Legal pad drawings littered the coffee table while cigarette smoke hung in the air. Alexie's tune had changed drastically after their earlier episode, and now the scientist answered each question thrown at him willingly.

"He calls it the key," Murray informed the group while translating Alexie's Russian in real-time. "And, this key emits a great energy. It requires much strength, power. Those houses, like the one you found, they're located near, uh, transformers. They're stealing from your town's power grid."

Taking a long drag from his cigarette, Hopper allowed a steady stream of smoke to emanate from his lungs before asking: "Why build this key here? Why are they not doing this in their own backyard? What are they trying to do, blow us to smithereens?"

Ana and Hopper merely watched on as the two bespeckled men carried on a private conversation in Russian before their very eyes. "There were many of these, uh, keys before in Russia," Murray continued, "but they turned out wrong. They had to come to where the…where the, uh…"

Murray seemed to stutter in his translation, so Hopper pressed, "where the what?" Letting out a frustrated huff, Murray admitted: "I don't understand what he's saying."

Scoffing at the eccentric's confession, Ana taunted: "I thought you were fluent."

Murray did not take the insinuation in stride. "Oh, I'm sorry," he announced sarcastically. "Are my free translation services not good enough for you? Because you can just go ahead and file your complaint right up my ass!"

"My mistake. I guess I just expected more from a man wearing jorts," Ana said innocently, raising her hands in mock surrender. Was Murray trying to silently murder her with that death stare? It kind of seemed like it.

While Murray attempted to will the middle school teacher's demise with the power of his mind, Alexie picked up a French fry container and straw, then began gesturing to the seated crew.

"What is Smirnoff doing?" Hopper questioned around the cigarette hanging loosely from his lips.

"He's showing me," Murray assured after forgoing the staring contest he'd been engaging in with Ana. Alexie pressed one end of the straw to the back of the carton, and Murray explained, "uh, he says the straw, they're using it to penetrate a hole in…a box?" Again, Murray didn't seem sure in his translation, so he gave it another attempt. "Okay, sorry, sorry. The straw represents the key, which emits a great energy. They're using this energy to break through a barrier, to open a doorway. A doorway between worlds."

Murray had no way of knowing the magnitude of what he'd just discovered, but from the look Hopper and Ana shared, the couple knew exactly what this revelation meant.

"Fuck," Ana muttered to herself, before burying her head in her hands. She didn't listen to the rest of the conversation playing out around her. She didn't want to hear any more from the scientist because hearing it spoken, would only make it all the more real. Why couldn't the past just stay dead? Why did their demons insist upon digging themselves out of the graves in which they'd been buried?

No, no, no, no, no, rang through Ana's head like a chorus, blocking out all other sound.

"Goddammit!" She shouted unexpectedly, the eruption making the three men nearby jump. Pulling herself off the floor, Ana fled out the front door, not even acknowledging Hopper when he asked: "Where are you going?"

Slamming the steel door behind her, Ana's eyes frantically searched for some escape, but there was no escaping this reality.

Halting in the middle of the driveway, the humid summer air couldn't reach her lungs, and Ana doubled over gasping for breath. This couldn't be happening again; she willed it with all her might not to happen again. Their luck was surely running out, and the realization brought with it a paralyzing panic. She couldn't breathe, she couldn't move, and she couldn't feel anything besides an all-consuming terror that this would ultimately lead to her family's demise. Who had she wronged so thoroughly in a past life that she was being perpetually punished for it now?

It took every facet of Ana's self-control to wrangle her anxiety, when all she really wanted to do was collapse to the pavement and wallow in self-pity, like a child whose toy had been stolen on the playground. Unfortunately, she was a mother now, and she'd have to put on a mask of strength, even when every part of her being screamed at her to crumple into a ball of misery and despair.

Ana's steps were heavy; her shoes felt as though they were weighed down with lead when she trudged back inside Murray's home. The three men were huddled together inside, and none acknowledged her reentry. The phrase 'fat Rambo' broke through her muffled hearing, but, at that moment, Ana couldn't even find the humor in it.

"Jim, I need to talk to you," Ana croaked as she stood defeated in Murray's living room. If Hopper had been paying attention, he would have been concerned by her use of his first name. Ana hardly ever called him Jim, always Hopper. However, he wasn't paying attention in that instant, and Hopper simply brushed off her request with: "Not now, we need to call Doc Owens."

Grabbing Murray's rotary phone, Hopper dialed the number only designated for emergencies. "Two minutes, Jim. It's a secure line, but any longer than that, and they could trace you," Murray warned.

Standing up, headset pressed to his right ear, and the receiver clutched in his left hand, Hopper admitted: "Yeah, I want 'em to trace me." Murray appeared horrified by the notion.

The line rang loudly twice before a voice on the other end answered. "Philadelphia Public Library." Even though he'd been the one to dial, Hopper looked slightly surprised at having his phone call answered. "Uh...This is Jim Hopper...uh...police chief, Hawkins. I got this number from Dr. Sam Owens," he finally managed to produce after much fumbling.

"What is your identification code?" The voice on the other end questioned. "Identification code?" Hopper repeated back, confused.

"You don't know it? You must be joking," Murray passed his own judgment. Ana rolled her eyes at their antics, "tell them Loose Ladder, that's mine."

Hopper looked bewildered for a second. "How do you just know that?" He questioned Ana, before repeating the phrase into the headset. "Listen, um, tell Owens that the Russkies are opening the gate. Now, he'll know what that means. Not about the Russkies, but about the gate. Tell him that there's an entrance at Starcourt Mall. I know how to get in, but I need backup, a lot of backup. Have him call me back here at 618-625-8313." Murray waved frantically in a stop motion while Hopper willfully relinquished the number to his secure line, but the damage had already been done.

"Your message will be relayed," the voice on the other end declared calmly, and then the line went dead.

"Now, we wait," Hopper concluded after hanging up the phone. Then, he plopped down on the sofa, inserting an unlit cigarette into his awaiting mouth. All the while, Murray muttered about how he'd been compromised, and now needed to relocate.

"We aren't just going to sit around waiting for a phone call," Ana argued from her standing position next to Hopper. "Whatever's happening, is happening right now, and we're useless a state away."

Lighting his cigarette, Hopper considered her for a moment, taking his first inhale from the burning stick. "Ana, now's not the time to be melodramatic." If looks could kill, Hopper would have dropped dead on the spot. Murray's death stare had nothing on Ana's, that woman could have made an art form of it.

Spinning on her heels, Ana stomped over to the rotary phone and shot back at Hopper: "Melodramatic? Oh, I'll give you some dramatics."

For the second time that day, the same emergency number was dialed, and just as before, the voice on the other end answered with "Philadelphia Public Library."

"Yes, this is Loose Ladder, you spoke with an absolute moron earlier," she threw a scathing look back at Hopper, who had stalked into the room after her. "You need to tell Dr. Owens that he and his special forces, or whatever, better head to Hawkins straight away. No point in waiting on a phone call. Y'all just head out, guns blazing." Hopper was howling at her now, but Ana merely turned her back on him, drowning out his numerous complaints.

"Ma'am, I'm gonna need you to stay calm," the voice on the other end compelled.

Ana completely lost her cool, right then and there on the phone, at the mere suggestion that she'd been anything but calm up unto that point. "No! I'm done being talked down to by you men. You all think you're so smart, but y'all don't know shit. So, instead of patronizing me, how about you get up off your ass, and, for once, do as you're told!" Poor phone guy, he was really getting the brunt of her anger, much of which was actually directed at the gentlemen occupying the room beside her. "When I hang up, you're gonna go find Owens and tell him that shit is going down. He needs to muster up a militia and get down to Hawkins right now! Or, so help me god, I will come over there and kick the living crap out of every single one of you! Do you understand me?"

"Yes, yes, ma'am," the voice on the other end assured, hurriedly.

The edge in Ana's voice hadn't eased in the slightest as she barked: "Never call me ma'am again. Thank you, and good day!" She slammed the headset back on the receiver and finally acknowledged Murray and Hopper. Murray looked exasperated, his head bowed as he sat at the nearby table. Hopper looked agitated, and equally horrified by her actions, shouting: "It's been exactly one minute, Ana."

She smacked him on the arm, it wasn't hard enough to cause any real damage, but the accompanying sting had Hopper recoiling in shock. "Shut your mouth," Ana instructed. "We're leaving."

Heading to the couch, Ana roused Alexie from his little cat nap, telling him it was time to take a trip in the car. Murray and Hopper finally found the good sense not to argue with Ana further, and, instead, followed her lead, albeit begrudgingly.

The front seat of the convertible was tensely silent in contrast to Murray and Alexie's Russian conversation taking place in the backseat. "What's he saying?" Hopper asked as the two men continued to mutter back and forth.

"He's showing me the location of the key to turn off the machine," Murray informed while Alexie pointed at various drawings. Drawings that Murray had the foresight to collect before their road trip back to Hawkins began. "Sorry, keys. Two keys."

Something must have occurred to Hopper because he announced: "Two-man rule."

"Two-man rule?" Ana parroted in uncertainty.

Clarifying for the cab, "yeah, two men, two keys, like a nuclear launch," Hopper reasoned.

Alexie continued to murmur in Russian. "But, uh, to retrieve the keys, there is a vault," Murray translated." And to open the vault, you need to enter Planck's constant."

"Planck's what?" Hopper probed from the driver's seat.

Apparently, this should have been an obvious answer from the tone Murray stated: "Planck's constant. It's a very famous number."

Inserting herself into the discussion, Ana reasoned: "Alright, so we get the keys, and then we can shut down the machine." It didn't seem like the most complex plan in the world.

"That's what he says," Murray agreed, chipperly, from the back seat.

"Great, then let's get it done so we can all move on with our lives." Ana wasn't usually one for optimism, but it was really the last thread she had holding her willpower together at the moment.

Hopper scoffed at her confidence. "Ana, did you hear the part where he said the place was like an impenetrable fortress?" Eyes straying from the road, he pinned his girlfriend with a disparaging stare.

Glaring right back at him, Ana argued that "nothing is actually impenetrable."

Hopper's hair flapped in the wind as his gaze became even more judgemental. "Yeah, the military can penetrate fortresses, but we're not the military."

Ana's teeth were clenched as she shot back: "The military are coming."

Hopper refused to drop it though, and continued exchanging verbal barbs with the woman seated next to him. "Well, we don't know that anymore because you yelled at them like it was a parent-teacher conference, and then you hung up on them, so we don't know what the hell's going on, because now we're-Wait. Wait, what are we do-Oh! Wait, that's right! We're on our way to rescue the children, the same children you already said were safe, who are probably just at the big, bad Fourth of July celebration!" And, he'd dared to call her melodramatic earlier. Hopper looked downright deranged as he attempted to read Ana the riot act.

"How about you just drop me off?" Ana offered angrily. "No, just pull over, and I'll hitch a ride back to Hawkins. Then you can go do whatever the fuck you want."

"What're you gonna do, huh? What are you actually going to do?" Hopper shouted back at her.

"I will do anything if it gets me away from you!" Ana screamed in return.

Murray, repeatedly calling them children from the back seat, disrupted their endless squabbling. Leaning into the front seat, Murray inserted himself between Ana and Hopper and hollered: "This interminable bickering was amusing at first, but it's getting very stale, and we've still got a long drive ahead of us. So, why don't you two cut the horseshit and get to the part where you admit what's really bothering you?"

"Shut the fuck up, Murray. You have no idea what you're talking about," Ana said as she pivoted in her seat to scowl at him.

"Oh, spare me, spare me, spare me!" Murray continued his tirade, head swiveling between Ana and Hopper. "Yes, yes, he's a brute. I know. Probably reminds you of a bad relationship, and, gosh, you've got a crippling fear of commitment too, but admit it, you're stuck whether you like it or not, and now it's time to come clean."

"Murray," Ana warned lowly, but the eccentric had turned his sights on Hopper instead. "And you, Ha! Well, you're just a big manbaby who'd rather act tough than show his true feelings, because the last time you opened your heart, you got hurt. Owie." Evidently, he was finished going in on them individually, and now they were both about to get an unwarranted dose of Murray honesty.

"And now, rather than admit the truth, you're dancing around one another with this mind-numbing and frankly boorish display of outrage. So, please, for my sake, either quit your bickering, or give her the ring you've been hiding in your pocket, and tell him you're pregnant already!"

Only the sound of wind wishing past the convertible could be heard over the ensuing silence.