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It is impossible not to count the days. There is simply too much about timing: knowing when her Diamond (and by extension, when she) happens to be going, and where she is going, and what days who will be there and what other Pearls will pass at what times to exchange what network keys…
Password knows exactly how many days it has been since she last graced the sewers of this, the center of the empire. Seventeen thousand, two hundred and sixty-two. Literal decades. It is the blink of an eye, and she spends the entirety of that blink with her teeth gritted against an impatient scream.
There is always something more to do and always the next day to think about. Password, the most prolific key-trader on the surface of this world, keeps her head down at the side of her inimitable Diamond, and keeps her eyes on the prize.
2-9-DELTA-C-EPSILON. She files away another smidgen of information, another open lock down the data stream, another, another, another key.
--
(She tells herself, she does this because it makes her irreplaceable, and that is true. The more she knows, the more valuable she is, and the less likely she can be gotten rid of.
(She tells herself she does this because it is needed. That is also true. There are sub-networks creeping up all across the empire, Pearls tapping into resources and knowledge. If she knows them, she can exchange them, and open doorways for them, and pass it along to the growing colonies below. They need access points and communication and ways to get in. There are locks everywhere and everyone, sometime, needs a key.
(Password also tells herself, very firmly, that she does not do this because of another Pearl, her counterpart and her equal in stance, who once looked upon rebellion with shining eyes. She definitely does not do this because a pair of blue-tinted hands once tightened, exhilarated, at the image of a Pearl standing her ground, and opening new doors.
Password definitely does not provide the keys to new doorways because it was the very thing that made hope first shine in her companion’s eyes, and certainly not because the blue Pearl was always chasing hope, always braver, and because Password still feels the eons of distance she has to go before she catches up.
She absolutely does not do it to impress anyone, and would swear up and down that she does not do it out of love…
(Only, she has spent so long pretending she doesn’t care. Millennia, now. She is so tired of it that, if to no one else, she’s beginning to admit it to herself. She tells herself she doesn’t do it at least in small part for an old-fashioned outdated scuffed-up scrap of a Pearl and she could almost laugh at the transparency of the lie.
She does, she does, she does and she does again, and it’s petty, probably, and some things never change.)
--
Communication with Bell Town is spotty at best, and no matter how many redirections Password loops the com link through, there is always, always a risk of it leading back. It’s why she lets other Pearls do most of the passing-on. A series of seemingly random and widespread flares help to disseminate the stream. Harder to trace back and put down a single culprit, makes for a more sustainable system of intelligence and subterfuge.
This time, Password chances it, because the security codes this time around are top-tier high clearance, and she doesn’t want to play telephone and see the keys distorted along the way.
She figures she has forty seconds before a blip on the radar becomes a discernable and noteworthy point. She spends twenty passing along the necessary information, and the mint Pearl on the other end wastes five seconds with a show of thanks meant to keep up appearances. Password would know. She’s stood beside those who kept appearances and kept up appearances on their behalf, too.
“How is Peroration?” she asks, cutting into the show almost before it is finished.
“Excuse me?”
“Peroration. I take it she is still around?”
The connection is tenuous but she can make out the so-called mayor as she lifts a brow. “Around,” she agrees, tone a little clipped. “And still trading her wares. Why? Should I be passing a set along to her? I was under the impression these were all keys for digital gates—”
“Deliver them all,” Password quickly snaps. Six seconds. “In case she can use them.”
Dialtone narrows her eyes, but decides to let the slight slide. She waves a hand. “Very well.”
The connection, pre-set to do so, cuts.
Password scowls at the empty air where the projection sat only instants ago, and taps upon the gem set into her chest. Not enough time, never enough time, to pass on a message proper. Decades to miss her and never enough of an instant to utter the words I miss you.
A series of high-tier but physically-useless passkeys will have to suffice, for now.
--
She adds on another four hundred and twenty-one days to the previous seventeen thousand, two hundred and sixty-two.
Seventeen thousand, six hundred and eighty-three, and counting.
There was a time when she had gone on without speaking to Peroration for ten times that, out of sheer stubbornness. If she were only a tenth as self-sacrificing and heroic as she is stubborn, this would, she suspects, be a lot easier.
But she isn’t heroic, not even the barest touch. Password is stubborn and petty and selfish, and so in love that she aches with it, so much that she’s willing to try her hand at heroism. She’s bad at it, in point of fact, an absolute tragic failure at heroics, but she is petty and stubborn and selfish and the idea of doing something, being someone, that Peroration could look at and admire is enough to keep her trying.
--
Seventeen thousand, six hundred and ninety-eight days, and Yellow Diamond decides to leave her Pearl at the compound, because apparently she has no one to impress with trinkets, today. Well enough—her Diamond was always more interested in utility. It is a fact that has served Password well, now and again, and it certainly serves her, now.
It is two rotations, nothing more. She is left to take any messages that might come in, and the irony of it tickles her. Take messages, indeed. She’s got one important one to take down a storm drain and the rest of the galaxy can damn well wait until she’s done doing it.
Her Diamond has barely made it off-planet before Password is on her way.
There are any number of ways to get underground, and many ways within that to get to Bell Town, but Password doesn’t care to pass through the shantytown, no matter how shining a beacon of hope and care it is. For all the altruism that goes into obtaining and passing around digital keys, she’s never much cared for spending time with those of her own kind. Pearls are nervous and flighty and afraid, as a rule, and at first glance they remind her too much of herself and her own tics and bruises.
Besides—she is haughty and proud and sharp-edged and no one ever picked her company, either. Not even Peroration, not to start.
It has been seventeen thousand, six hundred and ninety-eight days since Password was last here in this labyrinth of pipes and plumbing. It is the blink of an eye for their kind. Even without perfect recall, she would remember the way.
Then the area opens up and there she is.
Password is no fresh-shine herself, but Peroration was edging in on vintage by the time they first met. That was thousands and thousands of years ago, now, and it’s been a few thousand since Peroration was deemed worn out and made her escape. She is fragile looking, her gem dulled at the edges (Password thinks, suddenly, with a pang, that a salt-bath would cure nothing but could hurt nothing), hair hung less in a veil of waves nowadays and looking more properly disheveled.
She is old and dinged around the edges, seated cross-legged before a quilt laden with identification cards and outdated data chips and VIP passes, looking peculiar and not echoing a tenth of the lace-and-veils kind of beauty she was supposed to emulate, and Password—before Peroration came here, Password never saw her look so relaxed and happy. She is a vision, and Password takes a moment to consider her luck.
Peroration lifts her head when Password steps up to the edge of the quilt. Slowly, she blinks; her sight has been going for a few centuries, now. Her shoulders lift—questioning, hopeful—and Password laughs a harsh-edged chuckle before her chest constricts too much, and she can’t say anything. Peroration beams and Password thrusts up her chin, trying to combat, somehow, the sudden waver in her voice.
“Figures,” she says. “You move away and never visit home, and I have to get out here on my busy schedule. Ab-so-lutely figures, Blue.”
It’s a retired nickname from an uglier time, but then, Peroration had no sooner arrived in Bell Town than she had begun to tease others that she once belonged to a Diamond, so perhaps it isn’t the worst to use. She always liked to play, more than Password ever has. Password could verify the truth if Peroration ever wanted it, but Peroration has made legends and tales about herself, like legends and tales were once made of a renegade Pearl. She was always so in love with her.
(Besides, that age-old name is one of the few scraps of Peroration that Password can claim for her own. She knows herself. Before anything, she is petty and selfish, and stubborn.)
Peroration beams, mouth parting on a soundless gasp. She scurries to her feet—a gesture that’s worrying to watch, given the state of her balance and knees—but before Password can get out an indignant “Hey—” or even finish reaching for her, Peroration is up, half-falling in her rush, and fall she does—happily and trustingly forward, right into Password’s waiting arms.
She feels like cobwebs and gossamer and paper-thin porcelain, and she smells like dust, and her silent laugh sounds like heaven. Password is the shorter of them by a fraction, but Peroration isn’t even standing, her tops of her feet turned inelegantly into the ground as she hangs around Password’s neck, shaking with laughter, nose buried into her hair.
“You damn fool,” Password whispers. In response, Peroration lifts herself up on Password’s shoulders, raising a hand—Password quickly compensates to support her—and pushes her bangs aside. Her eyes, like her gem, are dull and greying around the edges, but it was never for own her benefit to push her hair away, anyway. It’s not parting a veil to see—it is and has always been a show for those lucky enough to see.
On a whim, Password presses forward, kissing the tip of Peroration’s nose. She gives her a squeeze, as tight as she dares and a little tighter still, because the blue gem in her arms never much liked being treated as though she were fragile.
“Hey,” she whispers. “Did that show-off mayor of yours pass my message on?”
Peroration presses her lips together, hiding a smirk. She’s quieter than usual, though that may have something to do with the current occupation of one of her arms still tight around Password’s neck. Still, it is comforting to see the flutter of her hands, to read the signs that Password always knew a little better than everyone else. It is a flurry of excited, half-formed ideas, a reprimand about Password’s attitude, teasingly said—and followed, at last, by Peroration reaching for the gold-tinted skin of Password’s collarbone.
There, she writes out: two, nine, delta, c, epsilon. And, when done, she leans further up against Password and smiles a silly, wide, insufferable smile.
Password’s lips wriggle. “Come in handy, has it?”
Peroration nods. She clenches her free hand tight and happily, then passes one finger gently against the side of her head and stretches the gesture smoothly out to Password’s face, where she brushes her cheek.
Password goes yellow like a young sun.
“Yeah, yeah,” she murmurs. Before her tone can ring too wrong, she catches Peroration’s hand in hers, holding it to her face. “Good to hear from you, too.”
--
Seventeen thousand, six hundred and ninety-eight for one. Password thinks, watching the excited punctuation of Peroration’s hands, there have been worse ratios.
(There was a time when she would respond more, when they would interrupt each other, and pass on their news and gossip in the way that only trinkets really could. But Peroration isn’t a trinket anymore, and Password is only in name. Today, she listens, and speaks, and theirs is a softer echo of past banter. Once, Peroration tilts her head, frowns, and reaches for her cheek—and Password takes it, reminiscent of days long past when she would bat such gestures quickly aside—and Password says, “I’m fine. It’s not the same without you up there.”
Peroration smiles. She knows better than to ask Password to stay. Not this century, not this visit. Not yet.)
They pass a full twenty-four hours this way, sitting before Peroration’s quilt, before Password heaves a sigh that tries very hard to be impatient, and shifts her feet beneath her. She has a quip ready on the tongue, something about well now that you’ve taken up all my time, but before she can, Peroration reaches for her, gripping her elbow in a grasp that is a good deal stronger than her slender fingers ought to allow.
She can’t whimper, but her bottom lip presses hard into her upper one, until her frown has sadness packed into every line.
Password doesn’t stop standing. She simply… takes Peroration up with her. That quip on her lips faded away the instant Peroration’s fingers curled up on her tight, and her tongue feels empty and free as the renegade of their five-thousand-year lore. Password sniffs out some put-on derision while her mouth curls, trying and failing again at some kind of heroics.
“We’ve suffered through longer,” she reminds her.
Peroration’s head falls aside on a skeptical smile. She probably doesn’t have to lean on Password’s arm, at least not as heavily as she does, but she puts nearly all of her weight into the crook of Password’s elbow. She points one finger at herself, caresses the dull edges of her gem, and pouts.
Password barks out a laugh. “Don’t give me that,” she jeers. “You were old when I met you, what makes you think I’ll take pity on you now?”
Shrugging, Peroration gives up the pout and grins. But it’s fragile, this time, in a way that it never is—her body’s gotten frail and her focus spotty, but she’s never, ever lost the strength of herself. Password is a hair’s breadth from asking some worried question when Peroration flings herself forward once more, latching herself firmly around Password’s neck. It isn’t a boneless, blissful hang, this time. It’s accompanied by a defiant squeeze.
“Clingy fool…” Password doesn’t get the words out before her own hand is slipping around to the small of Peroration’s back, palm spreading wide in equal parts support of the slender body in her arms, and in utter irredeemable selfishness. Peroration pulls in her arms until the pressure is almost uncomfortable, and then, Password holds her just as tight, if only for a second.
There are delicate songs that Pearls sing when they are left in quiet corners to wait. Breathy, often-melancholy hymns, bits and bobs of keys and measures where they break apart and share and recreate. It comes out a little different every time. Maybe Peroration does not hear any, anymore, and Password is busy enough and held close enough to her Diamond that she certainly doesn’t encounter them frequently these days. But there was a time. There’s hardly a Pearl in creation that doesn’t know the tune.
Password begins to hum. A moment later, Peroration joins in with a soft rhythmic click of her tongue. Loose as she is on her feet, it’s the simplest thing in the world for Password to press her hand firm against the small of Peroration’s back and sway her.
Their song—one voice, one not-voice—echoes along the pipes and through the wide, labyrinthine expanse. Peroration’s limp toes nudge the edge of her quilt out of shape.
Once upon a time they might have flitted and flown, pointed toes and straight knees, but rebellion comes at a price, and living, too, costs. Not a single gem in the world with half a decade to their credit would call it a dance. Better, Password thinks, to call it a promise.
She crouches, slowly letting Peroration back down to the floor. Safely there, she kisses her, once, firm on the cheek.
“Clingy fool,” she mutters again, without being wholly sure which she is accusing. Peroration reaches for her, and returns the kiss with a softer echo of her own. Her hand flutters by Password’s cheek, beckons towards herself—she brings up two fingers and pinches the space between them, then sets that hand, now relaxed, into the open palm of her other.
“Soon as I can,” Password promises.
There is no such thing as a clean break, though some gems like to talk about that kind of thing. Token Rose Quartzes have spoken in terms of perfect cracks and clean breaks when they want to talk about something that heals well. There is no such thing, though. A crack is a crack no matter what way you look at it. Untreated it is fatal and, Password understands, excruciating.
So she throws in an extra shard, an extra nasty piece to complicate the mess, because the result is the same either way. She kisses Peroration’s other cheek, and then she grabs her hands and kisses her fingers, as if she could silence her. She ignores the glimmer of a tear on Peroration’s chin.
--
You would think, with Password being the one who walks away, that it would give her the heart-aching agency to rub the proverbial salt in the wounds. But that would be misreading the sentence entirely. That would imply a construction in which Password, subject, walks away from Peroration, object.
In reality, the sentence goes a bit more like this:
Peroration, subject, lets Password, object, walk away.
(After all, Peroration is free. Password, well—she’s working on it. She has a few more decades, at least, of badly-played heroics to hash together.)
--
Yellow Diamond’s hands are unusually calm. Things have gone her way, this meeting, apparently. Password wonders how many more will go on before the tables turn for good.
She mentally scribbles down another key and files it away, in her mind’s eye, upon a quilt orchestrated by two pairs of hands—one yellow-tinted, one, blue.
--
Two decades later, having just sent in another two crucial passcodes, and three previous ones which had adjusted for security, Password steals a selfish twenty seconds for herself and asks, “How is Peroration?”
Dialtone balances her temple on her first two fingers. “Are you always going to ask, from now on? Do I need to start taking memos?”
Password thrusts her chin up, and grins. The mayor may have a snide edge about her, but then, so does she. “Make sure my keys get sent along to her. In case she can use them.”
“I’ll make sure your query gets passed along,” she says, a mockery of over-recited secretarial jargon.
“Your cooperation is much appreciated,” Password says in the exact same tone of voice.
There is a split second of recognition. Password catches the barest hint of amusement on Dialtone’s features before, right on cue, the connection is cut.
--
One thing can be said for Yellow Diamond. She may not always hold up her logical manifesto, but her commands are always direct and to the point. There is a streamlined simplicity about it. Given all that she has been used for, Password feels it is her right to take a few things for herself, to use.
Simple constructions, for example. Who needs heavy-handed and weighty concepts like Password counts the days waiting until she can slip beneath the empire or perhaps Peroration will receive these messages and maybe when she does she will smile.
Weighty, heavy, unwieldy things. Tapping idly at the gem on her chest, Password practices simple constructions.
The empire falls. Password runs. Peroration stops waiting. They are happy.
Sentences laden with subjects and entirely without objects. Imagine!
--
While Peroration trades her keys for bits and bobs and memories, Password scrounges above for a key that will take her home.