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Back at the Byers' house, the group sat around the table while Mike explained what they had learnt. He told them about the gate and how they had tracked it back to Hawkins Lab.
"Is this gate underground?" Hopper asked the boy.
"Yes," Eleven answered. "Near a large water tank?" he continued to ask. "Yes." the girl repeated.
"How- how did you know that?" Dustin asked. "He's seen it", Mike realized.
"Is there any way that you could reach Will? That you could talk to him in this-" Joyce started. "The Upside down" El finished. "Down, yeah" The woman whispered. The girl nodded.
"And my friend Barbara? Can you find her too?" Nancy asks. Rah scratches at her wrist as she mentions Barb.
-
Static was heard as Eleven closed her eyes, trying to find Will and Barb. The pain in Rah's neck increasing as El tries.
The lights flicker above the group before Eleven opens her eyes. "I'm sorry." Joyce looks at the girl, "what? What's wrong? What happened?"
"I can't find them," El admits.
-
While the bald girl was in the bathroom, Mike explained to everybody what happened to Eleven.
"Whenever she uses her powers, she gets weak." He said. "The more energy she uses, the more tired she gets. Along with Rah."
"Wait, Rah?" Hopper spoke up. "Why Does she get drained?" He asked. "We're not sure."
Everybody looked towards the girl questioningly, making her sheepishly smile back.
"Um, I'm not sure." the girl hesitates, "it just does?" she says, asking as more of a question.
"Why did you hesitate, kid?" Hopper asks assertively, "I didn't." The girl defends herself, "yes you did." "uh, no I didn't" the girl argues, throwing her arms in the air, the sleeves of her jacket falling down.
Before she could pull them back up, Nancy grabbed her arm, holding it in place whilst she looked down at her wrist. Shit.
"009" Nancy read aloud. All eyes turned on the girl.
"Wait, why didn't you tell us?" Mike was now practically screaming in her face. "You could've helped this whole time, and you didn't!" His voice getting louder.
"I can't help!" The girl yelled back "it's too dangerous, I can't control them."
"Bullshit!" Mike continues, "you just wanted to make El do all the work, so you could sit back and watch."
"Shut up , Mike! You don't know anything-"
"Hey!" Hopper interrupted the pair, "enough, El has something to say."
"The bath." the girl whispers. "I can find them in the bath." Everybody looks over to the girl, unsure of what she meant. "A sensory deprivation tank." Rah stated.
"Do you know how to make one?" Lucas asked. The girl opened her mouth pausing for a moment. "No."
-
"Mr. Clark? It's Dustin," the boy says as he talks on the phone. "Yeah, yeah. I just, I.. I have a science question." Rah can only assume that the teacher has asked if everything was okay.
"Do you know anything about sensory deprivation tanks? Specifically how to build one..." Everyone watched Dustin from the table. "Fun?"
"You always say we should never stop being curious, to always open any curiosity door we find. Why are you keeping the curiosity door locked?" Dustin remarked into the phone.
The boy was now sitting at the table, "uh huh. Uh huh, how much? Uh huh. Yep, alright. Yeah, we'll be careful. Definitely, alright Mr. Clark. Yeah I'll see you on Monday, Thanks Mr. Clark." Dustin hangs up the phone and looks up to Joyce.
"Do you still have that kiddie pool we bobbed for apples in?" the woman nods her head in reply. "I think so, yeah."
"Good, then we just need salt. Lots of it" the boy finalised.
"How much is lots?" The chief asked. Dustin looked down at the paper and back up again, "1500 pounds."
Rah blew the air out of her mouth, "where would you even find that much salt?"
-
The group pulled up outside of the middle school gymnasium.
"Alright" Hopper said, "you kids go fill up the pool, Joyce, grab the goggles for El and Jonathan and I will grab the salt, okay?" Everybody agreed and moved off to complete their tasks.
Lucas, Dustin and Rah rolled the kiddie pool into the gymnasium and tried their best to stand it up.
"It's upside down" ironic. "How does this even work?"
After getting the pool to stand up on its own, Lucas walked over beside Rah and Dustin.
"So, when were you going to tell us?" he questions the girl. The girl just shrugs her shoulders. "I'm not sure." she said.
"Why didn't you?" Dustin asks. "I don't know, it's just something I've always tried to pretend never happened, if that makes sense. Well I tried to pretend, until this week happened." The girl corrected herself.
"Cheryl, she works there, well used to now, but she got me out, covered it up herself and everything." the girl explains.
"Well , I'm glad you got out of there, even if you're still dealing with it now." Lucas told her, sincerely. "Thanks Luc-ass," the girl grinned.
-
Mike was now beside the pool, filling it up with water whilst Lucas tested the temperature, yelling through the gym to Nancy, when to adjust the temperature.
Hopper and Jonathan sliced open bags of salt and poured it into the pool before Dustin did his 'egg test.' The egg in question sank to the bottom of the pool indicating that they needed more salt.
This time as Dustin put the egg into the water, it stayed afloat. "It's perfect" Rah announced, high-fiving the boy.
The final steps of setting up were finished, all that was left was Eleven's job, finding Will and Barb.
The girl stepped into the water, goggles sitting on top of her head ready to cover her eyes. "Rah" she called quietly, "can you come with me?" she asked, referring to the pool.
"Oh.. yeah of course," The older girl replied.
The girl slowly took off her jacket so she didn't get it wet, revealing her birthmark that resembled the shape of a heart.
As the girl was about to get in, a strong arm stopped her. "Wait." Hopper told her. "Your birthmark," he announced. Rah looked at the man questioningly.
His gaze left the mark on the girl's arm and met her blue eyes. "Have you always been at the lab?" he asks her, she doesn't understand.
"What do you mean?" she responds. "Were you born at the lab?" he suggests.
"As far as I'm aware, no. Cheryl told me that I was brought in when I was seven, why?" Hopper was at a loss for words.
This was his daughter, he had always suspected foul play in his little girls 'death' after learning that Diane was involved in tests while pregnant. But this was the confirmation that he needed.
"Sarah?" Hopper choked out. Quiet gasps could be heard from around the pool.
Sarah, the name was familiar. She had skimmed over it in one of Cheryl's document folders from the lab when she wasn't home.
Test subject 009, Sarah Hopper, it had said.
At the time she hadn't even realized but now Rah had pieced it together.
"Dad?" she looked at Hopper, eyes red. The girl slowly held her arms out and moved towards the man, engulfing him in a hug. The man sniffed into his daughter's shoulder as he held her.
"I'm sorry." he told her "for not coming to find you." Rah pulled away and looked at him, she laughed lightly before replying, "it's okay, you couldn't have known."
"I hate to break this up," Mike interrupted, "but we need to find Will."
Rah looked over to the boy and nodded, "right, sorry." she apologized as she hopped into the water next to El and lied down.
Everything was quiet as the water covered her ears and she closed her eyes, Rah was enjoying the serenity before the girl started to thrash around beside her.
She grabbed onto the Els hand as Joyce comforted her, "it's okay." the woman told her. "We're right here, we're right here honey."
"Castle Byers" Eleven spoke. Everybody watched carefully as the girl announced what she saw. "Will?" Rah held her breath as she waited for El to speak again.
"You tell him, I'm coming. Mom is coming." Joyce told the girl. 'Hurry' Will's voice came out of the radio.
"Okay, you tell him to stay where he is, we're coming okay?" Joyce continued.
Eleven began to panic, sitting up and ripping off her goggles. Moving back into the woman's arms for comfort.
After the two girls got out of the water, they were handed towels in which they wrapped themselves up in and sat on the bleachers with the boys.
"So, Sarah." Lucas started looking over at the girl, "it sounds nice."