"Are you sure about this?"
Hopper and Joyce pulled up hesitantly outside of the Hess Farm, killing the headlights as they rolled past a Lynx delivery truck and stopped just shy of the farm donning lights within the home.
It was verging on one in the morning where most of the facility was asleep, and both Hopper and Joyce were wishing they were too.
"It looks like someone's home," Joyce said, panic laced in her voice.
"This is where Tatum said to go." Hopper killed the car's engine. "She wouldn't set us up."
Joyce and Hop climbed out of the vehicle with flashlights in their hands and hearts in their throats, slowly making their way up to the house. The hefty front door swung open without resistance as Hop pushed the panel, poor lighting welcoming them inside.
Hop drew his gun, motioning a finger for Joyce to keep quiet as they made their way through the run down house that donned minimal furniture but active signs of life.
"Do you hear that noise?" Joyce whispered as they walked into a bedroom, an odd pulsating sound in the air.
Hopper turned a sharp corner, letting out a soft breath. "Where's that coming from?"
Joyce stared at the unused bed with an odd, solid base, crouching down on her knees and pressing her ear against the floor. "It's below us," she told Hop, the pulsing intensified.
And that was when she saw the vent with a thrumming red light behind it.
"The bed," she said. "Lift the bed."
"What? It's a bed."
"How many beds have vents in them?"
Together, Hopper and Joyce picked up the corners of the frame, the entire bed lifting up to the wall to reveal a secret stairway below.
The strange, unsettling sound amplified, booming menacingly from within the hidden corridor, taunting them to come find out what was inside.
Hopper quickly brought his gun back out, pulse thumping in the back of his throat. "I really wish she had given us more information."
"We'll have to make do with what we have."
Descending the stairs into the fluorescently lit hallway, both Joyce and Hopper held their qualms with the fact that they would be able to get Tatum out of the base.
All they had received over a radio transmission was the address to Hess Farm and a time.
Everything else was left up to chance.
Not incredibly far away from where Joyce and Hopper had entered the facility, Tatum, Alexei and a maintenance man were placed strategically in an operating zone that could cut the power to the Key.
Tatum, however, to sell her reasoning for being outside of her room, was handcuffed behind her back and lingering behind Alexei and the man who genuinely thought he needed to fix something. Still donning her half-assed soviet uniform, she nodded lightly to Alexei as he took a tepid look back to her.
If they took much longer, someone would come looking for them.
And although Ben had been slipped a note to meet them there, he had yet to arrive.
Tatum was prepared to leave without him.
"Hey, dipshits!"
The workman's ratchet clattered to the ground, him and Alexei hesitantly stepping out from behind the power panel.
Although Briznov, a man just trying to do his job, began spouting confused Russian, Tatum popped into view with a wide smile.
"Oh, good!" she exclaimed, pulling apart her handcuffs without a thought and letting them clatter to the ground.
Briznov's eyes widened, stumbling back and pointing drastically to her. "Witch!"
Tatum rolled her eyes, lifting a hand to Briznov's forehead and collapsing him to the ground.
But it was the heavy footfall overhead that brought concern.
"Were you followed?" Tatum quickly asked, joining Joyce and Hopper in better light.
Hopper shook his head. "No, no I don't think so. I didn't see lights following us."
"Did you put the bed back down?"
Joyce and Hopper exchanged a concerned look, the answer evident.
"Grigori," Alexei said, coming up behind Tatum, pointing above.
Tatum hastily waved over her shoulder toward the power panel. "Hide, all of you."
Hopper pointed to Alexei. "Him, too?"
"Yes, all of you." She pushed Alexei toward Joyce and Hop as they scampered out of view. "Alexei, skryvat'."
The footfall soon descended the hidden stairs into the first floor of the facility that went so much father into the earth, Grigori's presence becoming known as a very large gun was pointed in Tatum's direction.
Laying on the Russian thick, Tatum greeted Grigori like an old friend.
"What are you doing down here?"
Tatum shrugged genuinely. "You're the one that brought me here. How am I to know where I am? I'm lost, honestly."
"Lost next to the power grid?"
She smiled wide, the magazine in Grigori's gun dropping out of the bottom and clattering to the floor. "Sorry." Swinging out both of her hands, the incredibly large Russian flew backwards into a nearby wall, sliding down to the ground just as he had the night before. "Let's go! Idti! Go!"
And as Joyce, Hopper, and Alexei scampered up to head for the secret stairs back up to the world, Tatum heard one of the few things that could make her falter.
"Tatum, let's go!" Hopper called, Joyce dragging Alexei out the way they came.
"Shit," she grumbled before pointing at Hop. She took a step back, earning a horrified look from the chief. "Get out of here, the three of you."
"What the hell are you doing?"
"I'm sorry." Tate took another step in the opposite direction, an unconscious Grigori between them. "Go, please. I'll be fine."
"You said that last time!"
"And look at me! I'm fine, Hop. Go! Go before he wakes. Keep your radio on channel seven!" She gave Hopper a final shoo before grabbing the radio on the ground and bolting off in the opposite direction.
Although she heard Grigori begin to stir awake and search for the magazine that Tate had removed from his gun, she continued jogging in the direction of her brother's voice.
Should she trust him? she thought.
The likely answer was no, but when Ben told her where to meet him, she couldn't stop herself.
Thankful for the lack of soldiers running around the base so late at night, she could turn corners with only mild concern for her safety.
The walkie talkie crackled to life, set to the radio frequency that lined up with Hopper's station wagon. "Tate, the guy shot up that car. We got away but we don't know how long it'll last."
"Where are you headed?" she asked, lowering the volume just in case there were stragglers nearby.
"Murray's. His place is a fortress."
"Good plan. Keep driving and don't stop. Grigori will follow you. If the car goes down and you lose the radio, just yell really loud. I'll hear you."
"What the hell is going on there? Why did you stay back?" Hop asked.
"I heard Ben calling for me." Her eyes narrowed slightly, scanning the occasional Russian sign to lead the way. "He wanted me to meet him."
"Are you sure that's safe?"
"Not really." Tate stopped short of the elevator, placing a hand over the keycard panel. As the elevator was called, she ran the back of her hand under her nose only to be met with red. "But he's blood, Hop. I have to try."
"I commend you on that, but who the hell is this guy you sent with us? He doesn't speak English, Tate."
Tatum laughed to herself as the elevator doors squealed open, taking a step inside. "That's Alexei. Take care of him. And I guess it's a good thing you're going to Murray's. He speaks Russian. Be safe, please. If you see the Terminator, keep running, alright?" Earning an agreement from Hopper, she turned down the dial to near mute and clipped the walkie talkie to her belt. Pressing the floor that matched up with her brother's instruction, she let out a light sigh.
Am I insane for staying behind?
As the elevator descended below the first floor, it would have been convenient if she had heard a chorus of teens and preteens calling out for help, trapped underground and desperate for a way out.
But instead, the sound of Ben's voice worked as an adamant distraction.
And just like he said, he was waiting for her as the elevator doors peeled open.
Ben waved a hand toward himself, dressed down from his soviet garb and instead dressed in black as he had been upon their first meeting. "Let's go."
Tatum's brows furrowed, pointing over her shoulder. "But the way out..." Her face fell flat, groaning inwardly as she stepped out of the elevator. "Ben, come on."
"It's not what you think," he assured quietly, guiding their way. "I'll tell you in a minute. Just be quiet."
Lacking personnel that would be curious of Ben's presence with a girl that didn't seem to belong, their trail across the block that belonged to more civilian matters was unnoticed.
Ben cracked open the door to a small dorm-looking room that donned nothing more than a bed and a door to a private, minimalistic bathroom. "Tate, please don't be scared."
Still standing in the hallway, Tate's brows lifted. "Why would I be scared of a brother I can't seem to trust? I have a way out of this place, and you want me to step into a room that you can lock?"
"You can unlock it whether or not I touch the door," he said knowingly. "I'm not here to trap you. But we do need to talk, which we can't do out in the open."
"We're not out in the open, B. We're in an underground soviet base. None of this counts as out in the open."
"You know what I mean, smartass."
Tatum shook her head, passing over the threshold of the room and letting Ben seal them inside. "You better start talking."
"Look," Ben took a seat of the made bed that took up most of the room, "I got your note, but there was no way I could go with you. I'm sorry. I can't just leave. I would spend the rest of my life being hunted. I couldn't put that on Mum and Jordan."
"We could have made it work."
"No, not the way you wanted to. Not just up and leaving in the middle of the night."
Tate's brows furrowed lightly. "What do you mean? Is there another way?"
"If we put more thought into it, we can do it without being caught," he assured. "But it would involve killing me."
"I'm listening."
||
As the base began to wake for the day and the dormitory floor was rigged to perfection for a plan that had been formed out of the early morning hours, Tatum found herself stirred from a deep sleep not by the Soviet anthem that was blared to wake the soldiers, but an unsettling radio static filtering through her ears.
Tate sat up sharply in the sterile, hospital-looking bed with sleepy eyes, having to rub the insufficient rest away to take in the room.
In the corner of the room that she had been hidden away in for the night was a blurry, almost static image of Eleven staring intently in Tatum's direction.
"Are you spying on me?" Tate grumbled as she pulled herself from the covers and swung her legs over the edge of the bed. Albeit not wearing the belt or converse, she was still wearing what she had stolen from the laundry room the day before.
"Why are you in a cell?"
"I'm not in a cell," she replied, stretching. "It's just a room."
"Where?"
"That's not important."
"Why aren't you helping us?"
Tatum closed her eyes briefly, standing from the bed. "I am, El. I promise. I just can't involve you guys in this." She checked her watch, it a spare given to her by Ben. "Are you okay? Is something wrong?"
"We found out it was Billy. He's the Mind Flayer's host," El told her. "We tested him, made it hot like we did for Will. But he escaped. We don't know where he is."
Beginning to slide on and tie her sneakers, she nodded lightly. "Okay. Well, we've got two parts of a plan happening right now. On your side, a little piece of the Mind Flayer escaped from the Upside Down. It attached to Billy and it's trying to grow."
"How do you know that? Why aren't you telling me everything? Just tell me where you are and we can work together."
Tate shook her head, picking up a freshly cleaned lab coat that Ben had brought to her and sliding it over her shoulders. She adjusted the stolen security badge hanging off the pocket, sighing. "I can't. I'm working on it, though. Once I get out, I'll explain everything."
"What do we do about Billy?"
Taking the glasses from the pocket of the lab coat, she flipped them over in her hands. "I wish I knew."
"You love him, don't you?" El quietly asked.
She nodded lightly, putting the glasses on. "I do. I promise I'll explain soon. I should be out of here in no time. I love you. Be safe."
And with a soft 'I love you, too', Eleven faded away, returning back to her body.
Tatum checked her watch again, shaking out her nerves before tying her hair up in the neatest bun she could manage.
The commotion down the hall was her signal.
"Doctor! We need a doctor!"
Clipping the walkie talkie to her belt and hiding it by buttoning the lab coat, she took a deep breath before unlocking the door to her room and going out into the hall. "I'm a doctor!" she called in Russian as she turned a corner, finding a slew of mildly panicked men outside of the dorms.
"Please, help! He got up to get dressed and passed out."
Tate was ushered into the dormitory that her brother had been living in for the past few months, heart pounding in her throat as she spotted Ben laid out on the floor between two bed. "Space! Give me space," she said, pulling out a small flashlight as she kneeled down next to him.
And quite genuinely, he was unresponsive.
"There is a gurney down the hall. One of you go get it," Tate ordered, pointing over her shoulder. Taking a deeper evaluation that she hoped looked real, she tilted his chin up as she had seen in several television shows. "What is his name?"
"Benjamin Rivers," one of the nearby soldiers replied, donning half a face full of shaving cream and a razor loosely in his hand.
"Has he been sick?"
"No. Perfect health."
Tatum pretended to take his pulse with one hand, using the other to discretely inject a small needle into his thigh and hastily pocketed the spent syringe in her lab coat. "Allergies?"
"No, no. He was perfectly fine yesterday. He woke up and collapsed."
"Here! Put him on this!"
As the gurney arrived just outside the door, Tate was ushered out of the way so Ben could be retrieved and hauled onto the gurney.
Although it took a moment to fight everyone off from offering to go with her, she assured the men that she could get him to the sick bay by herself and raced off down the hall towards the elevator.
Tatum rigged the elevator keycard panel without pause, noticing the new rise and fall of Ben's chest as she waited for it to arrive. "Eyes closed," she whispered, absently tapping a finger against the push handles of the gurney. And as soon as the metal doors slid apart upon arrival, she pushed the contraption inside and hit the 'close doors' button more times than she could count.
Ben sat up with a jolt as the doors dinged shut, letting out a heavy breath. "I did not like that at all."
"Agreed," Tate replied, crouching down under the gurney and retrieving a pair of boots that belonged to him.
Hopping off the gurney, Ben reached beneath the blanket and pulled out his uniform jacket and hat, the pants the only thing he managed before the drug he gave himself knocked him out. Wiggling into his clothes with haste as the elevator was suspended in time, he used the gurney to lean on and laced up his boots. He retrieved another needle from his jacket, holding it out to her. "One more time."
Tatum winced as Ben climbed back onto the gurney, sliding the blanket nearly all the way over him. "Ben..."
"I know you're scared. I am, too. But you can do this. They don't care about low level soldiers. If you go in with me unresponsive and tell them that I died, they won't bat an eye. Say that you will dispose of me, which will guide you to another hall. We disappear out of their sight and I wake up. We walk out and that's it."
"Are you sure it'll work?"
"I'm sure you can sell it."
Tatum nodded softly, uncapping the needle of a chemical that would make him unresponsive for ten minutes before killing him entirely. Injecting it into wrist like he directed, she was quick to pocket it with the other spent syringe and pulled the sheet over his head.
"It'll be fine," Ben quietly assured as Tate hit the proper floor button to finally move the elevator from its halted position.
And as Ben drifted off to sleep, she had never felt so alone.
But there was an act to play, and she would sell it like her life depended on it.
Mostly because it did.
When the elevator doors parted on a level of the compound that offered space for both medical and scientific reserve, Tatum directed the gurney along the overhead signs to the medical bay. Passing rows and rows of men being treated from anything to common colds or broken limbs for in-fighting, they all grew curious by the covered body being wheeled down the hall.
Tate knocked on the records office door, swinging it open while leaving the gurney behind. "We have another one," she said in Russian. "They said his name is Rivers. He's dead."
Of four people within the office, only one person responded, and they responded by sliding a clipboard over the counter.
"Do you know where to take him?" the woman asked flatly from her desk chair as Tatum filled out the minimal paperwork.
"Da," she agreed, handing the clipboard back and swiftly exiting the room.
To the Soviet Union, Benjamin Rivers was dead.
The sound of her own heart racing was all Tate could hear as she mentally followed Ben's directions, bringing the gurney to another elevator that would capsize them to the original escape route.
Tatum winced as she hit the gurney on the side of the elevator, having to recoil and spin it around to get inside. Trying not to laugh, she held her expression until she could get the elevator doors closed. "Alright, Ben," she quietly said, pumping the antidote back into him. "Let's get the hell out of here."
"Um, Steve? Where's your Russian friend?"
The hand that Tate had raised to brush away a stray hair slowly lowered, brows furrowing deep as a young, feminine voice forced its way through. "What?" she whispered, so self-involved that she hadn't noticed Ben's signs of life beginning to return.
And then the alarm began to blare.