STRANGER THINGS HAVE HAPPENED_JIM HOPPER

012

"Yeah. We are," he responded as if it were the next logical step. "Uh, so, why don't you start with the Times, and we'll check out the Post."

Marissa gave a resentful scoff at the assumption that she would be doing anything with Hopper, and looked to Powell for support. Ana could only shake her head in disbelief at Hopper's astounding thickness.

Marissa, who was visibly beyond done with Hopper's idiocracy by that point, turned to walk away from the crew. However, she stopped just short of Ana in her journey to escapethem. "Watch out for that one, he'll leave you high and dry," she said while jutting her chin in Hopper's direction.

"Oh no, it's not like that," Ana had tried to assure the older woman. All she'd received was a disbelieving 'humph' in return before the librarian abandoned them altogether.

"The librarian," came Powell's judgmental inquiry to his boss. Hopper could only give a noncommittal shrug in reply. She considered making another joke about his slutty tendencies, but it didn't seem the time for sarcastic comments, and her and the police chief were already on thin ice, so she let the remark stay on her tongue where it died.

Ana had ended up taking the Times in Marissa's stead, the group pouring over article after article for the next several hours.

"I think I've found something," Ana had announced a few hours into researching. Displayed on her machine was a feature revolving around a woman named Terry Ives.

Terry claimed that, while participating in a government experiment called Project MKUltra in the 70s, she'd learned she was pregnant. The story went on to say that although the scientists conducting the program reported that Terry had miscarried, she believed her child had, instead, been taken away and subjected to further experiments.

Hopper seemed intrigued, but Powell, not so much. "I don't know. Are we looking for this lady's missing kid or Will Byers?" He asked with a disbelieving look scrunching his features.

"The two don't have to be mutually exclusive," Ana had muttered while continuing to read through the article, eyes bouncing from line to line without interruption.

"This lady, Terry Ives, sounds like a real nut to me," Powell said, doubling down on his doubt. "Her kid was taken for LSD mind control experiments? She's been discredited. Claim was thrown out-"

Hopper decided to interrupt his inferior's tangent there. "Okay, forget about her. Take a look at this." He slid a printout across the table and pointed towards the image upon it. "Dr. Martin Brenner. Brenner. He runs Hawkins Lab," he stated, indicating towards a gray haired man in the photograph.

Powell still wasn't sold on the river Hopper was rapidly heading down, and it showed in the annoyed cross of his arms. "You don't find that interesting?" Ana had asked, trying to back the chief up.

"Not really." Well, that attempt failed. "He was involved in some hippie crap back in the day, so what?" Hopper and Ana shared an incredulous glance as the dismissal. Why wasn't Powell seeing what they were seeing? There were obviously loose ends that needed to be tied together, and only then would they have the full picture.

"No, this isn't hippie crap. This is CIA-sanctioned research." Hopper was getting agitated now, as one could infer by the way he readjusted himself at the table, leaning across it towards his nonplussed co-worker.

"Doesn't mean he had anything to do with our kid," Powell challenged further.

"Come on. Look at that. Hospital gowns. All of 'em," Hopper went back to analyzing the image. "Now, that piece of fabric that the teacher found by the pipe. That sure looked like a hospital gown to me, huh? Am I wrong?"

"You're not," and "I don't know, Chief," were the two contradicting answers Hopper had received from his companions.

Letting out an exasperated sigh as he leaned back in the chair, Hopper tried one final time. "Come on, man. Work with me here. I'm not saying that there's some grand conspiracy. I'm just saying maybe something happened. Maybe Will was in the wrong place at the wrong time, and he saw something that he shouldn't have." For his denial of a conspiracy, it sure sounded like that's exactly what he was hinting at.

Ana nodded emphatically in agreement, but ever the negative Nancy, Powell said, "it's a reach."

"It's a start," Hopper shot back.

After that, Powell's radio had gone off asking for the chief. The message received was one that had both officers running out of the library and into the darkening night.

A body had been found in the quarry.

Before starting the patrol car and screeching out of the parking lot with sirens on, Hopper had chanced a glance back at Ana. "Go directly home and nowhere else," had been his strict instructions, and for once in her life, she actually did as she was told.

Real talk: Life gets hard for everyone sometimes, but no one is ever alone. If you're ever feeling hopeless than speak to someone about it, anyone. Hell, even if it's a person you feel a connection with on an online writing website. There's not a human out there who isn't willing to help someone in their time of need.

Empathy is something we could all benefit from showing a little more to those around us.

National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 1-800-273-8255