"Aftermath" - Part Seven

 

Part Seven

            Eddie was a comforting presence in the console room, after Si’s devastating altercation with Max. He found the electric guitar that Si left sitting in the corner, neglected for the past year, and gently played a few chords from Metallica’s “Master of Puppets.” Si appreciated that her guitar had been put to such use and told Eddie, “It’s yours, if you like it.”

            Looking up from the sleek red guitar, Eddie gazed on his Time Lord hostess with misty eyes. “R-Really? I…I don’t wanna just take your stuff from ya.”

            “So long as you take good care of it, it’s cool,” Si permitted.

            “Yes, ma’am,” Eddie snickered.

            As Eddie cherished his new gift, Si disembarked from her ship, stepping from the warm, comforting climate of the console room to the cold, unsettling atmosphere of what looked like the former site of a missile silo complex. Waiting there in the room where her TARDIS materialized was a suited white-haired man well into his 60s, flanked by M.P. guards that had their rifles aimed directly at both Si and the TARDIS.

            Si knew the white-haired man all too well. “Welcome to Nina,” he greeted her in a voice that sounded eerily calm. “I presume you’re the ‘Si’ I’ve heard so much about?”

            “You can call me ‘Neas’,” Si coldly demanded.

            “Neas,” Brenner ruminated on the name with interest. “I must admit that I’ve been intrigued by your reputation. This country owes you a great deal of gratitude for your service. You have frightened the Russians into submission. That, as you may or may not know, isn’t an easy accomplishment.”

            “Is that why you deemed this necessary?” Si gestured to the armed guards.

            Brenner almost seemed embarrassed from the excess security. “Forgive me. I wasn’t sure whether or not you’d come willingly. Just as you have your reputation, I also have mine. You’ve been around Eleven enough to have learned of the things I’ve done.”

            “I have,” Si tautly confirmed. “And if you’re gonna speak about her in my presence, you’ll refer to her by the name her mother gave her – not the number you branded her with. Understood?”

            Her directness amused Brenner. “You have the face of a child, yet you speak with the authority of an elder. Fascinating.”

            “Understood?!” Si restated with more vitriol. She detected a few of the guards tightening their grips on the rifles in response to her imposing tone. Brenner kept his calm, smirking with sickening fascination.

            “Of course,” he complied. “Sam relayed your demands, and I assure you that I will adhere to them.” He proceeded to motion for the guards to stand down and invite Si to follow him down the corridor. As they walked, he offered an impromptu guide tour of the top-secret government facility. “I named this facility ‘Nina’ after Nicolas Dalayrac’s 1786 opera. Have you heard of it?”

            “I assisted him with one of his compositions once,” Si passively referred.

            Brenner wasn’t sure if she was being cynical or not, but she could very well have spoken the truth, considering her unusual experience. “Fascinating,” he muttered again before he continued with the tour. “In the play, Nina is so traumatized by her lover’s death that she represses the memory of it, forgetting the event had ever occurred.”

            Si let out a monotonous sigh. “I know the story, Dr. Brenner. You designed this facility with Jane in mind – forcing her to reexperience her own repressed memories to unlock the true height of her abilities.”

            “Precisely,” Brenner verified without an ounce of shame.

            “And therein lies the reason I told Sam not to involve Jane in any of this,” Si said. “All you people want is to torture that poor girl for your own perverted desires. She’s a child…allow her the privilege of having a normal life with Jim and Joyce while it’s still there for her.”

            “And we have,” Brenner professed. “We’ve kept our distance from Jim Hopper and the Byers long enough for them to provide for Jane. But you must realize, Neas, there are greater forces breaching our world. Imagine, if you will, the barrier between our worlds is a concrete dam and there are cracks forming in this dam. Cracks in dams create pressure. Left unchecked, the pressure will build…and build. Eventually, it will reach a breaking point, and the dam will burst. When that happens, our world will fall…and Hawkins will be the epicenter of it.”

            “All you just did was explain the concept of a rift to me, Dr. Brenner – something I’ve been well-acquainted with in all the lives I’ve lived. You don’t need Jane to fill in these ‘cracks’ in your metaphorical dam. You only need me.”

            Brenner acknowledged with a tentative nod. “We’ll see.”

            After a few uncomfortable minutes, Brenner finally brought Si to her primary destination: a spacious chamber with a single translucent cage situated at the center. Inside the cage was a bed, a chair, and a woman – a brunette in a red corset and black leather pants. When Si first gazed upon her, she was stunned to see how much this woman resembled her past thirteenth incarnation – the one who named herself “Kara” (presumably out of homage to their past fourth incarnation, the “Cara” with a C).

            “Wow,” the beguiled Si uttered, her voice echoing throughout the chamber.

            Sitting lotus style inside her cage, locked into a meditative state, the brunette opened her bright red eyes to see the physically-teenaged girl that entered alone. With a wicked smile, she said in a tone that was as attractive as her appearance, “You finally showed up.”

            Si began with the obvious question: “Who are you? Are you…me?”

            The brunette scoffed. “Not even close.” She stood up and stretched out her body in different positions that were reminiscent of sensual yoga. “My name’s Pathos…and we’ve met several times before.

            “We have?” Si frowned.

            “Mm-hmm. You know me better as ‘The Twilight Phantom’.”

            Si stiffened, backing away from the cage with crippling anxiety.

            Pathos cackled at her reaction. “Yeah. That’s the same effect we’ve seen in all your other lives whenever we introduce our real name.”

            “A-Are…” Si swallowed hard, barely able to get her inquiry out. “Are they…?”

            “No, I’m here all by my lonesome,” Pathos answered, knowing what Si intended on asking. “But enough about them. Let’s talk about what’s been happening in this quaint lil’ reality you’ve attached yourself to. So much’s happened in this realm that bears striking similarities and differences from the other just like it. For example, you and Steve Harrington been pretty cozy together!”

            “You know about that?!?!” Si froze in bewilderment.

            “Oh, I do,” Pathos teased. “You’re the best fling that lovesick loser’s ever had after sweet lil’ Nancy Wheeler.” She pressed herself against the wall of her glass cage facing Si, her fiery eyes fixed on her. “Your actions and mere presence in this reality have led to quite the divergence…but it will all turn out the way only the Hierarchy wish for it to.”

            Mustering courage, Si confronted, “And how’ll that be?”

            “With everyone dead, of course,” Pathos answered dismissively.

            “I won’t let that happen!”

            “You don’t have a choice, hon!”

            “Yeah, we’ll see about that.”

            Si was already headed for the exit, ending the exchange there and then. However, Pathos still had to get the last chilling word: “We’re coming for you, Gladiator! Your final war is only beginning!”

            Exiting the chamber, Si expected to leave the entire facility in her TARDIS without having to face Brenner again. Unfortunately, the mad scientist was waiting outside the chamber for her, once again flanked by the armed MPs. “Ugh,” Si groaned in annoyance. “I don’t have time for games, Brenner! Step aside!” She attempted to walk past the MPs, but they tightened their formation, closing in the gaps between them to completely bar Si’s way out.

            Now she was getting real upset. “GET OUTTA MY WAY!!!”

            “I’m afraid I can’t let you leave, Neas,” Brenner told her. “You said it yourself that we only need you to save Hawkins and the rest of our world. I believe with enough prodding and study, we can find the solution inside of you.”

            Si knew exactly what he meant.

            And, for the first moment in all her lives, she was genuinely scared.