In one of my articles, I speculated that Dr. Kay kidnapped Kali because she wanted to turn her into a weapon against Eleven.
I was wrong. So very wrong.
The real reason is much worse than I originally thought.
Dr. Kay Is Reviving Dr. Brenner’s Experiment
Dr. Kay is trying to recreate Dr. Martin Brenner’s experiment of creating psychic children for the military to control.
In order for the experiments to work, the blood of Henry Creel/Vecna needs to be injected into the subject. His DNA (which had been altered thanks to his encounter with the Mind Flayer) needs to integrate itself with the subject’s body.
During Project MKUltra, Brenner infused Henry’s blood into pregnant women, including Terry Ives, Eleven’s mother. The result was a generation of children with psychic abilities. Dr. Kay is trying to recreate that process.
With Kali and Eleven being the only known test subjects that are still alive, Dr. Kay got a hold of the former.
She kidnaps Kali, murders her friends, and imprisons her in a laboratory hidden inside the Upside Down. There, Kali is repeatedly sedated while hooked up to a chamber that drains her blood. Her blood is then injected into pregnant women with the hope that their children will develop psychic abilities
Why Kali’s Blood Fails
However, Kali’s blood isn’t potent enough for the experiments to be successful. In fact, her blood seems to be toxic to regular people. Many of the pregnant women and their unborn babies wind up sick and even dying as a result of Kay’s experiments.
That’s because Kali and most of Brenner’s test subjects were “pale imitations” of Henry Creel. is powerful, but her illusion abilities are different from Vecna’s telepathy and telekinesis.
Even though Kali’s blood carries a version of Vecna’s altered DNA, it isn’t enough to create more psychics. Apparently, there was only one subject who was “more like” Vecna.
Eleven.
That’s Why The Military is After Eleven
Eleven seems to be the only subject from Brenner’s experiments that fully integrated Vecna’s DNA. She’s the only one whose powers are a close replica of his.
Now that we know what Dr. Kay is doing with Kali, it puts the whole military arc in season 5 in a new light.
It makes sense why Dr. Kay has been obsessed with capturing Eleven. Why the military has Hawkins on lock down. It also explains why Dr. Kay and her goons set up a base inside the Upside Down, researching its environment and the creatures residing there.
Everything goes back to Eleven and Vecna.
Which begs the question, is there a way to stop Dr. Kay? Kali seems to think that the only solution is for her and Eleven to stay in the Upside Down when The Party tries to destroy it.
Yet Kali isn’t taking into consideration the fact that the U.S. and Russian governments have known about the Upside Down for years. Demogorgons have been brought to Earth to be studied and experimented on. If some elements of the Abyss exist on Earth, what’s stopping someone like Dr. Kay from trying to create their own version of Eleven or Kali? Then what?
