A/N: Kudos to the one person who mentioned the Rupphire reference in the last chapter! ;P It wasn't a contest or anything, but I was still really surprised that nobody else called me on it. Maybe it was just my geeky pride at managing to contextually work the term Rupphire into a sentence. ;P
To SU fandom queen: I'm really glad you've enjoyed this fic! I've had a lot of fun writing it. :) But alas, I update once a day, and with these chapters being anywhere from 1-5,000 words apiece I don't think I can realistically produce any more than that. I'm a fast writer, but I'm not that fast. And that is a... very detailed scenario. It sounds like you already know exactly what you want to happen-I think I'm going to leave writing that one to you, but if/when it does get posted drop me a line and I'll be happy to check it out! :) Thanks a lot for taking the time to leave feedback!
They go back and forth about it for hours, interrupted occasionally by Sapphire answering the questions that had been sent to her inbox from the day before, and a couple more from Blue Diamond about the nature of fusion itself.
"Are you sure?" Ruby keeps asking.
"If I thought something else had the potential to happen, Ruby, I would have brought it up by now."
"I know that, I do. But if what you say is true, then that means…"
"I know," says Sapphire quietly. "But I don't See any other way."
"Not even with—?"
"Not even then."
Ruby heaves out a hard breath that sounds more like an apology than an indication of frustration and helplessness. She hasn't mentioned it, but Sapphire can feel her culpability for their meeting with the Diamonds acutely. They're going to have to talk about that later—but right now isn't the time. Right now, they need to make sure there will be a later to talk in.
They hash out as many details as they can before they go to the recreation facility. There is only one palatable conclusion, but just because it's the only available option doesn't make them excited to choose it. It just makes this scenario the best of the worst.
Their friends aren't precisely the most open minded.
"You're going to what?" Citrine's eyes are practically bugging out of her orange face.
Sapphire has already resigned herself to this, but Ruby winces.
"I knew you two liked being unorthodox, but isn't this going a little far?" says Tourmaline skeptically. "I mean, if you're caught you'll probably be shattered—or at the very least poofed and separated."
Apatite's voice is very low. Her dark blue fingers brush over the dog-eared pages of the book that is open in her lap. "If anyone else heard what you just told us…"
"They didn't," Sapphire says. At the moment, they are huddled together amongst the uncomfortable chairs along the east wall. The other gems in their cohort are admittedly used to this behavior from them—while Ruby and Sapphire have potent reputations here in Unit 6, they don't like to be flocked over, and the gems in their cohort have come to respect that.
"This is suicide regardless!" Citrine's voice is much higher pitched than usual, and it cracks on 'suicide' as if she is already starting to mourn them. "Escape from a Containment Unit is impossible!"
"Actually, we're not so convinced of that," says Ruby. She looks at Apatite, who tenses in trepidation at what she might be asked to do. Or say. "What all do we actually know about Unit 6's security?"
"Ruby, think about where we are," says Apatite, her voice strained and thin. "Do you really want to have this conversation here?"
"Why do you want to have it at all?" Citrine is near hysteria. Her orange arms gesticulate wildly, and Tourmaline leans away to avoid being smacked in the nose. "Why am I the only one who's seeing this?"
Ruby ignores her, and says to Apatite, "Because there is literally no other time and place we could have this conversation? Even if you were to come back with us, this cohort is back on the assembly lines, so your absence would be noticed. And out of the two of us—" she hooks her thumb towards Sapphire "—I'm the only one who can realistically get away with sneaking back with the rest of the cohort, but I'm not very good at blending in. Maybe this would have worked two rotations ago, back in the forge, but not at the assembly lines."
"I can second that," says Sapphire. "The Supervisors don't come into the rec center, and the other gems will leave us be out of respect. The noise of their conversations will mask ours. There is no likelier location for this to successfully be discussed."
Ruby gestures to her again. "See?"
"They make a good point," Tourmaline says.
"What?" screeches Citrine.
Apatite, whom Ruby is still looking at, doesn't speak. She flicks at the worn pages of the book in her lap as she debates with herself. Her dark blue eyes keep coming back to Sapphire, clearly wondering what might be possible. Her thoughts aren't difficult to follow. If Sapphire is with Ruby on this, then is escaping Unit 6 really as impossible as she believes? But they are asking for more information because they don't have enough, so does that mean Sapphire's endorsement is faulty or incomplete?
"Why?" she asks finally, looking between them. "Why now? Why is this place suddenly so unbearable that you would risk everything to leave it?"
It's a good question, admittedly. A fair price to pay. The only problem is…
"You wouldn't believe us if we told you the details," says Sapphire, thinking of her own inability to articulate just what her first vision of Garnet had been like. "But suffice it to say, we will not be safe here much longer. This risk, high though it is, is still better odds than certain destruction here."
Ruby nods and makes a noise of agreement.
Sapphire can see that this statement, coming from individuals as strong as themselves, obviously carries some weight. Apatite doesn't look sure whether or not pushing for a more comprehensive explanation is really in her best interest.
After a few more moments, Apatite lets out a sigh and shuts the book in her lap. "Because inmates are transferred between Containment Units poofed and in bubbles, a lot of this is hearsay. It's passed through many hands, and a lot has probably been lost in translation." She lifts the old book for emphasis.
"Anything you know will be helpful."
"Besides, if anyone can separate fact from fiction, it would be you, Apatite," says Ruby. "You're an old hand at this."
Apatite flashes a tight smile at the flattery, but continues as if it hasn't happened. "That still doesn't change the fact that nobody's really seen any of this. Take what I tell you with that in mind."
"We will," promises Sapphire.
"Alright." Apatite lets out a breath and leans forward. Her thin blue hair slips over her shoulder and obscures her expression from the rest of the cohort like a curtain. "From what I understand, Supervisors guard the entrances, and there are constant surveillance feeds."
They wait. Then Ruby says, "That's it?"
Apatite flashes her an annoyed frown—clearly, the pause had been for atmospheric reasons—but nonetheless continues, "There are only two ways in and out of the Containment Unit: the Supervisors' service entrance, and the dock that receives the crates of parts we make here. We don't manufacture everything, so the parts have to be shipped off for full injector assembly."
"The crates," says Sapphire. "Are they inspected?"
"Visually, but not thoroughly."
"Oh no," Citrine says. She sweeps her bared arms wide. "You're not thinking what I think you are."
"It's kind of brilliant, actually," says Tourmaline. Her legs are crossed at the knee, and she props her elbow on the armrest of her chair so she can lean on her wrist, listening with new intrigue.
"If your less-than-inconspicuous red and blue shapeshifted parts are spotted in that crate, a battalion of Supervisors would be on you in an instant!" Citrine says in a withering stage whisper.
"The only other option seems to be passing ourselves off as Supervisors," says Sapphire. "They're negligent, but they know who their coworkers are."
"And let's face it," says Tourmaline. She gestures to them with the hand she is not leaning on. "You're both so off-center you probably won't be able to make yourselves big enough to ward off suspicion."
It's a good point.
"Which leaves the crates," Sapphire continues. "Apatite, what do we know about where they go when they leave the Unit?"
Apatite shakes her head, sheet of elbow-length hair swaying. "Not much. From what's been overheard from the Supervisors—" she taps the cover of the book in her lap "—The crates are transferred to a cargo bay where they meet up with the parts made in the other Containment Units. They're loaded onto ships and injectors are properly assembled on-site."
"Have we heard what security is like on the surface?"
"Even less. But we're trapped here as forced labor, and gems topside have more freedom than we do, so I would think it's less."
"And what if everything we've heard is wrong?" says Citrine. "What if there are sophisticated scanners that search through every crate for your gems' wavelength, and the crates aren't just moved to a cargo bay to be loaded onto ships that go off-planet to be properly unloaded at their Kindergarten destinations? What if they're assembled here on Homeworld? We're dealing with abstractions of slivers of gossip here, gems. This is not the kind of information you want to base an escape plan off of—you're going to get yourselves killed!"
"Not necessarily." Sapphire taps her temple with one gloved finger. "Abstractions are all I need to get the proper context. As long as I know what to ask, no matter how vague, I can find the truth of it."
"This place wasn't designed to hold up under future vision," says Ruby. Sapphire glances at her partner when she hears the slight boasting tone. Which one of them had been loathe to come to the decision to escape again?
"Nothing seems to," remarks Tourmaline, still leaning on her wrist. Out of their three friends, she is being the most blasé right now. One would think that the potential for combat would have excited her. "And that's in your favor, for the most part—but what about the things you see coming but have no foil for?"
"Well," says Ruby, lifting herself onto the balls of her feet. "If needs be, we do have someone in mind who can disturb things until more options open up."
"I'm not following," says Tourmaline.
Apatite in particular is very blunt when she says, "And I know you're acting like you don't want us to understand, Ruby, but that's also making it very hard to give you any information you might need."
"We thought we'd made a discovery that could help everyone," says Sapphire. "It backfired, but that very same discovery might just give us the extra power to fight through tougher things, if the need arises."
"We won't use her unless we have to," says Ruby. "Because they already kind of know about it."
"From where I'm sitting, that doesn't make sense," says Tourmaline. She is, however, no longer leaning on her arm. Instead she sits with her hands in her lap, glamorous and straight-backed, frowning slightly as she tries to understand.
"None of this makes any sense," Citrine bursts out. "But I seem to be the only one who sees that!"
"Apatite," says Sapphire. That facet of the conversation isn't going to become useful any time soon, so best move on from it. "Has anyone tried something like this before?"
"We figure, if no one has, they aren't going to see this coming," says Ruby. "The security is going to be half-hearted because the Supervisors won't see the point in it; it will be a pivotal advantage."
Apatite is quiet for about a minute or so. She strokes the spine of the old book with the pad of her thumb. "I don't think there have been any attempts," she says finally. "Not in a very long time, anyway."
"Excellent," says Sapphire briskly. "In that case, we have just one more question."
"Two, actually," says Ruby.
Sapphire glances at her. "Two?"
"Yes," says Ruby. "We thought we were going to be able to help everyone, but we only made it worse for ourselves. It shouldn't affect you as long as we don't tell you what it is, but because you're our closest friends, there's always a chance."
"Ruby, what are you trying to say?" asks Citrine.
Oh, Sapphire understands now.
"Do any of you want to leave with us?" she translates. "One way or another, Ruby and I can protect three gems if the need arises. We can't save everyone, but we can do this."
Silence greets them. Suddenly, their friends can't meet their eyes.
Ruby is the one to break it. "I thought you'd be jumping at the opportunity," she says. "We've talked about what life might be like on the surface before."
"That was a long, long time ago, Ruby, back when we were all new to the Containment Unit," says Citrine. She shakes her head, expression a mixture of pain and resignation. "I don't think I could handle being topside anymore. I know this life isn't the greatest, but it's not terrible. I understand what I can and cannot get away with, and I'm more or less content to exist within those limitations. At least here I'm seen for who I am by the inmates, and not everything I don't have the ability to be." She lifts her bare right arm and glances at the round-cut gem embedded in her shoulder. "Being a defective gem on the surface—from what I remember, it was even more brutal than life here. I can't go back to that."
"I'm already doing what I like best," says Apatite. She lifts her book again. "I communicate with the other cohorts, and keep ours informed. I enjoy the process of decoding the intel the other informants leave in these books for me, and vice versa. This isn't something you can do on the surface, so I don't need feel a need to be there."
"Well," says Tourmaline with a look at her friends. "If they're not going, I'm certainly not going to play third wheel to you two for the rest of my existence. Besides." She shrugs. "I don't really mind it here, now that you two have cleaned everything up."
"And we already know how we'll keep the peace going for when you two aren't here," says Apatite. "We haven't forgotten the contingency plan."
"To be honest, I'm not sure if that plan would work without us," adds Tourmaline.
"It…" Citrine lets out a breath like she can't believe she is saying this. "This place needs gems to pick up where you left off, otherwise it's just going to fall back into the same old patterns. We can't let that happen anymore."
"It would be an insult to your legacy," Apatite says matter-of-factly. Then she softens into a medley of resignation and sadness, and her long blue fingers splay over the cover of her book. "I still don't really understand why you need to do this, but I've known you both long enough to trust your judgement. If you say this needs to happen, then it does. I'm nosy, and I'm concerned for you, but if I'm being honest I don't need to know more than that."
"Exactly," says Tourmaline with a nod.
Sapphire glances out at the rest of their cohort, talking and interacting amongst themselves as if this is just any other day. Serpentine catches her eye, grins and waves, and she responds automatically.
She looks back to her friends. For all that she knows this must happen—that there is no other choice—the thought of leaving them hurts. No wonder they all want to stay together. "You don't have to do this," she says.
"That was the second question," Ruby says. "This isn't like anything we've ever asked you to do, and you have every right to say you don't want to participate."
"Don't try to keep all of the excitement for yourself; it's insulting," says Tourmaline flatly—a response Sapphire can't help flashing a small grin for.
Citrine looks right at Ruby, and says seriously, "Are you sure this is what you want?"
"Yes, Citrine, I am."
Citrine slaps her hands down on her knees and straightens her shoulders. "Then I have no choice but to help."
"And you already know I'm helping," says Apatite. "However, I do think we're going to need more than just the five of us to pull off a heist of this magnitude."
"That's not a bad idea," says Tourmaline. "Especially when it comes to the aftermath—a bigger group is going to be harder to take pointed disciplinary action against. If we play it right, the whole thing might get thrown back on the Supervisors and their negligence."
"Precisely," says Apatite. "And, fortunately for us, I can think of several gems who would be good candidates."