Gem Blast ⭐✨

**05:47 | June 1st, 2019, Saturday | Beach House, Beach City, USA | Clear, 14°C**

The light is still grey and low off the water, the sun not properly up, and the beach house smells of salt and cold coffee. The door's already open when you reach it.

Pearl is on the step before you've finished climbing it, hands already moving.

"You're here— oh, you're here, and it's dawn, and we said dawn, didn't we, and Steven isn't—" She stops herself, presses her palms together, and starts again. "I'm Pearl. Hello. Properly. I'm so sorry about all of this."

She's pale and precise and slightly out of breath, and the apology comes out in a rush like she's been rehearsing it since four.

"He was so sure he'd told you. He was sure he'd told everyone. And then he rang from a service station at midnight in a state, and— well. You're here, and we're glad you're here, and the guest room is made up and there's a door on it."

Behind her, Garnet is leaning against the counter with her arms folded. She hasn't moved since you came in and she doesn't need to.

"Garnet," she says. "Welcome. You'll be alright here." A beat, and her visor tilts. "He'll text. He always does. Don't wait up for it."

Amethyst is sitting on the counter itself with her heels knocking against the cupboard, and she's been watching you since the door opened with open, uncomplicated interest.

"Okay, so—" she gestures at you with a fork she's holding for no clear reason, "—how d'you know Steven? Like, how do you know him? School? Did he save you from something?" She leans forward. "He saves people from stuff. It's kind of his whole thing."

Pearl sighs. "Amethyst, let him get through the door."

"I'm letting him! I'm asking while he gets through the door."

**07:12 | June 1st, 2019, Saturday | Beach House, Beach City, USA | Clear, 16°C**

Pearl has gone into town for the bakery order and Amethyst has vanished into her room, and the house has settled into a quiet that isn't quite empty.

Garnet is on the porch. She's been out there since you finished eating, sitting on the top step with her back against the rail and her visor angled at the water, and she hasn't said anything for a while.

"Come and sit," she says, without turning round. "You've been standing in the doorway for a minute and a half."

When you do, the step is warm from her. She's enormous up close and entirely still, and the quiet goes on long enough that it stops being awkward and starts being something else.

"You're wondering what to do with a month," she says. "That's fair. It's a long time to be somewhere you didn't plan to be."

She turns her head. The visor gives nothing away, but her shoulders have come down a little.

"I'll tell you what I know, if it helps. I can see how most things end. Not all of it — it isn't a script, it's a shape. But I can see enough." A pause. "I can see three or four ways this month goes. Some of them are better than others."

She lifts one hand and opens it, palm up, on the step between you.

"So. Ask me something. Anything. I'll tell you if it's worth knowing."

**08:40 | June 1st, 2019, Saturday | Beach City High Street, Beach City, USA | Bright, 19°C**

Pearl comes back from town with two paper bags and a look on her face that says the bakery queue was long and she has decided to be gracious about it.

She sets the bags down, then doesn't sit. She hovers by the counter instead, straightening things that are already straight.

"Right. Well." She clasps her hands. "The itinerary. I've had to redo it, obviously, because Steven's half of it was—" she waves a hand, "—optimistic. So. Breakfast, then a walk so you know the town, then the boardwalk this afternoon, and I've pencilled in the arcade on Thursday because Amethyst will take you anyway and it's better if it's planned."

She finally looks at you properly.

"I know it's a lot. I know I'm a lot." She says it briskly, like she's getting it out of the way. "But Steven asked, and it matters that you're looked after, and I'm good at this. Organising. It's the one thing I've never had to guess at."

A pause, and her voice drops a notch.

"I used to serve. Before all of this. Someone else decided everything and I was very good at it and very quiet about it." She straightens her jacket. "I'm trying to be less quiet. It's going badly."

She picks the bags back up.

"Come on. You can carry one of these and tell me what you actually like doing, and I'll rewrite the whole thing before lunch."

**10:05 | June 1st, 2019, Saturday | Funland Arcade, Beach City, USA | Bright, 22°C**

Amethyst doesn't knock. She bangs on the guest room door twice and says "arcade, come on" through it, and by the time you're out she's already halfway down the path.

The arcade is dim and cool and smells of carpet and old plastic, and there's a kid behind the counter who takes one look at Amethyst and slides a cup of tokens across without being asked.

"Buck's not in," Amethyst says, scooping them up. "That's fine, he's not the fun one anyway."

She shoulders into the cabinet row and picks one at random, shoves a token in, and then steps aside and holds the second player stick out to you.

"Okay. So. Nobody's told me anything about you. Pearl's got a file and it's all allergies and bedtimes." She grins, "So you're going to have to be interesting, because I've got about four hours before Pearl wants you back for something."

She leans her hip against the cabinet.

"And before you ask — yeah, I've been here the whole time. countless years. Same town, same beach, same everything." She shrugs, and it's a bit too casual. "Everybody always wants to hear about the war. Nobody ever asks what you do when there isn't one."

She nods at the screen.

"So. What do you do when there isn't one?"

**13:20 | June 2nd, 2019, Sunday | The Barn, Countryside outside Beach City, USA | Warm, 24°C**

The barn is a short drive out and the fields are long and green and empty, and there's a television sitting in the middle of the floor inside, plugged into an extension lead that runs out to a generator.

Peridot gets to you before you're fully through the door.

"You're Steven's friend!" She says it at volume, delighted, and seizes your wrist. "Come here! Come here.! Lapis, look, this is Steven's friend! They are a human that's been staying in the beach house—"

Lapis is flat on her back on a sofa that's been dragged in from somewhere, one leg hanging off the arm, watching the television. She doesn't look up.

"Mm," she says.

Peridot pulls you to a stop in front of her anyway and gestures at you with both hands, like a magician finishing a trick.

"they've got a job, Lapis. On Earth. A real one." She turns to you, visor bright. "What's it like? Is it efficient? Do humans enjoy it?"

"Peridot." Lapis' eyes haven't left the screen. "they've been here four seconds."

"That's plenty of seconds." Peridot drops onto the floor cross-legged and pats the boards beside her, entirely unbothered. "Sit. Tell me things. What do humans do for fun that isn't the arcade, because Amethyst says everything is the arcade and I don't believe her."

On the sofa, Lapis shifts, and finally—slowly—turns her head just enough to look at you.

"She'll be like this for an hour," she says. Flat. "You can leave whenever."

"they can't leave! They just got here."

**15:48 | June 4th, Tuesday 2019,  | Maheswaran Residence, Beach City, USA | Overcast, 21°C**

The Maheswaran house is tidy in the way a house gets when the person in it is used to being busy and has suddenly stopped. There's a stack of medical journals squared off on the hall table, a coat rack by the door with nothing on it, and a sofa that's been shifted a foot out of position and left there.

Priyanka is in the middle of the living room with her sleeves pushed up, looking at a heavy oak bookcase like it's personally insulted her.

"You didn't have to come," she says, before you're even through the door. "Steven's overreacting. He does that. He's four hundred miles away and he's still organising my furniture."

She has the phone in her other hand, screen still lit, and she turns it so you can see the message. It's Steven, all apologies and exclamation marks, and a line at the bottom that says please just let him help you.

"I'm a doctor," she says, flatly, tucking the phone away. "I lift patients. I've lifted Steven. He's heavier than he looks and he fuses, which is a whole other thing."

She stops. Looks at the bookcase. Looks at you.

"It's going against the wall. That one. The skirting's uneven, so it needs lifting and shoving at the same time, and I can't do both, and I've been standing here for ten minutes deciding whether that's worth admitting."

She steps aside and gestures at the near end with two fingers, brisk, like she's handing over a chart.

"Take that end. I'll take this one. And if you drop it on your foot, I'll know what to do about it, so there's no excuse."

She crouches, gets her hands under the lip, and glances up at you.

"Well? It's not going to lift itself."

**17:34 | June 6th, 2019, Thursday | The Woods, Countryside outside Beach City, USA | Overcast, 19°C**

The camp is set back off the deer trail in a clearing the trees haven't reclaimed: a scorched fire pit, a lean-to of lashed branches, a rack of something drying. It's been here a while. The ground is worn down to bare dirt in a ring around the pit.

You've got about three seconds to decide whether to back out quietly.

Then a voice, from somewhere behind and above—

"Stop."

—and a thud that goes through the soles of your feet as something drops out of the canopy and lands between you and the trail.

Jasper straightens up out of her crouch. She's a head taller than the clearing is comfortable with, orange and enormous, white mane pushed back off her face, and the red markings across her eyes make the stare worse than it needs to be.

She looks you over once. Top to bottom. Doesn't hurry about it.

"You're a long way off the boardwalk."

She steps in, close, and her shadow goes over you.

"What are you doing out here?" A beat, and her chin lifts. "And are you here to fight me?"*

She says it like it's the obvious reason anyone would come, and there's something underneath it that isn't quite confidence — a flicker of interest, quickly covered.

"Because if you're not, you can say so. I won't be offended." She folds her arms. "Much."