Work Text:
1977 – age 13
008 ran. Hawkins Lab was silent behind her, but it was only a matter of –
BLARN. BLARN. BLARN.
Shit. 008 ran faster, gulping air and hissing in pain as the brambles of low bushes caught on her legs and arms.
BLARN. BLARN. BLARN.
She chanced a look back, seeing the red alarm lights and white searchlight gleam through the trees, as well as bright flashlight pinpoints from staff as they gave chase.
BLARN. BLARN. BLARN.
Turning back around, 008 focused on dodging and moving. Her feet were bleeding and she hoped the dark would hide the trail. All she knew was that she had to get away, get far enough to hide. She didn’t know what direction to go; all she had was her hospital gown, a braided back head of hair, and a small block clutched in her fist. No compass, no map, only the name of a city she heard the staff mention visiting, one so large you could get lost in – Chicago.
--
1980 – age 16
“Hey! You! Get back here!”
008 swore softly, tugging Mick along as they both ran, weaving through alleys, feeling cold sweat soak through her shirt. She could hear the rustling of Mick’s bag full of food. A gunshot rang out and pinged off a pile of garbage over their heads, the shop owner still shouting at them to stop running and calling for help.
Turning a corner, 008 pressed them against the wall and grabbed Mick’s face so the girl would look at her.
“Not a sound,” she said lowly. Mick nodded, and 008 released her, flattened back against the wall and focused. She pictured the wall behind them as right in front of them, imagining how the alley would look when the shop owner rounded the corner to find no one there. Blood trickled out of her nose as she willed the illusion into reality. She felt more than heard Mick’s gasp at the wall that appeared before them, also feeling the girl’s gaze slide onto her.
The shop owner rounded the corner, hollers abruptly stopping as he gazed down the empty alley. He crept forward, body inches from the girls but his gaze straight.
“Hey!” He shouted suddenly, almost startling 008 from her concentration. She redoubled her efforts, pulling on memories of torture. She felt the anger build in her chest and poured it into the wall, watching it glitter become and more substantial than before.
Swearing loudly, the shop owner walked further down the alley and turned the corner. Mick opened her mouth, but was swiftly silenced by 008’s hand.
“Not yet,” 008 barely whispered. “He could still turn around.”
And so they stood for another thirty seconds, 008’s nose dripping blood to the ground as she held the largest illusion she had made for her personal record of two minutes.
“Now.” She murmured, and the two girls broke back down the way they came, not speaking again until they were a safe distance from the shop.
“Thanks, but what the hell was that?” Mick asked, panting.
“A talent. Just be glad we were in that shop together,” Kali replied, voice hoarse and low.
“I’ll say. I never got your name, even though I gave you mine.”
008 shook her head. “Don’t have one.”
Mick nodded, then looked down and fiddled with the bag straps. “So, where are ya going?”
008 took a moment wiping the blood from her face, searching Mick’s with dark eyes. After a full minute of silence, 008 said, “You were almost pretty slick with that shoplift. What’s your story?”
Mick leaned back against the alley wall and slid down to sit. 008 crouched, knees high and feet flat, keeping the girl at eye level. Mick eyes scanned the Indian girl’s face, then started her story. They sat there for a half hour, 008 listening and watching with an inscrutable expression.
“… and so I ran into you in the shop aisle, introduced myself, then the shop guy spotted those extra chips in my bag. You know the rest.”
008 was silent for a few more moments before standing, stretching out her back before reaching a hand out to Mick.
“C’mon, we’re going home.”
--
1982 – age 18
Adrenaline raced through 008, standing on the rooftop of an apartment building in north Illinois. They had done it. Her little family had found someone.
The idea had taken root a year and a half ago. When she first broached the idea to her family, they had been reluctant. They wanted to lay under the radar. So she softened, vulnerable, and finally answered the question they had all asked her when they first met: “How the hell did you do that?”
She detailed vague memories of a brightly colored mobile, blankets of rough cotton, brown skin, and flavorful food. She spoke words she had kept hidden, mouth remembering the shape of the little Hindi she retained. She told them of a Holi party and how in the joyous chaos of colors, she ended up in the back of car, knocked out. Then came the memories of Hawkins Lab – the torture, the agony, the isolation, and the rage that built slowly in her chest at the terror of her siblings. How she was tested and prodded and praised and punished like a pet until the day she managed to make strong enough illusions to run.
She had fought back tears until Funshine had picked her up like a child – the 13 year dam broke and she cried, finally mourning the losses she couldn’t name.
They had all agreed after that, eyes gleaming with anger.
She had been practicing ever since. Bigger illusions, longer, more complex, more detailed, more real. The first time she had simulated a fully moving car with people inside, just for 60 seconds, she nearly fainted. She had collapsed in exhaustion, but was caught, and looked up to the beautiful faces of her family – Funshine smiling proudly, Mick and Axel hollering in delight – and she broke into the first genuine smile she could remember.
They had found this man, an old employee of Hawkins Lab, found his address. She asked if they could bring him to the roof, unwilling to leave a mess for his girlfriend to clean when she returned from her night shift. They had agreed.
The roof access door flew open with a bang, and 008 turned to watch a masked Funshine dragging a man through the frame.
“Whatever you wanna do, do it back here where you can’t be seen from street level,” Axel called to her, closing the door behind him and helping Funshine prop the trussed fellow against the wall left of the door.
008 crouched in front of him, tugging her corduroy jacket closer around her and watched as Axel held smelling salts under his nose.
The ex-employee shot awake with a muffled scream, eyes rolling wildly until her landed on 008. She spoke, voice low so he had to be silent to listen. “Stay silent, or I will kill you instantly.”
She jerked her head towards Axel, who was playing with a knife. She looked back to the man, who nodded in agreement. Axel stepped forward, cutting his gag. The man took a deep breath before rasping out, “What do you all want? Who are you?”
008 tilted her head. “You don’t remember me?”
She willed her younger self into being, existing in the place she crouched. She watched his eyes widen in recognition and ended the illusion, peering at him like a bird of prey on its perch.
“Y-you… I… Oh, I’m so…”
“Sorry?” 008 interjected, rising and stalking forward. “You’re sorry now?”
She grabbed the man’s chin, tilting it up to look her in the eye. He watched as her eyes bore into his, and suddenly he fell through a dark void, landing painfully on linoleum.
He looked around, breath accelerating as he realized he was in an exam room, so similar to the ones in Hawkins Lab. But he couldn’t be here. He was so far from here, he knew it! He staggered to his feet, looking in the one-way window that showed only his reflection. He paled as a young Indian girl stared back, eyes large and inky.
He felt electricity course through his body, causing him to spasm and fall to the floor, screaming in pain. He felt bully clubs land blows on his body, this little girl’s body, and felt a terrible pain blossom behind his eyes as he watched, as if dissociating, him torturing and beating the little girl as she tried to use her power.
008 watched the man’s eyes dilate, her own narrowed and focused on showing him her memories, immersing him in the terror and panic of them. She pulled all that smoldering rage and let it burn, pouring from her into his mind. She felt him shake, the whites of his eyes growing bloodshot and tearing up. A dark, violent joy blossomed up her spine as blood dripped from her nose and stained her mouth and teeth red.
“Had enough?” she asked, voice ripping the man out of her memories. He blinked up at her, shaking and stammering. As he tried to form words, she crouched again, untying him. He watched as she stood back, eyes wide and shining and filled with wrath. She looked a fury, eyes alight and mouth filled with so much blood and teeth bared in a terrible grin, reveling in the fear she felt him breaking under.
She took several steps back, and looked towards Axel to ask for his knife. “An opening!” he thought, and shot up, stumbling to his feet and dashing to escape.
He only realized his mistake when he heard her jubilant laugh behind him. Frightened and shaky, he was just too slow. She ran, caught up to him, and jerked him back, kicking his knees out from under him and cupping his jaw and occipital bone in her hands. 008 bent over, craning her head as she turned his face towards hers.
“I never got the option to be done.”
With a sharp and clean movement, 008 jerked his jaw up and to the side, breaking his neck with some breath of mercy. He fell, eyes flat, to the ground at 008’s feet.
008 exhaled, feeling lightning up her spine and through her hands. She stared for a beat. Two beats. Then threw her head back and screamed, tongue dipping slightly from her mouth and catching drops of blood in her catharsis.
She shrieked for what felt like hours, releasing her exhilaration and fear. She was the destroyer now. She brought pain, she crushed the powerlessness of her past underfoot. 008 was fading, she felt it. 008 was the terrified girl of her childhood. Now, oh now, she could protect 008, avenge her. She was a force of nature, of justice. She would walk over bones and decorate the world in the skulls of those who hurt her family. She was ancient, endless, dark with long, tangled hair, and unstoppable.
She slowly fell silent, and as she did, the horizon of shadowed trees under bright moonlight came into focus. Axel and Funshine came up beside her, as did Mick, having come up hearing the screaming.
She didn’t look at them, let them visually check her for harm. After a moment, she opened her mouth and hoarsely spoke.
“My name is Kali.”
--
1984 – age 20
“Is Kali what your mother named you?” Jane asked.
Kali smiled fondly, looking at her sister wrapped up in the corduroy jacket and snuggled well under blankets.
“No, I don’t think so. The name she gave me was washed out by the lab. Just the last name I picked is something I remember her saying.”
“What’s that?”
“Prasad.”
“Does your name mean something?”
Kali chuckled and smoothed back Jane’s hair. “Yes. Prasad, I’ve come to learn, is holy food, blessed by gods. I suppose my mother had been feeding me some at one point.”
“And your first name?”
Jane twisted to look at Kali’s face and met her eyes. She saw, sitting behind the sisterly adoration that shone through them, was something dark. Something violent. Something unafraid of its power.
“Kali is the goddess of death, power, and destruction. She brings vengeance.”