Home To Hawkins

Chapter 2 - Meet the Harringtons

"Oh my god. Oh. My. God." Dustin had his head in his hands as we sped home, the windows down, the summer air flying through the window.

"Will you shut up? I'm trying to concentrate." I swerved left, nearly missing the turning. 

"Did your school teach you any Russian as well?" He asked me, his face hopeful.

I shook my head. "Latin and French buddy, just Latin and French."

"God damn it!" He sighed.

"I do have a Russian to English translation book though." I sighed. "Got it at a thrift store when we took a day trip to London."

"You've been to London?" He asked incredulously.

I shrugged. "Yeah, I mean of course." I'd been a few times. My school hadn't been far from London, plus there were some good gigs there that Julie and I had gone to. Navigating the underground had been a nightmare though. Southbound, northbound, Victoria station, Pimlico, it was all very confusing. Islington was good for concerts though.

"Okay, so we get back, we get my recorder, we get your book, we go back, we record the message, we translate." 

I took one hand off the steering wheel to salute. "Aye aye captain."

We were up all night, flicking through the book, trying to work out what Russian words were being said. This was difficult as neither of us spoke Russian and Russian didn't use a Latin based alphabet.

"I mean, it's clearly a code." I said to him at about 1am, once we had given up on the book.

"You think?."

"It just repeated the same words over and over."

Dustin shook his head. "Lots of important transmissions are like that. They repeat information over and over because sometimes the words don't come over properly. I don't think so."

I shrugged. "Do you think it's some sort of missile launch thing? Like instructions?"

"Quite possibly." He circled some possible words. "We could be picking it up from anywhere, it's probably from Russia. Cerebro can pick up-"

"-Transmissions from across the globe, I know, you've told me. I doubt they'd be here anyway. It's not like there's a military base here or anything."

"That we know about." Dustin corrected.

I had to agree. "Sure. That we know about. But if there was a great big military base surely we'd know about it? Same for if there were Russians here. We would know."

Dustin let out a yawn and nodded sleepily. If even Dustin, who was constantly full of energy, was getting tired that meant only one thing. Sleep was needed.

I took the book out of his hands. "I think it's time we go to bed. We can pick this up in the morning."

He tried to grab it back. "No, I wanna keep going."

I dodged him and held it above his head. "No, we need to sleep on it. We're way too tired to make any real progress now. Besides I think we need some help with this."

Dustin put a finger to his lips. "You know what? I think I know just the person."

Starcourt Mall was a capitalist haven. Packed full of shops with bright neon signs and people buying overpriced mass produced clothing items. It was too loud. Too bright. Too colourful. I did not like it.

"No, he's so cool. He's like... the coolest guy I know." Dustin was saying as he led me through crowds of shoppers and escalators.

"Uh huh." I said, not really paying attention. I was just trying to make it through the mall without throwing up. "How old is this guy again?"