"Aftermath" - Part Eight

Part Eight

            The next three days were the longest and most excruciating for Si, subjected to torturous examination by Brenner and his team in the Nina facility that included vivisection. Most of it was a blur, but the overwhelming pain in her bandaged torso was a constant recap.

            On the third day, she awakened by another sharp sting and a voice.

            “Welcome back. I was afraid you might not have survived.”

            Through her hazy vision, she saw a dark white-haired figure standing stringently outside her cage. She was placed in one very similar to the one where she found Pathos. She tried sitting up but the pain had paralyzed her, keeping her restrained to the floor.

            “We’ve learned so much about you, Neas,” Brenner said, his calm demeanor verged on uninhibited exhilaration. “You have a binary vascular system and pulmonary tubes in place of lungs – that grants you an advanced respiratory system, doesn’t it?” Si didn’t answer; she merely glared at Brenner. “I know you’re angry with me, but you’ve given me so much. Your DNA has unlocked many doors…including the one to the ship you came in.”

            Si’s eyes widened at this news.

            “Oh, yes,” Brenner noted her subtle reaction. “At first, we were lost on how entry was achieved, until we discovered the bio-signature lock by accident. It’s quite a clever mechanism, I must say. Did you design it?”

            “I’m…not…talking,” Si rasped.

            Brenner smirked at her unruliness. “Now you’re acting like a child.”

            “People are dying in Hawkins!” Si bellowed. “And you’re too focused on cutting me open like a frog in Science class!”

            “The situation in Hawkins will be contained,” Brenner reassured. “But I had to break our agreement to see it done.”

            Si frowned in question. “What do you mean?”

            “I had Eleven transported here to the facility. We need her powers to be amplified and ready for what’s to come. In due time, the threat we face will be thwarted.”

            Brenner ended the conversation right there, making his way towards the exit.

            But then Si asked one question that stopped him: “Who’s Henry Creel?”

            Stiffening with his back to Si, Brenner inquired, “How do you know that name?”

            “I plucked it out of Pathos’ head, during our little chat. So, tell me…who is he?”

            Just as Si had done to him, Brenner defiantly kept the answer to himself, leaving the room without saying another word. Si relished in watching him leave in such a huff, victorious in their match of wits. And yet, she was still in tremendous pain. In the midst of it all, she felt a tingling sensation come over the fingers of her left hand. Bringing it close to her face, she saw something that she hoped never to see so early in her current incarnation:

            Gold regenerative energy rising from her fingertips.

            It was a faint yet absolute sign that her time in this body – that Brenner and his team had gravely damaged – was coming to an end.

--------------------------

            To the best of his ability, Eddie kept himself hidden in Si’s massive alien ship, as soon as it was breached by teams of scientists and armed guards. He had no idea what was going on or how Si’s ship, which she assured him was “safe,” had become so easily compromised. All he knew was that he needed to get out before anyone spotted him.

            He soon realized how unwise of a move that was when he succeeded all-too-well at escaping the TARDIS. Out of the frying pan and into the scorching-hot fire, he mentally shuddered as he wandered into the confides of the heavily-guarded missile silo complex. Its interconnected corridors left Eddie feeling more lost than he was inside Si’s TARDIS. He nearly walked into lab coats and MP guards at every turn.

            Luckily, one of the rooms he stumbled into was a locker room where he discovered an available lab coat for him to put on as a disguise. He couldn’t do much about his unkempt “punk rock” hair, which stood out like a sore thumb; all he could do was hope everyone would see the lab coat more than his hair.

            It was put to the test sooner than expected when two men suddenly passed him.

            “What’s the matter with you, Martin?” the shorter of the two men asked, clearly angry. “Jane I can hardly even comprehend the things you’ve done to, but you have Si cut open like a Thanksgiving turkey?! She’s a kid!”

            Eddie fought not to gasp too loudly, overhearing what happened to Si.

            “She’s not even human, Sam,” the man named Martin countered; something about his voice sounded chillingly sinister to Eddie. “I’ve seen her ship. Its technological capabilities are beyond our conception. They can take us to lengths that were impossible when we first started.”

            He sounded like a madman to Eddie with such a diabolical vision.

            Even Sam was disturbed by it. “Jeez, Martin…you sound like you wanna conquer the universe.”

            “Something bigger than that,” Martin ruminated, radiating genuine curiosity.

            “I don’t like what you’re implying either way,” Sam refuted. “Nor do I like what you’re doing to these girls, human or not. And as long as we’re being honest with each other, I think you’re wrong for breakin’ your deal with Si about Jane. You’re just using that kid to fix the mistake you made with Creel.”

            The men’s conversation came to an abrupt end with the sounds of gunfire ringing across the facility. It alarmed Eddie just as much as it did Sam and Martin. They ran in one direction, while Eddie ran in the other, rushing to find wherever Si was being kept and praying that she wasn’t dead.

            He searched through every room, taking advantage of the mass panic that spread throughout the top-secret facility while doing his best to steer himself away from the gunshots.

            He ultimately arrived in a very large room reserved for a single translucent cage that took up half the space. Inside the cage, there was an alluring brunette in a corset and leather pants that immediately caught Eddie’s eye. “Well, alright,” he muttered to himself, seeing an opportunity in being the hero to an obvious damsel in distress. He waltzed his way over to the cage and said to the brunette, “Uh, hey? You…O.K.?” It was a terrible hero line; he should’ve just taken a page from Luke Skywalker and said, ‘I’m here to rescue you.’

            The brunette gazed at him from her lotus position on the floor.

            Eddie was a bit perturbed to see that her eyes were blood red – not bloodshot, but the irises were actually red.

            Smirking at her “rescuer,” the brunette asked, “Tell me, hon. Does that lab coat happen to have a key card?”

----------------------

            The blaring alarms did very little to take Si’s mind off her pain, though she did wonder what the reason for the alert was. She thought she heard gunshots in the distance, followed by the cries of several personnel. Someone was attacking the facility. Good, she vehemently thought, believing every single one of them deserved it for what they put her through in the last few days.

            No. That’s not who you are, Neas. You’re the Gladiator of Gallifrey. You help people…you save them.

            A lot of good that’s done for me! I’m sick of being everyone’s savior!

            So, what? You’re just gonna lie here and wait to change again?

            No. This time, I’m just gonna let it be the end. No more Neas, no more Gladiator of Gallifrey!!!

            And so, she lied there in the cage – full of pain, regret, and sorrow.

            “So pathetic,” a voice she had heard before ridiculed her. She turned her head to see Pathos, freed from her cage and now standing outside of Si’s. One hand resting commandingly on her hip, while the other gripped the collar of a man in a lab coat. Pathos had drugged him in, bloodied and bruised.

            Si would’ve suspected this to be just a random lab coat that Pathos coaxed into setting her free, but something about his punk rock hairstyle tipped Si off on his real identity. “Eddie?!” she weakly cried.

            “I figured you knew this sorry excuse of a man-child,” Pathos cackled, releasing her grip on Eddie’s stolen lab coat, leaving his half-conscious body to slump on the floor. Mockingly dusting off her hands, Pathos told Si, “Still, he provided the key to my freedom – and now it’s yours.” She produced a key card from her back pocket, using it to open Si’s cage. Upon entering, Pathos feigned disgust as she whiffed the air inside. “Ugh! Smells like death in here – or is that regeneration I’m smellin’?”

            Si fought to get on her feet but only succeeded in tumbling back to the floor.

            Pathos shook her head at her pitiful condition. “Brenner and his science geeks did a number on you, didn’t they? Don’t worry, kiddo. This isn’t how the Gladiator of Gallifrey dies.” Tossing the key card aside, she departed from Si’s cage and the room altogether.

            Si refused to allow an incarnation of the Twilight Phantom to escape.

            And yet, at the same time, she couldn’t leave Eddie behind.

            You’re the Gladiator of Gallifrey. You help people…you save them.

            Channeling the regenerative energy bubbling within her to one specific area – her chest, Si healed herself enough to stand and stumble out of the cage. She gathered Eddie on her way out of the room. By that time, Pathos was well out of the facility and probably the realm itself. With no other choice, she and Eddie returned to her TARDIS. But there was still one other person she needed to take with her: Jane.

            Si looked all over for her but found not a single trace.

            She did find the door to the Nina facility blown open. The attack was full-scale and orchestrated tactfully. Outside, there were vehicles, weaponry, and a military helicopter. It was from that helicopter that a sniper shot and killed an escaping Martin Brenner. Si saw Jane there as well, using her telekinetic abilities to bring the helicopter down in an explosive crash.

            Not a moment after these events did a station wagon pull up to the scene. From it emerged Jim Hopper, Joyce Byers and her sons, Will and Jonathan. There was also a house elf with them, one that Si – through her flickering vision – recognized as Harry Potter’s devoted friend, Dobby.

            Si needed to get to them, but the pain she temporarily removed from her chest had returned. The best she could do was yell from the Nina entrance, “Hey! Over here!” She got their attention but also mortified them with her grim appearance – her bandaged torso, her shirt torn open, and her pale complexion. “My TARDIS is inside! Hurry!”

            Dobby and the Hopper-Byers family followed her back inside the facility and to her TARDIS, dematerializing immediately afterwards.

            Joyce examined Si’s bandages. “Sweetheart, what happened to you?”

            “What happened to him?” Will inquired of Eddie, who was settled onto one of the platform chairs.

            “I don’t have time to explain,” Si wheezed. “We need to get back to Hawkins.”

            “We’re going back to Hawkins?!” Jim exclaimed. “What about our home?!”

            “What home, Jim?!” Si snapped at him. “Whoever stormed that facility and killed Brenner did it because they were after Jane! That means they were coming after your home next!” In her ranting, she felt herself becoming dizzy. Moving away from the TARDIS controls, she sat herself on one of the other available platform chairs. “We need to know what’s goin’ on in Hawkins…and who Henry Creel is.”

            “He’s one of Papa’s first subjects – he was One,” Jane told her.

            Si gave a smug albeit frail smirk. “That tracks. Is he also the one who killed those kids in Hawkins?”

            Jane nodded. “He needs their deaths to open four gates to bring the Upside Down into our world.”

            “The cracks in the dam,” Si recalled Brenner’s chilling metaphor. “And he’s opened three with the deaths of Chrissy, Fred, and Patrick. Who’s the fourth?”

            “Max,” Jane whimpered.

            Si gasped. “Now we really need to get back to Hawkins.”

            “There’s one other thing,” Jane added. “I saw Mike and the others agree to allow Max to lure Henry into possessing her, so they can attack him in the Upside Down while he’s distracted.”

            “What?!” Si cringed at the plan. “What are they thinking?!” Forcing herself back on her feet, she returned to the controls. “We cannot allow them to go through with that plan…so we’re comin’ up with a counterplan.”