Stranger Gothic
Part 1
Hawkins National Laboratory. Hawkins, Indiana.
Given that one day, I'd gone to bed as normal and then I'd woken up in a cell in a place that was completely alien to me, least at first, and that I'd found myself to be many years younger than I had been before, it was easy to understand why the guards around here could think that I was more than a little crazy. I'd started to wonder if the life I remembered living before my existence in this cell was the delusion. Which only made me appear crazier, and to me thinking that I was mad.
So I'd thought for a good long while, and this had resulted in me getting left alone for the most part, not that I really minded and I was a loner by nature. I suspected that I might have gone totally mad if I'd been allowed to simply waste away in my cell, but I'd not been left to die. I was too valuable to Project MKUltra to be allowed to die, so I might only be partly mad as I'd not always been on my own.
In my world, the project was a covert operation designed and conducted by the CIA that went on from the 1950s to the early 1970s, with the goal of developing mind-control techniques which could be used against enemies during the Cold War. The subjects, many of which were unwitting, suffered extensive use of psychedelic drugs, physical and mental abuse, sleep deprivation and malnourishment, among many other experiments.
I was not a historian or even an American citizen, but I'd been educated well enough and I'd read a lot so I felt fairly certain that the Watergate scandal involving President Nixon led to investigations into what the intelligence services were up to during the hight of the cold war and that resulted in stuff like Project MKUltra getting shut down. Maybe that was the case in my universe.
Well in this universe (that I knew to be the Stranger Things universe as the guy running things here looked very familiar and he had that TV villain vibe about him) the project had lasted well into the 1980s and from I'd been able to gather it had been going strong until rather recently. They had a number of just subjects, I was number 14 so there were at least thirteen others and maybe many more.
MKUltra might have started off doing mind-control experiments, but along the way, they'd discovered more about the human mind than they could have planned for. They'd figured out that some people had psychic potential, and now this part of the project, there was more to it than this place, was working on finding ways to use psychic powers as a weapon against America's enemies.
On paper that sounded rather cool, and it would be if not for the inhuman practices going on here. Because of the assholes in charge I got dragged out of my cell and tests were performed on me, and while this did allow me to practice with my powers, it did not mean that I enjoyed these activities.
As for my powers, they seemed to be based around mind control, as in with eye contact and a lot of effort I could not only read a person's mind I could make people do things that I wanted them to. Kind of like the Jedi Mind Trick, and like that power some people could resist it better than others and I couldn't get it to work on multiple people at the same time I had to maintain eye contact.
Over time listening to thoughts became easier and easier, even if it did give me headaches, and I'd learned a lot, such as the big news about the fall of the Berlin Wall, so it had to be the late 80s or early 90s, and since no creatures from the Upside Down had broken into my cell to murder me I figured that 11 hadn't ever made contact with the monster known as the Demi-Gorgan, or whatever it was those kids called it.
I'd tried to escape on my own, but my mind control power required eye contact and focus, and it's hard to keep eye contact with guards who all know not to look into my eyes and aren't afraid to hit me with batons, I knew this because I'd been knocked quite a few times by the guards. Which is rather foolish since I'm only valuable to them because of my mental talents.
The only plus side to all my alone time was that I'd been able to practice with my telepathy, and I'd discovered quite a few interesting things. First of all, men do not think about sex as much as you might think, at least not in this part of the world, they do think about sports a lot and stuff like beer, and that is very boring. But what mattered to me was that I'd be getting out of here soon enough as I'd learned that from the minds of others.
I'd learned how to drive people crazy by placing songs in their heads, and I knew songs that didn't even exist yet, and not knowing where the lyrics came from must be a real pain for my captors. Then I'd done stuff like make some of the guards think about them kissing other guards. I was fairly certain I'd driven one guy into quitting his job by whispering into his mind some encouragement into moving into the woods to escape the modern world, but all I knew for sure was that I'd never seen him again after pushing him to leave.
Of course, I'd tried to use this power to escape, more than once, but I couldn't control people that I didn't have eye contact with and planting thoughts to aid in my escape didn't result in much as only the guy running the place could authorise such a thing and he had the ability to resist my powers, and the guards did not let each other open my cell unless a certain doctor was with them.
When I'd first heard about the project getting shut down, having heard it in someone's head, I did worry for some time that someone was going to enter my cell and put a bullet between my eyes, but no we would be set free, everything would be put into mothballs and forgotten about, and this made the staff running this place more than a little mad since it meant decades of work had been for nothing.
I was pleased that I'd be leaving, as would 11, but I had no idea what the higher-ups were thinking about setting a couple of young adults (I looked to be about twenty if my reflection in the mirror was to be trusted) into the world with no eduction, although I did recall going to school, and no means of getting a good job. This was how you got supervillains. I did have a strong desire to avenge myself on the people who locked up children and experimented on them so as to turn them into weapons against the Russians.
When using my powers my mind didn't reach out or leave my body, I couldn't project my awareness or anything like that, at least not yet, there's no black void to wander around in, for me I hear thoughts like they are distant voices, but I hear them inside me as if my grey matter is picking up thoughts like how some machines can pick up signals and so I was able to hear 11 thinking and plant things in her mind like thoughts of freedom.
This didn't mean we'd ever really met, she was just aware of me, and she tried to reach out to me, but my powers hadn't reached the point that I could tell if she was seeing me. Now and again I did hear things and see something out of the corner of my eye, but that might just be my mind playing tricks on me. I still felt fairly certain that I must have gone la little loony while locked up here.
I had to keep trying to make a connection so that when we got out of here we wouldn't have to face the world all alone. Sure Eleven was timid, socially withdrawn and extremely cautious of other people, however, in the show, she would become fiercely protective and show great loyalty towards those who cared for her, especially to Mike whom she fell in love with, to the point of sacrificing herself to destroy the Monster when it threatened to harm her friends. That was the kind of friend I was going to need once we got out of here.
Besides, there were plans in my head that involved dimensional travel, if 11 could open a gateway into the Upside Down perhaps there were other places she could go to if she just wanted it badly enough and develop her powers, becoming stronger when using them. A long term goal, but it was something to aim for.
For now, I would just wait and practice with the minds I had access to, and when I did get out of here I would make sure that no one ever locked me up again.
(Line Break)
Hawkins National Laboratory. Hawkins, Indiana.
Eleven knew very little of the world outside her lab, and not that much about the lab, just the bits and pieces she had been able to glean through careful observation. She sometimes saw far off places as part of finding the people Papa sent her to spy on. She knew other children existed, though she had only ever met one other kid and that was when she was much younger and she only had vague memories of that other girl. Not that she was really a kid any more.
She'd not know that was anyone else like her in this world, or at least this was the case until Eleven discovered that actually there was someone else like her, who was also locked up here and tests were run on him as well. She'd discovered this when Papa, the only person who ever spoke more than a few words to her, had been walking her back to her room when they had to make a stop by his office so that he could quickly talk to someone on the phone about something that couldn't wait until later.
While she waited, standing patiently beside his desk, Eleven happened to spot a file sitting open on his desk. A few notes were written in Papa's handwriting in the margins and while 11 hadn't understood what the notes were saying as she couldn't read, but she'd seen an image the guy the file was about and she'd gotten the impression that he was somehow similar to her.
As it turned out he was and it had to be him who had reached out to her with whatever powers he had. Sometimes she heard a thought that didn't come from her and later when she'd used her own powers to find the person she'd locked up as she was, 11 had found the boy in his own cell. He was older than her, a man really.
She'd become a little obsessed with finding out more about this person who was like her, only they'd had no real contact so all she could do is go find him and spend a few moments every day trying to get through to him. Sometimes it seemed to work, he reacted as if he'd heard something or even seen her, but she'd couldn't maintain the connection, she would get too tired and the tests Papa ran took up a lot of her energy.
Maybe things would change soon Papa had told that she was going to have to leave her home and that he would not be going with her. She didn't understand why this was, or what it even really meant. She'd never been anywhere else other than here, at least as far as she knew. Where would she go? And why didn't Papa want her anymore? She'd done what he wanted, well nearly everything.
Things were changing, there were no more tests, and they stopped shaving her hair off, not that she minded that. She had proper clothes, even shoes, and what few things she'd been given over the years, little presents from Papa, they had been packed into a bag. That was all she had to show for nearly two decades of life not counting any files on her that the project kept in boxes to gather dust in some storeroom.
"Come on 11 its time to leave," Papa told her when he entered her room.
She had on her new clothes, and she was still getting used to them, and all her stuff was in her bag but she didn't get up off the bed. She'd often fantasised about escaping and going into the big wide world, and now that she had her chance to leave and go see it, she didn't want to rush off because she didn't know where to go.
That didn't stop her from being led out of the building. She didn't resist this, as she didn't wish to stay here, nor did she rush out since she had nowhere to rush off to. It wasn't until she saw the boy she'd been visiting, who was also getting escorted out, did she have any idea what to do next. She'd follow him and hope for the best, it would at least be better than just wandering aimlessly.
(Line Break)
Hawkins National Laboratory. Hawkins, Indiana.
"Go fuck yourself," I told the guard who slammed the gate on myself and 11.
With that man went back inside his booth and a few moments later I heard him start to make some funny noises. He was actually doing what I'd ordered him to do despite the fact that we'd remained in eye contact for only a moment and any command I gave didn't normally hold for long and he was still doing it. Thankfully he wasn't exposing himself in public. I didn't want to see that.
The only difference this time has been how angry I'd felt and I didn't normally get emotional due to the meds they'd had me on, drugs I was no longer taking, that had kept me calm and stopped me from trying to hurt people or myself. Now I was no longer on meds I might be able to fuel my powers with heightened emotions. Something to experiment with when I had the chance
"I don't know where to go," said 11.
Since I'd never seen this person outside of the TV show and this version of her was about twenty if I was any judge, we weren't exactly friends despite our efforts to make contact, but all we had in this world was each other, and I didn't think this young woman would do very well without someone to help her. Well, she did somewhat in the show, somehow, but she might have died in the woods if the Sheriff hadn't found her.
I would need her as my powers weren't great for hostile situations, but even if that wasn't the case I couldn't have left her here all alone, and it wasn't as if I had anyone else to talk to. Sure I could navigate 1990s American because while I was British the USA wasn't that different from the UK, everyone here would speak English, and unless television had really lied to me they exchanged goods and services for money like most other places, however, 11 could not.
As for the technology, that would be primitive compared to what I was used to, but not as bad as in other places in the world given that this was an advanced nation, and I was years ahead of anyone around here, so I'd adapt to stuff like mobile phones and computers faster than other people would. Heck if I could get my hands on a lot of money I knew that best things to invest in over the next decade and what technology was going to be left in the past.
"You can come with me" I offered the psychic girl.
This made her smile for a moment until she frowned again.
"Where are you going?" she asked.
That was a very, very good question.
"Well I guess we need somewhere to say and they did give us money for a taxi," I said.
Not that they'd called for one for us and we had no way of getting to a phone so giving us the money for a ride seemed rather pointless. Not that any of this could be considered a good idea. If I'd been in charge of this place I'd of had both 11 and I killed before burying our records. Actually, if I'd been in charge I wouldn't have experimented on kids in the first place.
However, instead of doing the smart thing and covering this all up, they'd let us go and they'd even given us our paperwork, birth certificates, medical records, albeit it censored ones, and all that stuff. I even had an ID declaring that I was twenty-one years old in case I wanted to buy beer or something.
"What's a taxi?" 11 questioned.
It was easy to forget that this young woman, who I assumed had been dressed in something fashionable for local people, had never lived outside of the lab, not that you could call that living. With her short hair and skinny body, she looked more like a boy than a girl, but she did have bumps on the front.
"Taxicabs are cars that you pay to ride in and the person who drives the car will take you where you want to go" I explained.
At least she understood that cars were a thing.
"Maybe there's a bus stop around here" I wondered.
She seemed to know what a bus was at least, or maybe she just didn't want to appear stupid by asking more questions.
"I guess we'll just follow the road and then look for some signs" I decided.
In the show, Eleven made to Hawkins on foot as a child so we should have an easier time of it, and she seemed happy to follow me, we even talked a little as we walked away from the lab.
"According to my ID, I'm John Doe" I read out, looking at my paperwork "How imaginative".
11 showed me her papers.
"What does mine say?" she wished to know.
I quickly read her birth certificate and ID card.
"You're Jane Doe, and you are twenty years old" I answered.
Before long we made it to a proper road which thankfully had signposts
"Hawkins is that way," I said.
It looked like a long way, but it wasn't as if we had anything better to do than walk.
"How do you know where to go?" 11 wondered.
"I read the signpost," I told her.
My next action was to point at the post.
"It says the name of the next place on this road, the town of Hawkins, and the number next to it is the distance in miles" I explained, "That's how far we have to travel to get there".
She still looked confused.
"How much is a mile?" she asked.
I needed a moment to think before I remembered.
"About 5000 feet," I told her "Or more than a thousand and a half meters, I don't remember the exact numbers. It never seemed important".
11 placed one foot in front of the other.
"A mile is very far" she stated.
I figured that she was imagining a lot of feet all in front of each other. How she knew numbers but not letters was a bit of a mystery. Maybe she didn't and really know and was just imagining it was a lot.
"The sooner we get moving the sooner we'll arrive," I said as if that was something meaningful.
(Line Break)
Diner. Hawkins, Indiana.
Upon arriving in town, and discovering that no one was going to give us a second look I took 11 to a diner and introduced her to the joy that were waffles, something I recalled from the show that she greatly enjoyed, and stuffing her face did make her happy. I'd never seen a women her age eat like this, and while I enjoyed some breakfast as well I was more sensible with my dining choices.
Not that I had to pay as I'd already Mind Tricked the waitress into thinking that I'd paid for everything. I felt a bit bad about robbing this place, and I might not have done it at all if 11 and were in any way prepared to live normal lives in this society. I'd surprised myself by how little it bothered me. All that time spent locked up hadn't just eroded the social skills I wasn't having much in the way empathy. Oh well, it wasn't as if I was Mind tricking people into killing themselves or hurting each other for me.
"This all seems right to me, but I never heard of a President Michael Dukakis," I said to myself "Pretty sure that the older Bush is supposed to be President in the late 80s and early 90s".
According to the paper and the radio, the history of this time as I knew it seemed to be mostly right. The Soviet Union had collapsed, and Eastern European countries were gaining independence. This President Dukakis guy was putting through measures that were in the process of diverting military spending into public services. I wondered how long this would last given the power of the Military-industrial complex who would be losing money because of these reforms.
"What are you talking about?" 11 wondered.
Given her isolated upbringing and lack of any real education, I didn't think she'd understand why I thought that a decrease in military spending would upset some of this country's most powerful and wealthiest citizens who were heavily invested in supplying America's war machine. Not that this was very relevant to us beyond the fact that MKUltra having been shut down to the intelligence services having their budgets slashed in favour of education programs and development of better housing for the poor.
"Nothing that needs concern you," I told her.
We had other things to worry about, such as finding somewhere to sleep tonight and keeping the hunger demon that was 11 well-fed. Also if someone decided that it wasn't a smart thing to have unleased two people with psychic powers and little in the way of social skills or morals upon the public, they'd send people after us and I'd need 11 to be at the top of her game, which meant keeping her happy and healthy.
Not that I could know for sure that anyone would be sent to deal with us. There were other psychics out there and at least one of them was a criminal they didn't seem to be doing anything about her in the show, and while it might seem reckless to leave us out here it would be far from the dumbest thing a government group has ever done.
"We need to find rooms for tonight at least," I said to 11 "I hope there is a hotel somewhere around here".
Mind tricking someone into giving us a free meal or a room would be simple enough, but I didn't think it would work forever, I'd have to make enough money to buy or rent an apartment, only I had no money or a job and to get somewhere to stay I'd need a down payment first, something I didn't have.
I did consider committing some major crime, like say robbing a bank, however, my mind control powers wouldn't work on security cameras and they'd have a lot of armed guards. So it seemed wise to think smaller, maybe empty the tills of some stores that didn't have good security, but it wouldn't be wise to do that near a place we wanted to live in, even if it was just for a while, and this seemed a good a place as any. Maybe 11 and I could go on a crime spree of some kind in a major city, something to think about, or steal from a rich person.
Another thing to think about was protection. Given how easily 11 became attached to people I felt sure she'd protect me, but I had too much male pride to want to depend on her, and she could be overwhelmed or taken by surprise, so it would good to get a gun. Not that I'd ever fired a gun outside of a video game.
Already I considered going off and trying to find Eight, 11's sort of sister, she had a gang and knew how to survive, but finding a small group of people in a massive city, assuming that they were still hiding out in cities by this year, would be next to impossible and rather dangerous if 11 couldn't do her remote viewing thing to find Kali. Still, it would be better to have some sort of plan rather than to wander aimlessly. Assuming that we couldn't build some sort of life for ourselves in this town.
Once she'd finished eating 11 and I began to wander around town, looking for hotel or a motel, something like that, I wanted somewhere clean and private so I could stash 11 there overnight and go hit a bar. I'd not sex in what felt years, although it may have only been months since I'd gotten laid and while I didn't intend to mind control anyone into sleeping with me, I didn't see the harm in making a single woman think that I was attractive and then letting things progress.
The only hard part would be sneaking away from my new best friend as she might not want to be left alone, and she couldn't really come with me if I was going on the pull.
(Line Break)
Motel. Hawkins, Indiana.
So far 11, or Jane to use her proper name, was enjoying the outside world, it had much better food than she normally got fed and there was much more of it. Then after a very filling meal 14, or John, had found them this motel to stay at for the night. He'd told her that it might not be very pleasant, but it seemed comfortable enough to her and this place had a thing called television, she'd been transfixed for hours, always changing channels as if she had to see everything that was on offer for her viewing pleasure.
11's favourite TV show so far was something called Cheers in which some strange people sat around a bar and talked to each other, and this was funny according to the people who couldn't be seen on the screen, and 11 had to wonder why 14 had left her alone to go to one of these places as she would have gone with him.
She'd happily do anything that he wanted since he'd been taking such good care of her. Without him 11 wouldn't have known where to go to get food, nor would she have known where to go to find a bed to sleep in, and he'd shown her the amazing thing that was called television.
Not that she had many ideas of what 14 would want her to do, she was trying to find out from the television, but it wasn't giving a lot of clear answers about what she and 14 should be doing. On the TV men and women did many things together, such as putting their lips together, something the girls very much seemed to enjoy, only some times this seemed to the wrong thing to do and the girl got upset.
That didn't make sense to the former test subject because if you like something you should just do it and the boys seemed to like it too. Quite a bit it would seem given how many people were doing it, and she'd noticed that people liked to talk and sometimes yell at each other, although 11 had no idea why, if you didn't have something important to say why talk at all?
11 watched many shows that evening, some of which seemed to care a lot about what kinds of food and drink she enjoyed and what clothes she wore, 11 didn't see the point of this as clothes were just something you wore so you didn't feel cold and 14 decided what she ate. Why couldn't he just decide for her rather than the TV?
She was fairly certain that not everything that is shown on the television was real, some of what it had to offer must be like the drawings she'd made and hung up on the wall of her room, made-up things, stuff she'd seen in her mind that only existed for her.
At least no men in scary masks had entered her room to try to kill her, this didn't seem like something that could happen a lot or there wouldn't be so many people around. Perhaps it was all made-up stuff, that would explain why some of the people in the shows looked too colourful to be real and did things she'd never seen anyone do. If they were real then she wanted to meet one of these Thundercats.
When it became late at night 11 heard something in the next room, that was where 14 would be sleeping, and she soon heard what sounded like a girl, and for reasons that she simply didn't understand 11 did not like that at all. Why did he need to show any attention to other girls? Why did he talk to them when he could talk to her? She listened to everything he had to say.
11 didn't need to sneak out of her room to see what 14 was up to with this other girl she just turned the TV off and settled down. She'd gone to see 14 this way so many times that it was easy for her, her nose rarely bleeds these days, not when just doing this.
Once she'd found 14 she saw him with this girl who was not her and at first, she thought they were just doing the kissing thing that everyone did on the television. Only they soon started doing more, and 11 worried that 14 was hurting this girl, only she looked happy with what John was doing, very happy, as did he.
11 felt a little upset by this as she wondered why 14 wasn't playing this game with her, but she was also very curious as to what it was they were doing, it looked like fun and she'd not seen this on the television. It really should be on the television as it involved kissing and more. She'd just have to watch 14 very carefully and figure exactly what this thing he liked to do with girls was and then get him to do it with her so that he wouldn't pay attention to any other girls.