Hawkins or Bust (I)

Mike walked out of his office and into Lisa's with some print outs, "Lisa, do you have anybody that can read… uh Mandarin I think it is?

"That's an odd question, but yes we do."

"What about Russian?"

"And yes. Is that coded one of those languages?"

"No two different programs, but some the comments in some of the sections are in the two different languages."

"Let me send the two people you need up to your office."

Mike talked to two co-workers he'd never met until now, they translated the comments, but the resulting English didn't mean anything to them.

Mike could tell it was encrypted. He had an idea where the encryption key was kept, when he retrieved it, he removed any signs he had been there, and took the courtesy of closing the back door and securing the computer he'd hacked into. He left a message to the owner. Ordinarily he'd be more discreet than that. But he needed to do it in this case.

Once he had decrypted the translated messages, he saw what was happening. Happened. And he had triggered it by getting the keys.

He had new found respect for the owner of the computer he'd hacked into.

Mike spent the afternoon making sure that all the paper trails, and system logging were clean. He knew that some of the code he'd optimized in previous days, had made that possible. The whole thing was probably going to work.

"Clever girl."

XXXXX

When he walked into the coffee shop, Lucas was down on one knee, and Max was crying.

They both looked at him.

"I'm guessing you said yes, Max. You know Lucas waited for you since since grade 4."

Max nodded, wiping her eyes with her sleeve.

"We're going to get married in Hawkins, Mike. Um, do I need to ask?"

"No, Lucas. I'd be honoured to be your Best Man."

Max came over and hugged him. She whispered into his ear, "El needs you. She's upstairs."

Mike had a good idea of what the problem was, and he was sure she'd probably be crying. He was going to have to ease her mind of any guilt she felt.

He walked carefully up the stairs and opened her apartment door.

She was sitting cross-legged on the sofa, her hands in her lap, her head hanging down.

"Am I going to jail?"

"No, El. You covered your tracks ok, I cleaned up some minor things. I was going to make it look like all the hacking attempts came from that psychotic Brenner, but he already tried, at least someone using a terminal from his office, so there's no frame up involved. He's actually guilty of that and who knows what else."

"Am I in trouble?"

"El, I just said-"

"With you Mike. Am I in trouble with you? It looks like I used you after all."

"I love you El. You didn't really use me. You did most of the work yourself. Um, so not only can you move things with your mind… as if that wasn't enough. But you are an elite hacker too?"

El shrugged, gave him a faltering smile.

"So I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that it wasn't that I hacked into your computer through all those relays and your firewall, oh great job on a custom firewall by the way.. And it wasn't that I accessed the encryption keys to copy them. And it wasn't that after I wrote a quickie assembly program to change the tarpit listening port sitting in front of the honeypot. A port that didn't actually need changing, and I had to port knock to get there, but when I thought I was changing it back and the other bits of cleanup, I actually made the listening port wrong, and that's what triggered everything. I counted eleven tasks I needed to do before I was done."

"I did ok?" She gave him such an innocent and lost look through those round eyes all Mike could do was kiss her.

"I love you and you are brilliant El. There are not many programmers in the world who could have pulled off what you did… I'm uh, a little envious, I thought of myself as near the top of this business, but now I'm not so sure."

"Except you figured out what I did. I wanted it to take a very good hacker to trigger all the events. I didn't want it to be you who triggered everything, I should have known when I hired you-"

She looked up at his questioning eyes.

"I uh, looked at your portfolio, I was looking for a specific set of skills and you had them. I didn't know I would fall in love with you at a bus stop though…"

"Me either," Mike smiled at her. "Um, you should go downstairs, Max has something to tell you."

Mike put away his laptop and briefcase, made a few calls, and then headed back downstairs.

El and Max were hugging and crying.

Max held out her ring to Mike.

"One ring to rule them all. Wow, Lucas must be serious if he gave you his homemade ring from Lord of the Rings."

"It's just a placeholder until I get the real thing… I couldn't wait any longer to ask her."

El kept her head down, not meeting his eyes. Mike knew what was she was thinking.

"I bought four bus tickets. We leave for Hawkins at six." Lucas waived them around.

XXXXX

The sun was setting as the bus left the station, Max and Lucas were holding hands and talking quietly in the two seats in front of El and Mike.

El was looking out the window, she hadn't said anything to Mike since they sat down. She didn't reach for his hand which bothered Mike a little.

Now wasn't the time.

"Something wrong El?

"No." She gave a huge sigh.

"I look forward to these quiet times where we can just hold hands and be with each other."

"I'm not really in the mood Mike."

Mike looked down. "Hmm, that's gonna make what I have to say a lot harder, but I don't want wait El."

For the first time since they'd gotten on the bus El turned to him gave him an expectant look, hope maybe? Her facial expressions were so subtle it was taking him time to get to know them all.

"Wait to tell me what? I thought we were finished with all the hard and awkward bits?"

"Yeah," He looked down. Frowned and shook his head. This wasn't going the way he wanted it to. She was upset with him. Not over something he did or said, but for something he hadn't said yet. Something he wanted to say now but her sour mood was putting him off.

"I'm sorry Mike. I'm moody, I'm not really looking forward to going back to Hawkins. Iim only doing it because Max asked me to be her bridesmaid."

El gave him genuine smile. It only lasted for a few seconds.

"Yes, it will be great to see my dad, but Mike… I don't have a lot of fond memories here. And I know once Max and Lucas get married, I'm going to be losing a best friend..." As soon as she said that her breath hitched and she put her face in her hands and cried, trying to keep her sobs as quiet as possible.

"We could create good memories there El"

"How? I'll be with you, but a lot of bad things happened to me. I thought I was over all of it. But it's all coming back. You'll have to bear with me."

"If you married me in Hawkins, that would be a good memory."

Her breathing stopped, He wet eyes got larger as she looked at him. "You are asking me to marry you?" She looked around as if she wasn't hearing him correctly.

"I am." She grabbed his hand.

"Will you marry me E?l. In Hawkins?"

"I know it's only been-"

"Yes."

"-a couple of days since-"

"Yes"

"-we've known each other."

El stopped him talking by kissing him, and then saying against is mouth. "Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. A thousand yes's. I love you so much Mike."

"Um, El, I might have done something without asking you first… I hope it's ok."

"Mike?"

"I asked your dad to pick us up. And drive us to the Justice of the Peace. He wants to give you away. I want you to be my wife as soon as possible after we get off the bus."

The heart wrenching sob that came El was hard to take, Mike had to wipe his eyes.

"And El? Lucas would never let you lose your best friend. You don't have to worry about that."

He didn't think she was listening, her eyes looked a little glazed over. Mike had made her happy, and that's all he ever wanted to do.

She sighed again.

"I'm going to be Mrs. El Wheeler"