304. Russiangate

chapter 304 / russiangate

Lucy was screaming, and she was not the only one.

Everyone was cursing, pressing as many buttons as they could, trying their damn hardest to get the elevator to stop moving before they succumbed to gravity and died—Lucy held onto one of the Imperial Panda boxes, screaming for her life. It felt like the longest, most out-of-control elevator of all time. She was certain they would meet death at the bottom of it.

Then—and it happened very suddenly—the elevator stopped. Lucy groaned as she folded over the Imperial Panda box, her gut aching at the impact; across the room she heard Steve, buried beneath a pile of boxes, complaining that they had hit his groin—

"Is everyone okay?" said Lucy, rubbing her stomach; she went to help Erica to her feet.

"Yeah, fine, now that I know Russians can't design elevators," said Steve, rising to his feet and holding his pelvis. He scowled at the control panel and hit it with his fist. "Open!"

"We've clearly established that those buttons don't work, dingus," said Robin.

"They're buttons!" insisted Steve. "They have to do something!"

"Yeah, if we had a keycard."

"A what?" said Lucy, gazing at the control panel as Steve nearly pounded it in.

"It's an electronic lock," said Robin, gesturing to the panel where a keycard could scan. "Same as the loading dock door. If we don't have a keycard, it won't operate. Meaning—"

"We're stuck in here," finished Dustin.

Robin nodded, lips pursed. "Yeah."

Lucy raised her eyebrows, suddenly overcome with worry; she shook her head. "Uh, no, I so can't be stuck in here! I have a shift tomorrow morning!"

"Yeah, just so you nerds are aware," said Erica, who did not sound worried at all, "I'm supposed to be spending the night at Tina's, and Tina always covers for me. But if I'm not at Uncle Jack's party tomorrow, and my mom finds out you four are responsible, she's gonna hunt you down, one by one, and slit your throats."

Lucy gasped and put a hand to her throat, but Steve did not seem bothered.

"I don't care about Tina!" he shouted. "Or Uncle Jack's party! Your mom's not going to be able to find us if we're dead in a Russian elevator!"

By the time on Dustin's watch, the mall had opened. They had spent the entire night down in the elevator, sitting around a bunch of weapons of nuclear warfare. Lucy had slept maybe an hour or so; Steve had offered her his shoulder to rest her head on, but there wasn't much else to offer in the realm of comfort. She was still in her red lifeguard's swimsuit, white cotton shorts, and matching red flip-flops. The least she could do was take her hair out of her ponytail, but she was pretty sure she wouldn't get access to a shower anytime soon to clean it.

Dustin paced overhead, having been able to pry the vent off the ceiling again; he had initially suggested climbing out, but after one look at what awaited them overhead, they knew it was useless. It was a gamble how many stories they had fallen down, and there was no way any of them would be able to scale that wall.

"I repeat," came his voice from above, "we have a code red. Code red! I repeat, a code red! Does anyone copy? We're innocent children and we are trapped under Starcourt Mall! The Red Army has infiltrated Hawkins and if they find us, they will torture and kill us!"

"Dustin, dude!" called Steve's drawling voice, he glared out the open vent. "Calm down! You're gonna drain the battery."

"The mall just opened!"

"So?"

"So someone could be in range."

Steve scoffed lightly. "What d'you think, that Petey the mall cop is gonna rappel down here and save the day?"

"Lay off him," said Lucy, and she hopped up on the makeshift staircase out of boxes that Dustin had made to reach the roof of the elevator. She climbed out to join him overhead. "Seriously, though, you should calm down on that. Don't want to drain the battery."

"Yeah, whatever," said Dustin, scowling. He flipped down the antenna. "At least someone's in a good mood. Sorry not all of us are locked down here with our boyfriend. I heard you two talking all night."

Lucy rolled her eyes. "Yeah, we were trying to figure out a way to escape while you children slept. And, you know, after eight hours, we're still exactly nowhere, which is, y'know, not great news."

"Yeah, which is why I'm being proactive by trying to get us some help!" he flipped back on the walkie and started yelling into it again, but Lucy scowled and yanked it out of his hands. "Hey, that's a valuable device—"

"Wait, shh," said Lucy suddenly, holding a hand up to Dustin.

He rolled his eyes. "No shit, just give it back—"

"Shut up, Dustin," she hissed; she strained her ear and heard a sudden whirring sound, the likes of which was getting louder by the second. It almost sounded like a vehicle. Lucy cursed. "We've got company."

She wasted no time in hopping down the air vent to rejoin the rest of the group; she found Robin and Erica arguing over one of the radioactive canisters, but they froze upon taking notice of Lucy's urgency. She held up a finger to silence everyone, and it did not take long for them to hear what she did.

Then the five of them rushed to climb back on top of the elevator as the doors began to slide open.

The guards at the doors sounded remarkably unsuspicious, and did not even take note of the idea that there had been five stowaways that spent the night in their elevator; Lucy heard them unloading their boxes, one by one, then wheeling them away. Steve, peering through the grated air vent, held up a hand to let everyone know when to go; he glanced to Erica, then paused, eyes glued to the green cylinder of radioactive fuel.

Once the men finished their business and the doors began to close, in a blink, Steve was back in the elevator; Lucy watched from above as he crouched and shoved the cylinder inside the door before it could shut fully, leaving a crack wide enough for a body to fit through.

"Let's go!" he said at once, and none of them thought twice; Erica shimmed beneath the door first, then Dustin; as Robin squeezed under, the cylinder began to crack. Lucy hurried herself through the opening, and Steve only barely made it through before the glass cracked; the door slammed shut, and the liquid began to seep out. It was corroding the floor, going up in smoke.

"You still wanna drink that?" said Robin, looking to Erica.

"Holy mother of God," came Dustin's voice, and the others turned around to get their first look at the secret Russian base; the tunnel was easily miles long and reminded Lucy terribly of the Death Star.

"Well," said Steve, and he began walking, "I hope you guys are in good shape."

He pat Dustin on the shoulder as he passed him. "I'm lookin' at you, roast beef."

Dustin scoffed out an offended reply, but no one heard; the five of them started down the long hallway, trudging down toward whatever awaited them at the other end. Granted, Lucy was sure that the other end would not appear to them for another couple hours, and that they had a long amount of hiking to do before they reached it, but she tried to keep positive. After all, there was nowhere else to go.

"You have to admit," said Dustin, after a while of stalking along in silence, "as a feat of engineering alone, this is impressive."

Steve scoffed. "What are you talking about? It's a total fire hazard. There's no stairs, no exits. Just an elevator that drops you halfway to Hell."

"They're Commies," shrugged Erica. "You don't pay people, they cut corners."

"To be fair to our Russian comrades," said Robin, "I don't think this tunnel was designed for walking. Think about it, they developed the perfect system for transporting cargo."

Dustin nodded. "It all comes to the mall like any old delivery."

"Then they load it up onto those trucks and nobody's the wiser," finished Robin, shrugging. "Not bad."

Lucy frowned. "You think they built this whole mall just to transport that green poison stuff?"

"I very seriously doubt it's something as boring as poison," said Dustin, with a little laugh at Lucy's stupidity. "It's gotta be something much more powerful, like promethium or something."

Steve scowled. "What the hell is promethium?"

Robin was the one who answered; she had lit up at the mention of it. "It's what Victor Stone's dad used to make Cyborg's bionic and cybernetic components."

Erica gagged. "You're all so nerdy, it makes me physically ill."

Steve spread his hands, offended. "Hey, don't lump me in with them. I'm not a nerd, alright?"

"Why so sensitive, Steve?" prodded Lucy, amused. "Worried you're going to lose cool points to a ten year old?"

"No," he said irritably, "I'm just saying I don't know jack shit about Prometheus."

"Promethium," corrected Dustin, rolling his eyes. "Prometheus is a Greek mythological figure, but whatever. All I'm saying is, it's probably being used to make something."

"Or power something," suggested Robin.

"Like a nuclear weapon?" said Lucy, eyes wide. "In Hawkins?"

"And we're walking right toward it," said Steve, lips pursed in contempt. "Yeah. Great. That'd be great."

"But if they're building something," continued Robin, as though she hadn't heard Steve at all, "why here? I mean, Hawkins, of all places. Seriously. At the very best, we're a toilet stop on the way to Disneyland—"

Suddenly Steve and Dustin stopped, locking eyes. Lucy's stomach fell all the way to her feet, already certain she knew what they were thinking.

"You think the Russians know?" said Dustin in a worried voice.

Steve raised his eyebrows. "About the—?"

"They could."

"So it's connected?"

"No!" said Lucy at once, shaking her head firmly. "No way."

"But maybe," said Dustin.

"How, though?" said Steve.

Dustin shook his head, looking mystified and worried all at once. "I don't know," he said, "but..."

"Possible," said Steve, Dustin, and Lucy together; Lucy sounded much more full of dread than either of the other two.

"I'm sorry," said Robin, irritated, and she and Erica exchanged a frustrated glance, "but is there something you'd like to share with the class?"

Before any of them could reply, static crackling interrupted the conversation. At once, Dustin shrugged off his backpack and ripped it open to pull out the walkie talkie. He pulled up the antenna and let everyone listen, but Lucy had heard this broadcast before:

"A trip to China sounds nice," she repeated in time with the familiar pattern of Russian words, "if you tread lightly. It's the code again."

Dustin pursed his lips. "Wherever that broadcast is coming from, it's close."

Robin nodded. "And we know one thing about that signal: It can reach the surface."

Steve looked to Lucy, then the rest of the group. He nodded. "Let's go."

After God knows how many miles, they finally caught sight of a corner in the distance, and each of them let out sighs of relief to realize that their hiking would not be for nothing. Revigorized now, they picked up their pace until they reached the corner, then rounded it without a second thought.

On the other side they faced a bustling hub of Russians.

Two levels of scientists, rift labs, armed soldiers, and experiments—the heart of the Russian secret base. Men in hazmat suits walk from one story of the lab to the second, a loft-style base filled to the brim with people Lucy knew would, as Dustin had put it earlier, torture and kill her on sight.

Lucy put a hand over her mouth so she did not squeal aloud. Immediately the five Americans backtracked to around the corner again, each of them with their breath caught in their throats and immense expressions of panic on their faces. Steve waved them over toward a transport cart, the trunk of which was filled with Imperial Panda boxes, and they crouched behind it for cover.

"Jesus," said Steve, breathless. "The fucking hub down there."

"Red Dawn," agreed Dustin, though Lucy did not know what this meant.

"I saw it." Erica nodded, looking resolute. "The Comms room. First floor, northwest corner."

"You saw the Comms room?" said Lucy, incredulous. "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 a hundred different things," reasoned Dustin.

Lucy shared a glance with Steve, biting her lip, then nodded. "I'll take those odds."

He did not reply, but instead shook his head and sighed; he led the group in peeking around the corner again and gauging the distance from where they crouched to the Comms room.

"Alright," he said finally, speaking in a low voice. "We're gonna move fast, we're gonna stay low. Okay?"

On everyone's nods of agreement, he motioned them to follow, then ducked out from behind the transport cart. Their next shield was a stack of large silver containers—which Lucy would have bet were filled with more of the nuclear power liquid canisters—and pressed tight to them as a few workers in lab coats passed by. Then, Steve leading the way, the group maneuvered their way to a hiding spot right near the door to the Comms room; Steve glanced around, then nodded again, and, crouching, they all followed him inside.

Steve shut the door softly, and Lucy exhaled a large sigh of relief, before turning; sitting at the control panel, facing them with an expression of incredulous fury on his face was a Russian worker. He slowly took off his headphones and stood from his spinny chair, his bewildered eyes not leaving the group; he was reaching to his waist, toward his gun.

"Wait!" said Lucy, brashly, without thinking; she shot her hands out in a manner that she hoped told the Russian to hang on a second before doing anything too crazy. "W—wait, wait. Uh.. yesli ne toropit'sya!"

For a beat, the soldier's hand paused from moving to his gun holster, and he regarded Lucy with even more bemusement than before.

"Yesli ne toropit'sya!" said Lucy again, grasping at straws; she was uncertain whether this was the phrase that meant "tread lightly", or if she was confusing it for blue and yellow in the west.

"Kto ty?" demanded the Russian, and Lucy parted her lips, the language going in one ear and out the other. She didn't truly know Russian; she knew that damn code she had heard an insurmountable amount of times by now.

"Uh.. serebryanyy kot?" she attempted, losing her status now; the Russian looked more skeptical than confused.

"Ya ne ponimayu."

Really running on fumes now, Lucy shook her head, letting her defeat play across her face. She shrugged and said the last bit of Russian she remembered. "China?"

The Russian guard shook his head and started reaching for his gun again, unimpressed, but Steve did not give him the chance—yelling as though it helped the shock value, Steve charged the Russian; the man easily pushed him aside, but Steve recovered swiftly and elbowed the soldier. Groaning, the Russian grabbed Steve and threw him across the desk.

"Steve!" cried Lucy, but Robin grabbed her arm before she could foolishly join the fight.

Steve recovered again, giving himself time to grab the phone from the desk; he grunted and slammed it across the head of the soldier, who, in the shock, spun, slipped, and hit his head on the console, then hit the ground—unconscious.

Panting, Steve turned to face the rest of them, brushing his hair out of his face.

"Dude!" exclaimed Dustin, who was glowing with excitement. "You did it! You won a fight!"

Lucy pushed past him and moved to the still body of the Russian guard, kneeling beside him. She reached out and unclipped his keycard from his belt, then, hesitating, did the same with the gun; she had only ever held a gun once in her life, never fired it, but she figured she was the one with the most experience, and a weapon might come in handy with trying to escape the lab.

"What are you doing?" said Erica.

"We're getting out of here," insisted Lucy. She pocketed the gun—which, admittedly, looked ridiculous sticking out of her white cotton shorts and swimsuit combination—and turned to face the others. "This keycard is our ticket out."

Erica looked unimpressed. "You want to walk all the way back?"

Dustin shrugged. "Well, we could hang out bit, relax, have a picnic maybe."

"We came here for the radio!"

"Well, this plan is way better," scoffed Dustin. He nudged Steve's shoulder. "If I knew Steve could knock out a Russian, that would've been our plan in the first place."

Suddenly Robin's voice came from overhead, and Lucy realized she had moved to the second story of the Comms room. She was peering up at something. "Hey, there's something up there..."

The others were at her heels in an instant, and Robin ushered them through the door she was so enthralled with. They entered what felt, to Lucy, like some sort of observation chamber. The temperature had decreased at least ten degrees from the Comms room. Ahead of them sat an expansive set of windows, angled down so both floors had a decent view of whatever was causing the commotion up ahead. Lucy heard buzzing now, like a really, really large generator was ahead of them. 

Two Russians in lab coats stood at a control panel, nodding, taking notes; they seemed pleased with their findings. Others milled around, gazing ahead, also taking notes on their own clipboards.

Finally Lucy raised her eyes to what interested the Russians so much: It looked like a large... laser, fueled by the green hazardous liquid that they had so much of; two Russians in hazmat suits were inserting full canisters of it into either side of the laser. Lucy tried to follow the path of the laser with her eyes, but it seemed to be ripping a universal hole; whatever was on the other side was red, angry. Lucy had seen one of these before, had fought the beasts it unleashed on Hawkins last year.

"The gate," said Steve and Dustin together, their voices low, verifying Lucy's fear.

"What?" said Robin, but Dustin and Steve had begun ushering them all back into the Comms room, away from the gate and the Russians. They descended the stairs, much more tense than they had been before, which was certainly saying something.

"I don't understand," continued Robin, shaking her head. "You've seen this before?"

"Not exactly," said Dustin.

"Then what, exactly?"

"All you need to know is it's bad."

Steve nodded, lips pursed. "It's really bad."

"Like, end-of-the-human-race-as-we-know-it bad," said Dustin, swallowing.

Robin raised her eyebrows, looking impatient for answers. "And you know about this how?"

"Steve," said Lucy suddenly, and she hit him on the arm repeatedly until he turned away from Dustin to give her attention. She had her eyes on the ground by the console, and Steve followed her gaze, then curse. "Where's our Russian friend?"

As though Lucy's words were the cue, an alarm began to blare across the lab, and a flashing red light added to the chaos. Dustin cursed. Steve ran to the door, swung it open, and stuck his head out; then immediately backtracked, pressing himself against the door, ghastly white.

"Shit," he said.

The five of them took off at once, heading in the only obstructed escape route that they had discovered: Toward the gate. They climbed the stairs in increments of four and burst through the door, back onto the observation deck, then froze.

Seven Russian scientists stood before them, staring in confusion. Before they got their answers, the Americans took off again, running downstairs and into the chamber where the gate was opening. Lucy heard the sounds of soldiers bursting into the Comms room behind them. Together they scurried across a thin catwalk beneath the laser, and Lucy had to fight not to stare too long at the energy pulsating from the gate; she followed Steve down another set of stairs as the Russians gained traction on them; with a grunt Steve knocked over a Russian in a hazmat suit who had been in their way.

"This way!" insisted Robin, panicked, and she led them now; in the chamber Steve knocked over a pile of barrels, momentarily obstructing the Russians' path. Robin led them into a new room. Immediately Steve slammed shut the door and pressed himself into it, the Russians forcing it open from the other side. Erica, Dustin, and Robin began searching the room for another exit, but Steve looked to Lucy, straining.

"Help me!"

She wordlessly obliged and forced herself against the door, pushing as hard as she could; across the room she heard Erica's announcement that they found an exit, and the clattering of a vent grate hitting the ground. Lucy glanced over to see Erica already inside the vent; Dustin was close behind her, and Robin helped him in.

"Come on!" she called to Steve and Lucy.

"Just get out of here!" bellowed Steve, his voice strained.

"Come on, now!" said Dustin, his head sticking out of the vent.

"Just go get some help!" insisted Lucy. She lost her footing and slid, and the Russians gained another inch or so.

"Go!" repeated Steve, as Dustin and Robin still hesitated.

"I won't forget you," promised Dustin.

"JUST GO!" screamed Lucy and Steve.

Finally, the two of them disappeared into the bowels of the bunker, the grate clanking shut over them—just as the door gave out, and Lucy and Steve went flying to the ground. A dozen soldiers stormed in, guns drawn, and Lucy could do nothing but put her hands up.

Via Speaks

Yikes Stevie and Luce are in trouble :/ Also ya sorry I changed the plot so Robin doesn't get stuck with Steve. Just so yk. Couple bonding time can happen