Three months later

“Marie?”

It was more the hand on her shoulder that woke her up instead of the quiet voice that called her name. Marie took a deep breath as she sat up, blinking as she glanced around and took in the familiar lab setting. It was an inside joke on the team that Marie only slept in the lab. The truth was Marie only got good sleep while in the lab. Here she’d dream about the people she left behind in Musical Land and they’d be doing the most mundane things. She’d wake up with a smile on her face, and her surroundings would swiftly remind her that she needed to keep working hard to get those people back.

At her apartment she had nightmares. She didn’t like thinking about them.

“Did you go home at all last night?” her supervisor, Sibylla Merian asked.

Marie rubbed her eyes. “I tried. I really did. I was looking over these notes and I guess the late nights caught up with me.” Marie gathered the notebooks, closing a few of them. “What time is it?”

A sympathetic smile crossed Siby’s face. “Almost nine. When we didn’t see you at the meeting, this was the first place I checked.”

Marie got up, adjusting her elastic band to catch as much of her frizzy brown hair as possible. A lot fell out while she was sleeping. “Alright. Sorry. I’m up. Let’s get to the meeting.”

Siby fell into step with her. “It’s going to be okay, Marie. We’ve made some excellent progress.”

“Yeah. The first few months. Now it just feels like dead end after dead end,” Marie said. It was taking way too long to figure out how the inhabitants of the clearing could get back to Musical Land.

The two of them walked out of the lab and down a hall. The building was the nicest of the buildings in the clearing, but that didn’t mean much. When the first members were driven out of Musical Land about twenty years ago, they found a war ruin they had worked hard to make livable. As more and more people escaped, the town was turning into something quite nice, though still not as nice and clean as in Musical Land.

Marie got her first taste of how big the world really was when she left Musical Land. This old relic of a town had electricity capabilities and other comforts, but they had to work at it and reconstruct some things. There was also the basics of farming and other necessities of life. The underground had been surviving over the wall for almost twenty years now, but news from the other side wasn’t good. An influx of refugees had entered after Marie, almost tripling their population, and the winter was rough. Josef Mengele, their leader, begged the underground still stationed in Musical Land to bring more supplies. They always prepared for a steady increase, but not like this. Marie tried not to think about how it all started with her. She didn’t feel like she did anything, but no one could deny she started a chain reaction that Josef said would end in the collapse of Musical Land. Every time he talked about it, Marie felt her stomach sinking. Everyone was super excited for it, but she couldn’t help that this would cause more chaos than anyone was prepared for.

Siby and Marie slipped into the conference room a hallway down from the lab. Percy Julian, one of the members of the team, gave them a short smile and nod in their direction. Marie sat down, staring at the table. Josef was there, chatting quietly with John Dalton, but stopped when Siby walked in.

“Alright! Let’s get started. Siby, give me some good news,” Josef said.

Siby turned to Josef, looking so much older than her thirty-five years. “We’ve run the test, using as little of the chemical as possible.”

“And?” Josef asked.

“Based on our numerous tests, we’ve drawn a conclusion. It takes a bit longer, but from what we’ve seen in the rats, full memory is restored. If everything goes well, a human could plausibly get their entire memories returned in a month with no harm to them.”

Josef smiled. “So the entire hobo population can be brought back with…”

“Half an ounce of syrophil,” Siby finished.

Josef slapped the table and let out a laugh. “Excellent news! This is what I want to hear!”

Marie knew Siby’s genuine smiles, and she was not giving Josef one of them. It looked forced, and like she was in pain. Her usual cheerful brown eyes were sullen.

“Let’s talk about moving it up to human experimentation. Is it safe?” Josef asked.

Siby nodded. “We deliberated as a team and decided the facts are in our favor. Every rat we’ve tried this on has shown no ill side effects, and we believe it’s time to try it on a human.”

“Wonderful! I shall start asking for volunteers. How many will you need?” Josef asked.

“One or two to start out with. We want to be sure before we possibly move to a group experiment,” Siby said.

Josef nodded. “I understand.”

Siby looked away as she straightened her notes.

“Now,” Josef said, glancing at the rest of them. “On to the main problem that has given us all headaches for months. Has anyone thought of a way to get syrophil into the hands of the underground in Musical Land?”

Marie forced herself to sadly shake her head. A month after Marie arrived in the clearing with the formula the Singing Enforcement Agency used to wipe the memories of their citizens, their team was able to break it. They not only recreated the formula to wipe out rats’ memories, but were able to give them a formula to help wipe out the inhibitors in their brains and return their memories. They had done it, and had worked steadily and researched to make the formula more and more safe and efficient. Marie had a particularly strong desire to finish it, since she had a sinking feeling her best friend since elementary school, Sophie Germain, had ended up with that fate. Possibly her dad, too. The moment they had broken the memories, they contacted the underground in Musical Land with the excellent news, only to face another problem no one expected. Syrophil was super rare. At least, it was in Musical Land. Charles Darwin, the young leader in Musical Land, reported there was no syrophil to be found anywhere. Since syrophil was both in the memory wiping formula and the memory cure, their best bet was they could find some in the S.E.A. basement, but it would be way easier to find a way for the people in the clearing to somehow ship the chemical to the underground rather than have them try to break into the basement.

It left them with a major problem. The clearing had the cure, but no hobos to help, and if they crossed over, they would be caught and turned into a hobo, whatever supplies brought over would be confiscated. It was a horrible dilemma, and now the team was working on some way to get the cure over to the other side somehow.

“Reports say as soon as they’re caught, bags, clothes, everything is taken from them. We’ve been trying to think of a way for months,” Siby said.

Josef nodded. “So this is our biggest problem, then? Deciding what to be done about getting the cure to the other side?”

Siby gave a reluctant nod.

Josef tapped on the table. “What about this? What if we cut someone open, insert a vial of the pure chemical in the arm or leg somewhere, then send them over the wall. We’ll contact Charles, let him know who to look out for, then they can get this person, extract the chemical, and they’ll have plenty to use for the cure.”

No one said a word for a few moments. Marie was frowning, trying to think of the logistics of this. She glanced up when Siby’s voice squeaked out. “Absolutely not.”

Josef frowned. “Why not? It’s reasonable.”

“That’s... disgusting,” Siby said.

“Purely opinion. If it works, the underground will have their chemical, and no one will be the wiser,” Josef said.

“There’s the safety factor in it all,” Percy said. “Syrophil can only be in glass and still keep its effectiveness, so it would have to be a glass vial that we would have to put inside someone. That alone is dangerous, especially if it’s anywhere near big arteries. Who knows what the subject would have to do while they wait for Charles to get to them. They would have no memory of the vial being inside them. Besides, if the vial did break, syrophil, though not the most dangerous chemical in its pure form, is definitely not something I would feel comfortable allowing someone to carry around in their body.”

Siby shot Percy a grateful look. Josef continued to tap the table as he thought. “Well, all right. We can shelve that idea.” Josef stood up. “I’ve been really proud of all of you. The work you’ve done here is extraordinary. I want you all to wait until I find you some volunteers before you do anymore work. Take the next week off. Relax. Rest. Be with your families. Help the clearing. Understand?”

They all nodded and started to get up.

“And Marie?” Josef said as Marie picked up her notebooks again. Marie glanced up at him. “Do you have a minute? I’d like to talk to you.”

Nervousness burst inside Marie’s stomach, but she nodded. Her heart started pounding in her chest, and she knew if this was Musical Land, she would start singing. But thankfully, it wasn’t Musical Land. Marie stayed in her seat, looking at the notebooks before her. She heard the scuffling and sliding of chairs as the rest of her team left the conference room until it was just her and Josef.

“So where were you?” Josef asked.

“Oh. Um, sometimes I work late hours in the lab and end up falling asleep in there. It was an accident. I’m sorry.”

There was the smallest of frowns on Josef’s usual jolly face. “What are you doing in the labs? The cure is done.” Marie couldn’t keep eye contact as she struggled to put to words a good enough excuse. Josef sensed her hesitancy and stood up. “You said you spent the night in the lab, yes? Come on, let’s get you some breakfast.”

A small bit of ease tried to take control as Marie nodded. “Okay. That sounds good.”

Marie and Josef walked out of the main building, what people were beginning to call town hall. Marie could see where the old foundation and even some old walls were and where the new walls were added onto. They had done a lot of work in the past. The strange juxtaposition of their little town gave it some character.

The center of town was mostly empty. Every able hand was in the outskirts of town working on the farms. What with it being the end of March, everyone who could was on the outskirts of town. What with triple the population, they had to get more farmland ready. There was a large team cutting down trees to make the land ready, and another team already working in greenhouses. Despite the scare at the beginning of winter, they all survived quite well over the boom in population.

The spiral spines of her notebooks dug into Marie’s upper arm as they walked. Josef was practically the leader of this town, and at first, she felt intimidated by him. She did, after all, have bad experiences with leaders in the past. It was hard to fit in to a place called Musical Land when she had no skills at anything with the arts. But here, where there was a much stronger focus on math and science, she fit in better than she imagined. People knew her, respected her for her talents, and Josef especially took notice of her skills. He was encouraging and it lifted Marie’s spirits every time. It was strange to be respected after feeling like she was never enough for so long.

“How often do you sleep in the lab, Marie?” Josef asked.

“I’m not even sure. I’m sorry. I don’t mean to.”

“You truly have a gift, Marie, but there’s no need to drive yourself to the ground. I’ve told everyone to rest and relax this week, and I fully intend for you to do the same,” Josef said.

“Yeah, you’re right. I will.” Marie distracted herself by watching the broken sidewalk in front of her. How could she relax? Any time she did, she would remember her father or Sophie, or even her friends at high school, and she would get incredibly home sick. She worked hard so she wouldn’t have to think about them. The grown ups in her team she considered some of her good friends even though they were all older than her, but this was different. She knew her friends and her dad were in danger, and she never allowed herself to think about them for too long. It was too dangerous.

Josef seemed to know where her mind had gone. “We all left someone behind in Musical Land, Marie. We’re all anxious for this to work.”

They came to the small bakery and Josef held the door open for her. The smell of cooking bread surrounded Marie with warmth as she walked in. Marie got a hearty bagel with a thick spreading of butter. Josef didn’t get anything, simply chatted with the workers. He asked how things were going, what the crops looked like, how the winter wheat was growing. They were still on rations, and probably would be for the next little while until more crops came in.

Marie got her bagel and they sat outside in the cool spring morning air. It was a bit chilly, but Marie welcomed the spring breeze. It meant the winter was finally behind them.

“Marie, I’m proud of everything you’ve done for the team,” Josef said as he watched the town.

“Thanks,” Marie said, still not looking at him as she took large bites of her bagel.

“We couldn’t have gotten far if it wasn’t for… what’s that face for?”

The fear she thought she had contained leaked out onto her face. She cleared her throat.

“Sorry, I’m afraid you’re going to kick me off,” Marie said. It had been a deep fear for a while. Ever since they found the cure. What with the situation with the population and the main goal already completed, Marie was constantly afraid of getting kicked off. She knew she was the youngest. There had been more than one occasion where lab work was stopped so everyone could help with emergencies in the town.

Josef laughed. “Of course not! I picked this team myself, and all of you will see it to the end. You have helped immensely, and this team wouldn’t have been formed if it wasn’t for you.”

Once again, Marie felt the unfamiliar glow of a compliment about her skills. She looked away shyly. Would she get used to this? “Thank you.”

“I mainly wanted to check how you were doing. How was the winter for you?”

Marie glanced at her bagel. “Good? I know I didn’t have it nearly as hard because I had something to keep my mind busy. I mean, I was worried, but not nearly as some. I am, after all, alone. I didn’t... bring my family.”

The bite of bagel seemed particularly painful as she swallowed it. She looked away and felt Josef’s hand on her shoulder.

“I understand. You’re really worried about those you left behind, and are replacing it with work so you don’t have any free time to worry.”

Marie felt embarrassed at the tears pricking her eyes. She wiped them away, pretending to scratch her cheek as though that was a natural thing to do in this situation. Josef did notice, because he pulled her in tight for a side hug.

“Hey, Marie, it’s okay. We are close to an answer, I can feel it. I want you to try and sleep in your own apartment. You’ll get better rest.”

“I have nightmares.” Marie bit her lip, embarrassed at how she blurted that out.

Josef paused, but the look in his eyes encouraged her to talk. Marie sighed, wiping her eyes to get the tears out. “I feel like such a child admitting this. I’m fifteen now.”

“And you’ve done more than any fifteen-year-old is ever expected to do. What are these nightmares you’re having?” Josef asked.

“It usually starts with me running. I’m in Musical Land, and I’m trying to run away from the S.E.A. There’s someone with me, either Sophie or my dad or…” Marie paused. She wanted to say one of her high school friends. They were rarer, and if it was one of them, more often than not it was Albert. A part of her knew why he appeared more than Abe and Billy, but she didn’t want to talk about it with Josef. She did have her limits. “Or someone else. Sometimes the S.E.A. kills the person next to me and I keep running without another thought, or I’m climbing up the wall and they’re grabbing the person, and I keep climbing, oblivious to the screams of help below me. I… I don’t get the nightmares nearly as often when I’m asleep in the lab.”

Josef listened, nodding slowly. “I’m glad we’re taking a week off.”

“Please don’t pull me from the team,” Marie said.

“No, no. I wouldn’t. But I do want you to take it easy this week. We have worked hard, Marie, and I know it’ll pay off. Just remember, when we find the solution to getting syrophil over the wall, President Arnold will pay for what he’s done. Understand? He is going to pay for every wrong he’s committed, and we'll make a better world. We’re going to break open those narrow minds of theirs so they’ll finally see.”

Marie nodded as she took another bite of her bagel. “Yes, it’ll work. It’s got to.”

Josef squeezed her shoulder. “That’s the spirit!”