately feared that they were under attack. Rebels dashed to and fro, carrying weapons and bags of their belongings, wrapping their gems in knit lead fabric to protect from robonoids. The place echoed with the cacophony of panic.

Cranberry, standing on a crate, and Cherry Ruby, floating, stood in the middle of the hubbub, calling directions. Ducking under the heavy I-beam that Hematite was casually carrying over her shoulder, Zircon jogged to Cranberry's side. "What's going — "

"We're leaving the terminal," Cranberry said shortly. "Cherry foresaw another inescapable doom, so we kind of have to hurry. Eventually, the plan is that all of us will rendezvous with Lars' contact and finally get the hell off this planet. Tiger's Eye! Calcite goes in the crate! She can't run; you're gonna have to carry her!"

Zircon took a polite step back, then noticed Raspberry in the corner tying a scarf around her forehead gem. Even without seeing her face, Zircon could tell that she was fuming. Her movements were sharp, and her fists clenched more than usual, and when she stood up and picked up two giant seax knives from the ground, her boots stomped so loudly that they seemed to shake the terminal. Still, she took the time to go to Cranberry and kiss her (they were the same height while Cranberry stood on the crate) before stomping away again, out the front entrance.

"Where's Raspberry going?" asked Zircon.

"Saving Aqua P-Pearl," Cherry smiled. She seemed unusually gleeful with all the chaos around her. "She ran away, and — and at the worst t-t-time, too!"

"None of us are very happy with that pearl," murmured Cranberry. "In any case — minus Raspberry, we're splitting up into teams. Hyacinth, 5XI, you two are with the fleeing team, which is the big group over there. Hematite is leading you through the tunnels to the rendezvous point with Lars' contact."

"Right," said Yellow.

"Got it," 5XI nodded.

"Starlite, 5XU," Cranberry continued, "I want you two to come with me and Cherry. Our job is to pick up Topaz and then meet the others at the rendezvous."

Zircon's stomach just about tied itself in a knot. "Pick up — who?! You mean, I'm going...on a mission?"

"This could be dangerous, and Raspberry can't be there. We might need your shields," said Cranberry, before turning over her shoulder and hollering, "Heliodor, I'm not going to tell you again! You're following HEMATITE! Hematite has a ridiculous hat! Write it down if you can't remember!"

Zircon bit her lip. "Okay." But Cranberry was no longer listening.

Ten minutes later, the chaos left the terminal, and five rebels led by Hematite fled into the disused transport tunnels. The mission party of four, with Cranberry and Cherry at the head, and 5XU and Zircon following stupidly behind, set off through the Underworld.

It was silent as they left the shelter of the station, and equally so as Cherry led them up six levels of the Underworld to a dusty, disused warp pad. The only sounds were their footsteps and a soft "plink, plink" from a little handheld transmitter, which Cranberry looked at once in a while and tucked in the lead sash around her waist.

"Let's just hope no one's there to meet us," whispered 5XU as she stepped up to the warp pad. Everyone looked at Cherry Ruby, who just shrugged.

"Just b-because I don't f, f, for, fore — predict it, d-doesn't mean it can't happen," she said neutrally.

"Helpful," murmured Zircon.

They warped away.

Zircon was not sure was she expected when they appeared on the receiving warp pad. But it wasn't a place that was shockingly familiar — a place still thick with the stench of smoke and ash, a place dark and cold with tremendous, curving walls like scorched ice. Far above were the shining pink skies of Homeworld, as if a great hand had pulled off the cap on the hellscape underneath. Between them and the sky was a web. A web of warped glass walkways, tattered conveyor belts, and the monstrous silhouaettes of collapsed machines.

"The Harvester," Zircon whispered.

At Zircon's side, 5XU's fingers floated up to her mouth. She just stared out at the scene, her eyes glittering, frozen until Cranberry touched her shoulder.

"Are you okay?" asked Cranberry quietly. Blinking hard, 5XU looked at her feet and then nodded.

"I thought, I could handle seeing it again, but I just now got so scared for some reason...I'm fine. I'll be fine. You guys need me."

"Do you — want a hug?" said Ruby.

A pause. Then a nod. Floating back down to 5XU's level, Ruby hugged her, and stayed there in 5XU's arms as they stepped off the warp pad. Something ached very deep in Zircon's gem.

"It's this way," was all 5XU said after that, leaving Cranberry and Zircon to follow after her.

It was too solemn. Zircon had not come to associate the Harvester with warm and fuzzy feelings in the first place, and the darkness and ruin around her did not help matters.

"Um," she said, not liking how her voice echoed dissonantly in the wreckage, "That warp pad is new."

"It was installed when this was declared a crime scene," Cranberry said softly. "The original warp pad was destroyed in the explosion, and the ground above is too unstable for anyone to walk on. Any extra weight in the wrong place and the connecting tunnels would collapse."

They passed a familiar row of barrels and a control panel, which was just partly crushed under a section of a walkway. Zircon shivered and tried not to think of the last time she had been there. "What are they doing here now?"

5XU fiddled with her metallic fingers. "Investigating. About you."

Silence fell. Zircon, for some reason, felt like she should be tiptoeing.

"Why did Topaz come here, then?" she asked.

"It's...one of the f-few places on Homeworld where nobody wants to go," said Ruby softly. "It's s-s-safer."

They reached a lift, and Cranberry pulled the little transmitter out of her belt to check it. "We need to go eight floors up."

"D-don't use this lift," Ruby warned.

"This way then," said 5XU, taking them down a pitch-dark corridor. All four gems pulled down their lead sashes to light up their gems.

They kept on like this, wandering through the smoke and haze, Ruby warning them where not to go. And yet, the foreboding walls were not the heaviest things on Zircon's mind.

Finally, as the four of them crawled out of a partly-collapsed tunnel and she took Cranberry's hand to help her up, she worked up the courage to say something. It wasn't about the first heaviest thing. Perhaps the third or fourth heaviest. But it was something, at least.

"Cranberry?" she said. To her chagrin, her voice wobbled just slightly. Cranberry looked up at her, worried.

"Is...something wrong, Zircon?"

"No! Well," Zircon quickly amended her first statement, fully aware of the contradiction. She cleared her throat to compose herself. "I had a question about Strawberry Quartz. As you hopefully know, I ran into her earlier. She seemed a little, oh, I don't know...on-edge."

Something flickered across Cranberry's face, too fast to identify, because she turned away just as quick. "Oh?" she asked airily.

"Should I be worried?"

"Not at all," said Cranberry in that calm voice that told Zircon to definitely be worried.

"Okay," she said, testing the waters, "because I seem to be the only gem who makes her like that. They all said she used to be a familiar face around the terminal, until Yellow and I showed up."

"And who are 'they'?"

"Literally every other rebel."

"They don't know what they're talking about. Only a handful of them have been there before you. Just...I don't see why it's important."

She was avoiding the conversation. But Zircon was a zircon; she had played this game before. "Except that all of them, except Calcite, were rebels before me," Zircon pointed out.

Cranberry fell silent.

"Cranberry, I just want to know," said Zircon softly. "I don't have to know WHAT it is. But if you're hiding something from me, I kind of want to know, rather than just worrying that Strawberry hates me. Unless...unless the thing you're hiding is that she hates me. In that case, please tell me everything so I can self-deprecate normally."

Despite herself, Cranberry smiled, her free hand floating up to hide it. "She doesn't hate you," she said, and breathed like she was about to say something else, but cut it off. A second later she continued with, "It's...a lot more complicated than that. But it's between me and Raspberry."

Zircon thought about that. Way to tease at the answer. "Do one of you two hate me?" She raised an eyebrow.

"No! Neither — none of us hate you. Oh, it's so silly. I can't believe I'm stressed about it."

"Silliness is relative. If you're stressed about it, it's important to you," Zircon pointed out.

Cranberry sighed deeply. "Maybe. But it's still silly."

"But it has to do with me."

"Yes."

"And your relationship with Raspberry is fine?"

"Yes, Zircon, it's fine, there's nothing really wrong."

"But you're still holding my hand."

There was a split second of silence as Cranberry realized what Zircon said. That soft hand in Zircon's, still there since Zircon had helped her up from crawling, jerked away. By now, both 5XU and Ruby were staring over their shoulders in fascination, but when Cranberry looked at them, they whirled to face forward again.

"Cranberry, if something's bothering you, I won't judge," Zircon tried one last time. "I'm a defense zircon. I've heard it all. You'd have to admit something VERY strange for me to think it's not something we all deal with sometimes."

Sighing, Cranberry began to fiddle with her bracelets. "It's...not…oh, pebbles. You wouldn't want to hear it."

"Well, now, that's just making me want to hear MORE."

"I just — I just don't like talking about my problems! I admit it!"

"YOUR problems?"

"Well. Mine and Raspberry's."

"Would you mind if I asked her to tell me what's wrong?"

"I doubt she would tell you."

"Alright. I think I'll try it. When we rendezvous with her."

"Fine!"

"Fine."

Silence passed. They ducked under a railing and then Cranberry sighed again.

"Oh, I'll just say it," she murmured. "It started with me, when — "

"I h — hear something," said Cherry, stopping.

All at once, the search party froze in their tracks. A second later, instinct and training kicked in, each of them drawing their weapons and pulling their lead scarves down to hide their gems. Zircon pulled out her pole, dropping down to a fighting stance. 5XU went to draw her blaster, but Cherry stopped her with a sharp hand gesture.

After a few moments trembling in the silence and dark, Zircon cursed silently, then glanced over to Cranberry. The tourmaline had never seemed so relieved to be interrupted.

Frustrated, Zircon tried again. "Cranberry — "

"SHHH," hissed Cherry.

They went quiet again. It was so quiet, in fact, that Zircon could hear fabric shifting as they all struggled to stand still.

"What?" said Cherry, rather loud. It made all three of the others jump.

"Cherry, what the hell," Cranberry whispered.

"SHHHHHH!" Cherry waved with her hands. "I c-c-can hear them!"

"Who?" asked Zircon.

"SSSHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"

"The topazes?" asked 5XU.

"What p-part of 'SHHHHHHH' do you n-n-n-not understand?!"

Everyone went quiet again. Then Cherry said again, very clearly, "Y-yes...she's here."

A short pause.

"No! That's — that's — that's mean. Don't say that. I don't like you."

A longer pause.

"I l-l-like YOU, though. And you. And you too. And you. And...m, maybe you."

"What the HELL," Cranberry repeated, a little more emphatic this time. Zircon wasn't really sure what "the hell" was, and she supposed this was another one of those things that seemed to have been passed between Lars the human and this certain subculture of gems, but from the intonation she got the gist of it. Whatever Cherry was doing was incredibly strange. Talking to someone nobody else could hear, or to more than one…

When the memory hit her, a chill ran under her gem. Cherry was defective for more than just her doomsaying; she remembered this. It had been in the files for that very first trial.

"Of course, how could I have forgotten," Zircon mused. "We have a ruby that can communicate with gem shards."