Tally breathed a sigh of relief. It was many hours since they had rescued Eponine from the barricade. They had cleaned her bullet wound had, stitched her up and now she was breathing as normal. Tally sat down in the chair next to Eponine and looked at the poor girl, who had she been before she had been given the memories? Who was the girl whose memories she possessed? How would she cope with what had happened in the barricade?
Tally took the girls hand and pressed it kindly, her fingers scarred with dried blood after her time at the barricade. Holding the girls hand, she remembered that Eponine had been holding something when she had been bought in from the barricade. She walked over to a trolley that had they had put Eponine's old clothes on. Amongst the pile of dirty fabric, there was a piece of battered paper. Tally opened it and read it; she knew immediately what it was. It was the letter that Cossette had written to Marius that Eponine had found. Tally looked at the girls sleeping pale face and pitied her, she loved Marius so much, but this letter showed how it would never happen. She understood why she had kept it a secret, but the guilt must have been unbearable, lying to your love. She knew that if the scientists found out about the letter they would use it against her to analyse her in different situations. Quickly, Tally stuffed the letter into her pockets along with a necklace that lay next to the dress; she would give them to Eponine when she woke up.
She heard a knock on the door and turned around, hoping that whoever it was had not seen what she had done. Sally sighed with relief when she saw that it was only Steve. He was wearing his lab coat, lab coats made everyone else look like a marshmallow but it suited Steve. It suited his long scrawny figure. It suited his hipster glasses and over grown floppy brown hair. He looked like he knew who he was and who he wanted to be "Well, we saved her…" she said proudly, beaming at Steve.
He walked towards her and hugged her, "Yes, we did it" he replied. He let her go and carried on, "I have a message from Mr Jenkins in your office, he says that you are needed at an emergency meeting in the viewing room"
Tally sighed, she had been up for three days strait, she was exhausted, and she still had to warn Fred about the boss' suspicion of her involvement with the rebels. She put on a brave face, "Does the fun never end around here?" she said jokingly to Steve.
Steve chuckled, his green eyes crinkling in the corners, and sat down in the chair next to Eponine, "I know, I'm exhausted. But soon it will be over."
"I'm looking forward to it" she said enthusiastically while she fetched her coat from the hangers at the entrance. She turned back around to face Steve as she buttoned her coat, "Do you know what the meeting is about anyway?" she asked.
"It's probably about the final plan and what we will do afterwards" Steve replied, looking sadly at Eponine.
"Well, I definitely need a coffee to live through that" Tally laughed as she ran to the precious coffee maker in the corner of the room, "Do you want one?"
"Sure" Steve said, "Black, no milk, one sugar please".
"One black, no milk, one sugar coffee coming right up" Tally said, placing an "Just Keep Calm and Science!" mug underneath the machine and pressing the button. "I'll make mine and run there, they wont mind if I'm a few minutes late" She said whilst putting sugar in Steve's cup and placing her own under the machine. "Any way, I can just say that you only told me a few minutes ago and I came as soon as you told me" she teased Steve.
"Don't you dare" Steve said kindly, walking over to Tally and punching her on the shoulder, "They already hate me enough because I helped a few poor maids while I worked in the control room" he carried on seriously.
Tally was shocked, Steve had never told her that story and he normally wasn't the rule breaking type. She didn't have time to talk about it now so she ignored it and handed him his cup of coffee. He took it gratefully, "Cheers" he laughed, clinking her mug with his. "Cheers" Tally joined in, then ran out of the room to her meeting.
Luckily the viewing room was close to the hospital so Tally made it there in five minutes without spilling any of her coffee. The door was open so she walked straight in. She had worked in the viewing room for the first few months of the experiment, since she had applied to work in the hospitals and developing labs she had hardly been back. She had grown to like it; the room was a large circle with a meeting table in the middle. Around that there were rings of desks, close to fifty in total, each with a computer screen that could show any part of the bubble. Tally's job had been to monitor the main room in the ABC café and write down anything important. She had liked watching the barricade boys; it was a movie for her, with brave heroes and interesting plots. The room was always full of people and there was an excited buzz of conversation. Tally had first met Fred in the viewing room, he had the desk behind hers and they had similar shifts. One day he bought her a coffee from the machine, then they got talking and gradually they had become friends.
Tally snapped out of memory lane as she realised that everyone was looking at her. There were around fifteen people at the desk and five seats were still empty. She hurried the last few steps and sat down in the closest seat, "I'm sorry I'm late, I just got you message and I was looking after Eponine in the hospitals" she explained. "At least you are here," Mr Simons said coldly, giving her an annoyed stare, "Now, as you all know, the final battle is going on in the bubble so we have to confirm our plans for what to do after it is over" he continued.
The man next to him clicked a few times on his laptop and the barricade appeared on a large screen behind them. The film was rotating between different hidden camera views and was showing the live fighting in the barricade. Everyone turned around to look at the screen for a second then turned strait back. Tally couldn't take her eyes of the screen. Her heart broke as she saw Gavroche, little funny Gavroche, lying motionless in Courfeyrac's arms. She noticed that boss was watching her so she looked away from the screen. "The barricade boys are not doing as well as we anticipated but it is to late now, we have to make sure that some of them survive" he said, clearly annoyed about the matter.
"I have a suggestion about how we could make sure a few of them survive" a man offered, Tally didn't know his name but she knew that he had been in charge of constructing the bubble, he had been at many of the initially meetings about the design.
"What is it Mr Swedberg" Mr Simons asked.
Mr Swedberg proudly continued, "We are supplying the French army with the guns, we can put in a few guns that have knock out darts, bullets that leave the receiver unconscious for a few hours, instead of real bullets. They obviously don't know what they are and wont suspect a thing, and after we detect what boys have been hit with those darts we can save them".
"Why don't we supply the whole army with those?" Mrs Golding, the old nurse who was Tally's boss in the hospital, interrupted.
"We have a lot of knock out darts but they are all made to fit our modern day guns, we don't have many of the ones that would fit in their guns." He described. "Also, these darts are not guaranteed to work, especially out of an old damp gun; it may just hit the target and have no effect. This would make everybody suspicious and confused. On the other hand, it may hit them in an artery and kill them. Our guards who carry their bullets know where to shoot them; in the panic of the battle these could be shot anywhere."
Mr Simons turned to Mr Swedbeg "I agree that it is a risky idea but it is the best plan we have, we still get results up to the very end of the fight and we don't have to interfere too much", he turned away and addressed everybody else "Does anybody else have any suggestions?" he asked.
"I have a way that we could make sure that the strongest survive" Mr Peters said and looked up from his laptop. Tally had never seen Mr Peters before. He was new and Tally had heard crazy rumours about his past, that he was an expert at manipulation and controlling people. "We have developed an injection that allows us to control someone, if we inject one of the soldiers with it, we can give him the gun with the knock out bullets and make sure that he is the one to kill the strongest candidates" he proposed.
"That is perfect" Mr Simons exclaimed, "Now all we have to do is decide which of the barricade boys are the strongest candidates. Miss Write, Mrs Golding and Mr Niel, you have all been analysing the boys, who would you say are the top four?"
Tally glanced cautiously at Mrs Golding. They were signing a death sentence for those they didn't pick. "Definitely Enjolras, he is the leader after all, and he has very promising brain patterns" Tally hinted. She heard a few giggles and tried to ignore them but she could feel her face becoming red. Everyone knew that in the first month of working in the viewing room Tally had developed feelings for the brave blonde leader.
Fortunately Mrs Golding made it less awkward, "I agree with her and definitely Marius, he has potential and has had the most drastic changes in his brain" she said.
"And Courfeyrac, he is not as broken but he seems like he would be willing to help" Mr Niel added.
"Those are good suggestions and they will probably survive long enough…" Mr Simons said. Tally felt terrible about the other boys, and how the ones who lived would live with the guilt. She could already imagine Enjolras waking up in the labs without Grantaire…
"Grantaire!" Tally interrupted.
"Who?" Mr Simons asked frustrated.
"Grantaire, the drunk one" Mr Niel clarified with a slight smirk.
"Yes he is but he still has potential." Tally pleaded, furious with Mr Niel. "Please, if he makes it that far and he is with them, could you please shoot him with them, it's only one more bullet"
"Ok, ok, I will write his name down" Mr Simons said. "Now, we don't have long to do this. Probably about thirty minutes before the fight is over. Mr Peters get your injection and Mr Swedberg prepare a gun, I will get someone to escort you to one of the secret entrances. We will send a field agent to kidnap a soldier and then we can inject him, give him the gun, control him and make him kill them. This meeting is over, goodbye everybody and act fast".
Everyone rose from their seats and hurried away, they had to be quick for this to work. Tally followed Mrs Golding back to the hospital to prepare for the boys. The boys…in under an hour she would finally meet them…