Suddenly, everyone's stomachs were at their feet it felt like they were about to die. It was only like the seventy millionth time, so what was another. Yells escaped the mouths of all of them as they continued to drop into what at his point felt like the deepest depths of hell.
"Shit, Shit!" From Dustin we the only words yelled that broke the screams of everyone. Grabbing ahold of the control box, the boy begain hitting buttons as fast and hard as he could.
"We're going down! We are going down!" The second words were screamed as if it wasn't obvious to everyone in the room and anyone with in a thousand feet of the free falling "storage room."
"Yeah, no shit Harrington." Robin yelled back at him, holding into the metal shelf so as not to fall completely on her face.
"Why don't these buttons work?" Erica ran over to the boy frantically pushing them just as repeatedly while yelling for him to press it, getting the same exact result. "Whay do you think I'm doing?!"
"Come on, press something! Just press the button!" Steve screamed just as the bottom hit the ground and stopped moving. Lauren, along with the others, legs buckled, sending the straight to the ground despite the fact that they were holding on to anything they could find for support. "My groin. It fell on my groin.
A few sighs of pain and frustration later, Lauren got back to her feet with no damage other than the little vomit forming in her throat. She stepped over a fallen box to help Dusin lift a box of Steve. Once the box was lifted, Steve helped to put it on the counter.
"Is everyone okay?" Robin asked.
"Yeah, I'm great, now that I know Russians can't design elevators!" Steve screamed as if he was still falling immediately moving to the stupid ass buttons that could have got them in the whole, "Elevator to Hell" situation.
"I think we've clearly established that those buttons don't work." He turned around with a red face and big eyes.
"They're buttons! They have to do something."
"Yeah, if we had a keycard."
"A what?"
"It's an electronic lock. Same as the loading dock door. If we don't have a keycard, it won't operate, meaning."
"We fucking stuck in here? Great."Lauren said, running her fingers through the root of her hair.
"Just so you nerds are aware, I'm supposed to spending the night a Tina's, and Tina always covers for me. But if um not a uncle Jack's party tomorrow and my mom finds out you for are responsible she's going to hunt you down one by one a slit your throat." Lauren didn't think that was a bad outcome for her at the moment.
"I don't care about Tina! Or Uncle Jack's Party! You moms not going to able to find us if we're dead in a Russian elevator!" Steve yelled to the girl infront of him.
"No!" Lauren yelled back at him he looked at her unsure what to say.
"Wh-"
"No, you do not yell at her. We only here..." Lauren took a deep breath and began to correct herself. "She's only her because you three nimrods couldn't leave the idea of being American Heroes alone could you? You couldn't have taken some more time to think about a way to get in her without a literal child. So, no, you don't get to yell at her for worring about what she should be worried about at the young, young age of ten." The whole room sat quiet as she took another deep breath. "But you know what? She shouldn't even be worried about that anymore she worried about the fact that were are trapped in here till a Russian with a keycard waltzs his happy ass in here and either kills us on the spot of makes us go work as little Russian slave test dumbys in cold ass Russia.
"We're not gonna die." Steve said but Lauren couldn't even take a second to eknowlage what he was saying next.
"It's what you just said isn't it?"
"We're gonna find a way out, Lo." Lauren turned her head to look at the boy.
"Sure, what's your next great idea, Dustin? Want to go dig a hole to North Korea? Hear they hate us now, too. Should be easy were already got a mile deep headstart." She wasn't trying to be a bitch the word were just coming out, falling out. She was scared. Not for her necessarily, she was scared for everybody else in the room despite having yelled at all of them in the last few minutes. "We're gonna die down here." She was just telling it how she saw it at this point.
"Not necessarily. We could always climb out." The boy pointed up at a hatch on the roof.
"You're kidding, right?" Lauren asked they had fallen forever, and climbing doesn't sound that smart. While she was saying this Steve and Dustin were already climbing the storage shelf opening the hatch. "We feel for like thirty seconds we fall a hell of a lot faster than we can climb." Neither girls said anything. "I'm not wrong, am I."
"Not at all." Steve's feet hit the shelf and began climbing down, followed by Dustin.
"Yeah, so. There is no climbing unless one of us can levitate." Lauren nodded softly, squizing the back of her arm.
"Great." Lauren sighed, leaning on the fall sliding down admitted defeat. As far as she could see there was no getting out of this kike there was with ever other battle in here if she was trapped in a box with nothing to fight for everyone's survival.
"We can always sleep on it to quote someone... maybe, goods night's rest good new refreshed mind." All for people staired at the boy Unamused. Defeated, he slid down the wall. Robin sat down next to Dustin, Erica sat in the arms of Lauren Steve sat down on the ground between the two separate groups.
It wasn't long around a forty-five minutes of silence that there was a smallest peep of a sond with Steve's shoe squecking on the ground. Erica was lying down in a deep sleep in the arms of the girl who defended her. Dustin lay in his back with his arms and legs crossed with his baseball cap over his face. Robin stared at the ceiling and the whole that was in it that led to nothing but the tunnel that brought them down there.
Steve looked down at Lauren, holding the little girl's vosy cloths to hers, casting a shadow in her face. Lauren's eye peeked open to see him and hus questioning face. A quick little nod if the head was all he needed to lay on the other side of Lauren with his arm around her.
It remained quiet, just peaceful, while Steve's finger played with him of Lauren's white dress that she chose to wear on the wrong day. Steve pressed a soft kiss to Lauren's shoulder, making ber unabke to not talk to him anymore. "You guys can't die." She whispered to Steve so only he could hear.
"We won't." He kissed her again. "Erica's has to get to her uncles party. Dustin's got to start his freshman year. You and Robin got to graduate, and all of that will happen, don't worry." He returned the quiet whispered.
"I am worried Steve why the fuck did we come down here without anyone with out my dad the real government? Why do we have to be the heroes again. I getting pretty tired of it. We didn't sign up to join DC comics."
"I know, I know, it sounded fun at first, but it'd basically suicide at this point." Lauren's eyes and head turned a little to look at the boy.
"Hey I good at surviving suicide attempts maybe we will make it out."
"Hahaha that's not funny." Steve pretend to laugh at her joke.
"It's kind of funny." Steve shook his had.
'No it's not."
"But it is." Lauren said one more time before her pulled himself closer to her letting her close her eyes.
A few times through the night, Lauren had woken up with the quiet whispered of Steve and Robin but was reasurrued that everything was fine and told to go back to sleep.
☆
Steve began climbing onto the metal structure, Lauren was sitting with her back against the wall freshly woken up. "What's he doing?" Lauren asked the other two girls.
"Getting Dustin to tell Dustin to calm down with the radio he's been up there for half an hour." Lauren nodded with a sigh. Her eyes closed against the cool cement wall. The next thing any of them hear is liquid hitting said cement wall. Lauren pushed away before anything else.
"Steve!"
"Redirect your steam, not hit you, girlfriend." Robin said right before there was the little girl banging the glass with green goo. "Hey, hey! Be careful, careful!" Robin yelled both girls, running over to Erica, trying to grab the bottle.
"E, we don't even know what that is." Lauren said as Robin pulled out of her hands.
"Exactly. It could be useful." The girls shared a look. "We can survive down here a long time without food, but if the human body doesn't have water, it will die."
"Hate you break it to you, but this is not water."
"It's a liquid,"
"So is bleach."
"Well, if it comes down to me drinking that shit or dying of thirst, I drink."
"You will drink Steve's pee before I let you drink that green toxic shit." Erica gave here a look but set the tube of green something. Erica and Lauren's eyes followed the girl holding her head to the door. "What?" Her eyes were wide.
"I hear somebody," she whispered before climbing up the metal shelfing. "We've got company." Robin pushed herself all the way up through the hole in the ceiling, "Come on," she yelled from the roof.
This sent a surge of ergancy through Lauren, and she pushed Erica to the makeshift latter. As Lauren pushed her up, Steve grabbed on to the girl's arms, pulling her up.
"I don't need to be man handled Salior Boy." Lauren could hear Erica say from the ground while she said this the storage room door began to open. Lauren stepped up onto the shelf, moving up one by one. Steve grabbed her and pulled her up through the hole, Dustin placed the door back over to hide.
Every single one of them was quiet as they watched the Russians pass under them. At this moment, it was really real. Yes, the falling down to the deeps of the earth, and the big burly gunman, secret Russian messages, were real, but physically seeing them right beneath them was a whole new level of surreal.
The thought that the slightest movement that could make the slightest noise could result in as far as the mind could imagine. It was like every heartbeat was harder, faster louder.
The Russian, through a couple of boxes in their truck and started to rap up while the did that Steve slowly and quickly crept back over to the hatch, grabbing the unknownliquidfrom erica on his way. It was immediate as soon as he heard he dropped down quickly, followed by Erica, Dustin, Robin, and Lauren. The metal and glass contraption was the only thing holding the door open as Steve through Erica's backpack under. "Go, go, go." He said as he helped Erica under.
"I'm going," the girl replied right before she was fully under and safe from the possible crashing down this steel door could do. Dustin was next it wasn't even a second before he was under. Robin laid down and pulled herself out from under neath it. Lauren followed suit immediately getting on her feet pulling Steve through the hole as soon as is arm was out. The sound of the cracking glass as she did so make her pull a million times harder.
Steve's foot and the door barely missed each other as it came crashing down they all let out a short-lived sigh of relief when they heard sizzling from the green liquid burning the floor beneath them, "you still want to drink that?"
"Holy mother of God." Dustin said, turning all their heads to the source of the noise, revealing to the a stretch of prison or space ship looking hallways as far as the eye could see. And that was not a stretch like this hallways was.
"Well, I hope y'all are in shape. I'm looking at you, roast beef." Steve said as he began to walk into what could only be described as a void. Lauren began following him with the other three.
"Why me?" Dustin asked, getting a pat on the back.
"I'm sure he meant nothing by it, Dustin."
"Meaning nothing by it would have been him not singling me out. Why didn't he single you out. Last year, on our little trek, you were a million miles behind.
"Because I was wearing a brand new pair of Chucks, can you imagine the blisters I was getting." The boy looked st here like that was a stupid reason, but Robin looked to understand completely. "Besides, I'm just not a fast person. My legs can only move so fast."
"Move them faster."
"Well then, I'd be running, and as I've said before, if it comes to dying or running. I'll choose death every single time. It's a whole ordeal, Dustin."
"You're dramatic."
"I've been aware of that since I was three and cried because my baby sister with her baby legs kicked me."
"You are very much being a smart-ass right now, and I don't know if I'm up for it right now."
"Who is she if not a smart-ass Dustin?" Robin said, getting a smile from Lauren. Despite their current situation, they all cared on this normal-ish conversation in order to make the situation normal-ish.
"Who would I be?" She asked rhetorically. "Definitely a whole lot less fun, cool too, maybe I wouldn't even be tolerable."
"Trust me, you and your smart-ass comments make you the quite opposite of tolerance." Lauren's head dropped back with a sigh, and she started running up to Steve.
"Hey, look, she does run."
"Steve Dustin's being mean to me." Lauren said loud enough for Dustin to hear. Returning to an actual conversation, she asked, "Are you okay? Well, not okay, but like not..."
"Are you?" Steve interrupted.
"No. You didn't get much sleep at all."
"I know. I was trying to figure out a way out of this shit hole we're in right now. Not much time to sleep." The boy only looked forward when he said this, not making an inkling of eye contact
"Are you mad I did?" His eyes immediately met hers along with his hand.
"No, not at all. I didn't mean to make it sound like that. The last thing we need to be is mad at each other. Like, I'm sorry for being a dick last night and for going against what you wanted with Sinclair, I'm sorry I was a dick about it."
"Steve, you're are fine. I mean, we aren't in exactly ideal conditions down here, "
"Really, I thought we were." This time, Steve was being the smart-ass.
"What I was saying, Mr. Harrington, was that almost every thing that could have gone wrong right now did but at this point what the fuck does it matter."
"But it was stupid and I get that n-"
"It's done it happened. All we just have to worry about right now is getting out. The future right now. And I think that's the thing we can all agree on. We would rather be dying at Y2K than a mile underground right." Steve couldn't not roll his eyes at the girl and her stupid theories, but she was right. Every one of them would rather make it out and die in the real world than down here in the hands of the Russian invaders.
"You and YTK," Steve scoffed.
"Y2K is a very real thing. Ask Prince."
"What's it matter? You turn thirty April Nineteenth Ninty-eight, which I'm pretty sure is six hundred and twenty-two days till Y2K."
"You know exactly how many days-"
"When you're dating someone who is going to die when she turns thirty and thinks everyone will die at the start of the Millennium. I got to see how many days I got to be here without you." Lauren rolled her eyes he didn't believe half the shit that came out of her mouth, thay she believed in. No. She wasn't going to die four she's thirty and "old," but she believed in Y2K in part because of Walt and Walt only. Steve thought it was stupid, but he pretended to be her even though they both knew he was faking.
"We can do it together?"
"What?"
"Die on Y2K."
"Just like everyone else." He smiled at her and got a nod.
"Yeah, six hundred and twenty is light work. I've been alive three hundred and sixty-five days seventeen and like one third times, so around six thousand three hundred and forty days take or leave a week or two."
"You're so smart. I'd have to pull out a calculator to do that, and it'd take me a minute or two. "
"You're are smart too Steve, and you're are phenomenal leader and you don't even think it."
"Because I've done such a good job this time leading us down here?"
"This is not your fault, you know that right. It's no one fault. I know what I said, but that was exaggerated. I was just scared, hell I'm still scared." Steve just had a sober look on his face he had as soon as Lauren called him a good leader he didn't agree and it made him physically sick that death is a real possibility for every single one of them.
Being down here walking to something was the only thing that seemed to make logical sense it seemed to make them somehow find a way out one that he was too stupid to figure out himself. Like he was diving for pennies at the bottom of the pool with all the pressure pushing on every side of him.
It was obvious nobody was pitting that on him. It was all his own doing. The only person who saw any of this as Steve's fault and not a group effort was Steve.
Somehow, it was the same for Dustin. Of he didn't so desperately want to go on this "treasure" hunt, then none of this would have happened and the would have found out about how whatever this was about at the same time as every other person in Hawkins. He felt like her dragged everyone into this death mission.
Lauren thought she could have fought, harder to leave it at the message. She could have stopped them from breaking in with the help of a child. But even then, she didn't blame anyone as far as she saw it. There wasn't a single party responsible they all played a part.
"I'm scared too."
"We all are."
"You sure. None of you seem to be really fazed." Steve glanced back at the other three who carried on a conversation among themselves.
"You don't, either." Steve nodded his head. "No, you don't."
"You don't have to lie."
"I'm not, swear on my mother." Steve looked over at her. "Sorry my father. You look like it's just a regular day and we're watching movies and eating cookie dough.
"Well then, you must think my normal scared is my normal. I'm scared of Hopper." Lauren rolled her eyes.
"I garrentteed no one else here thinks your scared. You're doing good." She squeezed his hand.
"Lo," Erica came running up to the girl. Waiting for the girl to speak, her little begging eyes appeared. "Can I ride on you back?" Steve smiled. Lauren sighed and stopped walking. Steve stopped with her, and as Erica was jumping on to her back, Dustin and Robin caught up to the others.
"I thought we were trying to say no?" Steve teased Lauren.
"She doesn't count she's my Erica." Steve rolled his eyes at her this time.
"Yeah, Salior Boy. I'm her Erica." Erica stuck her foot out trying to kick him, but Lauren moved away.
"Hey St-" Dustin barely got the slightest bit of his joke out before he got cut off.
"No."
As they walked, they had a multitude of conversations, like what everyone was doing in the regular world, not down in the pits hell. They talked about how long they had been walking without reaching anything several different times concerning the had been walking for at least two hours. However, those two hours could easily be four hours or thirty minutes they just kept walking.
Throughout the walk, Lauren had put Erica down because she physically couldn't hold a person on her back for that long, but also her knee pads were digging into her hips. Though Lauren and Erica convinced Steve to carry her but that only lasted ten minutes because of the same reason on the knee pads. Instead of taking them off, Erica just walked with the rest of the group.
All these conversation got them to the genius engineers it took to make this, "I mean, you have to admit, as a feat of engineering alone, this is impressive." Dustin finished up.
"What are you talking about? It's a total fire hazard. There's no stairs. There's no exit, mile upon mile long hallway that leads you to an elevator that drops you halfway to hell."
"They're commies. You don't pay people the cut corners." Erica stated. It was a good point as almost all of her pints we're.
"To be fair to our Russian Comrades, I don't think this tunnel was designed for walking." Robin said, but that much was obvious. "I mean, think about they have developed a perfect system for transporting that cargo."
"It all comes into the mall like any old delivery. And then they load up those trucks, and nobody's the wiser."
"You think they built this whole mall just so they could transport that green poison?" Steve asked. It made sense, but at the same time, it didn't all of that for what?
"I very seriously doubt it's something as boring as poison. It's got to be much more valuable, like promethium or something."
"What the hell is promethium?" Steve and Lauren asked at the same time. However, they both assumed it was form one of his comic books or something.
"It's what Victor Stone's dad used to make Cyborg's bionic and cybernetic component."
"Okay, but is that like a real thing?"
"You're all so nerdy, it makes me physically ill." Erica said.
"No, no, no. Don't lump me in with them. Im not a nerd, all right?"
"Why so sensitive, Harrington? Afraid of losing cool points to a ten year old?"
"Okay, marble boy."
"Thanks for that Lauren, besides im not afraid of loosing "cool" points, I'm just saying I don't know jack shit about prometheus." Steve said, defending himself.
"Promethium. Promtheus is a Greek mythological figure but whatever," Dustin corrected him. "All I'm saying is it's. probably being used to make something."
"Or light something. Onetime a cracked a glow stick, and I look very similar. I mean, or like power, something battery acid is green, right?"
"Yeah, I think so, maybe like a nuclear weapon?"
"I mean Russians, Nuclear Weapons, Russians, Nuclear Weapons." Lauren went back and forth on her hands. "Makes sense."
"Perfect. We're walking towards a nuclear weapon. That's great."
"But I'd they're building something why here? I mean Hawkins. Seriously. Of all places. At the very best..." Robin's words faded as she walked away from Dustin Steve and the girl he had in his arm.
"What?"
"You think the Russians know?"
"About what?" Steve's hand ran down ber back, and he sensitive scar tissue, spending her away from his hand instantly sending realization over her. "How could they?"
"They could."
"Is it connected?"
"Maybe."
"But how?" Lauren looked at both boys going back at each other.
"I don't know, but it's possible."
The three were interrupted by Robin. "I'm sorry, is there something you'd like to share with he class?" There was silence and then a little head shake as the began to walk back up to the others.
"Sorry."
"For what?"
"You back."
"Steve, Erica was just riding it on it for a while it didn't hurt it was just surprising." Just as the words come out of Lauren's mouth, the walkie-talkie picked up a signal. Their feet picked up, and they started running. Dustin and Erica fumbled around with his bag grabbing the metal brick.
They haded it to Robin when they heard the foreign language coming out of the speakers. She pulled up the antenna and began to translate to the same code they had been listening to on repeat. "It's the code."
"Wherever that broadcast is coming from-"
"It's close." Robin finished Dustin's sentence. "And if there is one thing we know about the signal..."
"it's that it reaches the surface." This time, Dustin finished Robin's sentences. A smile stretched across the girls face.
"Let's go." Robin said with the same smile on her face comma pushing down the antenna on the walkie. She led the group and stood up making a stride to move further along in the hallway.
Their pace was brisk walking further, deeper into the tunnel. It was a minute before they heard the faint bustling of people and machines. When that sound came to their ears, they knew the need to be quiet, silent even. Taking a corner the watched out for people, no one seemed to be there, so they all took it carefully.
The sound of footsteps in what sounded to be their direction hulted them. It wasn't even a second before Lauren grabbed the two kids, pulling them behind cargo. The two others filled behind the door just a quick.
To Lauren, the only thing that might have been louder in that moment than her heartbeat would be the dropping of the atomic bomb. The only thing more wet than her sweaty palms was every drop of water on the planet.
The steps seemed to line up with her heartbeat, and every time, she winced at the sound of the steel toes boots hitting the metal floor. Every step at this point was getting further and further way, so Steve carefully peaked his around the cargo before we walked our again, being careful. "Okay, we're good, clear. Clear, come on, let's go."
"Okay, that was close."
"To fucking close," Lauren whispered aside from the fact no one else really was.
"Relax. All right? Relax. Nobody saw..." Steve's words trailed off as they turned the corner and saw the source of all the noise.
Vocies over the P.A. system, more burly men, people in lab coats, men in hasmatsuits, and uniformed soldier's all lined the archway they could see into.
For a moment just a moment, they stood looking in awe of the complete inanity in front of them before there was a whisper of the word, "shit," from Steve. Again, everyone hid behind a small cargo box hidden from such people.
"I saw it." Erica whispered. "Frist floor northwest.
"Saw what?"
"The comms room."
"You saw the comms room?" Steve asked, peaking around quickly.
"Correct."
"Are you sure?"
"Positive. The door was open for a second, and I saw a bunch of lights and machines and shit in there."
"That could be like a hundred different things." Dustin counted.
"I'll take those odds." This time, everyone pecked their head around the cargo, looking at the door.
"Okay. We're going to move fast. We're gonna stay low." Steve waited for a nod from everyone before he stood up a quarter of the way up and walked way. Squatung, as she walked, Lauren made sure everyone was ahead of her. They moved quickly, hiding behind an array of things as they moved up to the room.
Right before the door was going to close, Steve grabbed it, ushering everyone in. When they were in there, their eyes grew large at the man sitting down at the circuit board. Lauren's heart dropped when the man turned his chair around. It sunk even further when the Russians hand moved to his belt.
Robin extended her hand and began speaking in the word she had learned. The man began to speak back to her. The next thing Lauren registered was Steve's screams as her wrapped his arms around the man.
Seconds later the Russina was throwing Steve into the commubications bourd. Steve dodged the punch that be tried to through before the man grabbed his collar and threw him once again. Steve's elbow grabbed back into his stomach, sending him back when he came back at Steve. He had grabbed onto the microphone, hitting him in the head as hard as he could. The man fell to the ground, and Steve ran his fingers through his hair to get it out of his face.
"Dude!" Dustin yelled. "You did it. You won a fight!" Lauren smiled a little bit, and so did Steve. Dustin ran over to the unconscious body and began to riffle round his belt.
"What are you doing?"
"Getting us our ticket out of here."
"You want to walk all the way back?" The two kids argued when Lauren looked up at Steve.
"Are you okay?" Steve nodded so Lauren hit his arm. "Are you insane?" She knew why he did it, but God, if she had to watch him get nearly beat to death again, she would have wished she was right there with him.
"I guess it was fight or flight, and I guess I chose fi-"
"There's something up there." Robin said, stopping both conversations. The girl waved the uo the stairs and through the door.
Looking through the glass they saw a large blue beam trying to rip open the red gate in the earth. Everything they had heard about it, the upside down this red gate was ine of them. The Russians were trying to open the upside down something Eleven had nearly drained the life from her body to close.