"Aftermath" - Prologue

 

Prologue

Nevada Desert – 1985

            Sam hated traveling so far out to a remote location just to meet with one woman…one woman who was a waste of time and energy. “Nina” was the name in which they gave the top-secret government facility and program located in the Nevada desert, conceived and developed by Dr. Sam Owens himself and former Hawkins Lab director, Dr. Martin Brenner.

            A lot had happened over the last couple of years – Owens and Brenner kept tabs on it all from Nina. How Brenner managed to get surveillance established in two separate states, Sam would never know. He sat in a room with live feeds that played 24/7. Some monitors displayed footage out of Hawkins, Indiana, while others were in Lenora Hills, California.

            Of course, Brenner wasn’t the person Sam needed to see. Three months ago, they had a “guest” – an alluring red-eyed brunette in a red corset and black leather pants – who somehow showed up in the top-secret facility, willingly allowing herself to be placed in captivity. They kept her in a translucent cage with only a bed and a chair.

            “Morning,” Owens greeted her as usual.

            “Is it?” she countered. “Hard to tell with no windows.”

            Sam chuckled. “Well, maybe we can see about that, as soon as you tell us how you found out about this place and how you got in.”

            The brunette refused to answer. Not that Owens could do anything about it. As long as she was in there, they had no control over her, least not under the safeguard of Brenner. The only reason he hadn’t forced the information out of her was because he was fascinated by her.

            Wasting his time on the guest, Sam confronted Brenner in his special surveillance room where one of his monitors had a feed of the cage. “Enjoying the show?” Owens quipped on the way in. “Should I get ya a soda or some popcorn?”

            “You’re frustrated,” Brenner observed.

            “No kidding, I’m frustrated! Every week I come here to ask this girl the same question, and every week she gives me nothing! And for what? For what, Martin?! ‘Cause she’s your new little side project, outside your other one?!”

            “She’ll talk. She told you she would.”

            “Right. Sure.” Sam condescended. “I believe her words were, ‘Only until the right moment will I talk, and that moment is not for very long.’ What does that even mean?!”

            “I don’t know,” Brenner said in his eerily calm tone. “We’ll try again in another week and see if she finally tells us something valuable.”

            Sam let out a flustered groan.

            His eyes met with the collection of monitors Brenner had in front of him. One broadcasted the inside of a girl’s bedroom. The girl inside it, being a normal teenager, was Jane Hopper – formerly a test subject of Brenner’s, redesignated with the number “Eleven.” Jane escaped from the lab the Halloween night of 1983 and disappeared without a trace that same night. She only rematerialized a year later, though it was unclear where she was during that time off the grid.

            Brenner, however, believed the answers were in another girl – a young blonde who showed up in Hawkins the night of Jane’s disappearance. The locals called her “Si” and she was seen quite often with the boys Mike Wheeler, Dustin Henderson, Lucas Sinclair, and Will Byers. She even made friends with the adults Jim Hopper, Joyce Byers, Jonathan Byers, and Nancy Wheeler. Recently, she had started an intimate relationship with Steve Harrington.

            Brenner’s interest in Si had led to some wild theories on events that occurred in the last year. For instance, he believed her to be the reason that the Russians hadn’t made a move since the original Hawkins lab shut down. “She’s just a kid, Martin,” Sam rationalized when Brenner shared that theory. It continued to be the same rationale he went with to that very day.

            “We once said the same thing about Eleven,” Brenner contested.

            “Speaking of which, don’t you think she’s been through enough? The kid’s happy now. She’s got a family – a real family – there in California. I made sure of it myself when I had her, Hopper, and the Byers relocated to Lenora.”

            “Yes, I believe Jim Hopper himself was the one who requested it.” He paused to gaze at another monitor, this one displaying a feed of a suburban street corner. A slim, fit jogger passed by. Although it was difficult to see his face from the distance between him and the camera, Brenner knew the jogger to be the former Hawkins sheriff. “Has he seemed a bit off to you?”

            “Who? Jim?” Sam queried. “The man’s just keeping himself healthy. Did you see the shape he was in back in Hawkins? Ya couldn’t keep him separated from a beer and a doughnut for two seconds.”

            Brenner shrugged. “Perhaps you’re right…or perhaps Jim knows something we don’t…something that happened when we were not watching.”

            “What could he be hiding?”

            “I don’t know. Their time in Lenora Hills won’t last for long, Sam. We need her brought here to Nina.”

            Owens sighed despondently. “Alright. I’ll see what I can do. But I can tell ya right now, Hopper isn’t gonna be too pleased allowing his daughter back under a microscope by the man who put her there in the first place.”

            “I wasn’t talking about Eleven,” Brenner elaborated.

            Sam frowned. “Then who…?” He stopped once he noticed Brenner gazing intently at the monitor that displayed Si, realizing her to be the one he wanted brought to Nina.