Opposites attract (Mike W.)

CHAPTER FORTY FIVE

Act 3~Chapter 13: The Battle of Starcourt Mall

Mike was explaining to them all about what was happening. Everything with the Mind Flayer, everything with Billy.
"The Mind Flayer, it built this monster in Hawkins," he explained, "to stop El, to kill her and pave a way into our world.
"And it almost did," Max added, "That was just one tiny piece of it."
"How big is this thing?" Hopper asked.
"It's big, thirty feet, at least," Jonathan explained.
"Yeah," Avery said, "It sorta destroyed your cabin. Sorry, Hopper."
"Okay, so, just to be clear, this... this big fleshy spider thing, that hurt El, it's some kind of gigantic... weapon?" Steve asked.
"Yes."
"But instead of, like, screws and metal, the Mind Flayer made its weapon... with melted people," Steve assured.
"Yes, exactly."
"Yeah, okay. I-- Yeah, I'm just make sure," he nodded.
"Are we sure this thing is still out there, still alive?" Joyce asked.
"El beat the shit out of it, but, yeah, it's still alive," Max said.
"But if we close the gate again--" Will began.
"We cut the brain off from the body," Max continued.
"And kill it," Lucas finished, "Theoretically."
"Yoo-hoo!" The bald man, that they had learned was called Murray, shouted, waving some papers around. He lead the large group over to the foodcourt, slamming one of the papers onto a table, "Okay, this is what Alexei called "the hub." Now, the hub takes us to the vault room."
"Okay, where's the gate?" Hopper asked.
"Right here. I don't know the scale on this, but I think it's fairly close to the vault room, maybe 59 feet or so," Murray told them.
"More like 500," Erica said, "What, you're just gonna waltz in there like it's commie Disneyland or something?"
"I'm sorry, who are you?" Murray asked.
"Erica Sinclair. Who are you?" Erica sassed.
"Murray... Bauman," he answered.
"Listen, Mr. Bunman, I'm not trying to tell you how to do things, but I've been down in that shithole for 24 hours," the young girl began, "And with all due respect, you do what this man tells you, you're all gonna die."
"I'm sorry, why is this four year old talking to me?" Murray questioned, sarcastically.
"Um, I'm ten, you bald bastard!" Erica yelled.
"Erica!" Lucas scolded his sister.
"Just the facts!"
"She's right," Dustin agreed, "You're all gonna die, but you don't have to. Excuse me. Sorry, may I?"
"Please," Murray agreed, allowing Dustin to look at the map.
"Okay, see this room here? This is a storage facility," Dustin explained, "There's a hatch in here that feeds into their underground ventilation system. That will lead you to the base of the weapon. It's a bit of a maze down there, but between me and Erica, we can show you the way."
"You can show us the way?" Hopper asked.
"Don't worry, you can do all the fighting and the dangerous hero shit, and we'll just be your... navigators," Dustin explained.
"No," Hopper simply said, "Nope."

Hopper walked away and looked in his bag, digging around for something as Erica walked away from the table with the rest of the party.
"Well, that settles it. He's gonna die. They're gonna die," Erica sighed.
"Yep, most likely," Dustin agreed.
"You guys survived," Lucas shrugged.
"Barely," Dustin replied, "We could've really used you guys down there."
"Could've used you up here, too," Mike smiled.
"Yeah, man," Lucas agreed, "We missed you, dude."
"Yeah. Big-time," Will smiled.
"We missed you a lot," Avery chuckled.
"I missed you guys, too," Dustin grinned.
The party brought one another into a hug. It was nice. It was like all of the Upside Down things from over the last few years hadn't happened. It was just the five of them again. That was until the moment was ruined.
"Please don't cry, nerds," Erica groaned, rolling her eyes.
"Erica!"
"Keep saying my name, see what happens!" the young girl yelled at her brother.
"Hey, heads up. You can navigate, just  from some place safe," Hopper told Dustin and Erica, throwing Dustin a walkie talkie.
"It's not that simple," Dustin said.
"The signal won't reach," Erica added.
"Not with this. You need something with a high enough frequency band to relay with the Russians' radio tower," the curly haired boy explained, "But for that to work, you need someone who has both seen their comms room and has access to a super/powered handcrafted radio tower, one preferably already situated at the highest point in Hawkins. Oh, wait. That's me. If you want us to navigate, you got us. But we need a head start. And a car."
Hopper threw Steve some car keys to the car that he, Murray and Joyce drove there in. Dustin, Erica, Robin and Steve said bye to the others and got in the car and drove to Weathertop, the place Dustin had placed cerebro a few days before.