𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐦𝐢𝐧𝐝 𝐟𝐥𝐚𝐲𝐞𝐫
———✰———
"What the hell" Bob muttered looking around as the alarms went off.
"We're too late" Mike commented which made Veronica look at him with tears in her eyes.
"What?" Bob asked the two.
"We're too late!" Mike screamed which made him and Veronica run to Will's room with Bob following.
"What's going on?" Joyce asked them panicked.
"We're under attack" Mike answered bluntly as Veronica looked around the room, frantically looking for something.
"We need to make Will sleep" Veronica stated as she held up a sedative.
"What?" Joyce asked looking at the small girl wide-eyed.
"He's a spy. If he knows where we are, So does the shadow monster" Veronica explained to them.
"She's lying!" Will shouted scared.
"He killed those soldiers. He'll kill us too!" Mike stated in Veronica's defence.
"They're lying! They're lying! They're lying! They're lying! They're lying!" Will screamed as gunshots went off in the hallway whilst Bob and Joyce restrained Will.
"Those are gunshots!" Bob exclaimed shocked.
"They're lying! They're lying! They're lying!" Will carried on.
"Okay, Will, Will, listen, listen. Do you know who I am?" Joyce asked the boy.
"You're...you're...you're mom" Will hesitated.
"Hold him down," Joyce told Bob as she took the sedative from Veronica.
"NO! NO! Let go! NO! NO! Let me go! Let go! No, let me go!" Will shouted in panicked.
"I'm sorry" Joyce shouted her apology teary-eyed.
"Let me go! Let go! Let me go!" He screamed as Veronica buried her head in Mike's should t while they both covered their ears and Joyce injected the sedative into Will.
Dr Owens and Hopper then burst into the room which gained all fours attention "we gotta go. We gotta go." Hopper told them all and walked to Will to pick him up.
They all ran down the hall, hearts beating loudly in their chest so they could hear it. Mike and Veronica held hands so they didn't lose one another. Until the group realised they were surrounded by the Demogorgon like monsters, Dr Owens ushered them all into a tec room.
"Oh, my God. Oh, my God" Bob comments das he looked at the small screens that showed CCTV footage of the monsters and dead bodies.
"Look this is us, and this is the nearest exit9 Dr Owens told the, pointing to the map. "But even if we can somehow make it there, there's no way out."
"What do you mean?" Hopper asked frowning.
"The locks are fail-secure" Dr Owens explained to him.
"Fail secure?" Hopper and Joyce asked.
"If that's a power outage the building goes on lockdown" Owens explained.
"Can it be unlocked remotely?" Bob questioned.
"With a computer, sure, but somebody's gotta reset the breakers," Dr Owens told them.
"Where are the breakers?" Hopper asked him.
"Breakers are in the basement, three floors down." Dr Owens started which caused Hopper to walk towards the door.
"Hey, where are you going?" Bob stopped him.
"To reset the breakers," Hopper said to him as if it were obvious.
"Okay, then what?" Bob asked.
"Them we get out of her." Hopper answered with the same 'duh' tone he used moments before.
"No, then the power goes back on. If you wanna unlock the doors. You have to completely reboot the computer system, and then override the security codes with manual input." Bob told them.
"Fine, how do I do that?" Hopper asked.
"You can't. Not unless you know BASIC." Bob explained.
"I don't know what that means," Hopper told Bob bluntly.
"It's a computer programming language" Mike spoke up.
"Teach it to me," Hopper said to Bob.
"Shall I teach you French while I'm at it, Jim? How about a little German? How about you, doc? You speak BASIC?" Bob scoffed mockingly.
"No" the doctor responded simply.
"Okay, I got this. I got this" Bob reassured, himself mainly.
"No Bob" Joyce went to protest.
"It's okay. It's gonna be okay" Bob calmed her "remember Bob Newby, superhero."
———✰———
"Son of a bitch did it" Hopper stated impressed as Bob opened the door.
"Right, I'll meet you outside" Bob spoke into the intercom that was given to him as he left.
"Nice job" Owens praised before he spotted a monster.
"Hold on a second, chief" Dr Owens spoke up gaining Hopper's attention.
"What's wrong?" He asked.
"West stairwells not clear anymore," Owens told him.
"What's going on?" Bob asked through the intercom.
"We've got company," Owens told him calmly.
"Where?" Bob asked.
"The west stairwell," Hopper told him.
"I've got an idea" Bob informed.
"What the hell's he doing?" Owens asked so the five watched Bob play around on the computer just before the sprinklers went on causing the monsters to run towards the noise.
"Okay. Okay, that worked." Owens muttered impressed. "Now get outta there!"
Hopper placed Will over his shoulder ready to leave before Owens spoke up "Wait a second, chief" and gave a Hopper his intercom.
"What are you doing?" Hopper asked him.
"Anymore surprised, I'll let you know. Go" Dr Owens told him and the others bravely.
So the four walked out of the room apprehensively with Will over one of Hopper's shoulders with a gun and flashlight in his hand. The two teens followed after him, holding each others hands for dear life and Joyce was following behind them checking behind her for any monsters.
When they finally got out of the building Veronica and Mime were sent outside into safety with Will while the two adults waited inside for Bob.
Suddenly Hopper came out with a sobbing Joyce in his arms which caused the two to look st the adults in alarm.
"What happened?" Veronica asked worried from where she was sat on her knees next to Will.
The sound of honking interrupted any explanation they were going to receive. "Come on!" The driver who turned out to be Jonathan shouted from the car which made Joyce, Will, Mike and Veronica get in the car as a Hopper went to his truck so he could drive the others as Jonathan explained that Dustin, Lucas, Max and Steve were also there.
———✰———
"They didn't believe you did they?" Dustin commented as the five kids watched Hopper on the phone.
"We'll see" Hopper muttered harshly.
"'We'll see?' We can't just sit here while those things are on the loose!" Mike argued.
"We stay here, and we wait for help," Hopper told them sternly before he walked away from them to Joyce.
"Did you guys know that Bob was the original founder of Hawkins AV?" Mike spoke up as he stood in front of the table the other four were sat at.
"Really?" Lucas asked.
"He petitioned the school to start and everything. Then he had a fund-raiser for equipment. Mr Clarke learnt everything from him. Pretty awesome right?" Mike told them which made Veronica smile.
"Yeah" they all murmured in agreement.
"We can't let him die in vain." Mike carried on.
"What do you want to do, Mike? The chiefs right on this. We can't stop those Demo-dogs on our own." Dustin told the boy.
"Demo-dogs?" Max asked him.
"Demogorgan...dogs...demo-dogs. It's a compound. It's like a play on words" Dustin explained.
"Okay." Max stopped the boy as he started to ramble.
"I mean when it was just Dart, maybe," Dustin said going back to the previous conversation.
"But there's an army now." Mike agreed which made Veronica frown.
"His army" Veronica breathed out in realisation.
"What do you mean?" Steve asked her from where he was stood.
"His army" Veronica repeated "maybe if we stop him, we can stop his army too" which made Lucas, Dustin and Mike look at her like she was a genius (which she may have been a little bit) and Dustin got Will's picture of the shadow monster.
"The shadow monster" Dustin mumbled.
"It got Will that day on the field. The doctor said it was like a virus, it infected him." Veronica explained to them almost excitedly.
"And so this virus, it's connecting him to the tunnels?" Max asked and Veronica pointed at her to say she was correct as Mike answered "to the tunnels, monsters, the upside down, everything"
"Whoa, slow down. Slow down." Steve told the, as he tried to understand them.
"Okay, so, the shadow monster's inside everything. And if the virus feels something like pain, so does Will" Veronica explained to him in her normal perky voice.
"And so does Dart" Lucas added.
"Yeah, Like What Mr Clarke taught us. The hive mind" Mike agreed.
"Hive minds?" Steve asked.
"It's like a collective consciousness. A superorganism" Veronica told him.
"And this thing that controls everything. It's the brain" Mike added.
"Like the mindflayer" Dustin realised making Mike, Veronica and Lucas look at him in the same realisation.
"The What?" Max and Steve asked now looking completely lost.
Dustin walked over and retrieved Will's D&D book as the rest of them gathered around the book when he returned with it. "The mindflayer" he pointed to the drawing in the book.
"What the hell is that?" Hopper asked frowning.
"It's a monster from an unknown dimension. It's so ancient that it doesn't know it's true home. Okay, it enslaves races of other dimensions by taking over their brains using it's highly Dee loped Psionic Powers" Dustin explained.
"Oh, my God, none of this is real. This is a kids game." Hopper snapped.
"No, it's a manual. And it's not for kids. And unless you know something that we don't, this is the best metaphor." Dustin rambled.
"Analogy" Lucas corrected.
"Analogy? That's what you're worried about? Fine. An analogy for understanding whatevs the hell this is" Dustin sighed.
"Okay, So this mind flamer thing" Nancy started.
"Flayed. Mind flasher." Dustin corrected.
"What does it want?" Nancy asked sighing.
"To conquer us. Basically. It believes it's the master race." Dustin told her.
"Like the Germans?" Steve piped up.
"Uh, the Nazis?" Dustin corrected making the older boy blush in embarrassment.
"Yeah, Yeah, Yeah, the Nazis" Steve agreed.
"Uh, if the Nazis were from another dimension, totally, Uh, it views other races, like us as an inferior to human" Dustin agreed.
"It wants to spread, take over other dimensions" Mike inputted.
"We are talking about destruction of our world as we know it," Lucas told them.
"That's great. That's great. That's really great. Jesus!" Steve yelled worried and angry.
"Okay, So this is like a brain that's controlling everything, then we kill it. We kill everything it controls." Nancy commented as she picked up the dungeons and dragons book.
"We kill everything it controls" Mike nodded to his sister.
"We win," Veronica said optimistically.
"Theoretically" Lucas's added.
"Great, So how do we kill this thing? Shoot it with a fireball?" Hopper asked taking the book from Nancy.
"No. No, no fire no fireballs. Uh, you...summon an undead army, Uh because, because- because zombies, you know, they don't have brains, and the mind flayed. It-it-it likes brains, it's just a game" Dustin stumbles out as he looked at Hoppers unimpressed face.
"What the hell are we doing here?" Hopper sighed.
"I thought we were waiting for your military back up!" Dustin exclaimed defensively.
"We are!" Hopper shouted back.
"How are they gonna stop this? You can't shoot this with guns." Mike pointed out to them.
"You don't know that! We don't know anything!" Hopper shouted.
"We know it's already killed everybody in that lab!" Mike shouted back.
"We know the monsters are gonna malt again" Lucas added.
"And we know it's only a matter of time before those tunnels reach this town," Veronica said her usual happy voice now sounding downtrodden.
"They're right" Joyce piped up entering the room and gaining everyone's attention "we have to kill it. I want to kill it."
"Me, too. Me, too, Joyce, okay? But how do we do that? We don't exactly know who we're dealing with here" Hopper soothed as he walked towards her.
"No" Veronica spoke suddenly making them all look at the small girl "But he does. If anyone knows how to kill this thing, it's Will. He's connected to it. He'll know it's weakness" she walked towards Will and every one her hanging onto every word.
"I thought we couldn't trust him anymore. That he's a spy for the mind flayed now?" Max asked.
"Yeah, But he can't spy if he doesn't know where he is" Veronica smiled knowingly making them all look at her as if she was crazy.
Veronica explained her plan so the group got to work on the Byers she'd in the back garden.
They had covered up the windows and walls of the shed and Hopper, Will, Joyce, Jonathan, Mike and Veronica went out to remind Will of good memories before Hopper lead them all back out.
"What happened?" Dustin asked so they gathered around where Hopper sat at the table.
"I think he's talking, just not with words" Hopper explained as he wrote on a piece of paper.
"What is that?" Steve asked.
"Morse code" Dustin, Veronica, Mike, Lucas and Hopper all answered.
"H-E-R-E" Hopper spelt out.
"Will's still here he's talking to us" Hopper spoke as he told the others his new plan that the same group would talk to Will while Hopper would go the others ten morse code and they would translate what Will was trying to say.
Just as Joyce finished her story the house phone went off which distracted Will and prompted an episode.
"Hey. Hey, can you hear me?" Joyce asked trying to snap the boy out of whatever was going on.
"It knows. It knows where we are" Hopper said which made Joyce sedate Will so that he couldn't spy but it was too late because when Jonathan, Hopper and Mike ran back into the shack they were scared from the noises they heard outside.
"They're coming!" Jonathan told Joyce and Veronica.
"What?" They asked as Jonathan and Hopper ran over to Will and Mike went to Veronica.
"Come on!" Jonathan replied as the five started to release Will from his bounds.
"We gotta go" Hopper urged them into the house.
"Hey. Hey, get away from the window!" Hopper told Lucas, Dustin and Max, who were looking out the window for demodogs.
"Do you know how to use this?" Hopper asked Jonathan with a large gun in his hands.
"What?" Jonathan asked as they all grouped together in the middle of the living room.
"Can you use this?" Hopper repeated.
"I can" Nancy interrupted so Hopper gave her the gun.
"Where are they?" Nancy asked as everyone who had some type of weapon aimed it towards the window.
Suddenly the demodogs made a noise that made them all turn towards the sound "What are they doing?" Nancy asked as the monsters made more noise causing them to all turn back to the window until the monsters kept making sounds that made all of there eyes widen as a demodog flew through the window and landed on the floor looking dead as they all gasped.
"Holy shit" Dustin breathed out looking at the demodog.
"Is it dead?" Max asked which made Hopper prod it with his foot and backed away in case it jumped up.
Suddenly the door squeaked making everyone turn towards it as the lock turned and the chain slid to unlock itself before it swung open to reveal Eleven with her hair gelled back a pair of white trainers on with the cuffs tucked into the, and black makeup around her eyes, Veronica stepped towards her teary eyes and for the first time ever she was speechless.