PARTNERS IN CRIME ━━ mike wheeler

23. getting will byers back

"His army. Maybe if we stop him, we can stop his army, too." Mike offered and all the kids looked at each other. Mike began walking out of the room and they all shot up to follow him, Maddie following close behind to see what he was thinking.

He walked over to Wills picture of the monster and handed it to Dustin. "The shadow monster." Dustin noted. "It got Will that day on the field. The doctor said it was like a virus, it infected him."

"And so this virus, it's connecting him to the tunnels?" Max continued, picking up on what Mike was saying. "To the tunnels, monsters, the Upside Down, everything." Mike replied.

Steve put his hands up. "Whoa. Slow down. Slow down." He took the image from Dustin, looking at it as Mike explained. "Okay, so, the shadow monsters inside everything. And if the vines feel something like pain, then so does Will." Lucas looked at Mike. "And so does Dart."

"Yeah. Like what Mr. Clarke taught us. The hive mind." Mike nodded. "Hive mind?" Steve questioned. Maddie bit her lip, she didn't know how he didn't know about a hive mind but ignored it. Dustin looked at his new friend. "A collective consciousness. It's a super-organism."

Mike pointed at the drawing again. "And this is the thing that controls everything. It's the brain." Mike turned to Maddie. "It's like what we talked about at the lab. Finding the vines brain in a separate location, well this is that brain we were looking for." Maddie smiled a bit, super impressed on how Mike had just figured it all out.

"Like the mind flayer." Dustin suddenly connected. Lucas snapped towards him, instantly catching on as Mike did too. "What?" Steve, Max, and Maddie questioned at once. She really wished she had started listening when the boys played D&D.

Dustin went looking for Wills D&D book until he found it, running back to the kitchen and looking for the page he needed. Once he had it, everyone had already gathered around as he slammed it onto the table. Maddie hadn't been too focused on them when they all went back into the kitchen, but at some point Nancy, Jonathan, and Hopper had joined them, ready to hear what Dustin had to say. "The mind flayer."

"What the hell is that?" Hopper replied, looking at the boy confused. "It's a monster from an unknown dimension. It's so ancient that it doesn't even know its true home. Okay, it enslaves races of other dimensions by taking over their brains using its highly-developed psionic powers."

Hopper rolled his eyes. "Oh, my god, none of this is real. This is a kids game." Dustin shook his head. "No, I-it's a manual. And it's not for kids. And unless you know something that we don't, this is the best metaphor—"

"Analogy." Lucas cut off. Maddie threw her head back, not wanting a repeat of what always seemed to repeat between Dustin and Lucas. "Can we focus, please?" Dustin ignored her. "Analogy? That's what you're worried about? Fine, fine. An analogy for understanding whatever the hell this is."

Nancy sighed. "Okay, so this mind flamer thing—" Dustin cut her off. "Flayer. Mind flayer." She sighed. "What does it want?" Dustin instantly had his response. "To conquer us, basically. It believes it's the master race."

"Like the Germans." Steve tried to contribute, causing heads to turn his direction. "Uh, the Nazis?" Dustin replied, wondering if he understood Steve correctly. Steve nodded. "Yeah, yeah, yeah, the Nazis."

"Uh... if Nazis were from another dimension, totally. Uh, it views other races, like us, as inferior to itself." Dustin further explained. "It wants to spread, take over other dimensions." Mike added. "We are talking about the destruction of our world as we know it." Lucas finished.

Steve began freaking out. "That's great. That's great. That's really great. Jesus!" He walked away from the group a bit, just trying to get some space. "Okay, so if this thing is like a brain that's controlling everything, then if we kill it..." Nancy began, hoping someone would answer. And Mike did. "We kill everything it controls."