The collective screams of everyone filled the elevator as we dropped for what felt like hours. Everyone was holding on as tightly as they possibly could to whatever object, or person, in my case, was near them. Steve held onto my waist tightly, almost to the point where I couldn't breathe, but it made me feel safer regardless.
"Shit! Shit!" Dustin screeched before running over to the control panel and frantically pushing the buttons.
"We're going down! We're going down!" Steve shouted in a panic.
"Yeah, no shit, Harrington!" Robin yelled back at him.
"Why don't these buttons work?!" Dustin continued screeching. Erica ran over to him in annoyance.
"Press the button!" She demanded.
"What do you think I'm doing?!" Dustin shouted in her face.
"Come on, press something! Just press the button!" I yelled at the kids in panic.
"Push it!" Erica shouted at Dustin before trying to push the buttons herself. Before we could continue yelling at one another, the elevator came to a very sudden stop, causing everyone to fall on their asses.
I shut my eyes tightly and when I opened them back up, I was toppled over Steve. I looked down at him to see his face in a lot of pain.
"My groin. You fell on my groin." He groaned, and I quickly got up off of him and apologized frantically before trying to help him up on his feet. I could hear Robin wincing as she fell into the shelves behind her.
"Is everyone okay?" Robin asked in a pant.
"Yeah, I'm great, now that I know that Russians can't design elevators!" Steve shouted in frustration before pushing Dustin out of the way to push the buttons on the control panel.
"I think we've clearly established that those buttons don't work." I mentioned to Steve, trying to get him to stop his antics.
"They're buttons. They have to do something." Steve argued.
"Yeah, if we had a keycard." I continued, arguing back with him.
"What?" He asked as he turned to face the rest of the group.
"It's an electronic lock. Same as the loading dock door. If we don't have a keycard, it won't operate, meaning--" I explained to the group before being cut off by Dustin.
"We're stuck in here." He groaned.
"Yeah." I nodded in agreeance.
"Just so you nerds are aware, I'm supposed to be spending the night at Tina's, and Tina always covers for me. But if I'm not home for Uncle Jack's party tomorrow and my mom finds out you three are responsible, she's gonna hunt you down, one by one, and slit your throat." Erica said dramatically.
"I don't care about Tina! Or Uncle Jack's party!" Steve yelled. "Your mom's not gonna be able to find us if we're dead in a Russian elevator!"
"Hey." Dustin spoke up quietly, pointing up at the ceiling. "What if we climbed out?" The four of us looked up to see a latch on the ceiling. It was a shot in the dark, but it was worth it if it gave us even a glimpse of hope. Steve and I helped hoist Dustin up to the roof to climb through the small trapdoor. Dustin grunted as he got up on top of the elevator. Steve followed him after Dustin got up and joined him up on top of the elevator.
A second passed before I could hear Steve talking from above. "What'd you say about climbing?" He asked Dustin, his voice echoing.
~
It was hard to tell how much time had passed since we landed. We were all getting pretty tired and tried just about every means there were to escaping without trying to harm ourselves.
We all stayed inside of the elevator, giving up for now on our escape attempts as everyone was fatigued and needed some sleep. Granted, no one in here would be getting good sleep, but it was something to take us away from the situation for a few hours. I sat in the corner of the room, up against the wall where Steve and I had been when we were falling. From that spot I had eyes on everyone, and as far as I could tell, just about everyone was asleep.
Everyone except for Steve, of course. He was determined to get us all out of here, to get the kids to safety most importantly. He was up on the roof, trying the radio on the off chance that someone may pick up. I got up from my spot and headed up the latch to join him, trying to keep quiet to avoid waking the rest of the group.
"Steve?" I said, calling out to him in a bit of a quieter voice than usual. He stopped his radio and looked over to me, seeing I was by the latch trying to get up. He went over and helped me up to my feet before quietly closing the door behind me.
"Yeah? What's up?" He asked, letting go of me as I stood in front of him.
"Come on, you should get some rest. Starcourt should be closed at this hour." I told him, trying to usher him down to the elevator. He shook his head quickly.
"But what if it's not? I think it's pretty safe to say no one is keeping track of time down here." Steve argued, keeping his voice quiet.
"We've all had a long day." I sighed. "At least come back and relax, I'll even join you if you want." Steve hesitated, looking up at the long shaft of the elevator before he sighed to himself and obliged, following me back down the latch and into the elevator. We sat together in the corner from before, not really sure where to begin.
The silence had a bit of an awkward and uncomfortable feeling to it, but I couldn't place my finger as to why. The feeling seemed to be taken over by warmth the second I heard Steve's quiet, mumble-y voice by my ear.
"Remember that time a while back when we were in school and I snuck out late at night to go see you? I woke you up by tapping on your window and you left your house with me to just hang out and drive around town. We listened to our songs and ended up on a hill that looked over all of Hawkins and just talked about whatever was on our minds at the time. Probably just homework and stupid teachers." Steve began, leaning his head back on the wall in thought with a small smile on his face. I looked towards him to show I was listening, though I was confused as to why he was bringing this up now of all times. "I still think about that day all the time."
I looked away from him and down at my hands, a small, almost sad smile forming on my lips at the memory. Simpler times, you could say. I felt Steve's eyes on me for a moment before the silence filled the room again except for Dustin's occasional snoring. After a moment, I spoke up.
"Steve, I'm scared." I said, looking his way. The two of us made eye contact, staring at one another for a second or two until Steve sneaked an arm around my waist, pulling me close to his body for comfort. I sunk into him, feeling his warmth take over my senses as I cuddled into him.
"It'll all be okay, (Y/n). When has it not worked out for us?" He told me, trying to make me feel better. I nodded a bit, the sleepiness starting to get to me after I had snuggled into Steve.
"That was before, when we were dealing with interdimensional monsters and not people. Erica and Robin don't know what they're getting into, none of us really do." I said, voicing my concerns to him. "What if all of this is somehow related to the Upside Down?"
"We're a smart group of kids." Steve said, causing me to lift my head and raise an eyebrow at his statement. He noticed and pursed his lips in a line, realizing I was talking about him. "Most of us." He corrected himself, to which I sank my head back into his chest. "They'll make smart decisions. I have a hunch we'll make it out of here fine." Steve reassured.
I nodded at his words, taking them in and taking a deep breath to try to stop worrying so much about everything. "Even the kids?"
"Especially the kids." Steve said, letting me know he wouldn't let anything bad happen to them. I smiled and closed my eyes, my breathing becoming steadier as Steve held me close.
And before I knew it, I woke up hours later to the sound of Dustin trying to wake us up.
~
A little while had passed since mine and Steve's conversation. Dustin had been trying to get someone to pick up on his radio signal for what felt like forever know, with the same phrase over and over again.
"This is a code red, I repeat, a code red. This is a code red, I repeat, a code red. Does anyone copy?" He said over and over again up on the roof. "We are innocent children and we are trapped under Starcourt Mall. The Red Army has infiltrated Hawkins, and if we are found, they will torture and kill us."
Steve, who was sitting next to me, got up and headed over to the door on the ceiling, hopping up on a table to talk to Dustin through it. "Hey. Gotta take it easy on that thing. Gonna drain the battery." He panted.
"The mall just opened." Dustin told him back. I got up and went over to where the table sat and peered up through the door to see what the two of them were up to.
"So?" Steve asked.
"So someone could be in range." Dustin replied in a frustrated tone.
"What do you think, Petey the Mall Cop is gonna rappel down here and save the day?" Steve remarked sarcastically before climbing up to the roof.
I couldn't hear what the two of them said afterwards, but it sounded like faint whispering from where I sat. I went over to Robin who was trying to take a look at the control panel to see if there were any wires broken. About a minute passed before I heard Dustin shout from above.
"What are you doing?" He said to Steve.
"What does it look like I'm doing? I'm taking a leak. Look away." Steve replied before shouting. "Look away!"
Not a second passed after before we heard the sound of liquid trickling down the side of the wall outside of the elevator. Luckily for us, there were windows of sorts in the elevator, so we got to watch as his stream slowly leaked down the side of the wall.
"Can you redirect your stream, please?" Robin shouted up at him. His stream began moving to the side, creating a zig-zag design that wasn't any better than what it was previously. The two of us groaned at him and his grossness before getting distracted by clanging from beside us. We turned to see Erica banging one of the green tube things against a metal container. I quickly ran over to her.
"Hey, hey! Be careful! Careful, careful, careful!" I told her as I took the tube away from her hands protectively. "We don't even know what this is."
"Exactly. It could be useful." Erica mentioned.
"Useful how?" Robin asked as she came over by my side.
"We can survive down here a long time without food, but if the human body doesn't get water, it will die." Erica reminded us.
"I hate to break it to you, but this is not water." Robin told her strictly.
"No, but it's a liquid, and if it comes down to me drinking that shit, or dying of thirst, I drink." Erica said as she smiled at us. Robin scoffed as Erica took the tube away from my hands, only for the two of us to be distracted by a sort of whirring sound in the distance that seemed to come from outside of the elevator.
Robin glanced my way before I quickly got up on the table to let the boys know what was going on. "We have company." I told them, and Steve ran over to where I was to help me get up on the roof. Robin and Erica quickly followed, and we shut the latch behind us to avoid being caught. We watched through the metal grates on the roof as two men in uniforms came into the elevator, spoke some Russian to each other, and walked out carrying the Imperial boxes. We all made sure to stay incredibly silent until they had left, and once we heard the whirring of whatever machine they had with them go off in the distance, we knew it was time to act, and quickly.
Steve grabbed the tube from Erica's hand and quickly hopped down, sliding on the floor in order to place the tube in between the floor and the closing elevator to prop it open. We all followed out from the roof after him and I pushed the kids ahead of me to let them get out first. Steve stayed by the elevator door to help get Erica and Dustin underneath the door and ushered them to hurry as quickly as they could. Robin and I followed after the kids as the vial's glass began cracking at the built up pressure. Steve quickly crawled his way out from under the door with barely enough time left to spare as the vial broke, causing the door to slam shut. The green liquid inside got all over the floor, causing the floor to begin melting.
We got up off of the floor and went over to watch as the liquid burned right through the metal floors of the underground base.
"You still wanna drink that?" Robin asked Erica with a smirk, to which Erica just rolled her eyes.
"Holy mother of God." Dustin groaned, and the rest of us turned to see what he was talking about. The hallway ahead of us looked to run for miles, and we knew if we wanted to figure out what these Russians were up to, we'd have to up our cardio game.
"Well..." Steve began. "Hope you guys are in good shape." He mumbled to the group before walking in between Dustin and Robin, patting Dustin on his chest. "Looking at you, roast beef."
I ushered Dustin along as the rest of us began following Steve. "Why me?" Dustin asked me, and I shrugged.
"Don't worry about it, dude. I'm sure you'll do great." I told him as I gave him a small grin despite everyone being tired and sore. "He's just cranky since he stayed up past his bedtime." I said, raising my voice so Steve could hear me from down the hallway. I looked over to see Steve turned, looking my way and his expression was displeased, to say the least. But more than anything, there was something in his eyes that told me he wasn't actually upset by my comment, and almost amused in a way. I turned back to Dustin when I heard his giggles from beside me, which put a smile on my face and made me forget where we were for a moment.
~
We had been walking for what felt like ages, with our conversations getting duller by the second.
"I mean, you have to admit, as a feat of engineering alone, this is impressive." Dustin mentioned at the large hallway.
"What are you talking about? It's a total fire hazard." Steve argued. "There's no stairs, there's no exit, there's just an elevator that drops you halfway to hell."
"They're Commies. You don't pay people, they cut corners." Erica mentioned.
"To be fair to our Russian comrades, I don't think this tunnel was designed for walking." Robin began. "I mean, think about it, they developed the perfect system for transporting that cargo."
"It all comes into the mall like any old delivery." Dustin said.
"And then they load it up onto those trucks and nobody's the wiser." I finished.
"You think they built this whole mall just so they could transport that green poison?" Steve asked.
"I very seriously doubt it's something as boring as poison." Dustin argued. "It's gotta be much more valuable, like promethium or something."
"What the hell is promethium?" Steve questioned.
"It's what Victor Stone's dad used to make Cyborg's bionic and cybernetic components." Robin answered, catching me a bit off guard that she knew and enjoyed all of the same things that Dustin and I did.
"You're all so nerdy, it makes me physically ill." Erica remarked as she held her stomach.
"No, no, no. No, don't lump me in with them." Steve protested. "I'm not a nerd, all right?"
"Why so sensitive, Harrington?" I teased him. "Afraid of losing cool points to a ten-year-old child?"
"No, I'm just saying I don't know jack shit about Prometheus." Steve argued.
"Promethium. Prometheus is a Greek mythological figure who was a Titan god of fire." I corrected him.
"All I'm saying is, it's probably being used to make something." Dustin said, brushing off our conversation.
"Or power something." Robin continued.
"Like a nuclear weapon?" Dustin asked, bouncing off of her statement.
"Totally." She agreed.
"Walking towards a nuclear weapon. That's great. That'd be great." Steve sarcastically remarked.
"But if they're building something, why here? I mean, Hawkins. Seriously. Of all places. At the very best, we're a toilet stop on your way to Disneyland, but maybe that's it. Maybe it's our very..." Robin continued mumbling as Steve, Dustin and I hung back while Erica and Robin walked ahead of us.
"You think the Russians know?" Dustin asked Steve and I.
"About--" Steve began but was cut off by me talking over him.
"They could." I nodded.
"So it's connected?" Steve theorized.
"Maybe." Dustin shrugged.
"How?" Steve asked.
"I don't know, but it's..." I started, the three of us all getting the same idea.
"Possible." We said in unison, causing Erica and Robin to stop walking and turn to look at us.
"I'm sorry, is there something you'd like to share with the class?" She asked sarcastically, Steve about to answer her question before we were all distracted by Dustin's radio starting up again with the same Russian man speaking the same cryptic message coming from the other end.
We ran over to Erica who held the walkie and crouched on the floor, listening to the message to see if it was any different. Robin spoke in Russian, speaking the message at the same time as the man on the radio. "It's the code." She told us.
"Wherever that broadcast is coming from--" Dustin began but was cut short by Robin.
"It's close." She nodded. "And if there's one thing we know about that signal..."
"It can reach the surface." Dustin grinned, catching onto her idea.
"Let's go." She ordered, and the five of us got up from the ground to continue walking down the long hall.
~
The buzzing of small cars passed down the hallways as we reached a new part of the underground base. Multiple hallways all connected to one another instead of the once previous single hallway that we had walked down for what felt like miles. Men spoke indistinctly in Russian and carried large guns with them everywhere they went.
Steve led the group in the hallway, hiding everyone behind a large box that looked to be for ventilation. He peeked around the corner of the box as he heard the footsteps of two men fading away, and looked around to make sure we were in the clear before leading us down the hallway away from where the men were heading.
"Okay, clear. Clear, let's go." He ushered, and we followed him.
"That was close." Robin muttered.
"Too close." Dustin agreed.
"Relax." Steve reassured. "All right? Relax. Nobody saw..." He began, but stopped walking and talking when he turned the corner. We followed and looked down the hallway to find a large facility with people in lab coats, guard outfits, and other uniforms walking around and talking to one another, driving their small red cars and standing guard to ensure the facility stayed safe.
Our mouths hung open in utter shock before we realized we were in plain sight. A guard up on the second floor of the facility looked almost directly at us, or so we thought, and we all quickly ducked behind a red box, hugging the wall to avoid any chance of being seen.
"Shit!" Steve quickly spat quietly when we ducked away.
"Red Dawn." Dustin mumbled.
"I saw it." Erica whispered. "First floor, northwest."
"Saw what?" Steve whispered back.
"The comms room." Erica elaborated.
"You saw the comms room?" Steve questioned, looking back at the facility.
"Correct." She reassured.
"Are you sure?" Dustin whispered to Erica.
"Positive. The door was open for a second, and I saw a bunch of lights and machines and shit in there." Erica explained.
"That could be a hundred different things." Dustin argued with her reasoning. Robin turned to Steve and I.
"I'll take those odds." She told us.
Steve sighed and shook his head in worry and disbelief before looking over at the door Erica mentioned. We all peeked behind the box to look at the place, trying to scope out any weak spots. Steve moved back into place, causing all of us to follow suite.
"All right. We're gonna move fast, we're gonna stay low. Okay?" He told us directly before leaving our hiding spot and running low over to the door. Robin followed after him and then the kids and finally me, making sure Dustin and Erica didn't get left behind.
Steve led us to a storage container which we all hid behind until we knew none of the guards or other personnel were paying attention. Then to another hiding spot after that one, and we had a clear view of another door with a glass window beside it. A man stood at the window but didn't seem to notice us, despite all of our colorful outfits. The man opened the door with a keycard and left, looking down at some notes in his hands. The second he was far enough, we ran over to the door as it began closing and Steve grabbed the door and opened it just as it nearly shut. He ushered us inside quickly before closing the door behind us.
As soon as we got in, however, we noticed a major issue. A man in a brown suit and headphones on was sitting in a chair at a control panel in front of him, and he noticed the second we got in.
He stared at us in confusion before reaching for his gun, to which Robin quickly stepped in front of us and began reciting the Russian message.
The man spoke back in Russian that none of us understood, to which Robin tried speaking to him once more, but he shook his head.
The man reached for his gun once more but was immediately cut off by Steve yelling loudly and running full force towards him. My mouth hung open in surprise and I stepped in front of the kids to make sure nothing happened to them as Steve pushed the man up against the control panel. The man got free of Steve's grasp and pushed him against a table before swinging a punch his way.
Steve narrowly avoided it by pushing himself back against the table out of reach of his fist, grunting. The man grabbed him by his shirt and pushed him against a separate table with papers all along it, causing Steve to bend over the table. As the man was about to grab Steve's back, Steve elbowed him in the stomach, causing him to fold back in pain before Steve grabbed a phone and smacked him hard on the head. The man fell back, hitting his head against the corner of the table before falling to the ground passed out and bleeding from his forehead.
Steve panted and ran a hand through his hair, which made Dustin and I grow a smile on our faces.
"Dude!" Dustin said to Steve excitedly, turning his attention towards us. "You did it!"
"You won a fight!" I stated with a large grin on my face. Steve looked back down at the man before he smiled, too.
"Jeez." He mumbled to himself and chuckled. Dustin ran over to the passed out Russian and began grabbing the keycard on his belt.
"What are you doing?" Erica asked.
"Getting us our ticket out of here." Dustin replied.
"You want to walk all the way back?" Erica questioned with a scoff.
"Oh, well, we can hang out for a little bit, relax, have a picnic maybe." Dustin remarked sarcastically.
"Have a picnic? We came here for the radio." Erica reminded him. I could hear footsteps climbing up some stairs not too far away from us, and I noticed Robin exploring a little ways ahead.
"This plan is way better. If I knew Steve could knock out a Russian, that would've been our plan in the first place." Dustin argued with her. I turned to Steve and gave him a light punch on the shoulder.
"You all right?" I asked just to make sure.
"Yeah, just a little winded." He assured me. I smiled and nodded.
"You did good." I congratulated him.
"Thanks. I know." Steve grinned back slightly as he put his hands on his hips.
"Guys." Robin quickly spat, drawing our attention to her. She stood at the bottom of some stairs. "There's something up there."
She led us up the stairs and opened up the door, ushering us all inside one at a time as we looked at the room that was submerged in blue lighting. We peered out of the glass on the doors to the control panel of the room, staring at a very scary reality.
"Holy shit." Dustin muttered, causing my heart to sink at the realization of what it was. In the large area sat men in lab coats ahead of us who were operating a machine of sorts. The machine sat ahead of them behind glass walls, and men in hazmat suits walked near it, placing in that green liquid we encountered earlier like a power source. The machine shot a blue laser that led right into a crack in the wall, one that was easily recognizable to be nothing other than the gate.
They were trying to open it back up.