Pandora's Boxes

Hawkins, IN

May 30, 1986

After what felt like the longest day of school he had ever experienced, the final bell mercifully set Mike free. Their friends had asked where El was and Mike had explained that she wasn't feeling well and that he was going over to see her once Hopper got off work. It was mostly true, though it sounded more like she was sick, rather than having her life tossed into turmoil. They accepted this answer as they all headed off to the arcade, while Mike went straight to the library and rushed through his homework, not wanting it looming over his head for the weekend. He also wasn't eager to get to the station too early. The prospect of hanging out quietly in the corner of Hopper's office was nowhere near the top of the list of his favorite activities.

Once he could stand the wait no longer, Mike packed up and biked over to the station, timing it perfectly so that Hopper was just heading out to the Blazer as he arrived. After another quiet ride out to the house, they turned down the driveway and pulled up to the house. As they left the Blazer and headed toward the porch, Eleven was there to greet them. She practically tackled Mike as she leapt off the porch and wrapped him in a hug. It was only the fact that he was used to this greeting that she didn't manage to knock him to the ground. She planted a quick kiss on his cheek, bringing a rosy flush to his face.

"Nice to see you too," Hopper teased, eliciting a blush from Eleven as well.

"Hi Daddy," she smiled with an exaggerated sweetness, still keeping Mike wrapped up tight in her arms.

With an exasperated groan, Hopper walked past the two of them and up onto the porch. Mike and Eleven eventually untangled from one another and followed him inside.

After dropping his shoes and backpack by the door, Mike followed the others into the kitchen. Hopper couldn't help but notice both of them casting curious glances at the file boxes on the counter.

"Okay, dinner first," he declared. "I have a feeling after we go through those," he continued, nodding toward the boxes, "none of us are going to feel much like eating. And I don't think the pizza is going to heat well for a third time."

Around lunch, Hopper had called home to check on Eleven, and asked her to throw last night's untouched pizza into the oven to reheat for dinner. The box now sat on the counter, steaming hot and smelling delicious. They all grabbed drinks and plates, dished up a few slices and settled at the table once more to eat. They did their best to make small-talk, discussing their days and pretending it was anything close to a normal family dinner. Inside, each was lost in thought about what the boxes could contain. Hopper knew in general what was to be found, but even Mike and Eleven knew that nothing good could come in secret boxes from Hawkins lab.

After finishing off the pizza and clearing the table, Hopper walked over to the fridge to grab a beer, feeling he was going to need it before the night was done.

"Alright you two, grab those boxes and bring them into the living room," he instructed. "Might as well rip this band-aid off."

Eleven looked puzzled first at Hopper, who was already turning to head into the other room, then questioningly at Mike. She had needed band-aids a few times, after getting cuts and scrapes, but she wasn't sure what that had to do with boxes of paperwork.

Seeing her confusion, Mike explained, "it's just a saying that means to get something unpleasant over with quickly. Like when you need to take a sticky band-aid off, it doesn't help to go slow or to wait, sometimes it is better to just to rip it off all at once."

She thought about it for a moment and decided it made much more sense than a lot of other phrases she had learned in the last two years, so she let it go at that. They each picked up a box and followed Hopper into the living room, where they found him pushing the coffee table away from the couch and across to the far side of the room. That left them with a large open space to spread out. They set the boxes down and sat cross-legged next to each other, while Hopper settled down opposite them, his back resting against the chair.

"Okay, here's what's going to happen," he began. "The files in this box are not very pleasant, according to Dr. Owens. When the lab closed down, he offered them to me and I told him to hang onto them, in case we needed them someday. It looks like this is someday." He paused to take a breath, letting the gravity of what he was saying sink it. "Jane, I'm leaving the decision up to you for what we look at and what we don't. We can pull just the pages I know we need, or we can go through it all. Or, we can take these out back, have a bonfire and forget they ever existed."

If Hopper was being honest with himself, which was rarely the case, he was actually terrified to open the lids on these Pandora's boxes; afraid of the horrors that might come spilling out. Still he continued. "In these boxes, are Brenner's files on his grand project," he said, tapping the label on the end of one box. "I think we can agree it's a safe assumption there will be at least eleven files in here, but I wouldn't be surprised to find more. So take a minute, both of you, and decide what you want to do. Whatever is there, whatever we look at, we're not going to be able to unsee."

His speech complete, Hopper sat back against the chair once more and cracked open his beer. Eleven stared intently at the boxes, unsure of what she wanted to do. Like her Dad, she was more than a little afraid of what was in them. These were Papa's files. Somehow, just being around them left her feeling like was he standing there right now, staring disapprovingly down at her. On the other hand, the very life she was living now was in utter defiance of him. These files, everything he had kept secret from her, were one more strike against his grasp over her.

She looked first from the boxes, up into Mike's sweet brown eyes, deep with concern. She knew he wanted to do anything and everything to protect her from any more hurt. She looked then to Hopper, his face streaked with its own worry. She knew what she wanted to do.

"We look," she stated, matter-of-factly.

Hopper breathed a long sigh out through his nose. He had known she was going to want to look; of course she would. Still, he had hoped just a little bit she would have gone with the bonfire idea.

"Okay then. Where do you want to start? We can find your file. Or we can look and see if there is a file marked twelve." He hesitated, afraid to offer a final choice, knowing in his gut it's the one she would choose. "Or, we can start at number one, and go through them all."

Eleven thought about it for a moment. She knew she was going to want to see everything, but she had to start small or she would lose her nerve.

"Me," she said, less assuredly this time.

Nodding his approval, Hopper reached out and lifted the lid off of the first box. Inside were numerous identical file folders of varying thickness. Between every few folders, breaking them into groups, were larger dividers. These were neatly labeled with a flag labeling the experiment number of that group. Hopper had assumed that they would be organized in such a fashion, as Dr. Owens had said he took them straight from the file cabinet in Brenner's office and boxed them, not even pausing to glance at the contents. He had wanted as little to do with the lab's old projects as possible. Still, he'd had a gut feeling they would be important at some point. What chilled Hopper to his core, looking into the box, was the number of groups.

He had been hoping beyond hope that Jane had been one of the last experiments, and so, would not even be in this first box. Instead, there she was, third from the end. Her's was one of the largest sections of folders, matched only be the section behind, labeled 012. Hopper reached a hand nervously into the box, as though some venomous snake were hiding among the pages, waiting to strike. He wrapped his fingers around the stack of folders in the section marked 011 and pulled them free. As he set the folders down on the carpet, he used his free hand to push the box off to the side, trying to put a buffer between the horrors in it and his little girl's own stack.

He spread the stack out so the labels on the cover of each folder could be read. The first was marked Medical. Under that were several labeled Test Results with an accompanying range of dates, indicating the time period that folder covered. Finally, there were four folders marked Journal, again with accompanying date ranges. With no good place to start, Eleven reached out and picked up the first folder, and set it in her lap. Hopper swung around so that he was sitting next to her.

The two people who cared about her more than anything else in the world sat protectively on either side of her as she flipped open the folder. Inside were page after page of medical charts and notes. For the most part, they were the standard sort kept in every pediatrician's office, tracking height and weight, dates of immunizations, general notes from physicals, except her checkups were much more frequent than the average child. Affixed to the inside of the front cover was a brief biographical summary:

Experiment 011

Born: August 9, 1971

Weight: 6 lbs 11 oz

Length: 19 inches

Mother: Teresa Ives - Project Red Spark - Subject 417

Father: Unknown

Acquisition: August 9, 1971

Eleven looked up and smiled to herself for a brief moment; she had a birthday. So far, they hadn't had any idea when her birthday might be, nor even what year for certain. It turned out they had been correct on the year, which was a relief. Her birth certificate - the one Dr. Owens had succeeded in crafting and getting legally registered - had listed a birth date of April 17, 1971. Unfortunately, on anything official, she would always have to go with that, but in private, among friends and family, she would have a new reason to look forward to August.

Turning her attention back to the folder, she began to flip through the actual pages of details. On the pages corresponding to her birthday checkups each year, a simple photograph was attached. Mike and Hopper studied these with intense interest. Mike couldn't help but feel sad for her once more, that these simple snapshots of a little girl against a bare white lab wall, would be the only childhood photos she would ever have. He resolved right then to borrow one of Jonathan's old cameras and start helping her get a collection of happier snapshots. Hopper, on the other hand, was growing more and more furious with every turn of the page at the cold and unfeeling details of a stolen childhood. More than once, he wanted to stuff the folders back in the box and grab a lighter on the way out to the yard. Still, he held his rage inside. This moment wasn't for him, this was for her.

Unaware of the emotional turmoil occurring on either side of her, Eleven stared hard at the photos as they went by. It was so strange to see herself as a small child. It had been rare to come across an actual mirror in the lab. Most of what she knew of her own features growing up had been from glances at her reflection in glass she would pass by. Now, looking back at times she had forgotten, she was shocked to see the transformation from little girl to experiment eleven. From ages one to five, she could see her hair growing to shoulder length, kept in either a braid or pigtails. It had been a lighter, sandy blond back then. She had been given real clothes to wear too. First, soft looking footie pajamas as an infant and later, dark blue overalls, like the ones Mama had shown her in her dream. As a five year old, she even had a small, sweet smile on her face in the snapshot.

Everything changed when she turned to the next page. The photograph taken as she turned six revealed a girl utterly transformed. Gone were the blond braids, replaced by stubble buzzed almost to the scalp. Gone were the comfy overalls, replaced by a thin, one piece hospital gown. Perhaps most heartbreaking of all, gone was any trace of a smile. The bright eyes that had gazed into the camera lens a year before now refused to rise from the floor. Mike could feel the beginnings of tears stinging his eyes, but he held them back. There would be time for all that later. Right now, there was a daunting mountain of folders that still lay before them.

Each page after, the photos revealed a scared, small girl, a little taller than the year before, a little skinnier, a lot more lost to the world. The last page finally contained a photo of the Eleven they had met a mere two months after it was taken. Closing the folder, Eleven set it aside and picked up the first Test Results folder and flipped it open. Inside were detailed descriptions of tests she had been subjected to in the lab; some with her active participation, some just observing her. Countless charts and graphs filled out the bulk of the these folders. Here and there, a section of paper-tape was attached to the page with wavy lines Hopper recognized as having come from the brain monitoring equipment he had watched Dr. Owens attach to Will on numerous occasions. On the strips, a particular spike or flatline would be circled in red with contextless numbers jotted next to them. To someone who knew what they were looking at, these folders probably held a great deal of information but to the three of them, sitting on the living room carpet, there was very little to be learned.

Finally, they came to what turned out to be Brenner's personal journals. Contained in the thick folders, in Brenner's meticulous hand, were his detailed thoughts, observations and hopes regarding experiment eleven. There, in the first lines of the first folder, was the answer they had all been afraid they would find.

August 10, 1971

Experiment 011 and her identical twin sister, experiment 012, were successfully delivered yesterday and brought immediately to the lab. The children have been numbered in delivery order. Throughout the pregnancy, mother T. Ives was kept in the dark regarding the second fetus. She was heavily sedated during the extraction, though she revived momentarily to witness the birth of 012. She was promptly put under once more. With the assistance of our medical staff placed at the hospital, she has been convinced her daughter was stillborn, so there should be no risk of her attempting to reclaim the child.

Throughout her testing in the program, Ms. Ives showed some of the strongest markers of telekinetic ability we have ever recorded. As such, I have every confidence these two will have similar abilities which can be fostered from the earliest possible age, providing us with the most invaluable results of the entire project.

Without warning, several tears splashed onto the yellowed pages. Two pairs of eyes snapped to Eleven's face with concern; her worst fears having been confirmed. Eleven let the folder fall from her fingers as her breath caught in her throat in a choked sob. Knowing comfort and support was waiting on either side, she turned and buried her face in Hopper's chest as he folded his arms around her. A part of her wanted Mike's loving arms around her as well, but in that moment, she needed Daddy more. Her mind was a storm of thoughts swirling one around another. She had a twin sister. Papa had written it down himself, in a place she was never supposed to see, so it couldn't be a lie. If she had a sister called Twelve, that was who she had seen last night. And that meant Papa still being alive was real too. Perhaps worst of all, though, was the revelation that Mama had seen Twelve being born, and not her. Twelve was the girl she called Jane; the girl Mama fought so hard to rescue.

She pulled back from Hopper, a question forming on her lips, not quite able to escape. She turned next to Mike, struggling to get the thought out.

"If I'm not Jane, who am I?" she finally choked out.

She dissolved to tears once more, falling into Mike this time, oblivious to the world. He wrapped her protectively in his arms, gently stroking her hair and whispering that he was there, that it would be alright. As she started to calm once more, he held her out, steadying her, so he could look deep into her soft brown eyes, so reddened by tears.

"You are still Jane. You were Jane the day Mama tried to save you in the Rainbow Room. You were Jane the day you came home to her. You were Jane when you found her in the In-Between so she could finally tell her story." He paused, making sure she was understanding what he was saying, then went on. "You are Eleven. You are El. You are Jane Ives and you are Jane Hopper. You are the girl who loves Eggos and picnics by the lake and sunrises. Names don't change who you are."

He reached a hand up and carefully wiped a final tear from her cheek as the vaguest hint of smile pulled at the corners of her mouth.

"Thank you," she whispered, pulling in a deep breath at last.

Thinking that was enough for the night, Hopper started to gather the folders and tuck them back into their place. As he reached for the lid, Eleven suddenly said "Wait. Twelve next."

"I think you've been through enough for one day," Hopper tried to object.

"No. Rip off the band-aid," she said, throwing Hopper's phrase back at him.

With a resigned sigh he fished out the next stack folders. Eleven grabbed the Medical folder off the top of the stack and flipped it open. The summary inside the cover was identical to her own with the exception of the experiment designation at the top. She began to leaf through the pages of medical summary and annual photos. She had to see for herself this girl who apparently grew up alongside her, somewhere else in the lab. The first few photos could have been copies of Eleven's own, but they began to depart at age two. Where Eleven transitioned into the comfy overalls, Twelve was given athletic wear. Her medical records also included additional entries beyond the regular physicals. Where Eleven had been a quiet and gentle child, Twelve had been much more rough and active, having suffered a broken leg at age 3 and a broken arm at 4. In both cases, the accompanying notes expressed amazement at how much faster she healed than was normal for a child her age.

Eleven continued flipping the pages, unconsciously looking for a certain picture. Though she didn't realize it, she wanted to know what happened to Twelve when she turned six. Another turn and there it was. Eleven's heart sank. No gown. No shaved head. Twelve stood there, smile as big as ever, in a bright red track suit, her hair pulled back in a tight braid. She turned again and again. Year after year, a little taller, a little more fit, the same big smile. Each year a new track suit, green, blue, purple, red. In the last photo stood a smiling Twelve in a gray track suit, a bandolier of throwing knives slung over one shoulder and across her chest. Eleven stared in disbelief. Not only was she clothed and given weapons, this final photo was taken outside in a back corner of the lab grounds near a cluster of trees. In the background was the very pipe a terrified Eleven had used to escape weeks later as a monster from another dimension tore apart the lab.

A new rage began to grow in Eleven, like the first sparks of a match about to ignite. She had known Papa was a bad man. She had suspected, since she was Eleven, others like her had been taken and turned into his twisted experiments. But she had always assumed they were treated just like her. Locked away in a little room with a little bed and a lamp and a gown and a stuffed cat. Instead, her own sister, living somewhere else in the building, got to have real clothes, weapons, exercise, sunshine; she got to go outside.

She was breathing hard now. Hopper recognized the look of determination on her face; he had seen it the night she marched headlong back into the lab to end things once and for all. Mike was concerned just how much the revelations of her sister were affecting her.

"Hey, are you alright?" he asked, resting a hand on her arm.

She flipped the the folder closed and set it back on the stack before her. Ignoring Mike's question, she turned to Hopper and said, "Number One."

He didn't like that she was doing this to herself, but he knew she had more right to look at the folders, than he had right to refuse. He fished the stack out labeled 001. The medical charts seemed to be the most revealing, so she flipped that open first.

Experiment 001

Born: June 9, 1956

Name: Brandon

Acquired: July 14, 1963, 12th Street Park, Chicago, IL

Deceased: December 4, 1967

Complications during administration of psychoactive drug, X-47-R

She flipped quickly through the pages, stopping to examine each photo. He was a scared young boy who looked in each photo like he had been recently crying, but like Twelve, he had been allowed clothes.

She shut the file and asked for the next.

Experiment 002 had been a girl, age nine, taken in 1964 in Mexico City. Her file contained no photographs. A year after being taken, the lab had determined she possessed no special abilities and was of no further use to them. Electroshock therapy was administered until she had no recollection of who or where she was. She was then abandoned at a hospital in Chicago. Eleven naturally thought of Mama; the lab was apparently well practiced at destroying the minds of people they wanted out of the way.

Numbers three through six all were taken in 1965. Two boys and another girl. All were given gowns like Eleven. All were terrified in their photos. One boy and the girl turned out to be of no use and were scrambled and abandoned within a year; one at a hospital in New York, the other dropped off at a homeless camp in California. The other boy stayed at the lab until 1969, when his file was closed out just stating that he was deceased, with no explanation of how. Eleven could only suspect the horrible things Papa's men probably did that they wouldn't want to write down.

On she went through the stacks. Mike watched in growing horror as the folders began to pile up; each representing a childhood lost and destroyed by the evil that was Hawkins lab. Not knowing what else to do, he laid a comforting hand on her back as she read, if nothing else than to remind her that support was there if she needed him. Hopper sat there, handing over stack after stack of files. For his part, the combined instincts of cop and father were telling him that someday he would have to go through these folders and see if anything could be done to bring closure for these families.

In 1966, two children were taken by the lab. 007 was a two year old boy who died of the flu within months of being brought to the lab. This surprised Eleven. The lab had always been kept so clean and controlled, she had never had so much as a cold growing up there. It hadn't been until she was living in the cabin that she got sick for the first time when Hopper "brought home a bug from the station" as he had put it. The other child taken, she had been waiting for. 008. Kali, taken in London, England at the age of five. Eleven already knew she had been allowed the same overalls, though she got to keep them longer.

Escaped: March 19, 1976 - Whereabouts unknown

During a power failure, 008 was spotted by guards trying to access the rooms of other subjects. Suspect she was seeking out experiment 011. Guards gave chase and she made it out the front door. Used her mental projections to hide herself until guards were gone then made her escape off grounds.

New failsafe lockdown measures put in place in case of future power failures.

After taking Kali, it seemed the lab was satisfied with progress for a while. Inevitably though, the abductions resumed in 1970 with experiments nine and ten. Number thirteen, a boy in a gown, finished out the first box. Hopper tried once more to persuade her to stop for the night, but she persisted, so he cracked the lid on the second box. Folder after folder, stolen childhood upon stolen childhood. By the end, she wasn't even looking at Hopper, or the box, between folders. She just kept calling for the next one, determined to see each and every child the lab ripped from the life they could have had and locked them away in the world that would become their prison.

Eventually, she came to number 023. A little girl, seized from Ontario, Canada in 1980 at the age of three. Like Eleven, she was stripped of regular clothes and given a gown and a very short haircut. Sad, downcast eyes in all three of her photos. Her time at the lab ended in pneumonia at the age of 5. Feeling a connection to this little girl, so much like herself in how the lab had treated her, Eleven found herself drawn to Papa's journal. She flipped to the middle and read a few sentences. Apparently at age three, she had already been able to crush the pop can for him. She could look at a picture of someone and tell Papa where they were in the lab. Eleven felt her heart breaking for this poor little girl, so much like her, and feeling in some way that perhaps she had gotten lucky, dying before Papa could force her into the bath to chase Russians and monsters. That hurt even more, realizing that death was preferable to the things that happened in the lab.

She quickly wiped a tear from her eye and demanded, "Next!" perhaps a little more curtly than she intended. When no folder appeared, she looked up at Hopper, his face a gray wash of exhaustion.

"That's it. She was the last one," he replied, wearily, looking at the piles of folders scattered all around them. He had given up on putting the folders away eight shattered lives ago.

"Good," she whispered, much more gently. The determination that had fueled her through the boxes washed away and left her feeling exhausted and heartsick. Pushing away the pile in front of her, she slid her feet out and leaned back against the couch. Only then did she allow the tears out that had been begging to break free for hours. Onward they fell, not in anguished sobs but in silent streams for lives lost and forgotten. Quickly losing the fight to keep her eyes open, she leaned her head onto Mike's shoulder. He wrapped an arm around her back and pulled her closer.

Hopper, his beer long finished, stood and wandered off to the kitchen in search of something a little stronger. He pulled a bottle down from the top of the cupboards that he kept around for just such an occasion. Only after pouring a generous glass of the dark, amber spirits did he look at the clock on the wall and realize it was after one in the morning. Suddenly he was incredibly grateful all this had happened on a Friday night. He worried briefly about whether Mike would be in trouble for being missing once more but decided that was a problem for Saturday morning Hopper. Very late Friday night Hopper needed to sit down before he collapsed.

Walking back into the living room, he noticed Eleven and Mike were both fast asleep, her nestled close into his side, him with both arms protectively around her. Once more, father Hopper wanted to pull them apart and tuck his little girl safely in bed. Practical Hopper knew that right now being wrapped up in Mike's arms was exactly what his little girl needed. Father Hopper hated practical Hopper sometimes; the smug jerk. He took a long swallow of his drink, hoping to make practical Hopper go away, but no such luck. Setting his drink down for a minute, he grabbed a blanket and covered the two sleeping kids. Retrieving his drink once more, he shut off all but the hallway light and headed off for his own bed.

Somewhere deep in her mind, Eleven knew that fresh nightmares would take shape from all she had read tonight, and the journals she knew she would eventually read. But that would be another night. Tonight, wrapped tightly in Mike's protective arms, the nightmares would stay away.