Stranger Things Season 2: What The Ending Really Means

7. There Are Other "Numbers" Still Out There

As the opening of the season established, Eleven is not alone as an MKUltra test subject, and while there is no firm confirmation either way, it's easy to assume that there could be others like her and 008 out in public.

The numbering convention suggests at least eleven children were experimented on, and if two of them could survive, there's every posibility that some of the others are also alive. It's not like Dr Brenner's team were particularly good at either keeping them as prisoners (since two of them escaped fairly easily) or killing them when they got out.

So what of the other possible test subjects? It seems likely that some didn't survive (that would fit the Laboratory's image as an evil inhumane institution), but it's possible that others are hiding in the real world, perhaps more in control of their powers than Eleven but not driven to vigilante justice like 008. They have stories to tell and hopefully we might see more of them told, and by the sound of what exec producer Shawn Levy has been saying about the show's mythology (and the need to write a bible for it), it's possible:

"There probably should be [a bible] (laughs). Someone should write that bible but we have never gotten around to it. We’ve talked about it. We’ve met Eight and we’ve met Eleven, there’s lots of other numbers between those.”