𝐀𝐏𝐎𝐂𝐀𝐋𝐘𝐏𝐒𝐄 | 𝐬.𝐡.

𝟐𝟑. 𝐓𝐡𝐞𝐲 𝐀𝐬𝐬𝐮𝐦𝐞 𝐘𝐨𝐮 𝐊𝐧𝐨𝐰 𝐍𝐨𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐠

Max nodded her head slightly. "El beat the shit out of it - but yeah, it's still alive."

"But if we close the gate again-" Will said.

"We cut off the brain from the body," Max interrupted.

"And kill it," Lucas completed. "Theoretically."

Lorelei looked up from where she had been glancing at her worn-out sneaker. "There's just one problem - this gate is guarded by a plethora of angry Russian soldiers. All of which are most likely on high alert after we-" she pointed to Steve, Dustin, Robin, Erica, and herself "broke into their little evil lair."

"But there's gotta be a way in," her father theorized from beside her. "Don't you guys remember what trail you took?"

"No offense, Dad, but we haven't so much as slept in more than a day-" Lorelei grimaced. "That place is a maze."

In front of her, it seemed as though Hopper was becoming increasingly frustrated with the predicament that they were currently in. In fact, Lorelei could tell that everyone was very much on edge as they tried to think of a solution.

"Yoo-hoo!" a voice suddenly called out.

Lorelei looked over her shoulder to see the peculiar man who had shown up with her father walking over to the group. It seemed as though he had a multitude of papers in his hands, which he was waving about frantically. After asking her dad, Lorelei had learned that is name was Murray Bauman, and that not only did he look peculiar - he also acted like it.

Once he reached the group, he placed the papers that he had brought with him over to one of the tables that were spread out across the open food court. The group hastily gathered around him in curiosity of what he could have possibly been showing them. Lorelei ended up between Steve and Max, who were both looking down at the papers with narrowed eyes.

Deciding to see what Murray was so eager about, Lorelei glanced down only to view what seemed like an accurate representation of the location of many places within the Russian base - save for the gigantically long space that he seemed to omit from his clearly not-to-scale diagram.

"Okay, so this is what Alexei called The Hub," he started explaining.

Lorelei's father had told her briefly of this man who was named Alexei. It seemed as though they had managed to find the only nice Russian who was currently in Hawkins - and they had befriended him, who was a scientist working for the Russian government, to pass on information to them. Tragically, David Keller had also informed Lorelei that Alexei had been shot by one of the less friendly Russians.

"Now, it takes us to the vault room," Murray pointed at the drawings.

"Okay, where's the gate?" Hopper inquired.

"Right here," he replied. "I don't know the scale in this-"

Clearly, thought Lorelei as she held in a laugh.

"But I think it's fairly close to the vault room, maybe 50 feet or so," Murray estimated.

"More like 500," Erica suddenly stepped forward, her hands on her waist as she glared over at Murray. "What? You're just gonna waltz in there like it's commie Disneyland or something?"