The Mall Rats
El and Max walked out of the mall, ice-creams in hand. They'd finally become friends, after some bonding time together as they shopped, and they'd had a good time in the mall- hanging out with each other and Catherine. "You wanna trade?" Max asked, the two swapping ice-creams. "Oh, you've got to be shitting me." Max's face fell as she turned to face the familiar voice. The girls turned around to be faced with the boys. "Isn't this a nice surprise." She said, heavy sarcasm lacing her voice as she and El walked up to the boys.
Mike dropped his bike and lifted a finger to point at El. "What are you doing here?"
"Shopping." El told him, keeping her answer short.
"This is her new style." Max said. "What do you think?"
"What's wrong with you? You know she's not allowed to be here."
"What is she, your little pet?"
"Yeah. Am I your pet?" El asked.
"What? No!"
"Then why do you treat me like garbage?"
"What?"
"You said Nana was sick."
"She is." Mike lied. "She is. She is sick." He gestured for Lucas to back him up.
"Yeah, sick- she's sick. She's super sick." Lucas said. "That's why we're here, actually."
"Yeah, we're shopping." Mike added. "Not for us, but for her, for Nana."
"For Nana." Lucas reiterated.
"Also, we're here to get a gift for you." Mike added, gesturing to El. "Just, we couldn't find anything that suited you and I only have, like, $3.50, so it's hard."
"Super hard." Lucas said. "It's- It's expensive."
"You lie." El said to Mike, her features sad. "Why do you lie?" She and Max looked behind them as the bus pulled up, before turning their attention back to the boys. El took a few steps closer so she was almost in Mike's face. "I dump your ass." Max's mouth opened in shook before she followed El onto the bus. They laughed as they took their seats and sharing a high-five.
"Now can we play D&D?" Will asked.
"No."
***
Hours had passed and the mall was now empty. The shops had all been locked up for the night, except one. Steve, Dustin, Robin and Catherine were still in the backroom of 'Scoops Ahoy', the latter having been caught up on everything to do with the Russian communication she had heard the evening before.
"'The week is long, the silver cat feeds, when blue meets yellow in the west.'" They read off the whiteboard, having finally translated most of it.
***
"I mean, it just..." Steve started saying as he locked up the front of the shop, "it just can't be right."
"It's right." Robin said as she and Catherine started walking through the deserted mall, their arms linked.
"Honestly, I think it's great news." Dustin said, walking along the other side of Robin.
"How is this great news?" Steve asked, catching up with them and taking Cat's free hand into his own. He chuckled. "I mean, so much for being American heroes."
Cat looked up at him. "What's this about being American heroes?"
"I'll tell you later." Steve muttered, before speaking at his normal volume. "It's total nonsense."
"It's not nonsense." Dustin disagreed. "It's too specific. It's obviously a code."
"What do you mean a code?"
"Like a super secret spy code."
"That's a total stretch."
"I don't know, is it?" Robin asked, swinging hers and Cat's arms as they walked.
"You're buying into this?" Steve asked before glancing down to his girlfriend. "Are you also believing this?"
Cat shrugged. "I don't know. Maybe."
"Listen," Robin said, "just for kicks, let's entertain the possibility that it is a secret Russian transmission. What'd you think they were gonna say, 'Fire the warhead at noon'?"
Cat nodded. "Robin does have a point."
"And my translation is correct." Robin added. "I know that for sure, so...'The silver cat feeds.' Why would anyone talk like that unless they were trying to mask the true meaning of their message?"
"Exactly."
"And why would anyone mask the true meaning of their message unless the message was somehow sensitive?" Robin added. "So I guess that confirms your suspicion."
"Evil Russians." Cat and Dustin said at the same time.
"I can't believe I'm about to agree with this strange child- no offense Cathy, I know he's your brother- but, yeah, totally evil Russians."
"So how do we crack the code?" Cat asked, unhooking her arm from Robin and dropping Steve's hand so she could fix the bandana on her head.
"Well, I guess we translate the rest and hopefully a pattern emerges." Robin answered.
"A pattern. Right, like maybe 'silver cat' is a meeting place?" Dustin suggested.
"Or a person." Cat said.
"Or a weapon." Dustin added.
"I really hope it isn't a weapon. For our sakes anyway." Cat said quietly.
"It's probably gonna take a super genius to crack it, but..." Robin stopped walking, looking around her. "Where's Steve?"
Cat spun around. "Steve?" She asked when she saw her boyfriend crouched down by the small horse ride. "What are you doing?"
Steve was going through his pockets, pulling out all the change he had. "Uh, it's a quarter. I need- Honey, do you have a quarter?"
Cat walked over to him, laughing slightly. "You're lucky I didn't give all my change to El and Max this afternoon. Here," she pulled a couple of quarters out of her pocket and handed them to her boyfriend, who, for one, was actually smaller than her.
"Sure you're tall enough for that ride?" Robin teased as she and Dustin walked over to the couple.
Steve inserted one of the coins into the machine and they watched as the horse began to move. "Oh, these rides were always my favourite..." Cat said dreamily, sitting down on the floor next to Steve and leaning her head on his shoulder. She began absent-mindly humming along to the music.
"You need help getting up, little Stevie?"
Steve 'shhed' both of the girls, placing a hand over Cat's mouth to stop her humming. Dustin chuckled as Catherine pushed Steve's hand away. "Would you three just shut up and listen?"
"I am listening." Cat mumbled.
They were silent for a few moments, just listening to the music playing from the ride. "Holy shit." Dustin said in realisation as Cat's eyes widened.
"Oh, my God." She muttered, finally on the same wave-length as her boyfriend.
"The music." The two siblings said in sync as Dustin took his backpack off, placing it on the ground. Dustin unzipped his bag and Cat grabbed the tape recorder, pressing 'play'. The recording began to play, and in the background was the same music as the one playing from the 'Indiana Flyer'.
"I don't understand." Robin admitted.
"It's the exact same song on the recording." Dustin explained.
"Maybe they have horses like this in Russia." She gestured to the horse they were all crowded around.
"'Indiana Flyer'?" Steve questioned. "I don't... I don't think so. This code, it... didn't come from Russia." He looked up at Robin and then at his girlfriend.
"It came from here..." Cat muttered, slightly scared as to what that would mean for them.
***
Edited: 10/07/2020
Edit 2: 14/09/2021