Mike

"Hey." It's abrupt and awkward, painfully so, and Mike is glad his hands are busy. With his hands full, he has an excuse not to look at Will while he says this. He can just keep rifling through the mountain of camping equipment in front of them, picking out things that might be useful. A lamp. A collapsible bowl. "So. We should finish that campaign. Sometime."

Even out of his peripheral vision, Mike can tell that Will won't look at him. "It's fine, Mike. We can just forget it."

It's not fine, and Mike can't forget it.

Dustin and Lucas left for the mall a few minutes ago. Mike is still reeling over the idea of the secret code underneath Starcourt, and everything else he's apparently missed. The rest of the Party is hunkered down at the Wheelers', which Will is not happy about because he wants to move, to act. Mike can tell by how antsy he is. He can almost feel the nervous energy radiating from Will, like intangible ribbons fluttering in a strong wind.

They're sitting on the basement floor next to each other, working steadily. On the other side of the basement, the radio plays. It's Take On Me right now, which would normally make them both smile, but the radio isn't on for enjoyment. Upside Down creatures disrupt electricity. That can mean flickering lights - or a distorted radio signal. If the basement lights start flickering or the radio starts glitching, they'll have a valuable few seconds' warning before something arrives.

They're making survival packs. It was Will's idea - mostly, Mike thinks, because he hates just sitting around the basement while Dustin and Lucas are out there trying to recover Dustin's notes from Scoops. Each Party member gets a backpack. Several of them are old, threadbare backpacks of Mike's or Nancy's from years ago. One is pink and Care Bear themed. Each of the backpacks has survival necessities like a full water bottle or thermos, a pocket knife, a compass, some matches, peanut butter sandwiches, candy bars, a flashlight, rope, a small rolled-up blanket, basic first aid, one weapon that can fit inside a backpack (like a rubber mallet or a large, heavy wrench), a bandanna or other face covering, and at least one thick paperback novel. Because if somebody ends up in the Upside Down again, they're going to need food, water, warmth, something to breathe through to filter out spores, reading material - all the things that Will didn't have. If they encounter a demodog, they'll need something to defend themselves with. They may need matches to set tunnels on fire. And that's not even to mention the trouble they could run into with the government, if Dustin is right.

They've been talking through contingencies, too - like, if one of them gets into the Upside Down again, El will find them. If El gets caught in the Upside Down... Well, they didn't come up with a contingency for that one. They're pretty much screwed without her. If they get separated, they use their radios to communicate. If they can't use their radios, Plan B is to meet back where they last saw each other.

At least, they were talking through contingencies. They stopped when the girls went upstairs to take turns showering and brushing their hair and gossiping and whatever it is that girls do in the bathroom for an hour. And that's just fine by Mike. There's been a weird tension between him and El lately. He thinks she's avoiding him, and he's frankly fine with that right now. But since the girls left, it's just been Mike and Will in the basement putting together supply kits. And there's some tension here, too.

Chester is flopped over on his side near Will, dozing, one paw occasionally twitching. He's been sticking very close to his person this morning, protecting Will from whatever is clearly making him so tense and upset.

God, it's still only morning. It isn't even noon yet. It feels like it should be at least late afternoon, after being up all night. Mike's day began around 4am, in the pitch dark, and now late morning light diffuses through the basement windows. A sea of supplies is spread out on the floor in front of them, along with the pile of backpacks, and they're trying to organize and prioritize. Would two water bottles make the backpacks too heavy? Maybe one full one and one empty one? What about pocket knives? We don't have enough for each person. Should we give somebody a kitchen knife? What if they reach into the bag and cut themselves? Should we cover it with something?

And even with all that crammed into his brain, all at once, Mike can't get yesterday's fight out of his head. Especially that raw, wild, half-concealed fear in Will's eyes when Mike said the thing. The thing he knew he never should have said, and regretted as soon as it was out of his mouth.

Mike knows it's a shit thing to do, to think, but he starts to wonder... not for the first time, but the first time that he hasn't immediately, automatically shut down that train of thought...

He starts to wonder if maybe what everyone says about Will... is true. And for some reason, that thought makes something flutter in the pit of his chest. He doesn't know why. Discomfort, maybe? Disbelief?

He does know why. On some level, he knows why. But it's too tender, too soon, too much - so his mind deflects right off of that thought, slipping right off of it like rain off a waterproofed jacket. Like two opposing ends of a magnet. It's a familiar feeling. It's automatic. Ingrained. He doesn't think about that. Ever. He can't.

Although it's become so much harder since last year, when -

No.

When nothing.

He has to open his mouth again. If he's talking, at least he's focusing on the words coming out of his mouth instead of the ones all overlapping inside his brain.

"I... Didn't mean to be a jerk,"

Will counters immediately. Clearly the fight is pretty fresh on his mind, too; he's immediately ready to jump back into it, getting right back into an argumentative flow. "Yeah," he says sharply, "so you said."

"But I was."

That stops Will in his tracks. Mike is still trying to untangle a fishing line from a tent pole, keeping his gaze firmly on his hands, but he swears he sees Will's head turn to look at him.

He forces it out. "I was a jerk. And an asshole."

"Yeah," Will agrees coldly. But then he thaws a little when he repeats, "Yeah."

Quiet again. Take On Me finishes up and the radio DJ starts chattering about some 4th of July event.

It's not forgiveness, and Mike crumples in on himself a little because if Will still can't forgive him then he must have messed up bad, but then -

"Look, it doesn't matter. Anymore. We have other things to deal with right now."

Mike, a little surprised by Will's closed-off tone, starts to say, "But it -"

"And then if we don't die we'll be in high school after this and it won't matter then either," Will bursts out. "Right?"

High school? Mike is lost. "What are you talking about?"

Will throws down a granola bar, and instead of sticking in its pile it bounces on the rug and ends up somewhere across the room. "Oh, I dunno, how about how you guys never want to do anything anymore?"

"We do things all the time."

"Sure."

"What do you mean, sure?"

"I mean, sure, Mike." He shuts down, and Mike is just debating whether to push or just retreat into a sulky silence when Will sits back abruptly and scrapes his greasy bangs back from his face with a long breath. Maybe the girls were on to something with those showers. Will's gaze is unfocused, staring through the far wall. The scrape on his cheekbone looks worse in the light of day, red and purple and swollen. He's rolling something around on his tongue, jaw working, and after a moment he spits it out. "It's like you don't want things to be like they used to be."

The fight has gone out of his voice, but the knot in Mike's stomach redoubles.

"What do you mean?" He feels useless, like a stuck record.

Will flops his arms in a lost-frustrated gesture. "Look, I don't know. I don't know what I'm saying. I just." He considers a mess kit, almost puts it in a bag, then reconsiders and tosses it aside. "It's like everyone is just... leaving everything behind."

"Don't you want to leave it behind?"

"I can't, Mike! It's great for you that you can just forget about everything and go skipping off with your girlfriend being grownups or whatever, but some people can't just conveniently forget everything and go along their merry way into a new life."

Mike mouths silently. He's at a loss for words. And now he's pissed.

"I'm not forgetting," he laughs, humorlessly. "You think I can forget either? I saw your bloated corpse get dragged out of the quarry! I can't fucking unsee that!"

Will blinks, startled a little by the curse, and then seems to deflate. His shoulders drop, and he shakes his head. "That's not what I meant," he mutters, and Mike pushes, "Then what do you mean?"

Stuck record. Again. But if they're going to have this fight they may as well have it, and clearly there's something that Will wants to say, so out with it.

"I want my life back," Will finally snaps. There it is. Now he's being honest. Mike can hear it in the rawness of his voice. "None of this was supposed to happen. I just want things to go back to how they used to be, when things were actually good. That's what you don't understand."

"I do," Mike retaliates, his voice rough. "You think I don't want things to be good again? What do you think I've been trying to do?"

He realizes that they've been talking to each other. Not just talking at each other, looking at their hands, but looking each other in the eye. At some point they turned to face each other, and he doesn't remember quite when. And looking at each other like that, a brief moment of clarity comes and goes. Maybe. Maybe it was just Mike's imagination, making meaning out of a meaningless moment of eye contact. But he could have sworn that they understood each other, in that brief moment. For the first time in half a year, they were really on the same page. Will, trying to regain the good times that were lost, and Mike, trying to push on to better times ahead.

If only he could summon up that kind of understanding with El, he laments. Maybe then they wouldn't be so hot-and-cold half the time. Maybe then she wouldn't be hiding upstairs with Max, probably complaining about him.

"Well, you suck at it."

It takes Mike half a second to realize that Will is joking. Well, maybe not - but there's a little glimmer of mischief in his eyes. He's giving Mike a hard time. It's an olive branch.

Mike scoffs, pretending to be offended, and shoves Will's shoulder. Will shoves back, and Mike is gearing up for a play fight when Will goes stiff. The nearest lamp just gave a nearly imperceptible flicker.

Instantly, he's on high-alert.

"Will?" Mike is on his feet, snatching up the first thing he can get his hands on. He gets a firm grip on the flashlight, scanning the walls, the other lights. "Will, talk to me, is it -?"

"No," Will says, quietly. He's staring at the lamp that flickered, but the fear on his face is fading. "No, I don't feel it. It wasn't him."

"Are you sure?"

"Am I sure?" Will echoes, the underlying message clear as crystal: of course I'm sure, Michael.

Mike relents, sinking to his knees again. He glances at Chester. Fast asleep. Paw twitching. Will said that Chester picks up on Upside Down things - if it was something bad, he'd be up and barking like last night.

They go back to putting together the survival packs, quiet again until the girls reappear, their hair freshly washed and their skin smelling like Nancy's girly bar soap.

That's about when the phone rings.

Billy

There's something wrong with him.

He thought he was fine this morning, maybe a little sick, maybe concussed since he crashed his car last night, but now...

The sound of children screaming is, on the best of days, nails on a chalkboard. Today it was like a cheese grater to his brain. And the worst part was, it all blurred together, shrieks and laughter slurring and skipping like a worn tape. And there were other noises, too. Like whispers, or wind, but there was no wind shaking the branches of the trees beyond the pool fence. He thought he was going insane. It was like all the worst parts of being drunk and none of the best, topped off with a hangover - dizziness, nausea, a vague sense of displacement. Bright lights and loud noises made his head ache like a motherfucker. The sunlight sparkling off the surface of the chlorinated water was like a needle straight to his pupils.

And it was hot. God, fuck it was hot. Sweltering. He remembers 110° days in California, and he has never been as miserably, suffocatingly hot as he has been today. He barely managed to stumble to the lifeguard's chair and hoist himself up, cringing back from the sunlight, immensely glad of the shade umbrella.

Within minutes, his skin turned a bright and sickening red. It felt dry and stretched, tender.

Billy does not sunburn. He tans. He always tans.

And yet he found himself slopping handfuls of coconut-scented sunblock onto his limbs, his torso, his face, everything. His hair was wet, though he never set foot in the pool. He was just sweating that much. As the afternoon progressed he did everything he could to alleviate the burn, putting on more and more layers to shield his skin from the hateful ultraviolet rays. People stared. People whispered behind their hands. He didn't even care. He just needed to make it through, somehow, and then he could go home. That's all his fever-addled brain could think of. Just make it through the day and then go home and pass out.

Except, that didn't really work out. Because now he's in the locker room, sitting on the floor of a running shower stall with his discarded sopping-wet clothes spread out around him, hyperventilating.

Something is wrong with him.

Something was happening under all those layers while he sat there, baking, dizzy and disoriented. His skin. It isn't just sunburned, it...

And his limbs, his bones, they hurt - he swears he can hear them popping and crackling under his skin, like cracking a knuckle.

He claws at his head, what do I do what do I do what's happening to me what's wrong with me oh god, and clumps of hair come out between his fingers.

He's hungry. Starving. He's falling apart like an overcooked ham bone and all he can think about is food.

The Shred

There's been a slight change of plans.

One of the Shred's spies was killed today. At first it didn't pay much attention when one rat was imprisoned. What's one lost soldier when it has so many? But when the humans burned it, burned the Shadow right out of it...

Well, that's troublesome. The Shred could lose all of its hard-earned soldiers that way, if they keep doing that.

The Shred knows what the Shadow knows. And the new fissure between realities is just wide enough to pass information back and forth. They've been communicating. They know these particular humans. They got in the way last time. And now, it appears, they insist on doing it again.

Humans. Such a nuisance. This is why the Shred wanted the boy again. He would have been useful. He could have been used to keep the rest of his little herd out of the way. But he resisted, and now the Shred has this human instead. William Hargrove. Another William. It's moderately interesting. Humans might even consider it comedic.

Yes, the boy would have been better. But this human comes with his own advantages: he has no idea what's happening to him. Someone from William Byers' herd would have suspected something and fought back. They know too much. But this William Hargrove, well. He's easy. The Shred has been working tirelessly from within, and it's halfway through making the change already. Just like the rats, Billy Hargrove can't truly be useful, can't truly be controlled until he's changed. As it is, his chemistry just won't accept the Shadow. The boy was useful right away, no change necessary. But Billy Hargrove has no preexisting connection with Home the way the boy did. So before he can really be used, he has to be changed.

And then the new plan can begin.

If this particular group of humans is so bent on fighting, well, let them fight. All the better. The Shadow has - as humans would say - a bone to pick with them. They hurt him, killed his soldiers, shut him out, delayed his plans. Obviously they can't be allowed to continue like that. Killing them needs to be the new top priority. Once they're out of the way, the larger plan can continue much more smoothly.

Of course, the Shred will still need to keep an eye on the fissure. It has the rats for that. But Billy... Well, he's big and strong, for a human. Much bigger and stronger than a rat, or even a dog. And once he's been changed, well. It won't take long to dispose of them.

Billy

"Billy?"

There are veins under his skin. Not blood-veins, something else. Something black. And they're moving.

This can't be happening. This isn't happening.

"Billy."

It's Heather. Beautiful and otherworldly, with very human brown eyes and brown hair. She's crouching down just beyond the spray of ice-cold water from the showerhead, her eyes wide. She's saying something, but he can't hear, his ears are buzzing.

Eat, that thing in his head says.

"What?" he manages, speaking around far too many teeth.

"I said, are you hurt? What's going on? I heard screaming."

Who was screaming?

"Should I call an ambulance? Oh, shit, your skin -"

Eat. You need the energy, or else the change will kill you.

Fuck, he's hungry.

"Billy?"

He feels himself move - a springloaded, vicious lunge that he feels curiously removed from - and her scream echoes around the hard tiles of the pool locker room.

Dustin

Okay, so, maybe "Code Red, people, I repeat, Code Red. The Upside Down is back. Steve, I need my notes back A-S-A-P!" wasn't the wisest opener. But to be fair, they didn't know that Joyce was going to be in the back room of Scoops.

Her mouth hangs open as she watches Dustin and Lucas skid through the doors, crashing into each other as they each see Will's mother and realize their mistake.

"Already?" She's up out of the plastic break room chair, her voice urgent. "It's open? You're sure?"

Okay, not exactly the type of freakout Dustin was expecting.

He was also not expecting to turn and see Chief Hopper standing next to Steve, holding an empty ice cream cup, size medium. But, hey, it cuts down time. They were going to have to get the chief of police in on this eventually. He's as much a part of the Upside Down business as Joyce and Jonathan are. And Steve did say they should let Hop know that something was going on. Hopper has dealt with questionable government agencies before, after all, and after the past couple years he's basically an honorary Party member.

"What do you mean it's back?" he asks, stepping towards them. "What did you see? Are there more tunnels? Is it the dogs? When was this?"

"Excuse you," Dustin exclaims instead, seeing what the police chief is holding in his other hand. "Those are my notes."

"Just borrowing, kid, now spill," Hop says, at the same time that Lucas says, "Wait, wait, wait. Mrs. Byers, what did you mean already?"

Steve, Hopper, and Joyce all look at each other. Dustin looks at Lucas. Robin pokes her head through the partition and looks at all of them.

"So," she says, clearly enjoying this immensely. "The plot thickens."

It takes a little while to get each group caught up with the other.

Steve has been busy while Dustin was gone. More accurately, Steve, Joyce and Hop have been busy, with Robin pitching in - and with the great help of Dustin's notes and transcriptions of the government radio chatter, if he might add.

Hopper has Dustin and Lucas sit down at the break room table, like they're in a briefing, and tells them about the tunnels. Not Upside Down tunnels, not like last fall. Concrete tunnels, linking the abandoned Hawkins National Laboratory to Starcourt Mall.

Lucas bonks Dustin on the head, knocking his hat off. "I told you it was like The Dark Crystal!"

"More like Mazes and Monsters."

"Shut up."

Here's what they know now, having combined the adults' knowledge with Dustin's notes: whatever government agency this is, they tried to re-open the Gate that El closed, back at the closed-down shell of HNL.

HNL 2.0? Maybe, except that all the people from the original lab got ripped apart by the Demogorgon before El defeated it, and most of the staff from the lab got killed by Demodogs last year.

Anyway, it didn't work. So they moved shop to Starcourt.

Why? No clue.

Whatever the reason, a few days ago they made Attempt #2, sucking up enough power to cause the blackout that happened in the middle of Back to the Future. They weren't successful then, either - but they almost were. Or, they partially were. Will and El were right; the new Gate is only cracked open. Not fully open. It's like a fissure; a weakness in the wall between dimensions.

And one more thing they know: whoever it is that's trying to ride on the coattails of the HNL, they're certain to try again. And now that the Gate has been weakened, their third attempt might just punch a hole wide open between dimensions.

Which, Dustin reflects, is probably exactly what the Mind Flayer wants.

Still, despite the threat of world-ending catastrophe, he finds himself unexpectedly cheerful. Not smiley-happy cheerful, but oddly calm. This part is nice. The putting-together-the-clues part. It's exciting; like a puzzle game. It's less nice, he knows from experience, when they get to the running-for-your-life part, but they haven't gotten there - quiet yet. For now, they're huddled around a too-small plastic table, snacking on ice cream toppings, and it feels almost normal. Odd as that is to say.

It's nice not to have to deal with the couples for once, too. Lucas is constantly either cuddled up with Max or fighting with her, and that seems doubly true after Dustin returned from camp. And Mike is always superglued to either El or Will. And of course Dustin has Suzie - if he could just reach her. But it doesn't feel the same, lately. The Party doesn't feel the same. It's like everyone aged five years in the one month that Dustin was away. Everyone has been racing towards high school like it'll solve everything - like as soon as they step foot in Hawkins High, they'll be able to forget about everything that's been happening for the past two years. Well, everyone except Will.

Even Jonathan and Nancy, who have been away at their internship. They all started drifting away, drifting apart while he was gone...

At least while they're all fighting against the end of the world, they're all on the same team.

And then Hop is saying, "Now. What's this about the Upside Down?" and staring them down across the table.

Dustin better not let Lucas handle this one, he'll bumble it and Joyce will freak.

Lucas probably thinks the exact same thing about Dustin, because they both start talking over each other at the same time.

"Well I wasn't there when it happened, I was here because I thought maybe Will had come to hang out with Dustin -"

"Everyone's fine, there's no tunnels or anything, I mean, there could be, but we haven't seen any. No demodogs, no demogorgons -"

"- but Mike went to check at his house, your house I mean, and I got kinda involved in the radio chatter mystery -"

"- all clear on that front. El doesn't even think the Gate is open, it's like you guys said, it's probably just kind of cracked -"

"- and then this morning at like 4:00am -"

"- but when it cracked open that little piece of the Mind Flayer from last year woke up, I guess - it was not 4:00am -"

"Yes, it was 4:00 -"

"It was nearly 5:00."

"Whatever, Mike called me and said that I had to come to his house because part of the Mind Flayer -"

Dustin digs an elbow into his best friend's ribs, hard. The last thing they need to be saying around Joyce is that the Mind Flayer tried to get Will. What are they supposed to say, The Mind Flayer went after Will again but it's fine, he says it didn't get him this time? That would end well.

"Will saw a piece of the Mind Flayer in the forest," Dustin interjects firmly.

Joyce's eyes get that vaguely wild look anyway.

Crap.

"He says it wasn't the whole thing," Lucas hurries to say, trying to mitigate the damage. "Just a little piece of it. And it -"

Joyce cuts in. "Where is he?"

Joyce

She's halfway to the back room Scoops Ahoy Business Only phone when Lucas physically blocks her.

"Whoa, dude," he says, hands raised. "The lab taps the phone lines, remember?"

"That was El's lab," Dustin says, but he sounds doubtful. "The one from years ago."

He looks to Jim, who tilts his head. "He does have a point."

Joyce chews at a dry chip of skin on her lip, considering. Then she gives a sideways nod. "Okay." She strides past Lucas and picks up the phone.

"Press nine first to get out of the mall," Steve calls.

She presses nine, then punches in the familiar number. She's been dialing this number so often, for so long, that it's entirely muscle memory.

Karen picks up on the second ring. Joyce is proud of how even her voice is when she asks to speak to Will, although she's pretty sure Karen's response is a bit overly tolerant. Joyce calls to check on Will all too often.

She hears Karen holler down the basement stairs for Mike to tell Will to please pick up the phone because his mom is calling. Joyce waits with the receiver pressed hard against her ear. Then the line clicks and there's a moment of soft static, and her youngest son's voice says, "Hey, Mom."

She exhales.

"Hey, sweetheart." She's aware of everyone's eyes on her, waiting to see if she'll say anything stupid and give them away. "Dustin and Lucas just told us what, uh, happened last night?"

He pauses for just a second too long. He knows what she's talking about. "Oh."

"Are you okay?"

"I'm fine, Mom."

The syllables are so familiar that they almost catch, like a worn record. She expected about as much. It's the only response she seems to get, lately. I'm fine. I'm fine. I'm fine, Mom. God, can I do anything?

But then she hears him let out a breath, and he tries again. "I'm okay. It's not like last time, I promise."

She thinks about what last time means and the plastic of the phone digs into her palm as her grip tightens.

I tried to make it go away, but it got me, Mom. I felt it. Everywhere.

"Are you sure?"

"Yes," he says, almost before she finishes speaking, and she nods though he can't see her. "I'm sure."

"Okay. Um... Jim and I had kind of a bad night yesterday, too," she says, trying to be light. Trying so hard not to let her voice shake. She has to warn him somehow.

"... oh?"

"Maybe Dustin could tell you about it when you guys meet up again." She makes eye contact with Dustin and Lucas, who nod.

Will is picking up on her coded language; his voice is carefully casual when he says, "Trouble with coworkers again? Like last year?"

"Something like that."

"Same people?"

"Maybe. We're not sure." He's about to say something else, but she's suddenly convinced that if she tells him any more he'll want to get involved. He'll want to fight. He's always been a fighter, in his own way. And she can't let him, not this time. Not again. Not when she could lose him again. "Listen," she says, talking over whatever he was about to say, "I'm gonna be working a lot for a few days. I want you to stay with the Wheelers, okay? Stick close to El and Mike. Keep an eye on each other."

"But we can -"

"Stay where you are," she says, firmly. She's saying too much, and she can tell by the way that Jim is inching closer, trying to send signals with his eyes, but she has to say this last thing. "I don't want you mixed up in this any more than necessary. I'm going to take care of this, just... Just stay safe, okay? Don't leave Mike's house."

It pains her to say it. What she wants to do is to go to him immediately and physically stand between him and all of this. But the last thing he needs is to be mixed up in it. If he can just stay safe for a little while... maybe this whole thing could be fixed without having to hurt him again. Maybe Joyce can end this before it ever gets to him. Stop them from opening the Gate, keep Will away, and maybe this time the storm can pass him over entirely. She can fix this. For him.

He doesn't deserve this.

And there's no better place for him to stay than with El and Mike. They'll take care of each other.

He doesn't answer for a few seconds, and when he does, it's just to say, "You stay safe too."

Her throat catches. He just encountered that thing again last night and he's worried about her. "Okay. I love you."

"Love you too."

She puts the phone down.

Something makes her head jerk back. It was a noise that caught her attention, making the hair on the back of her neck stand up. Scratching, scurrying.

"The hell?" she mutters, letting her fingers slip from the phone as she steps back. She's staring at the grid of the ventilation shaft above her - and for a moment, she swears she sees movement in the darkness.

"Rats," Steve says grimly. Then he yells to the front of the store, "Told you it was a rat!"

Something glints - a beady eye, maybe? And then it's gone. The scratching moves off, further into the walls, and an uncomfortable shiver slips up her spine. It's strange, a building this new having rats already.

Steve

They are, effectively, cut off from communication from the rest of the kids. The Party, excuse him.

As previously discussed, the phones are a no-go.

Same with Dustin's radio.

Dustin was about to call Mike, to tell him what they had learned, when this time it was Joyce's turn to stop him. "If we can hear them on the radio," she said, "They might hear us."

"We gotta tell them in person," Lucas agreed.

So, they're on their own.

On their own for what, you might ask?

Well, spying on the government! Of course!

"I'm going alone," Hop is saying. "If anyone is spotted snooping around I want it to be me. I actually have a reason to be investigating suspicious activity." He flicks his badge.

"Okay," Lucas reasons, "Well, I'm gonna go out on a limb and say that you probably haven't been over every inch of this mall, right? You probably don't know how to navigate the staff corridors, right? So, you'll probably need a guide. Lucky for you, we know this place top to bottom."

Joyce frowns at him. "How do you know the staff hallways?"

Steve scrubs his hands over his face. "Don't ask."

"And I have binoculars," Dustin announces, digging them out of his backpack and holding them aloft. "Knew these would come in handy."

And that's how two fourteen year olds are allowed to come along on a high-stakes mission of espionage.

They split up into teams. Six people all clumped together, clearly trying to look inconspicuous, would have been rather... well, conspicuous. So Steve got paired with Dustin, Hop and Lucas are somewhere on the main floor taking everything very seriously, and Joyce and Robin are probably already having a good heart-to-heart about how annoying men are.

Anyway, they had to leave the Scoops back room. Steve and Robin's shift ended, thank god, and they didn't think the next shift would be very chill with casual spycraft. So Dustin's research is packed away in his backpack, and the Scoops Troop is scattered across the mall.

The thick foliage of a large potted plant hides them from view - of everyone except the Chinese food counter directly behind them, that is. The upbeat chords of David Bowie's Let's Dance, playing from speakers above, helps to mask their conversation from passersby. And Dustin's binoculars allow Steve to scan the mall-goers below, his magnified gaze roaming over the foot court denizens.

"You see anything?" Dustin prompts.

"Uh, I guess I don't totally know what I'm looking for."

He sees a guy eating french fries and a middle-aged lady bustling past with a shopping bag. Actually, he's pretty sure that was his middle school algebra teacher.

"Evil government scientists," Dustin says, in a tone that suggests a silent duh.

"Yeah, exactly, I don't know what an evil government scientist looks like."

"White coat. Clipboard. Driving around in big white vans usually," Dustin says, and Steve has an odd moment where he remembers that Dustin is speaking from experience. "Actually, actually, black coats. Or suits."

"Well, which is it, white coats or black coats?"

"Well, if they're working in a lab they'd be wearing the lab coats. Obviously. But the Bad Men wore black coats. Or suits."

"So we're looking for white coats, then? Since they'd be coming from a lab?"

"Some of them wore military uniforms," Dustin says, ignoring him. "They probably weren't actual scientists, though, they were just hired guns. Or scrubs, maybe? Mike said a lot of people in the lab wore scrubs. Wait, no, those were just doctors -"

Steve puts down the binoculars. "Hey. Focus. What am I looking for?"

"White coats or black coats or suits. Also look for earpieces, clipboards, weird equipment, those kinds of things."

"Right. Sure." He lifts the binoculars again, scanning over a family of screaming kids and stressed parents. Not them. A couple getting familiar up near the balcony. Nope. Hey, wait a minute -

"Oh, you've got to be kidding me," he breathes, and Dustin snaps to attention.

"What?"

"Anna Jacobi's talking with that meathead Mark Lewinsky."

"If you're not gonna focus, just give me the binoculars."

"Aw, Jesus Christ, whatever happened to standards?" Steve gripes, as the meathead in question mimes swishing a ball through a net. "I mean, Lewinsky never even came off the bench -"

"Dude, you are the worst spy in history, you know that?" Dustin grabs the binoculars out of Steve's hands and Anna and Mark shrink back down to pinky-height.

"Stop, hey -" The binoculars strap is strangling him.

"Give me those."

"Stop." Steve frees himself and Dustin takes up the mantle of espionage.

"Besides, I don't even know why you're looking at girls. You have the perfect one right in front of you."

"Seriously, if you say Robin again -"

"Robin."

"No, don't -"

"Robin, Robin -"

"No."

"Robin, Robin -"

"No, no, no, no -"

"Robin."

"No."

"Robin."

"No! No, man, she's not my type. She's not even..." Steve skims a hand through the air, tracing the path of an imaginary home run. "In the ballpark of what my type is, all right?"

Dustin goes back to the binoculars, focusing them near the entry hallway of the mall. "What's your type again? Not awesome?"

"Thank you."

"Hm."

"For your information, she's still in school. And she's weird. She's a weirdo. And she's hyper. I don't like that she's hyper. And she did drama. That's a bad look, and she's in band? No."

Dustin is looking at him again, and Steve gets the distinct feeling that he's saying too much. So what if he knows Robin was in drama last year? How could anybody not know, when she's that obnoxious? You'd be hard-pressed to miss her.

"Now that you're out of high school," Dustin says magnanimously, as if he's forty instead of fourteen, "Which means you're technically an adult, don't you think it's time you move on from primitive constructs such as popularity?"

He's gonna be fun at parties.

"Oh, primitive constructs?" Steve echoes back, one eyebrow arched. He is so not above getting into this fight. "That some stupid shit you learned at Camp... Know-Nothing?" He glances at Dustin's new hat to prove his point.

"Camp Know Where. And no, it's shit I learned from life."

"Hm." Yeah, okay, child.

"Instead of dating somebody you think's gonna make you cooler, why not date somebody you actually enjoy being around? Like me and Suzie."

Oooh, okay. So that's what this is about. That's what this is. One girlfriend of questionable existence and suddenly he's a relationship expert.

"Oh, Suzie. Yeah, you mean, hotter than Phoebe Cates, yeah, that Suzie. And, uh, let's think about... how exactly did you score that beautiful girlfriend? Oh yeah. With my advice." Dustin is back to watching the crowd, ignoring the suspicious glare of a nearby old lady who probably thinks they're trying to see into the lingerie store. "Because that's how this works, Henderson. I give you the advice, you follow through. Not the other way around, all right, pea-brain?"

Because the last thing he needs is his little-brother-from-another-mother lecturing him like he's Steve's asshole dad. He puts up with enough of that at home, thank you very -

"Target acquired."

Steve's brain hiccups. He had kind of forgotten what they were doing for a second there. "Where?" he says, scrambling to get back on track.

"Ten o'clock, Sam Goody's."

"Give me that." The world blurs and kaleidoscopes as Steve jams the binoculars against his eyes. At first he thinks they lost the target, but then - "Shit."

Black jacket. Sunglasses indoors. Moving with a purpose - like, really moving with a purpose, it's kind of hard to keep him in view of the binoculars, actually. Slung over the guy's back is a cumbersome duffel bag - full of weird scientific equipment, mayhaps?

"Duffel bag," Steve says. "It's probably full of those things they were talking about."

"New batch of IDCDs awaiting transport to the Key," Dustin remembers, parroting the scientist they overheard on the radio frequency yesterday.

"I think we found the transport."

Dustin is surging to his feet. "Which means he's heading straight for the lab, move, move!"

"Ow -"

"We're gonna lose him!"

They flail out of the foliage, tripping over themselves, and barrel towards Sam Goody's. Then Steve pulls them up short. "Whoa, whoa. Walk, dude. Nobody runs in public."

"Right, right."

They weave through the crowd, trying to look as normal as possible. Dustin makes a big show of checking out each storefront they pass, like they're window shopping. They have to walk fast to catch up with Scientist Dude, though.

He ascends an escalator, and Steve and Dustin are yards behind him.

"Slow down," Dustin hisses. "You're getting too close."

Something, no, somebody crashes into Steve's shoulder. He wasn't paying attention to where he was going, and the guy he ran into snaps, "Watch it, dickwad."

The small commotion may have just doomed them. Scientist Guy turns his head.

Steve turns in about six directions at once, resulting in an unintentional backwards twirl under the canopy of the nearest shop. Dustin dives for a payphone.

"Hello," Steve hears him say, monotone, into the receiver. "Yes. I am fine. How are you?"

Steve risks a peek past the fanned leaves of a potted palm. Scientist Guy is turning back towards... wherever it is that he's headed.

Dustin shoves the receiver back onto its cradle and they continue their pursuit, jogging to keep up, peeking around an advertisement-strewn support beam to watch Scientist Guy stride right into -

Jazzercise.

"All right, everyone, listen up!" Scientist Guy's voice calls, barely audible over the buzz of crowd chatter from this distance. He's setting down his duffel bag on a table in front of about a dozen ladies in tight-fitting, brightly colored exercise clothes. He whips off his sunglasses. "I just have one question for you. Who... is ready to sweat?"

It's a boom box.

The weird scientific equipment was a boom box.

The ladies cheer. Scientist Guy peels his black coat off his arms to reveal a bright pink tank top. The Jitterbug starts up.

"That's right! Okay! Let's start it nice and easy now. Let's move our thighs. Yeah, ladies. Let's warm it up. Bring it down to your hips. Start feeling that burn."

About ten seconds later, Steve remembers that he's not here to stare at some incredibly shapely derrieres.

He grabs Dustin by the ruff of the neck and pulls him away, muttering, "Okay, don't creep."

"So," Dustin says, glancing back. "Not an evil government scientist."

"Or if he is, he's got one helluva day job." Steve sighs, combing his fingers through his disheveled bangs. Espionage is thirsty work with lots of dead ends. "I need a drink. Let's find a water fountain."

"There's one by J.C. Penney."

Steve is already shaking his head, pivoting for the nearest staff corridor entrance. "You know how many kids spit their gum in there? I'm not putting my mouth on that. C'mon, there's one in the staff hallways."

As it turns out, they weren't the only ones with that idea.

"Well, hey stranger," Robin says, a drop of water hanging from her chin as she straightens. She swipes at it with the back of her hand and bends over the fountain again, slurping up one more sip as Dustin gives Steve a lot of very meaningful and not very subtle looks.

"Salutations," Steve mutters acidicly, trying to step on Dustin's toes without making it obvious. He's hot, he's tired of wearing this stupid uniform, and he's in a bad mood after tailing the wrong guy.

"Any luck?" Joyce says as Steve takes his turn at the fountain.

"We found an evil scientist, but he turned out to be a Jazzercise coach," Dustin sums up.

Robin laughs so hard she snorts.

"What are you guys doing back here?" Steve says as he steps back, letting Dustin take a drink.

"Looking for the entrance to the lab," Robin says, eyebrow quirked. "What are you guys doing out there? There's not gonna be a secret door in the food court."

"Well, we -" Steve looks at Dustin, who looks at Steve and shrugs. They hadn't thought about looking for an entrance. "We were watching for scientists."

"What, like they're gonna walk through the whole mall in a white lab coat holding beakers?" Robin teases. She still doesn't really believe in any of this, and he can tell by the cavalier looseness of her movements. This is all a big joke to her. Something fun but ridiculous, and she's just along for the ride because she's bored. But she does have a point. "No self respecting government agent is going to walk through a shopping mall to get to their secret base, genius. This isn't Get Smart. If there's a top-secret facility somewhere beneath us -" She flutters her fingers, eyes wide, indicating shock and intrigue. "The door is gonna be out of the public eye."

"So we thought, either the staff hallways or a loading bay," Joyce says.

"... huh," Dustin grunts at last.

"We've circled around most of the hallways by now," Robin says. "Nothin' much to report. We did find a hot dog, though. Just lying on the floor. Quite sad, really."

Joyce - who undoubtedly takes this much more seriously than Robin - nudges them back on track. "Loading bay is next." She looks to Steve and Dustin. "You boys want to come with?"

They nod.

"That actually makes sense," Dustin thinks aloud as they begin to walk. "If the secret door was in the loading bay, I mean. They could have deliveries by truck."

They fall quiet as footsteps and a squeaky wheel approach, and a moment later a janitor rounds the corner pushing a cart. They nod to him, hoping that Steve and Robin's staff uniforms will be enough not to raise any suspicion, and he nods back. He parks his rattling cart by a storage closet, pushes open the door to reveal a cramped space lined with shelves of cleaning supplies and boxes, and pulls the cart in behind him. The door swings closed.

"Wait," Robin says suddenly, darting for the staff restrooms they had been about to pass. "Gotta pee."

"Same here," Dustin says, and disappears into the men's room.

Steve and Joyce wait, a little awkwardly. They're rarely alone together, and Steve isn't quite sure what to talk about outside of supernatural threats.

"How's, uh, how's Jonathan's internship? How's that going?"

He and Jon haven't talked as much lately as they used to. They've both been busy with work. And when Jon isn't at work he's with his girlfriend.

"Good," Joyce reports, her face lighting up. She's always happy to talk about her kids. "Really good. He's always loved doing photography, I mean, you know. I'm glad he gets to do that."

"Yeah."

The image of a camera smashing on asphalt flashes through Steve's mind and he shuffles his tennis shoes on the linoleum.

Dustin emerges from the bathroom. "Ah, better. Ready to go?"

"Still waiting for Robin," Joyce says.

Another Starcourt staff member hurries past them, walking with that my break is only five minutes and I have to get halfway across the building and back gait. He barely spares them a glance on the way by. Yards down the hallway, almost out of sight, the storage closet door opens and closes.

It takes a few seconds for Steve to realize why something isn't sitting right with him.

"Hey, Mrs. Byers?"

"Hm?"

He points. "Did the janitor dude ever leave that closet?"

She looks at the closet door, frowning. "I didn't notice. Why?"

Robin appears, looking back and forth between them. "What'd I miss?"

Steve is already starting back down the hallway, towards the nondescript metal door that reads STORAGE in blocky, stenciled letters.

"What?" Robin insists, jogging a few steps to catch up.

"Two people just went in here," Steve mutters. "And nobody came out."

"So they're probably making out. You're gonna just walk right in on them?"

"Did you see when the second guy went in? There was nobody else in there. So where'd the first guy go?"

All at once, Joyce's hand closes around Steve's shoulder and she's steering him right past the closet door. "Keep walking," she says evenly.

"What?"

"Don't look now. But there's a security camera."

Dustin's head twists around, searching. "Shit," he whispers, facing forward again.

"Very subtle," Steve mutters.

Robin's demeanor has shifted. As Joyce walks them back towards the exit - just some Scoops staff members and their compadres who stopped to use the bathroom and then left, nothing suspicious here, no one snooping around your secret door, no sir - Robin leans in to talk quietly.

"There aren't any security cameras in the staff corridors."

Steve just jerks his head, motioning to the one they just passed - clearly there's one - and Robin seems to stop herself from turning back to look again.

"So why would there be one there?"

"Probably to guard the entrance to a secret government lab under the mall," Steve whispers back.

The corners of Robin's mouth pull down as she nods. "You know," she says, as the four of them push out of the staff corridors and back into the safety of the anonymous crowd, "Call me crazy, but I'm starting to think you weirdos might be on to something."

Jim

The six of them meet back up at their predetermined rendezvous point at 2:00pm, as agreed.

Their meeting place is where they're the least likely to be overheard: directly next to the play area, where small children swarm over a playground of rubber-like logs, streams, forest animals, a three foot tall treehouse, and a much-coveted "cave" made of foamy "boulders." The ear-piercing shrieks of toddlers, combined with the yells of parents - "Todd, share!" "Anna, no climbing over the fence." "Ian, don't eat that!" - will easily drown out their conversation from anyone who might otherwise hear them.

Sarah would have loved this when she was tiny. She always was a climber. She would have been right on the very top of that fake mountain.

God, he hopes that El stays out of trouble. But something tells him she won't.

Hungry after their day of code-breaking and spying, they're eating a late lunch from the food court as they debrief. They're huddled around a table that's much too small for six people, each of them holding a smoothie from the smoothie stand. The table is crowded with their various lunches. A hot dog, a taco, a tray of Chinese food, a sub sandwich, pizza, a soft pretzel. Shopping mall food. As much as Jim hates what this mall is doing to his town... he can't deny the call of cheesy pretzels.

He and Lucas mainly spent their time scoping out the outside of the mall. They watched the flow of incoming and outgoing shoppers and cars, they circled around the back of the building to watch how deliveries were made. They even got in Hop's car and drove around the surrounding half mile or so, searching for anything that could be a tunnel entrance or exit. A driveway leading underneath a building, maybe, or a doorway under a bridge. They didn't come up with much except for some mosquito bites and a new sunburn on Jim's nose.

The others' endeavors were, as they're learning, much more fruitful.

"And you're sure the closet was empty?" Lucas is saying through a bite of food. "The janitor didn't just leave when you weren't looking?"

Steve gestures with the straw of his smoothie cup. "I'm telling you, he went in, the door closed, never opened again, and two minutes later somebody else opened the door and there was nobody in there. So where'd he go? It's gotta be a secret entrance."

"And why else would the only security camera in all the staff corridors be pointed at a janitorial storage closet?" Dustin says. "Why would they want to guard Windex that badly?" He gives a small gasp. "Maybe the janitor cart wasn't a janitor cart at all! Maybe it was actually full of secret technology!"

"Okay." Jim puts down his pretzel and looks down at Joyce, whose shoulder rubs against his every time they move because of how crowded the table is. "That's a solid start. And now you all need to head home."

The kids' faces twist in sync, and he gets back a muddle of overlapping protests.

"Home," he insists. "All of you. Lucas, Dustin, you two go meet up with Will and the others and stay there."

They escort the kids out of the mall after lunch, going so far as to stand on the sidewalk and watch the bus pull away, with the kids inside it, before they turn back towards Starcourt. Jim would not put it past these kids to try to sneak off the bus and back into the mall behind their backs.

While they waited for the bus to leave, they talked. Now, as they retreat into the shade of the gargantuan main awning, the talk has developed into an argument.

"We need more information." Jim says again, and Joyce does something perilously close to an eye roll.

She's in favor of storming the lab here and now, bare-handed and furious.

"We don't know exactly what we're dealing with here," he insists, ducking his head to catch her eye. "It could be a group we've never seen before -"

"Those people are trying to open the Gate again. You realize that, right? You know that that means. We can't just, just -"

"And if it is the same people, we know how dangerous they are -"

"That thing could be after Will again, because of what they're doing!" she whisper-shouts. "And we're supposed to stand around -"

Remember how every time we get tangled up in the government's science experiments we end up almost dying? he wants to snap. But he's been trying to keep his temper in check, for El, who doesn't react well to snapping or yelling. And anyway, he couldn't get a word in edgewise right now if he tried.

"- just waiting for them to do it? Our kids are in danger. We need to end this. For good. Now, today, before -"

He finally succeeds in catching one of her wildly gesticulating hands, getting her attention. "Listen. I'm with you. Okay? We're gonna finish this. Together. And I have an idea." He glances up, taking a lightning-quick inventory of who's nearby: nobody close enough to be listening in. "We can't do this alone. There's two of us, and if the kids are right, there's a whole facility full of people somewhere down there."

"Who exactly do you suggest we call for help?"

She clearly meant it as a rhetorical question, but he doesn't hesitate to answer, "Owens."

Her expression twitches.

"He owes me a favor or two. He might have the connections we'd need to fight this, but first we need to know what we're actually dealing with. These people obviously went to a shit-ton of trouble not to be found. What do you think is gonna happen if we just walk in there, even if we did have help?"

"What happened to punch first, ask questions later?"

"Yeah, well, if I go missing my kid's never gonna eat anything other than Eggos, so. And if you go missing, you're not gonna be any help to Will, either. Okay? We're gonna stop them. We are. But not like this."

She sighs, nodding. Then she relents. "So what's your idea then?"

"The more information we have, the better. If we can find who we're dealing with -"

"The box," she says, catching on to his meaning immediately.

He nods. They took the box of laboratory documents that they found at the abandoned farmhouse back to the Byers house. It didn't look like much at first glance, but if they could just find a name, an organization title, anything, maybe he can relay it to Dr. Owens. And they might, just might be able to shut this thing down from the inside out.

Without anybody dying, this time.

Dustin

One circulatory bus route later and they're back at Starcourt Mall.

It's actually surprisingly easy to infiltrate the storage closet. They sneak into the staff corridors, approaching from the direction that the camera isn't facing, and it only takes Lucas two tries to hit it with his wrist rocket. Their idea was to destroy the camera entirely, but Lucas's rock ended up knocking the camera askew to face the wall instead of the hallway, and that's probably better anyway. It's harder to explain a broken security camera than it is a crooked one.

The door isn't even locked.

At first, Dustin is a bit disappointed. It's... a storage closet. One side is packed with boxes marked with various store labels, the other is lined with shelves full of cleaning supplies. The overhead light is pale fluorescent and fizzling. The place smells like lemon-scented cleaning fluid, dust, and cardboard.

They crowd inside and pile some cardboard boxes in front of the door. It's not much of a barricade, but it'll do.

And then they investigate. Wandering around the small space, looking behind shelves, tugging on things to see if a wall or shelf will open up into a hidden door. Shushing each other when they get too loud.

"Guys, look at this." It's Lucas, and he's touching something on the wall near the door. "Why would they need a keypad inside a closet...?"

Dustin leans to see around his head. It is a keypad. "Unless it leads somewhere else," he finishes triumphantly. "I told you."

"Actually, that was my idea," Steve says, but Dustin is already jumping on various points on the floor, trying to see if anything sounds hollow. Maybe the keypad opens a hidden trap door. But no one part of the floor sounds particularly more or less hollow than the others; it all sounds pretty much the same.

Meanwhile, Lucas and Steve start punching numbers into the keypad.

"Try 1-2-3-4," Steve says.

"1-2-3-4? Are you kidding me?"

"Well it's the most obvious first choice, isn't it?"

"So clearly a government facility would use it -"

"Because numbskulls like you would say, oh, that's too obvious, it could never be -"

Boop, boop, boop, boop. "There. See? Didn't work."

"Hit the enter key. Do 1-2-3-4-enter."

Boop boop boop boop boop.

"Okay, so, it's probably a year. It's always a year, right?"

"Are any of the keys more worn down than the others?"

"Try 1943."

"Why?"

"I dunno, it's my mom's birth year."

"Why would they use your mom's -?"

"Okay, you know what, how about I push buttons and you come up with ideas."

Robin speaks up, over the sounds of Steve and Lucas trying to shove each other out of the way. "Hey, kangaroo kid, did you ever solve that equation?"

Dustin stops jumping. "The code?"

She points to the keypad.

Dustin's mouth drops open.

Of course.

"It's a password!" He tears his backpack off his back and yanks out the notebook, flipping to the page with the transcript of the original code to read aloud. "'Use a full light of twelve percent solar brightness at an angle five-point-one-four-five degrees to the elliptic. The light should reflect back giving access within seconds!'" He hits Steve with the notebook in excitement. "It's an access code to the lab! Robin, you are a genius!"

She's leaning back against a table covered in boxes, grinning. "I know it."

"Solve the code, get the password," Lucas says.

The only problem is, they haven't solved it yet. Maybe they would have today, but then they got a little distracted learning about strange burn markings on the old closed Gate, and then tailing innocent Jazzercise coaches.

Steve takes advantage of Lucas's momentary distraction to elbow him away from the keypad. Lucas trips on a loose shoelace, stumbling into their makeshift barricade and sending boxes flying.

"Nice," Dustin says, reaching out to help him up.

One more box teeters on the top of the pile, shifting, and then gravity wins. The box falls with a clang.

They all look at each other.

Clang?

What in an Imperial Panda "dry goods" box would go clang?

Ten seconds later they have the box on top of the table, and Steve is using his house key to slit the tape open. The cardboard flaps fold back, revealing a second box - this one shiny metal, with a round latch in the lid.

Dustin's heart rate starts to pick up.

Steve reaches in, grasps the handle, and twists. The mechanisms clunk within the lid, and air hisses out in one sharp gasp - like opening a can of Pringles that was packaged at a lower altitude.

The lid lifts off. Delicate fingers of steam trail from the contents of the metal box.

Steve is the first to speak. "That's definitely not Chinese food."

Inside are four identical metal cylinders, fit so snugly into their packaging that only the tops are visible. Each has a metal handle sticking up out of the packing peanuts. Steve starts to reach in again, then stops and flicks a hand at the others.

"Uh, maybe you guys should, you know, stand back."

"No," Dustin says, while Robin and Lucas back away.

"Just step back, okay?"

"No."

"Step back, seriously -"

"If you die, I die."

Steve stares at him for several seconds before shrugging. "Okay."

He reaches in, grasps one handle, twists it free of its packing, and pulls.

In one more exhalation of steam, and a smell like chemicals and ozone, the cylinder slides out.

The top and bottom caps are silvery metal. The cylinder itself is glass, or something like it - something transparent, at the very least, showing the sparkling, swirling, bubbling, viscous emerald fluid within.

"What the hell?" Steve mutters. "You seen anything like this before?"

Dustin shakes his head.

Robin and Lucas and inching closer again to get a better look, now that the thing has been extracted without exploding.

"What is that?" Robin breathes.

Lucas points. "What's this?"

Steve twists it, flinching a little when he touches the glass, like it's hot. On the bottom of the contraption, opposite the handle, is a small display. It looks like the display screen on Dustin's calculator, dull green with two gray buttons underneath.

"It looks - ow, shit," Steve cries, jerking. He very nearly drops the device, and Dustin's hands shoot out to catch it. A millisecond later he realizes why Steve let go: the glass is scalding hot.

"Shit!" he echoes, scrambling to get his hands off the glass and onto the moderately cooler metal.

Something beeps.

Gingerly, he turns the device upside down again. In trying to juggle the thing, his pinky finger pressed one of the buttons.

"Dustin," Robin says. "What did you do?"

The display screen has lit up. Now instead of dull green, it's light green, with blocky black letters. Slowly, they blink on, one at a time.

I.

D.

C.

D.

ACTIVE

"I-Something D-Something Containment Device," Dustin says, jabbing a slightly burnt fingertip at the display. "See?"

The letters blink out. A second later, more words replace them.

CONNECT TO SYSTEM

Now one of the buttons is blinking. It's not a button, he sees upon closer inspection. It's just a tiny light.

Blink.

Blink.

Blink.

"Connect to what system?" Steve says.

Robin leans to look down into the box again. "Maybe the other ones? Maybe this little latch right here plugs into another tube -"

"But what the hell would they contain? It just looks like goo."

"Hot goo."

"Maybe it's containing the goo?"

"You don't think it's radioactive, do you?"

While they talk, Dustin and Lucas manage to wrap the handle in one of Lucas's bandannas so they can hold the thing without getting burned. When they turn it over again, taking a second look at the display, Dustin freezes.

"Uh, guys. It says something different now."

"What?"

They all lean in, waiting as letters start to blink across the display, appearing painfully slowly. One at a time.

WARN...

"Warning," they read together as the word appears. "De... stabil... ization... I... m... m... in... ent."

WARNING: DESTABILIZATION IMMINENT

"Fantastic," Robin says.

"Dustin, turn it off," Lucas says, but Dustin is already pressing the button. "Turn it off."

"What do you think I'm trying to do? I'm hitting the - there's one button, Lucas, and it's not -"

"Give it to me."

The light is blinking faster now.

"Give it!"

Steve reaches for it. "Here! Here, let me -"

The letters blink past.

WARNING: DESTABILIZATION IMMINENT

DESTABILIZATION IN

60

59

"No way," Dustin breathes.

58

57

56

There's a clamor of voices as Steve tries everything - twisting the handle, pressing the button, pressing and holding it down, pressing it quickly a lot of times in succession.

"Turn it off!"

"Just smash it!"

"Don't smash it, we don't know what that stuff is!"

"Is there another button?"

"Shit, hurry!"

And meanwhile, the device is growing hotter. Dustin can see the waves of heat around it, radiating from it. Steve is gritting his teeth as the metal handle heats up, even through the bandanna.

34

33

32

"There's gotta be a way to-"

"Forget it!" Steve bursts out, thrusting the thing out in front of him, as far from his body as he can get it. "Just open the door, open the door! We gotta get rid of this before it blows!"

"It's not a bomb, it's not gonna blow up -"

"You don't know that!"

"Get the door, get the boxes out of the -"

"Move, move -"

In a jumble of limbs and sailor suits, they burst out of the storage closet door. Robin yanks at Steve's arm, yelling, "Roof! Roof!"

"We don't know how to get to -"

"I know how!"

She leads them in a flat sprint. There's a sharp stitch in Dustin's side and he gasps as he runs, his backpack thumping him repeatedly on the small of the back. He catches the briefest glimpse of the device's display as Steve runs in front of him:

19

18

Robin slams through a door marked Roof Access, Authorized Personnel Only and waves them up a ladder like a drill sergeant.

"Move your ass! Let's go, let's go!"

Dustin hears but doesn't see the roof access door get unlatched and pushed open above them. All he can see is Lucas's shoe as he accidentally steps on Dustin's face while trying to climb the ladder in a great hurry. His palms slip on the white-painted metal of the ladder, the wind touches his face, and a second later he bursts out into the scorching sunlight of an Illinois July day.

"Eight seconds!" Robin screams, and Steve screams back, "I know!"

Steve books it across the roof like he's in the Olympics. Dustin counts down in his head.

7.

6.

5.

Steve nears the edge of the roof (4.), skids (3.), and hurls the thing (2.) as hard as he can, out over the patchy bit of woods behind Starcourt. It arcs through the air (1.), starts to fall (0.) -

There's a burst of blinding green, like a firework, and half a beat later a shockwave of hot air slams into them, knocking them off their feet.