Prologue
Hawkins Lab
July 19, 1976
Dr. Martin Brenner stepped onto the elevator, hand in hand with the little girl. A few weeks shy of five years old, she was already showing a greater promise than any of the other subjects in the program. He knew he had been right about her, getting ahold of her as an infant and raising her in an environment that would nurture her special gifts.
As they descended to the lower floors of the lab, the little girl looked up at Dr. Brenner, her big brown eyes sparkling and alert. "What game today Papa?"
"Oh, we are going to play a few games today." he replied, reaching down and patting her head. He continued, "Some of Papa's friends are here to watch you play today. I've told them all about the wonderful things you can do, and they want to see for themselves."
She had known, when Papa came to get her, that today must be a very special day. He always brought presents on special days. She looked down at the new clothes he had brought her; a red tank top and black track pants. He had even brought her new shoes for today, although she much preferred going about barefoot. She liked the feel of the cold tile beneath her feet and it was much quieter when she ran.
As they stepped off the elevator, he took her hand again and they walked down the bright corridor toward the big room where they played games. They stepped through the doors, and she looked around quickly to see how it was set up today. The large boxes - for climbing and hiding - were out, and also some targets arranged at the far end of the room. Today would be some of the fun games, she just knew it.
Dr. Brenner looked up the high wall at the large glass observation window where several men in crisp suits stood waiting. Over the last few years, the people funding his work had begun to question the fruitfulness of his endeavor. Some of them felt that it was a lost cause and the program should be abandoned entirely. In a last-ditch effort to sway their opinion and secure the future of his work, Dr. Brenner had reluctantly invited a few of them to his lab for a demonstration of the progress being made.
The men were startled at the sight of the small girl with her tight blond braids walking in with Brenner. They knew he was working with children in the program; he had explained that the talents they were looking for had to be nurtured and trained early before the mind was too closed off. But they hadn't really expected that the results he was describing could come from a girl so young.
"Are you ready to show them what you can do?" he asked the excited little girl. "How about we show them how well you can throw?"
"Yes Papa," she smiled back brightly.
He nodded to an assistant on the edge of the room, who wheeled out a table arranged with a number of small throwing knives. The little girl walked out to the middle of the room and stood a few feet back from the table, staring intently at the targets at the far end of the room, a good 150 feet away. With hands at her sides, and a look of concentration fixed on her tiny face, she began to lift six of the knives into the air. She froze them momentarily in a straight line before floating the blades silently into three pairs. After holding in place for another moment, the knives snapped to the far end of the room and each pair embedded themselves deep into the center of the three targets.
Dr. Brenner glanced up again at the window, reveling in the look of utter shock on the faces of the men assembled by the glass.
"Do you still doubt me?" he thought, the tiniest hint of a smirk curling the edge of his lip.
Stepping out into the center of the room, he patted the child on the head and said, "You did very well. Papa is very proud of you. Do you think you can catch today, too?"
"Yes Papa!" she said.
He nodded once more to the waiting assistant who walked down to the targets and retrieved three of the knives. It took a minute of struggle to free them; the girl had embedded them extra deep today. Knives in hand, he turned back to face the girl, who had now taken up a position halfway between him and the table. He took a ready stance, deftly holding the first knife, hauled back and launched the blade toward her small frame.
Without the slightest flinch, she caught hold of the blade with her mind, curved it safely around her and arced it squarely into the center of the tabletop behind her.
The assistant smirked at how well she had handled the first knife. He had only started training her on blades a few weeks ago and she had picked it up immediately. Squaring up again, he decided to increase the difficulty and launched the other two blades in rapid succession. Again, the blades were no match and she grabbed both, hands remaining by her sides, slowed the first until the second caught up with it and again slammed them together into the table behind her. She turned to inspect her work and was pleased to see all three blades standing up perfectly straight, in a neat and uniform line across the center of the table.
"Well done," said Dr. Brenner, joining the girl once again in the center of the room. "Very well done."
This time, he didn't even dignify the men in the observation room with a glance. He knew all their doubts had been put to rest and this last demonstration would secure whatever funding he asked, for as long as he asked.
As the assistant took the targets out one of the side doors, and then came back to retrieve the table of knives, Brenner turned to the girl and asked, "How about a game of hide and seek?"
"Yes!" she beamed back. Hide and seek was one of her favorites. It had been a long time since any of Papa's helpers had been able to catch her. "How many?" she asked.
"Today we are going to try three. How does that sound?"
"Are they friends?" she asked, then, after a pause, "or bad?"
Brenner thought about it for a moment. After glancing at the men in the observation room, and deciding the hassle would be worth rubbing his success in their smug faces, he said, "Bad men." He hadn't had a chance to warn his people, but they would figure it out soon enough.
The little girl's face brightened into a huge smile at that. When it was the bad men, she didn't have to hold back her powers. As Dr. Brenner stepped back over to the side of the room, she ran over to duck behind one of the large boxes. She knew Papa had given her the new shoes special for today, but she didn't want to chance having them squeak as she moved around the room, so she silently slipped them off.
Three men in dark green uniforms entered the far end of the room, each carrying a gun loaded with paint rounds. They knew the game well; the first man to hit the girl with paint got a nice bonus in his paycheck. Actually lay a hand on her and the bonus was triple. Of course, with reward comes risk. If they were playing as friends, there was a good chance they would leave the room bruised and bloody. If they were bad guys, well, the injuries could be a lot worse.
When everyone was in position, Dr. Brenner pulled a whistle from his pocket and blew it, signaling the start of the game. The men fanned out, anxious to roust the girl from her hiding spot. As they spread out to check the corners, the little girl silently climbed up and around one of the boxes and snuck back down and around the nearest man. Before he knew what was happening, she lifted him noiselessly into the air, ripped the gun from his hand and flung it into the far corner of the room, while hurling him against the wall. He landed in a crumpled heap of pain and knew he was done for the day; she had gotten the jump on him and he never heard a sound.
Hearing the commotion, the other two men began to converge on where they thought she must be. She once again darted into hiding behind one of the larger boxes. She spotted the first man and floated up another box he had just passed. She flung it at him, knocking him to the ground and crushing him beneath its considerable weight. He groaned as he tried to free himself and knew it would take at least one more man to lift the box off when the game was done.
As this was happening, the last man had managed to sneak around behind her. He thought for once he had the drop on her and would earn that bonus. He weighed the decision. He could hit her with the paint round and be done, securing a well deserved bit of extra pay. But she was so close now. If he could get just a couple feet closer, he could lay a hand on her shoulder and the bonus would be huge, almost two months extra pay.
What he didn't know was that she had already sensed him there, sneaking behind her. In his moment of indecision, she struck. Without warning or even looking back, she ripped the gun from his hands while snapping both of his legs below the knees. He crumpled to the ground in a howl of pain.
Letting the gun drop to the ground, she skipped brightly back over to Dr. Brenner. "I won, Papa!" she beamed.
Patting the sides of her head with both hands, he leaned down and kissed the top of her head. "You did wonderful! Papa is so proud of you, Twelve. So proud."
Later that day, sitting alone on her bed and looking out the window at the forest beyond the lab, she quietly unwrapped the sucker Papa had given her. It was Cherry, her favorite. She was happy. She had done good and made Papa very proud. She loved Papa, and loved it when Papa was happy and proud of her.