A mysterious lab... a terrifying scientist... a secret history... If you think you know the truth about Eleven's mother, prepare for facts that will turn your world upside down, as revealed in this novel that delves into the events preceding the famous series (Stranger Things). The summer of 1969, and the shockwaves of the Vietnam War reverberate among American youth at home and abroad. As a college student in Indiana, Terry Ives could not escape the news from the front lines of the Vietnam War, nor the inflamed protests in Washington. But the world was changing, and Terry was no longer content to watch from afar. When news spread of a scientific experiment in the small town of Hawkins, she immediately volunteered for the symbolically named test. All she found was unknown trucks, a remote lab, mind-altering drugs, and strict researchers. Terry could only resolve to delve into the depths of this mystery in which she had become entangled. But behind the walls of Hawkins Lab, and the penetrating gaze of its director – Martin Brenner – lay a conspiracy greater than she could have imagined. To face this horror, Terry needed the help of her colleagues involved in the same experiment, including a mysterious child whose existence no one knew, possessing inexplicable supernatural powers, and bearing the number 008 instead of a name. Amidst the waves of tension at the beginning of a new decade, a different war began between Terry Ives and Martin Brenner, a war where the human mind was the battlefield.