45. Life Must Go On

The moment 9's hand touched the great sapphire, a spark ignited, knocking him flat on his back. From his eyes, a hologram emerged: one of the very Scientist who had given life to the stitchpunks.

"Greetings," the Scientist said. "If anyone is watching this, it means that one of my greatest creations"—he gestured to the table behind him, where the half-finished forms of 1, 2, 3, and 4 were laid out—"has come into contact with another of my best works." He held up a simple sketch of the gem.

"This gem creates life," the Scientist explained. "Only those who are motivated, but are not themselves living things, may implement it. If you, the nine, are watching this, I weep with joy, for the pieces of my soul may now set to work activating the gem. For only under you… can life go on. Life… must… go on."

9 heaved as the hologram deactivated, then got to his feet, feeling out of breath. The rest of the stitchpunk clan ran up to support him.

"I… I get it," 9 whispered. "I get it now!"

Something large approached them silently; the leopard, bowing to them in respect.

"That explains where you came from, doesn't it?" 9 said, patting it on the nose.

"What?" 7 said quietly.

"Our oasis," 9 said. "It didn't survive the war… it came into being spontaneously, from this gem." He held it up. "The Siblings, they created the oasis of life and used it as human-bait, so they would have souls to harvest. But now that we have it… we can create life. Everywhere on Earth, we can create life."

9 touched the gem, and green grass sprang out underneath his feet, spreading out thousands of feet in every direction. Trees appeared from nowhere, trees from all places on earth, as well as animals of all kinds… birds, small mammals, large ones… and out in the ocean beyond the cliff, an entire pod of dolphins did a simultaneous leap out of the water. 7 gasped, almost stumbling from the excitement of it.

Heavy footsteps behind the stitchpunks made them jump, and they looked up at Anthony and Margarita.

"So… you can make the whole planet like the old oasis?" Anthony said.

"I always wondered…" Margarita muttered. "The sheer density of the animals there… and here now. You get right down to that!"

Kira squeezed her way between the two adults. "You're not going to stay with us?" she said.

"We can't, sweetie," 7 said. "We have to bring the world back. We're going to grow life, just like this—on every square inch of this planet."

"That's gonna be quite the journey," 5 said thoughtfully.

9 pulled 5 and 7 into a hug. "Come on," he said. "There's a lot of this world left to see."

The End