𝐝𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐦 𝐠𝐢𝐫𝐥

011. Promethium.

WHILE SHE was looking around the room, Valerie glanced up at the sound of trickling liquid. She grimaced at the pee on the wall. "Steve?!" She shouts suddenly, knowing Dustin and Steve were up on the roof of the room. She groans, looking away when he starts aiming away from that same spot.

Just then, Erica starts hitting a metal barrel with the container of green liquid so Valerie grabs her arm gently. "Hey, be careful," she says as Robin rushed over as well. "We don't even know what that is." Robin says as she takes it from Erica's hand and Valerie lets go of the kid's wrist. "Exactly. It could be useful." Erica says and Valerie glanced at Robin.

"Useful how?" The curly haired girl says and Erica looks at her next. "We can survive down here without food, but if the human body doesn't get water, it will die." She says. "I hate to break it to you, but this is not water." Robin says, raising the cylinder container. "No, but it's a liquid." Erica sassily retorts back. "And if it comes down to me drinking that shit or dying of thirst, I drink." She then smiles kindly.

Robin scoffs and Valerie sighs, grabbing the container. Robin turns away so Valerie and Erica look at her in confusion. She presses the side of her head flat against the wall so Valerie looks at her. "Rob--" "shit." Robin says before going over to the hatch in the ceiling. "We're got company." She says and Valerie leads Erica over to the hatch, "come on." She says and her and Robin help her up. After Erica gets to the top, Robin helps Veronica up next before she climbs up to the roof of the room next.

While up there, the group all sit together as Steve watch the two men grabbing boxes and taking them out of the room. Steve leans back, raising his hand and signalling them to be quiet before he looked at Erica raising the container containing the green liquid. Once the men were gone and they heard the door beginning to close, Steve grabs the container.

It's what he uses to jam the door open, "let's go!" He says and Erica goes first, after her, Dustin, then Robin and Valerie, after them is Steve who Valerie grabs a hold of.

"Come on!" She says when she sees the glass breaking and he's out of the way. Just then, the door slams down, breaking the container and the liquid burns the floor as Valerie and Robin look at Erica almost immediately.

"You still wanna drink that?" Robin asked and Valerie chuckles as Erica just looks at Robin with a serious look. "Holy mother of God." Dustin says, catching their attention as they all turn around to see what he was looking at, which was a really long hallway.

"What the..." Valerie whispered. "Well... hope you guys are in good shape." Steve says and then brushed past Robin and Dustin, "looking at you, roast beef." He pats Dustin's chest before walking down the hall. "That's so rude, Steve." Valerie whispers, walking up to him as he turns. "Let's go, come on." He tells the other three as Dustin looks at Robin between him and Erica. "Why me?" He asked her quietly.

The five now walk down the long hall, Valerie was getting tired and she was falling a bit behind them, walking a few feet away as she glanced up. "I mean, you have to admit, as a feat of engineering alone, this is impressive." Dustin says as they were walking.

"What are you talking about? It's a total fire hazard. There's no stairs, there's no exit, there's just an elevator that drops you halfway to hell." Steve says, looking away as Erica looks up at him. "They're commies. You don't pay people, they cut corners." She says.

"To be fair to our Russian comrades, I don't think this tunnel was designed for walking." Robin says and Valerie looks at the floor. "Yeah... Think about it, they developed the perfect system for transporting that cargo." She says and Dustin nods. "It all comes into the mall like any old delivery." The boy added on.

"And then they load it up onto those trucks and nobody's the wiser." Robin says and Valerie's face scrunched up a bit. "You think they built this whole mall just so they could transport that green poison?" Steve then asked.

"I very seriously doubt it's something as boring as poison. It's gotta be much more valuable, like promethium or something." Dustin says, looking at Steve and Robin then back ahead of himself. "What the hell is promethium?" Steve asked, glancing over at them.

"It's what Victor Stone's dad used to make Cyborg's bionic and cybernetic components." Robin says as she looks over st Steve and Valerie stared at her. "You're all so nerdy, it makes me physically ill." Erica says with her hands over her stomach and Steve looks at her.

"No, no, no. No, don't lump me in with them. I'm not a nerd, alright?" He says and Valerie giggles, glancing at her best friend. "Why so sensitive, Harrington? Afraid of losing cool points to a ten-year-old child?" Robin then asked. "No, I'm just saying I don't know jack shit about Prometheus." Steve says, shrugging.

Valerie smiles, "Promethium. Prometheus is a demigod in Greek Mythology." She says and Steve glanced back at her before looking away and rolling his eyes. "Whatever. All I'm saying is it's probably being used to make something." Dustin says, looking away.

"Or power something."

"Like a nuclear weapon?" Valerie says and Robin nods. "Totally." She says snd Steve glanced back at Valerie then looked away. "Walking towards a nuclear weapon. That's great. That'd be great." He says. "But if they're building something, why here?" Robin says and Valerie looks at her. "Yeah. I mean, Hawkins of all places..." She agreed and Robin nodded.

"At the very best, we're a toilet stop on your way to Disneyland, but maybe that's it, maybe it's our very..." Dustin and Steve began slowing down, looking at each other then at Val. "You think the Russians know?" Steve asked them. "About--" "They could..." Valerie says, looking down. "So it's connected?" Steve says and Valerie glanced up at the two teen boys.

"Maybe." Dustin says. "How?" Valerie whispers to them. "I don't know, but it's..." "Possible." The three say at the same time and then Robin turns to them. "I'm sorry, is there something you three would like to share with the class?" She says and Valerie nudged Steve. Thankfully, just then the supercomm goes off.

"Walkie." Steve and Dustin say in sync and they all run over to Erica and Robin as the ten year old takes out the radio which Robin grabs. Robin begins copying the words the Russian man was saying. "It's the code." She says.

"Wherever that broadcast is coming from--" "it's close. And if there's one thing we know about that signal..." Robin says and Valerie smiles. "It can reach the surface." She says and Robin glanced up, smiling as well. "Let's go." She says. The five all stood up and carried on, walking down the extremely long hallway.

 

 

  

 

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

AUTHORS NOTE

ngl, i'm pretty much just rushing myself writing this at this point even though i try not to rush myself because then it all comes out jumbled and it won't make sense like at all lol