Chapter Text
October 11, 1982
When Dr. Brenner made it into Hawkins, he found the D.O.E.’s front gate hanging open, the parking lot full of empty cars with their doors propped open. At the front checkpoint, a soldier lay slumped in his chair, his neck broken, and inside, smears of blood and dead bodies lined the halls.
His equipment. His notes. Almost all of it was ruined. By the time he reached the examination room and saw the punctured bags, the congealed blood drying on the floor, he was numb. He pushed the freezer open and noticed the lack of vapor immediately; it was humid inside, the cooling unit snapped, and the few remaining samples of Henry’s blood had warmed. He turned them over, checking the dates, and saw that it was too late; they’d been warm for too long, made useless probably in the time it took him to drive here.
He wandered down the children’s ward. Their doors were closed, but not locked. He could hear some of them crying, whimpering – others peeked through the windows or called to him, begging to be comforted. Brenner stopped outside of Eleven’s open door, her cell abandoned.
She’d shown such promise, he thought, studying a portrait she’d drawn of them together, hanging on her wall. What made her snap?
He counted the remaining children as he walked, ignoring the cries of, “Papa!” None had escaped, but it was hardly a pleasurable thought. Together, they could have stopped her; they’d been too weak or too cowardly to try. At the end of the hall, he spied another open door and his heart went cold.
She couldn’t have known. They’d been so careful…
Brenner turned. He eased down the dark hallway slowly. The numbness had faded, replaced by a spike of adrenaline, a lump in his throat. He reached One’s isolation cell and found the door ajar, the bedsheets rumpled.
The blood, the linchpin of his entire organization, was gone – and the source of the blood was, too.
“They’re not happy with us, Martin,” Owens sighed. He slumped into one of the few undamaged chairs Brenner had found and kneaded his forehead. “Just got off the phone with Casey. He's trying, but whatever budget we had, we might as well consider it lost.”
“I know,” said Brenner calmly. He leafed through a notebook, most of its content from the late 60s, early 70s. It had been locked in a filing cabinet, so it survived where all the notes strewn about his desk had died. “How many losses on staff?”
“A solid twenty percent,” said Owens. “The kid took out damn near everyone on shift.” He hefted a folder out of his briefcase and dropped it on Brenner’s desk. “The rest aren’t gonna last long. Orders from Washington. They’re pulling the military out, and half the civilians.”
“That’s hasty of them,” Brenner murmured. He flipped to the front of the notebook. His handwriting had been so different in 1959; he’d been so young.
“Is it?” said Owens. “Martin, we’ve been losing kids left and right since ‘79. Two’s dead. Eight’s gone. We had two kids left whose powers weren’t fading, and now they’ve flown the coop.”
“Yes,” said Brenner. “And I’ve had no luck finding them.” He gestured toward the children’s ward without looking up. “None of them were ever particularly skilled at remote viewing. Even so, one of them should have seen something.” He tapped his fingers on the notebook. “Don’t you think that’s strange?”
Owens gave him a withering look. “What are you scheming?”
“What is there to scheme?” asked Brenner lightly. He scanned through his notes on Henry Creel, the first success.
“You’re not going to … liquidate the children…” Owens said.
Brenner snorted. “Our resources are lower now than ever before,” he said. “No. Gather the older children, Three through Five, for blood draws. We still have civilian volunteers on schedule. We’ll give them blood from our older subjects, see if it works.”
“And if it doesn’t?” Owens asked.
Brenner turned back to his notebook. He was so concentrated on his notes from 1959 that he didn’t hear.
December, 1982
The last of the military staff were gone. The checkpoint at Hawkins’ border was dismantled. And the first of the civilian volunteers, nine months pregnant, waited in the examination room. She’d had only two blood transfusions, both from Five, and the nurses feared she wouldn’t make it. For the past six days she’d been delirious, possibly a pregnancy-induced psychosis, and even now she fought against her restraints and spat at the nurses trying to help her.
“We could … try to find him,” Owens said uncertainly at Brenner’s side.
“One?” said Brenner. “We’ve tried to find him, Sam. And as you’ve said, our resources are limited.”
“The other civilians aren’t doing too hot,” Owens said. “One of them’s got an infection from her transfusion site. Thick black veins radiating from the wound – not a normal infection at all.”
Brenner folded one hand over his mouth and watched as the nurses tried to hold their subject down.
“Another’s convinced she’s got a demon inside her,” Owens said. “This isn’t like the rounds we’ve done with Henry. People got sick, sure, but they didn’t fade like this. If we could find him…”
“I know One,” said Brenner. “We might expect Eleven to stay in the area – she doesn’t know anything else. But One has fled. He would have abandoned her the second his inhibitor was gone.”
“I don’t think so,” said Owens. “They’ve always been drawn to each other. I think it’s possible–”
“Does it change anything if I’m wrong?” Brenner asked. He turned to Owens, his eyebrows raised. “We have no manpower. Our children are useless; their blood may be useless. Whether One is in town or he’s fled back to Nevada, whether he’s with Eleven or not, our next step remains the same.”
“Which is what?” said Owens doubtfully.
“We find another One,” said Brenner.
April, 1983
Their last civilian volunteer was dead, and that night, Brenner dreamed of Henry.
It was their first examination, the day he undressed Henry and saw the bruises on his arms. The boy kept a brave face; he didn’t protest, he had a natural urge to listen to authority. But the muscles of his stomach quaked with every article of clothing Brenner removed, and when Brenner tied the hospital gown onto him, the shaking got even worse.
All the children loved him, of course. But Henry had been different. He hadn’t been raised to love his Papa; he had to learn it, he had to be taught. And they’d made their first step that day, when Brenner commented on the bruising and Henry threw him across the room. Anger, pain, fear – those were the keys to working with children. If you could engineer an outburst, you could make them cry. If you made them cry, they’d rush into your open arms for comfort the first chance they got.
That was how his dream faded: with Henry in his arms, his face buried in Brenner’s chest, shaking through the sobs. When he woke, he could still feel the warmth of his first child on his skin.
“Three’s dead,” said Brenner when he walked into Owens’ office that morning. “And Five’s condition has worsened.”
Owens looked up from his notes, his face pinched. “I’ll visit him later,” he said. “What happened to Three?”
“Hemorrhage,” said Brenner. “Found him dead in his cell.”
He took a seat. Owens passed him a mug of coffee and they sat silently, neither of them looking the other in the eye.
“You’re pushing them too hard, Martin,” Owens said finally, his voice heavy.
Brenner rubbed at his temple, his elbow propped up on his desk. Yesterday, in a six-hour session, he’d guided Three through the remote-viewing process. The boy had never been very skilled, and lately he, like the younger children, couldn’t even levitate a marble. In the third hour of their session, Three’s nose had started bleeding. By the end, it wouldn’t stop.
“You know I’m right,” said Owens.
Brenner acknowledged him with a nod. He turned to his notes, flipping pages without reading them. “At some point, we have to consider whether it’s worth the expense to keep them,” he said.
Owens sat back with a sharp inhalation. “You’re nuts,” he said.
“I’m pragmatic.”
“Pragmatic, my ass. Those kids are still worth studying. The data we can collect on the fading of their powers is just as useful as the last thirty years we spent making those powers happen,” Owens said. “Since when do you prioritize budget over science?”
“Since our budget died,” said Brenner. “We’re sinking everything we have into your clinic; we’re letting vital staff go so we can afford to feed the children.”
“So we cut the clinic idea,” said Owens.
“We can’t,” said Brenner shortly.
“Why not?”
“Because it might just work,” Brenner said.
Summer, 1983
Dr. Owens’ juvenile psychology clinic saw its first patients in May. The initial referrals came from the hospital – children who’d previously driven to bigger cities for treatment, or simply suffered without, filled Owens’ waiting room. He liked to greet them personally, with a warm voice and relaxed posture, before he guided them to his office for a chat.
In his leather binder, he kept a coded copy of Brenner’s notes on Henry Creel. A list, of sorts, of things to watch out for. By July, he had another list running, names of youth in Hawkins who may fit the bill.
There was no shortage of trouble in Hawkins. One of his patients had suffered the death of his mother, parental incarceration, poverty – but he’d never made objects move with his mind. Another suffered from depression, emotional abuse, made herself throw up in the bathroom stall – but she’d never looked into someone’s eyes and known exactly what they were thinking, or stared at a picture of a stranger and saw where they stood right now.
That August, Dr. Brenner removed a line item from his budget. The clinic collected more patients; the children’s ward in the lab was emptied out, their bodies ferried to an incinerator in the basement. Night fell, and in one part of Hawkins, Owens drank himself to sleep, and in the lab itself Brenner crawled into the bed in One’s isolation cell and held the blankets to his face, crying more from failure, he told himself, than from grief. In an abandoned farmhouse, deep in the woods, Eleven noticed Henry stirring in his sleep, the glass in the windows shaking, and she curled up next to him, praying the glass wouldn’t break.
In the Byers house, Will dreamed he was being burned alive.
September, 1983
“Well, hi there,” said Dr. Owens brightly. He sat at a fold-out table in the Hawkins Middle School gymnasium, a paper sign taped to the front of his makeshift desk. A back-to-school banner hung over the door and parents milled about with their children, kids rushing to sign up for basketball and band. As families approached Dr. Owens, he explained his clinic and handed them a flyer.
“What is this?” one of the parents asked.
“It’s a voucher,” said Dr. Owens. “One free session, regardless of insurance.”
“Is that … normal?” asked another.
Dr. Owens forced a laugh. “People are always so suspicious about a good deal!” he said.
“It’s just … I guess I always wonder ‘what’s the catch’ when something’s free,” said Joyce Byers.
“No catch,” Dr. Owens said. He leaned forward, smiling up at her. He liked that this table sat so low; it gave parents the chance to look down on him, made him seem smaller, unthreatening. “To tell you the truth, I’m just trying to gin up clientele,” he said. “I started in May, but there’s not a lot of takers. Hawkins is a pretty calm town.”
Joyce hesitated. She didn’t agree, Owens realized with a spark of interest. The way her mouth twisted and her eyes swiveled down to stare at her young son … she didn’t buy the image of Hawkins as a quiet, safe place to live. He looked at them closer, saw the boy’s at-home haircut and the hand-me-down clothes, the shadows in his eyes.
Those eyes were what did it. The kid was small, thin, pale – watchful, anxious. It was like looking at Henry all over again. Henry, twelve years old and bruised and begging someone to notice. Owens smiled at him and handed the voucher directly to the kid.
“No pressure,” he said. “Just, if you ever feel like talking things out.”
The boy looked at his mom uncertainly, but he took the flyer. Owens watched them go.
October, 1983
“Hello, Will,” said Owens warmly.
The boy across from him clutched the arms of his chair. He said, “Hi,” in a mumble, his eyes fixed to the floor. He didn’t look up the entire time Owens gave his pre-therapy speech – telling Will what to expect, what they’d talk about, offering him a chance to speak. The boy just shrugged. He didn’t want to be here, Owens realized; he wouldn’t be a very cooperative patient.
Still, he had to try.
They talked about Lonnie, about how it felt to be abandoned by his dad. How it felt to be hurt by his dad. To watch his mother stay with him; to know his brother wouldn’t come find him, comfort him, when he ran away. Owens noted it all down, but privately, he thought it didn’t look promising. There were echoes here, of course – Virginia Creel’s barbiturates, Victor’s flashbacks and alcohol abuse, both of those had elements connected to Will Byers’ life. But there were plenty of other children in Hawkins who’d been through the same, and none of them had proven fruitful.
Owens listened, his hand on his cheek, as Will slowly opened up. He spoke about the bullies at school, the names they called him. Subtly, Owens scribbled down, ‘sexual identity crisis,’ and drew a line to his notes on Henry. But at Will’s age, Henry had had an inciting incident, an interaction that tipped him over the edge.
“Do you make friends easily?” Owens asked.
Will hesitated. He gripped the arms of his chair. “Most people don’t like me,” he said in a quiet voice.
“Why not?” asked Owens. “Are you mean to them?”
“No,” said Will. He shifted uncomfortably in his seat. “They just … they think I’m weird.”
“Lots of other kids must be weird too,” Owens said. “You can’t be the only one.”
Will looked away. He stared out the window, his eyes bright and wet. “I do have friends,” he said softly. “We play D&D together. Dungeons and Dragons.”
“Do you have a best friend?” Owens asked.
Will bit his bottom lip. His chest rose and fell. “Mike,” he said.
Mike. Okay. Owens studied his notes on Henry and sat back in his seat. “Has anything ever happened with you and Mike?” he asked.
Will’s eyebrows knit. “What do you mean?”
“Do you ever play together without the other boys?” Owens asked.
Will didn’t answer right away. He picked at a loose thread on the chair and said, “We’ve been friends since we were little.”
Perhaps that was a ‘yes,’ but any further information would require a hard push from Owens. He debated with himself whether it was worth it. There was a girl he’d interviewed earlier today, Ronnie, who had similar issues with a friend, but it hadn’t led to anything. He scanned his list of questions and skipped down a little. Will was guarded, untrusting; Owens would gain more from this interaction if he drove straight to the point.
“Will, have you ever made anything strange happen?” he asked. “Like levitate a ball, or jump from somewhere up high and land very gently?”
Will’s face creased. “You’re talking about superpowers?” he asked in disbelief.
“Some might call them superpowers,” Owens said with a gentle smile. “Have you ever experienced anything like that?”
Will shook his head at once. It was a firm no. Owens hesitated, twirling his pen over his fingers. He made a note and was about to move on when Will said,
“But…”
Owens looked up, keeping his face open, his features pleasantly curious.
“I… I’ve been having weird dreams,” Will said, darting a cautious look at Owens. “They’re new. They started when my dad left.”
“What makes them weird?” Owens asked.
“I’m not me in them,” Will said. “Sometimes I have dreams where I’m Will the Wise – my D&D character. But it’s not like that. I’m a whole other person.”
Common enough, Owens thought. He was about to make another note, less hopeful than the last, when Will said,
“I’m always the same person.”
Owens looked up. Will’s eyes were fixed to the floor, his shoulders hunched.
“Can you describe that person?” Owens asked carefully.
Will shook his head. “I never see him,” he said. “I am him. And it’s not … like, interesting. Not really. It’s not like some dreams where you can fly or you’re a super-spy–”
“Is there anyone with him?” Owens asked.
Will glanced at him briefly, his lips pursed. “A kid my age,” he said. “It looks like a boy but he knows it’s a girl. And she’s only there sometimes.”
“And what they do?” Owens asked, his heart rate picking up.
“They … it’s boring stuff,” Will said. “He makes her cereal. Or he goes out alone and he steals stuff. Or cuts wood.”
“The girl he’s with,” Owens said, “have you ever heard him say her name?”
“Yeah, but it doesn’t make sense,” Will said. “It’s just a number.”
Owens smiled and made a note.
November 6, 1983
The boy showed no sign of telekinesis, but maybe he was just too scared. He sat cuffed to a chair in the examination room, wearing a hospital gown, with his hair mussed from transport and tear tracks on his cheeks. Brenner had given him a tranquilizer, and his breathing had slowed, but it was clear he didn’t trust them yet.
“Will,” he said, taking a seat opposite him. He folded his hands in his lap and smiled. “I want you to look at a picture for me.”
Will’s eyes darted over Brenner’s face. He’d been here two hours now, and he’d stopped asking for his mom. That was progress. By the end of the week, Brenner hoped they could convince him his mom wanted him here. But for now, he just opened his files and removed a photo of Henry.
He gave himself a minute to study it on his own. He’d been a beautiful boy, he thought with a pang. A beautiful subject – so eager for positive engagement, for affection. So easy to hurt. But he’d known since the early 50s that children like Henry, while rare, were not unique. They could be found – a long and tedious prospect that relied too much on luck – or they could be made, with blood transfusions and careful rearing. He’d thought, by the late 60s, that he’d never have to find one again. He could produce them, indefinitely, with Henry’s blood.
But now here was another prize. A prize who couldn’t levitate objects or spin a top, but who saw things in his dreams. Brenner smiled and turned the photo around.
“Concentrate, Will,” he said. “Do you recognize this man?”