Chorus

Chapter Six

Note: I finally have my archive almost up and running, and it really feels like I stepped back in time. I'm thinking of putting some of my original work up there, free of charge, on a regular update schedule just like my fanfiction. I just really like the format of writing and posting on a weekly basis when I can manage it. Thoughts?

Also, I originally planned on having Steven give Murder Pearl a name, but it seems like a few people have gotten attached to calling her Murder Pearl, including myself, so I'm on the fence. Please tell me what you think, reader input is very valued.

…..

As Steven walked further away from the manufacturing district, Ginger stepping quietly behind him, the buildings got shabbier and more broken down, the lights were dimmer and there were less transport links around. There was a palpable sense of danger in the air; this was not a good place to be.

"Should we take Murder Pearl out?" he whispered back to Ginger.

"No," she whispered back. "Too many gems around here know who she is, she'd attract too much attention."

Steven was very aware that he was shaking, and of the pools of cold sweat building under his arms, across his back, around his face. Did the nanobytes cover that?

Gems on the street were looking at them. Curious, frowning, a couple of them smiling in a way he didn't like. A sharp whistle from one of the buildings made him jump.

"What's a nice pearl like that doing hanging around here?" a raucous jeer sounded from the direction the whistle had come in.

As they passed what looked like some sort of gem equivalent to a tavern, some hulking gem with mottled yellow and white stripes grabbed Ginger, tried to pull her inside. When Steven grabbed her back and went to manifest his weapon, the gem just laughed and pushed them both away. When they turned a corner, a small green gem ran by them and pulled on Ginger's hair. From the doorway of a factory, a dark red gem stared at her, stroking the handle of some tool she had in her pocket.

This is a nightmare. I'm going to wake up eventually. It can't get any worse.

Through it all, Ginger was utterly calm. It was probably the only reason Steven wasn't a gibbering wreck, if she didn't seem scared then he had no reason to be, right? But then he already knew Ginger didn't really react to danger, or anything else.

"Hey pebble!" a gem shouted, and at the nickname Steven turned because he thought by some miracle it was Orthoclase. "How much?"

"How much what?" he called back, uncertain.

"How much you want for the pearl?" the gem called back. "I'll give you 3000 credits!"

"She's not for sale," he answered, grabbing Ginger's hand and pulling her away as fast as he could.

"Come on, you're just asking for it to get yanked," the gem cajoled. "At least I'll give you some cash..."

"No thank you!"

He was near tears by the time they got out of that gem's line of sight.

"It's not far now," Ginger assured him. "Two more blocks, that's all."

The way she tried to soothe him was eerily similar to how Pearl tended to talk to him when he was upset, and it just made him want to cry even more. Ginger was the one who was under threat, so why was she comforting him?

He stormed through the two blocks with his head down, holding Ginger's hand tightly. He could feel other gems reaching out to touch her, to engage him with questions about her, but he refused to look up. When they finally got to where they needed to be, he thought he would faint with sheer relief. Ginger let him catch his breath before she knocked on the door.

"Who is it?"

"I have a message from Orthoclase," she replied to the pair of eyes that appeared through the slot in the doorway.

..

"I knew Orthoclase was good," Hematite mused as they took their seats in her office. "I didn't know she was good enough to fix a pearl to tell lies."

"Please excuse the intrusion and the lie," Ginger said, lowering her gaze demurely. "But we were under threat. Our workshop was compromised by black market crackdown Amethysts. Orthoclase was out on a job at the time, only myself and the quartz were present."

Hematite hummed. She was different from Murder Pearl's owner, taller and calmer. Beside her desk, sitting at a smaller desk of her own, was a pearl, prettily attired in shades of floating pink fabric. She was taking notes on a small clear notepad.

"So what brings you here?" Hematite asked. "I don't think I need to tell you Orthoclase and I aren't exactly friends..."

"We needed somewhere secure to go until Orthoclase can come to pick us up, somewhere that bypasses the checkpoints. You run the tightest operation on this side of the city."

"True," Hematite said with a rueful smile. "But why would you think I'd turn you over to Orthoclase? You're in good shape, I could just as easily sell you and get rid of the quartz."

Steven's heartbeat was so loud he felt like everyone could hear it.

"You won't."

"Oh really? Why?"

"Because Orthoclase will owe you a favour. If you hand me back the way you found me, she will fix your pearl for free."

Hematite laughed, glancing over at her pearl (who had stopped typing.)

"My pearl is in perfect condition, she doesn't even go outside anymore," she said.

"She's malfunctioning," Ginger responded. "She has multiple hairline fractures caused by bad filler. She is completely blind in one eye and losing the sight in the other."

Hematite stopped laughing abruptly, looked back over at her pearl, who was staring at the floor from under her long sideswept hair.

"Is that true?" she asked.

The pearl nodded.

Hematite's jaw quivered, and she sighed. Her demeanor suddenly was less stern, less threatening, more thoughtful.

"You really think Orthoclase values you so highly she'd do these repairs for free?"

"If we are returned in perfect condition," Ginger replied.

"Deal," Hematite agreed. "I'll get a message out. There's a spare rest pod in the bunker, you can wait there."

One of Hematite's subordinates lead them to the underground level of the building, to where a large pod was sitting in the middle of a large cavernous room with the lid open. Ginger climbed in and gestured to him to follow, and closed the lid on them both. The little pipes around the side of the pod hummed with energy, and the interior was plush and comfortable. There weren't any blankets, but it was a bed, more or less.

Exhaustion hit Steven like a brick. He had been in a state of panic for close to four hours now, no wonder! But in the aftermath of fear, there was that awful bare feeling of being exposed, vulnerable.

"Hey, Ginger?" he said, scooting closer to her.

"Yes?"

"Can I ask you something?"

"Of course."

"Would you mind...putting your arms around me? Only if you're comfortable with that, I mean, if you don't want to..."

"Is that an order?"

"No!" he said vehemently, shaking his head hard enough to make his headache worse. "I can't give you orders...well, I can but I won't...I'm just asking. If you don't want to do it that's okay."

The way she stared at him, the meaning was inscrutable. Pearl, by contrast, was an open book.

"I will," she agreed.

Relieved, Steven curled up alongside her and she put her arms around him. With his face pressed against her stomach and her long slim fingers laced over his chest, it felt familiar enough to sleep comfortably.

…..

It's a dream, once again he knows that in an instant, but it doesn't matter because at least Pearl is awake in this one, no longer strapped to a table, no drill bearing down on her...

They're in some sort of dome, with high arching rounded walls the colour of an eggshell. She is piling little blue cubes in front of a crack in the base of the dome, as she reaches out the cubes fly into her hand from the other end of the dome, though as far as Steven can see the dome has no end, just a far horizon in the opposite direction of where Pearl is diligently filling the crack.

"Pearl!" he yells before he can stop himself. His voice bounces off the rounded walls.

Her face when she turns towards him is horrified. Her mouth opens and closes with no sound. Distracted, she stops piling the cubes and a thin crack peters out from the main, sneaks up the wall. She turns back to it, starts piling the cubes again in earnest.

"You can't be here!" she manages to shout back at him at last.

"I've been looking for you," he calls back. "I found some gems that can help me find you..."

He takes a step forward, only for some invisible force to pull him backwards, away from her.

"You can't be here," she shouts again. "I can only hold it off for so long! They can't find you in here!"

She's making no sense, but now that he looks closely he can see the exhaustion in her face. There are thousands of those cubes propped up in front of the spreading crack, they are getting absorbed by whatever the force is behind the crack, something inky black with pulsing blood-red veins.

"Just hang on," he tells her, hearing the high note of panic in his voice and wincing. "We're going to find you, they promised..."

He doubts she can even hear him, because that loud whining noise that had been building outside the dome is getting louder, and now it is complimented by an earth-shaking banging sound.

But the banging is not coming from the dome, and she can't hear him because he's leaving the dream, he's waking up.

"We're going to find you," he calls once more, before he comes to.

…..

Blearily, Steven allowed Ginger to gently pull him to his feet before she opened the dome of the rest pod. Orthoclase (and boy was she a sight for sore eyes) was standing outside it, the tension in her face melting completely when she saw that they were in one piece.

"What in Core's name happened?" she asked. "Are you okay?"

"Black market crackdown Amethysts," Ginger replied.

Orthoclase hissed something under her breath, probably some sort of gem curse word.

"Did they hurt you?" she asked, notably scanning Ginger with her eyes for damage.

"No," Ginger replied.

"Yes they did," Steven blurted out. "They grabbed her by the neck and threw her at the table."

He didn't want to say what had nearly happened after, but he didn't need to, he could tell by Orthoclase's face that she already knew.

"Core's sake," she cursed again. "How did you get out?"

"Murder Pearl," Ginger replied, so unruffled by the whole thing it was almost frightening. "She cut them down. We dumped the gems in the canal."

"Good job," Orthoclase chuckled, finally relaxing a bit. "Hematite's already fingered who squealed. Some little Jade slag from the eastern sector. But they came across the workshop by chance, they were looking for something else."

"I promised Hematite you would repair her pearl in exchange for our safe return," Ginger told her.

"That's fair," Orthoclase shrugged. "Though she'll want me to do it here where she can see...hey pebble!"

"Yeah?"

"I need you to spit on this," she told him, holding out a small cloth.

When they walked back out into Hematite's office, the pearl was already lying on Hematite's desk. Orthoclase made a pantomime of taking out implements and using them but surreptitiously just wiped the pearl's gem with the cloth Steven had spit on. Sure enough, the pearl gasped a little and she was healed.

"Can you see?" Hematite asked.

"Yes. Completely," the pearl replied, looking down at her own hands in what probably passed for astonishment in pearls.

"Good. We're even now," Hematite told Orthoclase.

"Nearly," Orthoclase retorted. "What's going to happen to the Jade that squealed?"

"Already taken care of."

"Good to hear."

They left the office then, Orthoclase reducing Ginger to pearl form first because 'only some sort of clod would walk around with a pearl out in the open around here'.

..

They didn't head for a new workshop, as Steven might have assumed. Instead they took a transit line to the outskirts of the city, where rows and rows of identical square buildings stretched out for miles.

"So I learned something interesting," Orthoclase told him when there was nearly no gem left on the transit. "Pearl song-weaving is designed to be inaudible to the average gem, so getting them to sing together loud enough to project it properly is going to be tough. Lapis' pearl suggested we needed a pearl that's used to singing out loud to 'boost the weave', in her words. She even told me where to find one."

Steven nodded along, but now that the danger was officially over he was tense. The image of Pearl stacking those cubes, trying to keep whatever was behind that crack at bay, kept floating into his mind. He was now more aware of how time-sensitive their mission was, and how long it was taking to get basic components ready.

They departed the transit, and walked straight past rows of square buildings until Orthoclase picked out the one she wanted. She casually declined to introduce herself to the gem on guard at the door, and said she was there to check on their pearl.

"We don't have a pearl!" the gem sputtered, blushing. "That's illegal, everygem knows that!"

"Yeah right," Orthoclase scoffed. "Maybe I should ask your supervisor..."

"Okay, okay, fine," the gem hissed. "Keep your voice down, okay? I'll take you in."

The gem escorted them through the bare hallways into what looked like a sort of mess hall/recreation room for...

Jaspers. Lots of them.

All shapes and sizes from walking giants to squat, stocky little warriors. They punched each other by way of greeting and their laughter was so loud and raucous it sounded like a threat.

The Crystal Gems had just about handled one Jasper. If this went badly...

"Hey!" Orthoclase shouted at the top of her lungs.

Every Jasper went deathly silent and turned towards them. A trickle of cold sweat ran down Steven's face.

"I'm here to check out your pearl!" Orthoclase continued. "You know who I am, right?"

"Oh," one of the closest Jaspers, who looked like she could snap Orthoclase in two with no effort, said with a smile. "She's over there."

Actually seeing the pearl, sitting among a cluster of gigantic Jaspers, was like seeing a mirage. She was a shade of blue so pale it was practically white, and her hair was a gradiated tone of sky blue to deep indigo, and tied up into two enormous corkscrew pigtails. Her outfit was white and fluffy, cloudlike. She looked like one exhaled breath would blow her away.

Orthoclase peered down at her, but when she reached out to touch one of the pigtails her hand was actually slapped away by one of the Jaspers.

"Look, don't touch," the Jasper growled.

"Okay, got it," Orthoclase agreed. "But I'm going to have to touch her a little, okay? Anyway, I hear she can sing?"

"You heard right," one of the other Jaspers scoffed.

"She's even better than White Lapis," another chipped in.

"Okay, good," Orthoclase said. "Can I get a demonstration?"

They heartily agreed to this, picking up the pearl like some sort of tiny puppet and setting her on one of the mess tables. The Jaspers eagerly gathered around, pushing each other out of the way to get the best place to watch.

When she did sing, it wasn't as loud as any of the singers Steven had heard growing up, or even as loud as Pearl singing when she did random chores in the house to pass the time. But it was high and clear as flowing water, and she danced to match the tune. It was a peppy upbeat song about being proud of a gem you loved, and the Jaspers were eating it up.

When she finished and neatly curtseyed, some of the Jaspers were actually wiping away tears.

"Oh Core I love that one," the Jasper closest to Steven sighed.

"...okay," Orthoclase said, her expression inscrutable. "Right, I've seen enough. This is what we need. Jaspers, I need to take your pearl."

You could have cut the tension with a chainsaw. Steven actually heard knuckles being cracked in the crowd.

"I'm not going to take her away permanently," Orthoclase continued, seemingly unafraid of the many, many Jaspers that looked ready to beat her to death. "Just for a little while. I have a project in the works that needs a pearl that can sing at a decent volume. And I'm not just asking to take her with nothing in it for you."

She stood up, and took out a cloth to unwrap and place on the table. Six objects lay on the cloth.

The Disney pearls.

"If you lend me your pearl for this project, not only do I offer you my services as a remodeler and repair-gem, but I offer you your choice of any two of these pearls to add to your barracks."

Steven felt like he was going to vomit. He'd forgotten, in all this time, that he was dealing with one of Homeworld's most notorious criminals. A gem that, for all she had done for him so far, had no issues with giving away these pearls to suit her plan.

What did you think was going to happen to them?

All around him, the Jaspers were howling, incredulous, couldn't believe their luck. Their pearl gazed down at the pearls on the cloth, serene, no clear expression on her face.