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MYSTIFYING
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Translating Russian
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LUNA WAS SITTING at the booth of Scoop's Ahoy with her two favorite boys Dustin and Steve. She was finishing up her lunch and meanwhile Dustin was about to share his important information with the two of them. She thought it would just be something minor but little did she know that it was the start of a very huge adventure.
Luna glances at Steve, once he nods at her signaling that he's ready to hear it she looks over at Dustin expectantly, "Okay, spill it."
Dustin scoots closer to them in the booth, "Okay, so we were trying to get in contact with Suzie..." Luna nodded and Dustin leaned forward, he eyed Robin at the counter before placing his attention back on them. He covered his lips with his mouth and muttered something, however Luna caught none of it.
"Dustin, could you um... speak up?"
He clicks his tongue, then he mutters the words again. But yet again, he's still being too quiet and Luna's brows furrowed as she turned to Steve who looked completely lost by what he's trying to tell them too.
"Dude, just speak louder." Steve demanded him.
"I intercepted a secret Russian communication!" Dustin said loudly.
Luna shushed him as she looked around and saw everyone turned to them, "Shit, Dustin."
"Jeez, shh. Yeah, okay, that's what we thought you said." Steve rushed out.
She thought he would have another story about being at camp but nope, Russians. Of course, it would be Russians.
Luna sighed, "So um... what does that mean?"
"It means, we could be heroes." Dustin replied, "True American heroes."
"Huh." Steve muttered, his coffee brown eyes sparking with interest.
"Mm-hm." Dustin grins.
Luna's brows raised, "American heroes." She crossed her arms, "What's the catch?"
"No catch, I just need your guy's help." Dustin said, then he reached into his backpack and pulled out a small Russian to English book. "Translation."
Luna eyes the book before she reaches over and plucks it out of his hands, "Challenge accepted."
Dustin grins, "Can we go sit in the back?"
Luna looks over at Steve, "You're the manager, what do you say?"
"Uh, yeah." He nods, "Okay. Let's go."
"Awesome." Luna stands up from the booth and picks up her trash, "Let's go, boys."
Luna makes her way to the back of the parlor with Dustin and Steve following behind her, she throws away her Burger King trash and pulls out a chair for Dustin to sit in at the table. He pulls out a tape recorder from his backpack and she and Steve get comfortable as he starts it.
"So this is what I heard them say." Dustin says as the recording starts.
Minutes later she and Steve are pacing the back room as Dustin sits at the table replaying the recording. Steve is eating a banana and Luna has been snacking on a cherry or two as she listens intently. So far she obviously doesn't know what's being said but she does someone feel like the sound in the background is familiar.
Almost like she's heard it before.
"Steve!" She hears Robin yell from the front counter, but the two of them are too in the zone to really do anything. Plus, Luna knows Robin can handle whatever is going on.
Luna sighed as Dustin paused the recording, "So what do you guys think?"
"It sounded familiar." Steve replied.
"What?" Dustin questioned.
"The music." Steve replied before stuffing his cheeks with banana.
Luna nods in agreement, "The music at the end, it's... weirdly familiar."
"Why are you guys listening to the music?" Dustin asked with impatience in his tone, "Listen to the Russians. We're translating Russians!"
Luna groans in frustration, "Dustin, we're trying to listen to the Russian but there's music—"
"All right," Robin barged in the room cutting Luna off, "Babysitting time is over." Guess she couldn't handle it after all, oops. "One of you need to get in there." She says with an ice cream scooper in her hand, she walks over at her board which Dustin had erased to fill with the Russian alphabet. "Hey, my board. That was important data, shitbirds."
"I guarantee you, what we're doing is way more important than your data." Dustin said.
"Yeah?" Robin says, "And how do you know these Russians are up to no good anyways?"
Luna facepalmed, shit.
"How does she know about the Russians?" Dustin asked she and Steve.
"I don't know." Steve replied, mouth still full of banana, Luna crinkles her nose to him talking with his mouth full.
Again.
"Did you tell her?" Dustin questioned the taller boy.
"No, I didn't—"
Luna sighed heavily cutting Steve off, "It could be the fact that you practically shouted and everyone heard you at the table. Just throwing that out there."
Robin nods, "Precisely, and the fact that I can hear everything. The three of you together are extremely loud but atleast Luna tries to keep her voice down." Thank you Robin for the recognition, not that it even matters. "You think you have evil Russians plotting against our country, on tape, and you're trying to translate, but haven't figured out a single word because you didn't realize Russians use an entirely different alphabet." She glances at the three of them, "Sound about right?"
Luna blinks, and just like she predicted the blondes next move she grabbed the recorder as she reached for it. "What do you think you're doing?"
"I wanna hear it." Robin replied simply.
"Why?" She, Steve and Dustin say instantaneously.
"Cause maybe I can help." Robin responds. "I'm fluent in four languages, you know."
Luna frowns in confusion, "Russian? I know you're good with Spanish and French but—"
"Ou-yay are-yay umb-day." Robin recites making Luna's eyes widen in surprise.
"Oh, ho ho." Steve chuckles.
"Holy shit." Dustin exclaimed.
"That was Pig Latin, dingus." Robin replied. "But as Luna said, I can speak Spanish," She sits down in the chair next to Dustin, "And French, and also Italian, and I've been in band for 12 years. My ears are little geniuses, trust me."
"Uh..." Steve muttered nervously.
"Come on, it's your turn to sling ice cream, me and Luna can stay back and translate." Robin suggested. "Plus, I don't even want credit. I'm just bored."
Luna glanced at her taller coffee brown eyed best friend, "What do you say, Stevie-boy?"
Steve's eyes land on her for a few seconds, she fights the urge to blush and eventually his eyes move from her as they focus on Robin as he grabs the scooper from her hand. "You better be useful." He says pointing the kitchen appliance at her.
Robin grins, "I will be, now shoo."
And with that, Steve walks out of the back room and deals with the customer who's currently ringing the bell incessantly. She only knows one person who rings the bell that many times, Erica Sinclair.
Good luck, Steve.
"Okay." Robin claps, "Let's get to translating."
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Luna isn't even sure how long she spent sitting at the table in the back room, her job was to write down the words that Robin figured out as they listened to the recorder over and over. They were almost done with their first sentence and Robin was pacing the room while Dustin was playing the recording again for what felt like the 100th time.
"Wait," Dustin paused the recording, "That last part, just one more time." Robin said to the younger boy.
"Okay." Dustin said replaying what she asked as Luna twirled her pencil between her two fingers.
"Okay, that word." Robin said before Dustin paused it, "Um... It's pronounced... "dyl-nna-ya."
"Dyl-nna-ya..." Dustin muttered.
Robin nods, "Which is spelled... D... D, D, D..."
Dustin shoots up from the chair and Luna gets her pencil ready to write another word as he helps Robin finish translating with the help of the Russian alphabet board.
"The—The chair." Dustin says, "The chair-looking thing."
"Luna, you got that?" Robin leaned next to her, she nodded as she wrote down the letter on her notepad.
After minutes more of figuring that out Luna looked down and realized they had their first sentence, she showed it to the both of them before walking over to the glass windows and opened them. "Vic, we have our first sentence!"
"Oh, seriously?" Steve asked turning back to her with icecream in his hands. He rushed over to the counter and leaned forward to hear more.
Robin pops up next to Luna with an excited smile, "The week is long." She recites in a Russian accent.
Steve's face falls, "Well, that's thrilling."
Luna nods, "It's progress though, nonetheless. Now serve that ice cream." She goes to close the window but then she sees a flash of red hair, she looks and sees her sister standing there with Eleven. "Uh, Max... what are you doing here with Eleven?"
Steve nods as he turns forward, "I was thinking the same thing, didn't Hopper say you couldn't be out in the public like this?"
The two girls giggle with their icecream in hand before leaving the parlor and rushing off through the mall.
"What..." Steve muttered
"I..." Luna sighs, "I'll talk to my sister later." She closes the glass windows and sits back down at the table. "Okay, back to translating."
Hours later after gaining a headache from listening to the same voice over and over, watching Robin pace wondering how her feet weren't killing her, and twiddling her pencil in her hand when she wasn't writing down English from Russian translation, they finally figured out the one part of the recording that Dustin had gotten, it was past closing time when they finished double checking their translation.
"The week is long, the silver cat feeds, when blue meets yellow in the west." The four of them recited simultaneously.
"Well," Steve's arms slap against his sides. "That's great, Luna will you help me close up?"
Luna pulls her hair out of her ponytail and nods, "Yeah, sure." She pulls all of her hair up and threw it into a messy bun ontop of her head. Luna flicks the lights off and then she and the others walk out of the parlor, she pulls down the gate with Steve and then she leans down and uses the key he handed her to lock it closed.
"It just can't be right." Steve grunted as he stood up, he offered her his hand and she quickly took it allowing him to pull her to her feet.
"It's right." Robin replied.
"We spent hours on it making sure, we translated it exactly."
"Honestly, I think it's great news." Dustin says with high spirits.
Steve scoffed, "How is this great news?" He chuckled weakly, "So much for being American heroes. It's total nonsense."
Luna sighed, "You don't know that, Steve."
"Yeah, it's not nonsense." Dustin responds. "It's too specific. It's obviously a code."
Luna nods at the younger boy, "I was thinking the same thing."
"What do you mean a code?" Steve questioned.
"I mean, like a secret spy code." Dustin said.
"That's a total stretch." Steve retorted in disbelief.
"I don't know, is it?" Robin asked.
Luna grins, "I think we're onto something huge here if you ask me."
Steve groans, "Don't tell me you both are buying into this."
Luna ruffles his hair, she smiles smugly when he slaps her hands away. "Sorry to disappoint, Stevie-boy."
"Stop that." He demands pushing her away from him so she stops reaching for his perfect strands.
"Listen, just for kicks, let's entertain the possibility that it is a secret Russian transmission." Robin says, "What'd you think they were gonna say, "Fire the warhead at noon"?"
"Exactly." Dustin agrees.
"Plus Robin translated for hours, I trust her. Like she said, her ears are little geniuses."
Robin smiles, "Thanks, Nara."
Luna beams, "You're welcome, Robby."
"Plus, "The silver cat feeds." Why would anyone talk like that unless they're trying to mask the meaning of their message?" Robin questioned.
"Exactly." Dustin replied.
"And why would anyone mask the true meaning of their message unless the message was somehow sensitive?" Robin questioned once more.
"Exactly." Dustin said agreeing with hee again.
"So, I guess that confirms your suspicion." Robin responded.
"Evil Russians." Dustin says.
Robin chuckles, "I can't believe I'm about to agree with this strange child, but, yeah, totally evil Russians."
"So how do we crack it?"
Robin sighs, "Well, I guess we translate the rest and..." She shrugs, "Hopefully a pattern emerges." Luna nods in understanding, or atleast she tried because all she could really focus on was how starving she was. She notices Steve had stopped walking next to her as she looks over, she turns and sees him a few feet back at the small horse ride infront of the claw machine.
She frowns in confusion as he pulls out coins from his pocket, "Hey, what's up?"
Steve glances at her, "Remember that song from the end of the recording?" She nods, "I couldn't figure out where it came from but..." He sighs heavily, "Shit, do you have any quarters?"
Luna checks her pockets, "Sorry, I don't have any." Steve groans and checks his coins again dropping some of them to the floor, a loud clattering echo coming from the action.
"Hey, Steve." Robin calls from a few feet away with Dustin. "What are you doing?"
"Uh, it's a quarter." He replied, "I need— do you have a quarter?"
Robin chuckles as she and Dustin rush over, "Sure you're tall enough for that ride?"
"Quarter!" Steve shouts in frustration as he waves them over, Robin tosses him one and he catches it. Luna looks over at him as he shoves the quarter into the horse ride.
And soon... it all makes sense.
"You need help getting up, little Stevie?" Robin teased him as he crouched on the ground, Luna shushed her as the both of them listen to the song playing.
"Would you two just shut up and listen?" Steve asked.
Luna recognized it almost immediately, this specific song was playing in the background of the Russian recording...she was almost sure that was the same exact song.
"Holy shit." Dustin said, then he pulled off his backpack. "The music. The music!" He drops down to his knees and pulled out the recorder, then he played the recording and it matched the sound of the ride perfectly.
Robin frowned, "I don't understand."
"It's the same, Robby."
"The same exact song on the recording." Dustin replied.
"Maybe they have horses like this in Russia." Robin said trying to make sense of it all.
"Indiana Flyer? I don't... I don't think so." Steve said still crouched down next to the ride, "This code, it... didn't come from Russia." Luna's eyes widened when everything he was saying started to fall into place, "It came from here."
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HI, OKAY SO LETS CHAT.
So we got Steve's pov last chapter, you guys got a little peek into his mind and how he feels about Luna... aka his flirting and whole "ladies man" thing he has in season 3 is almost nonexistent because in his eyes nobody compares to Luna... but he will have his moments because he's TRYING to move on... but failing so yeah, just a heads up.
Anywayy,, I will see you guys in the next one very soon!
<3
—Mic