CHAPTER EIGHT - THE FLAYED
PART TWO
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"WELL, I HOPE you're all in good shape," Steve muttered, gesturing forwards the endless hallway that laid before them. He patted Dustin's chest. "Looking at you, roast beef."
Dustin rolled his eyes as Steve took Jackie's hand into his own, and the couple began to move. They only got about three steps before they realized the others weren't following. Steve huffed. "Let's go!"
They walked for what it felt like hours, and Jackie had to admit that she was in fact, out of shape as well. Her legs were beginning to hurt. Gym class was never her best subject, she'd rather lay on the couch all day watching stupid cartoons with Max and eat an entire bag of potato chips in one sitting.
At the thought of Max, her stomach clenched. She wondered what her little sister was up to right about then, she wondered if any of her family had noticed she was missing. Her mother would, maybe. If she detangled herself from Neil, she would. Max? Max would've noticed in an hour if something was wrong—but from what Jackie could remember, Max hadn't been home when all of this started.
"I mean, you have to admit it," Dustin said. "As a feat of engineering alone, this is impressive."
"There's nothing impressive about this," Jackie argued, rolling her eyes. "My legs hurt like hell and I'm hungry."
"Yeah," Cynthia agreed. "And I have to pee Sadly, I can't just whip out my wong like some people."
"What're you talking about? It's a total fire hazard, Dustin," Steve said, annoyed. "There's no stairs, no exits. There's just an elevator that drops you halfway to hell."
"They're Commies," Erica stated. "You don't pay people, they cut corners."
"To be fair," Robin cut in, "I don't think these tunnels were designed for walking. I mean, think about it. They developed the perfect system for transporting that cargo."
"And it all comes into the mall like any old delivery," Dustin added.
"Well maybe next time they should leave an extra car thingy lying around," Jackie mumbled. "I'm not an athlete."
"And then they load it onto those trucks, and nobody's the wiser."
"You think they built this whole mall just so they could transport that green poison?" Steve asked, abruptly stopping their interlocked hands from swinging back and forth.
"I very seriously doubt it's something as boring as poison."
"We should call it the forbidden Mountain Dew. I think it has a ring to it."
"You think everything you say has a ring to it," Dustin shot at her.
"Uh, yeah. Because it does, dipshit."
"All I'm saying is," Dustin continued, rolling his eyes, and staring straight ahead now. "It's probably being used to power something."
"Like a nuclear weapon?" Cynthia asked. "Or a very large radio tower? I'll take the latter."
"Walking towards a nuclear weapon. That's great," Steve chimed in, his voice wavering a little, telling Jackie that his big-brave-boy exterior was only an act.
"But if they're building something, why here?" Robin wondered. "I mean, Hawkins, seriously? Of all places."
"For real," Cynthia said. "This town is as boring as they come, this is so crazy to me that we're even here."
"At the very best, we're a toilet stop on the way to Disney land."
Jackie almost laughed out loud—it was funny that she used to think the exact same thing. A year prior, almost, in fact. She'd been bummed moving to Indiana, leaving California, where all the things to do were. Her world quite literally flipped on its axis, and she was proven wrong very quickly.
Hawkins was still lame, as any small town was. There wasn't much to do, until the mall was built. Still, even in town, there were few restaurants, and even fewer activities. But that didn't mean the town was boring. It was almost alarming how unknowing the general public was to the truth.
Then, in unison, her, Dustin, and Steve slowed their pace to group together, as if the same thought just occurred to them at that moment.
"You think the Russians know?" Dustin questioned, lowering his voice so no one else could hear.
"About the-"
"Yeah," Jackie cut him off. "They have to. This is way too much of a coincidence."
"You're right, I mean, stranger things have happened."
"Exactly, I wouldn't even be surprised at this point."
"We can't rule it out," Steve said. "Jackie's right, way too much of a coincidence."
"Is there something you three would like to share with the class?" Robin asked, her voice breaking them out of their conversation. They all looked to her, then back at each other, before shaking their heads and catching up with them. A sudden Russian voice came from the walkie, and the six of them peered down at it curiously. "It's the code," Robin realized.
Cynthia groaned, covering her ears. "Good God, please no. I'd literally take a screaming baby to this. I cannot hear this damned thing again."
They all shared a look despite Cynthia's discomfort. "Wherever that broadcast is coming from..." Dustin trailed off.
"It's close," Robin finished, suddenly reddening as Cynthia dramatically stumbled around as if hearing the code was physically paining her, and accidentally bumping into the other girl.
Jackie had suspected for a while, but it was never her place to question it, and now definitely wasn't the time, either. However, the small actions didn't go unnoticed by her, especially after Cynthia's confession. If Jackie was good at anything, it was at reading people.
"And if there's one thing we know about that signal, it can reach the surface."
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The plan was to find the comms room and send a signal to anyone above—but as usual, the plan was more difficult than expected.
Ducking behind a storage box, Jackie held her breath, afraid that someone would hear her. Steve ushered them out, and they all slightly relaxed. "That was too close."
"Way too close," Dustin agreed.
"Calm down," Steve reassured. "Nobody saw..."
The six of them were met with an opening, a room filled with a bunch of people. Steve quickly shoved them all back behind the wall in a panic. "Holy shit. That was at least ten people just standing in there," Jackie muttered, meeting Steve's eyes. "You couldn't take Billy out," she accused, knowing what he was thinking. "There's no way you can take out ten other people as well."
He held his hands up in surrender. "I saw it," Erica whispered. "First floor, northwest."
"Saw what?"
"The comms room!"
"You saw the comms room?" Steve repeated, clearly surprised.
"Correct."
"Are you sure?"
"Positive. The doors were open for a second. And I saw a bunch of lights and machine shit in there."
"That could be a hundred different things," Dustin protested.
"Well right now it's the best we've got," Jackie interrupted. "We're putting ourselves at risk just by sitting here."
"She's right," Cynthia agreed. "We're sitting ducks. At least we'll be out of the open."
"Yeah, I'll take those odds," Robin said.
Steve sighed, and they all looked past the wall, trying to figure out a way to sneak by. "All right," Steve ordered. "We're gonna move fast, we're gonna stay low. Okay?"
"Okay."
Steve darted away first, Jackie quickly followed him behind the others. They ducked behind a cart, waiting on their next move. Keeping her head low, Jackie watched as the comm room's door swung open, and Steve hurriedly grabbed it just before it shut. The remaining five of them trailed after him.
When they got into the room, they all stopped short as Steve quietly shut the door behind him. There was an awkward silence as they stared at the Russian man in front of him, before his hand inched towards his walkie in his pocket.
Robin held her hand out, speaking Russian, from what Jackie could make out it sounded like a phrase from the code. The man responded, clearly confused. The Russian went to grab his weapon, just as Steve let out a battle cry and lunged forward.
The man easily overpowered him, and all Jackie could do was watch as Steve dodged his hand. Steve went in for a punch of his own, and the man grabbed his arm, and threw him across the room. Steve was bent over the comms table, and just as the man went behind him, Steve elbowed him in the stomach, making him fall backwards. Steve grabbed something that looked like a microphone, and whacked it over the man's head. He fell to the ground with a groan, and they all stared in shock.
Jackie breathed a sigh of relief when Steve straightened, unharmed, and he met her gaze from across the room.
Steve panted heavily as he raked his hair out of his eyes. "Dude!" Dustin yelled, interrupting the silence. Steve looked up in confusion. "You did it! You won a fight!"
He looked back down to the unconscious man on the floor, before his face broke out into a smug smirk. Jackie rushed forward to pull him into a hug. "Holy shit, that was hot."
Steve let out a laugh as he tightly returned her embrace, before the pair pulled apart from each other, looking back at the others. Dustin quickly ran over to the man on the floor, grabbing the keycard from his belt.
"What're you doing?"
"Getting us our ticket out of here."
"You want to walk all the way back?"
"Oh no," Dustin replied sarcastically. "We can hang out for a little bit. Relax, have a picnic maybe."
"Have a picnic? We came here for the radio!"
"Well now our plan is way better, if I knew Steve could knock out an evil Russian I would've went with that in the first place."
"Guys," Robin suddenly interrupted, Cynthia trailing behind her with a look of pure shock on her face. "There's something up there."
The six of them peered through the window, and Jackie's heart dropped once she realized what was actually going on. There was a giant machine, and she watched as they loaded the 'forbidden Mountain Dew' into it. It pointed to the wall, a beam of light shooting out of it, she swallowed as she shared a horrified look with Steve and Dustin.
There was only one thing it could be. Jackie suddenly felt sick—everything they'd worked so hard to fix. To save. To protect Will, and to protect Eleven. It all went to waste. She shook her head in disbelief.
They were opening the gate.
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a/n
(rewritten as of 6/24/21)