Maxine hesitated for a moment before gripping the pen Richard had given her. As the tip touched the paper, she silently thought of her mother's name. In less than a second, she felt her hand being gripped uncontrollably, as if another hand were wrapped around hers. That invisible hand, like a perverted teacher in close contact with her skin, guided her to write, the cold sensation spreading from the back of her hand throughout her entire body.
"Susan." Everyone watched as Maxine wrote down a name with a look of terror on her face. They all turned to look at her simultaneously. Seeing her horrified expression, they knew she had truly sensed something terrifying and hurriedly asked, "Are you okay?"
The moment she finished writing the name, Maxine dropped the pen onto the table as if she had touched a venomous insect. Looking at Richard, her breathing was ragged: "You... what on earth did you do? Why do you know my mother's name? Is everything you said actually true?"
"I'm sorry for scaring you, but the truth is exactly as I said." Richard smiled slightly and tucked the pen back into a hidden compartment in his backpack.
Maxine tightly gripped the hand that had just held the pen; it felt as though it had just been pulled out of ice water. She now completely believed what Richard and the others had told her.
"Are you all right?" Lucas and the others placed their hands on Maxine's shoulders, looking at her with concern.
Maxine looked at everyone, her lips trembling slightly before curling up into an excited smile: "It was a bit scary, but... very thrilling."
The group chuckled, and with that, Maxine officially became a member of their Party.
"When Eleven gets back, she'll definitely want to meet you. She's always wanted a female friend. I think you two will get along great," Richard said with a smile, taking a large sip of milk tea while chewing on brown sugar pearls. "Mike and the boys play too rough. Always hanging out with boys isn't good for her physical and mental development. Having a pretty girl like you to guide her makes both Hopper and me feel much more at ease."
Hearing Richard's compliment, Maxine blushed slightly and said with a smile, "I really want to meet her and become friends too."
Mike and the others were a bit unhappy, especially Mike, who said somewhat dissatisfiedly, "How is playing with us bad for her health?"
"Do you even know what girls like to play?" Maxine retorted teasingly.
"It's definitely not D&D," Robin called out from the kitchen, taking a moment from her work to tease Mike.
Mike was at a loss for words but still insisted stubbornly, "How could she not like it? She's always inviting us in to play."
"If she had any other choice, she definitely wouldn't be playing D&D with us." Dustin, facing reality, gave Mike a comforting pat on the shoulder, thinking to himself that even if all of his buddy's emotional intelligence were focused on Eleven, his total EQ still wouldn't be very high... Joyce, who was stationed at the counter, also walked to the door with a smile and said, "If you don't understand a girl's heart, it's very hard to get them to like you, Mike."
Mike's expression froze. Everyone was criticizing him; was there really something wrong with his thinking?
...Eleven wiped away her nosebleed, her eyes red as she looked at the woman in the rocking chair. She panted heavily, having just woken up from the chaotic, eternal loop of her mother's memories, realizing exactly what her mother had sacrificed for her.
Seeing this, Hopper quickly hugged the poor girl from behind, trying to warm Eleven with his own body heat after she had sensed the cold truth. He murmured, "I'm here, don't be afraid, I'm here..."
Becky watched this scene and couldn't help but cover her face. She didn't want to believe that supernatural anomalies existed in this world; she was afraid of them. But seeing that her niece had someone like this to take care of her, she felt deeply relieved.
"I saw it. Mom's memories," Eleven said, looking up at Hopper.
Hopper let out a sigh of relief and said, "Let's go home first. We'll sort out our thoughts there."
Eleven nodded obediently. Although Becky felt a lingering desire for her newfound niece to stay and live with her, she reconsidered, thinking that doing so might force the girl to confront the terrifying truth again. She pursed her lips and didn't ask Eleven to stay, only saying, "If you ever want to come back, you're always welcome. I'm sure my sister would be very happy."
"Thank you, Aunt Becky." Eleven and Hopper walked out of the house carrying the files Terry had left behind. Hearing Becky's words, Eleven turned back and replied with a smile.
While driving, Hopper asked about the strange phenomena Eleven had seen in the Ives household.
When Hopper and Eleven first arrived at the Ives home, Eleven had a brief physical interaction with her mother. Afterward, Eleven went upstairs to see the bedroom her mother had prepared for her since she was a child. Before she could be immersed in the warm atmosphere for long, they noticed the electrical appliances in the house flickering strangely.
Having experienced The Upside Down, Hopper and Eleven immediately became alert. Becky explained it away as old wiring, but the observant Hopper and Eleven knew that old wiring wouldn't make appliances flicker in a sequence, like they were guiding someone in a specific direction.
Eleven knew deep down that someone in another space was guiding her. Following the flickering appliances all the way, she ended up back at the side of the catatonic Terry Ives.
From this, Eleven realized that the person guiding her from the other space was her mother.
It turned out that the words her mother repeated in a loop were a code she had left for Eleven—or rather, a key to unlock her memories, allowing Eleven to contact her psychic form and see her memories.
As a result, from Terry's looping memories, Eleven saw the truth of how she had been forcibly taken away by Dr. Brennan while still in her swaddling clothes. She also learned of the efforts her mother, Terry, had made to fight against the then-powerful Lab, and she felt the pain of the 'electroshock therapy' her mother had suffered as punishment from Dr. Brennan.
The fact that her mother was now catatonic was inseparable from that electroshock therapy.
Telling Hopper this, Eleven felt a surge of intense rage. Her anger and hatred toward Dr. Brennan grew even stronger. If Dr. Brennan were to appear before her now, she swore she would give him a lesson he would never forget.
Hopper said seriously to Eleven, "One day, we'll kick that guy's ass together."
"Mm." Listening to Hopper, the anger in Eleven's eyes dissipated slightly. She nodded with a smile; this would be one of the motivations for her to keep living.
After returning home, Eleven and Hopper began studying the investigative materials Terry had left behind.
After Terry's first failed attempt to storm The Lab, she had used her limited memories of the break-in to launch an investigation. She gathered numerous news reports about missing children suspected to be linked to The Lab, clipping and collecting them as powerful evidence to be used against The Lab in the future.
Among the collected reports, the most frequent were news stories about a young girl of Indian descent.
Looking at the photo, Eleven's eyes glazed over slightly, and her heart skipped a beat. A memory surfaced of a young girl she had seen in her mother's memories, a girl she had shared a room and played with, who was a few years older than she was at the time.
"I've seen her, in Mom's memories." Eleven pointed to the black-and-white photo of the girl and said to Hopper, "I saw her when I was about four years old in The Lab."
"Is she still alive?" Hopper asked in a low, serious voice. He remembered that Henry had massacred The Lab in '79, and after that, Eleven was the only psychic left there.
Eleven licked her lips. "I don't know. I think I can try to find her using my abilities."