Chapter 10
Lucas peered through his binoculars as a single black sedan came to a stop on the road below. He was perched on the rooftop of an old abandoned warehouse, which he and the others had chosen (after MUCH debate) as the location of their parlay with this so-called Agent Smith.
He was still very much not OK with the idea. The whole thing seemed like a trap to him, though he couldn't in a million years picture Joyce betraying them. After protesting the meeting, and being outvoted, he had resolved to make the meeting take place with as little risk as possible. He put down his binoculars and dug out Dustin's home made radio.
"They're here," Lucas said into the radio.
"Copy that," Dustin came back immediately. Then Lucas pulled out the other radio, the one he'd taken from the agents, and spoke into that one.
"That's close enough," he said into the radio, presumably to the man who called himself Smith. "Step out of the car, and make sure I can see Joyce with you." Lucas picked up the binoculars again and nervously swept the street in both directions as far as his rooftop vantage point allowed him to see. Smith had promised to come alone, and Lucas didn't see any other cars approaching. Not yet, anyway.
Down on the street, the black car's doors opened. A man in a suit and sunglasses stepped out of the drivers side. Lucas was relieved to see Joyce step out of the passenger side. She wasn't handcuffed, and she hadn't even been made to ride in the back like a prisoner. Maybe he didn't need to worry so much.
"Open your jacket," Lucas said into the agent's radio. "I want to see you leave your gun in the car."
"Is this really necessary?" So-called-Smith said into his own radio. Lucas could see him looking around the street and at the windows of the abandoned warehouse, but he felt well hidden. It was an abandoned warehouse, after all, and there was plenty of trash and junk lying around. Lucas had piled some of it up around himself to make a nice hiding place.
"I say it's necessary," Lucas told him over the radio. "If you don't want to cooperate, I could always have El drop that car on your head, and then we grab Joyce and make a clean getaway."
"No need to be sarcastic," Smith said. "I didn't come here to shoot anyone." He did cooperate, though. He spread his suit jacket wide open so that Lucas, through the binoculars, could see his shoulder holster. Smith then made a show of pulling his pistol out and putting it back in the car. "Happy?" He asked.
"Now give the radio to Joyce," Lucas said. "I'll talk to her from now on." With very visible reluctance, the agent handed the radio to Joyce.
"Are you sure you're alright, Mrs Byers?" Lucas asked. "I could shoot the agent in the leg while you run. We'll help you get away."
"Thanks, Lucas, but no," she said. "I really mean it. I think you need to hear what he has to say."
"Alright," Lucas said with a sigh. "We'll bring you inside. Tell Smith there to put his hands on his head and walk toward the front door. Slowly."
Lucas was fairly sure that Joyce would have been able to slip in some sort of danger code word or call for help if she'd wanted to, so he began to let himself hope that the whole thing wasn't a trap. He was also getting a sneaking feeling that he'd seen so-called-Smith before. Maybe it was the voice. Lucas used the binoculars again, but he was pretty far above them, and he couldn't get a good view of the man's face.
The two of them on the street neared the massive steel loading door at the front of the warehouse. The thing slid open with rusty creaks and groans, courtesy of El. A moment later, Lucas saw Smith jerked off his feet by an invisible hand and pulled inside.
Mike watched the man in the black suit zoom through the air, his toes almost brushing the dusty ground as his legs dangled, inside their abandoned warehouse. El pinned him up against a wall with his arms at his side.
"Mom," Will called, running past Mike's shoulder.
"Will," Joyce said, rushing up and hugging him. "I was so worried about you."
"No, mom, we're fine, we're fine," Will said. "It's you we were worried about. Did they hurt you?"
"No," she said, looking around the room at Dustin, Mike, the baby in his arms, and El. "But I think we all need to be calm and listen to what he has to say."
El let the heavy entry door slam shut. Dustin pushed past Mike to shine a flashlight in Smith's eyes.
"Who are you, and who do you work for?" Dustin demanded.
"Agent Smith," the man said. "And get that out of my face."
"Your real name," Dustin insisted, holding the flashlight menacingly.
"Jack Smith," he said. "That is a real name, you know."
"If you say so," Dustin said. "Why are you chasing little Allie? What do you want with her."
"Listen to me, hot shot," Smith said to Dustin. "I'm gonna tell you everything. That's why I came here. No tricks. So do we really need all of this? The flashlight, the guy up on the rooftop, and..." he struggled against El's invisible grip for a second "...this?"
"We'll be the judge of that," Dustin said. "You just answer our questions, and hope we decide to show mercy."
"Tone it down a little, big guy," Smith said.
"Why ARE you chasing us," Mike interrupted, squeezing Allie a little tighter in his arms, as if he was afraid Smith might run off with her right there.
"Protective custody," Smith said. "For your own safety, and everyone else's."
"You mean you want to lock her in a cell!" Mike said.
"How about a fireproof room?" Smith shot back at him. "A nice big room with a TV and teddy bears and flowers in vases and Disney characters on the carpets and, yes, fireproof walls? Look me in the eyes, Wheeler, and tell me your little girl isn't dangerous." His last word turned into a grunt as El increased the pressure on his chest.
Mike glared at him, holding Allie even tighter. "I know what you people are like," Mike said. "El spent her whole life a prisoner of people like you. That's never going to happen to Allie. Never!"
"God, Wheeler, we're not the bad guys," Smith said. "We observe, and we protect, and sometimes we miss something that we should have seen coming, and people die because of it. Your family aren't the only people with unnatural powers, you know. There are plenty of them out there, and they aren't all a happy little nuclear American family. Some of them are dangerous. Some of them are real monsters."
"So go and chase after them and leave us alone," Mike said angrily.
"Because you're not a threat, is that right?" Smith snapped. "You know how to flip a switch and turn off her powers so she doesn't burn your house down in the middle-" Smith's voice broke again as El pressed even tighter. "-of the-" he drew in another wheezing breath. "-night. And your wife here doesn't toss cars in the air when she gets angry? Right?"
"We were just protecting ourselves," Mike argued. "From you! I know what you're like."
"Different people," Smith wheezed. "Brenner and the others. That's not who we are."
"You want to lock a little girl in away in a cell. Sounds the same to me," Mike spat.
"You'd say the same thing if it was the other way around?" Smith demanded. "What if your little girl didn't have any special powers, but your neighbors did? Would you sleep at night knowing that they might burn down their house, your house, the whole block? The whole town? How would YOU like that?"
Mike wanted to argue, but he was having trouble finding the words. He wanted to throw something at the guy. He wanted El to toss him out of a window. Instead he just glared.
"You're getting sidetracked," Joyce spoke up from across the room where she still stood with Will. "Smith, that isn't what you came to talk to him about."
Smith breathed very heavily against El's restraining pressure, and, visibly calming himself down, spoke again. "I'm the least of your problems," Smith told them. "What I think is best for everyone is if you and your whole family moves into a lab where the eggheads and scientists can try to figure out a way to help your little girl, maybe find a way to control or shut off her powers, while we keep you all safe and comfortable-"
"We don't need help from you, thanks," Mike snapped.
"-But since you won't listen to me," Smith went on, uninterrupted. "Then you need to run. As far as you can."
Mike continued to glare at him, not sure where Smith was going now.
"You, your wife, your kid, if you won't let us put you somewhere safe, then you need to get out of here. Get as far away as you can, because there's something coming after you."
"Is it a demogorgon?" Dustin interrupted.
"A what?" Smith asked.
"What are you talking about?" Mike asked Smith, bringing his attention back from Dustin.
Smith hesitated for a brief moment. "Understand, all of you, that I'm breaking all the laws by telling you this. The agency I work for, our job is to monitor these things. We're always watching, on the lookout for things like this. There's a man, or a monster, or something. We first caught sight of him in Russia. We're pretty sure the Soviets made him in a lab, or turned one of their soldiers into something else. When the Soviets collapsed, he got out, and he's been running around for the last couple years. He's very hard to track. We usually only know where he's been, because he leaves a trail of bodies behind him. We spend a lot of time cleaning up supernatural crime scenes so the local police don't catch on to anything. At first, we thought he was tracking down individuals with psychic abilities and killing them. When several people on our Watch List ended up dead, we tightened down on security. Some of these people were just average American families who tried to keep their special talents a secret, a lot like your family before the big fire happened. When they started being targeted, we invited some of them into protective custody. Others we put under closer supervision, put agents in place to protect them if the Russian monster showed up at their doorstep one day. You see? We aren't the bad guys."
Mike looked away angrily.
"But things have changed now," Smith went on. "We have intelligence that the Russian is working with another firestarter, and they're coming here to Chicago. I can only guess they're coming here for you."
"Another Pyrokete?" Dustin asked.
"And not a good one," Smith told him. "This one's responsible for a string of fires and murders in California. I told you, firestarters are dangerous."
"You think they're coming here because they want to find us?" Mike asked skeptically.
"Why else would they come here, now?" Smith replied. "Now the Russian knows about you, you seem to have moved up to the top of his list."
"Why would he care about us?" Mike asked.
"I don't know," Smith said. "Why did the Commies invade other countries? Why do lions eat zebras? He kills other psychics. That's what he does. So I suggest you either take the help I'm offering you, or get as far away as you can."
Mike heard the warehouse's rusty old metal staircase creak as someone hurried down it. He turned to see Lucas, coming back down from his rooftop post.
"Smitty!" Lucas called in surprise. "It's you!"
Mike's head whirled around as he looked from Lucas to Smith and back again.
"Sinclair?" Smith said, straining against El's grip to turn and look at Lucas. "What the hell are you doing here?"
"What are YOU doing here?" Lucas replied, moving off the staircase and past Will and Joyce. "You have a beard now. Wow, it's been about..."
"Four years," Smith told him.
"You just disappeared," Lucas said.
"I got picked up by... an agency," Smith said. "All top secret, and stuff. I couldn't tell anyone where I went or what I was doing. I had to basically cut off all my friends."
Lucas pushed his way past Mike and placed himself between Smith and El. She was staring daggers at the prisoner, and had been since she'd pulled him through the door. Lucas moved his head right into her eye line so that she had to look at him.
"El, he's a friend," Lucas said in a calming voice. "This is Smitty. We were in the Army together. You don't have to crush him."
"You weren't here just now, Lucas," Mike said. "You didn't hear what he was saying about Allie. He'd take her away to a lab if we let him."
"OK, maybe. I didn't hear him," Lucas said, still holding eye contact with El as he spoke to Mike. "But you don't have to hurt him. He can't do anything to us here. Allie's safe for now. There's a bunch of us and only one of him and, El, listen to me El, you know he wouldn't make it five feet before you could splatter him all over the floor if he tried anything stupid, so why don't you let him go? El? Please, you can trust him. It's OK."
El narrowed her eyes and continued to star for a long moment. Then, as if letting out a breath she'd been holding the whole time, she relaxed her body and took a step away. Smith dropped the couple inches that he'd been held above the floor and took a big, easy breath for the first time since he'd been pinned to the wall.
"Thanks, El," Lucas said.
"Thanks, Sinclair," Smith said. "How'd you get mixed up with these people?"
"These are my friends," Lucas told him. "You knew I'm from Hawkins, didn't you?"
"You probably told me, but I don't remember it. There's not much to remember about Hawkins. You can barely find it on a map," Smith said.
"Really?" Lucas protested.
Smith shrugged.
"You should tell him your story again," Dustin said to Smith. "You missed a lot while you were upstairs, Lucas."
"Tell him whatever you want," Mike told Smith sharply. "We still aren't going anywhere with you. And certainly not to some new Hawkins Lab."
Smith took Lucas by the arm and walked a few steps away and began making his case again. Mike turned his back on them and went over to El.
"What do you think?" He asked her. "Does this Russian monster mean anything to you?" El shook her head slowly, a thoughtful look on her face.
Joyce, Will, and Dustin migrated closer to them, seemingly eager to hear them confer about the information, away from Smith's ears.
"Mike, El, is it true? About the fire at your house?" Joyce asked, looking down at Allie with the same expression on her face that Mike had seen when Will was missing in the Upside Down.
"It's true," Mike told her quietly. "I mean, not what Smith just said, but... kind of. Sometimes she starts fires. Huge, powerful fires. El and I don't know what makes her do it, or how to stop it." Mike watched Joyce's face as she continued to regard the baby. He saw that El was watching Joyce, too.
Joyce frowned as she considered something. "That other person Smith talked about..." she began slowly. "The one who starts fires. The one from California. Maybe this is crazy but, what if they're connected somehow?"
"Wow," Dustin shouted, smacking himself in the forehead with his palm. "How did I not think of that?"
"It's not crazy?" Joyce asked him.
"It makes perfect sense," Dustin said, speaking fast. "Mike, of course two people with the same power set would share some kind of connection."
"They would?" Mike asked.
"You notice that El always knows just before Allie is about to... use her powers? So Allie must be producing some kind of psychic signal that El picks up. She gets really upset before she starts a fire, right? It's an emotional power. So El can feel it, like a change in the air pressure before a storm, because they share a connection, obviously, because she's her mom."
"Ok..." Mike said, "...But I don't get the other-"
"So this other Pyrokete in California, if his powers are the same as Allie's he would send out a psychic signal whenever he creates a firestorm too, right?" Dustin went on.
"Maybe..."
"Fire is an emotional power, remember? So that guy probably gets really angry before he uses his powers. And Allie can feel it, because they're connected, because they're kind of the same," Dustin said, his excitement growing. "So El can feel Allie, but she can't feel the other Pyrokete guy, because he and El don't share any kind of connection. But whenever he blows up, Allie feels it, and it effects her. Since she's only a baby, she doesn't know how to block it out or anything, so she blows up too."
"I don't know..." Mike said.
"Think about it," Dustin insisted. "You're holding Allie right now. If you started yelling and crying, she'd pick up on it get upset and probably start doing the same thing as you. Babies are really influenced by the people around them. So if Allie feels "FIRE" in her brain, and she doesn't know what it means or where it comes from, but it overwhelms her and she starts a fire of her own without even knowing why she's doing it."
"I don't know," Mike said again. "You think Allie can feel what someone is doing from two thousand miles away?"
"Only him, because they're the same," Dustin explained. "And why would psychic powers be limited by distance? El could spy on Russians, and that's like FIVE thousand miles."
"So you think Allie... has an episode every time this other firestarter uses his powers?" Mike asked, still feeling skeptical.
"Probably not every time," Dustin answered. "There are probably a lot of other factors. How big of a fire is he creating? Some would be a lot more powerful than others, depending on what he's doing. And then there's Allie. Is she awake? Is she asleep? It seems like she's more vulnerable to it when she's asleep. Is she happy, or upset? She'd probably be more vulnerable to it if she's already upset, like when we're running from the agents and Allie can pick up that we're all stressed out and scared. And then there's El. Maybe when El is touching Allie's mind, it's like the phone line is busy. Another signal can't come in if Allie's mind is already receiving something from El, especially if she's receiving happy thoughts. And then there's the Upside Down. Maybe psychic signals travel easier in the Upside Down than it our world, so that's why Allie had an episode there. Just theories. There are probably a bunch of variables behind what's going on.
Mike stared at Dustin, thinking. He didn't hate it. He didn't love the idea of some unknown, probably dangerous person a whole country away influencing his little girl's mind, but the theory made sense to him, as Dustin laid it out.
"What do you think, El?" Dustin asked her. "Sound plausible?"
Mike watched her face as she considered it. After a long time, she agreed. "Plausible," she said. Dustin's smile almost split his face in two.
"So what does that mean for us?" Will asked.
"It means, if we can find away to stop that other Pyrokete, or break the connection, maybe we can calm down Allie's powers and make them easier for her to control. Maybe it would be the end of her episodes," Dustin said.
"Uh... give us just a second, guys," Mike said to the others as he pulled El away from the group so they could talk quietly. "What do you think about that stuff Smith said? Not the first part, I mean the running away stuff."
She watched him talk, and listened, but Mike couldn't read her expression.
"Maybe we SHOULD run, El," he said, keeping his voice low. "Just get Allie somewhere safe. Anywhere the agents and these other psychics and everyone can't find her." His voice trembled just a little as he spoke. He searched her face, hoping to find the easy answer to their problem.
She reached out and took his hand in both of hers. "No," she said softly. "Mike, our friends live here. WE live here. No more running. We fight."
"El," he pleaded, his eyes starting to fill up with tears. "If we stay, if anything happens to Allie, or you, I couldn't... I can't..." His voice caught. "I couldn't live after that. I don't need my job at Hawkins Middle. I don't need money or a house. I just need you."
"Mike," she said, her own eyes starting to water. "We fight. Together."
He tried to talk again, but his voice wouldn't work. He leaned forward and hugged her tightly, careful of Allie sandwiched between them. With his chin on her shoulder, Mike was looking back toward his friends. Their faces were blurry through the tears now falling from his eyes. "I don't know how we fight them," Mike said, his chin still on her shoulder.
"Me neither," she said, her own voice shaking now as much as his. "But we figure it out. Together."
Mike closed his eyes and just held on to El, wishing he didn't ever need to let go.
Will waited to give Mike and El a minute alone before he interrupted them. Mike was wiping his eyes. El was a little less self conscious about her own tears.
"Mike, if you guys are going to stay and fight," Will began carefully.
"You heard us?" Mike asked with a little nervous laugh.
Will rolled his eyes. "I already knew what you two were going to say. Sometimes your total obliviousness blows my mind. Anyway, if it's about to get really dangerous over here, I'd like to get my mom out first."
"No, of course," Mike said. "Do what you need to do. We'll be alright here."
"I'm coming back, Mike," Will insisted, looking hard into his eyes. "As soon as I get my mom out of the city, I'm coming back for you guys. I won't let you fight this thing alone."
"El," Lucas interrupted gently, coming back over from his private talk with Smith. "Can you lift the door again? Smith said everything he came here to say. We should let him go now."
"We should we let you go? Are you going to stop chasing Allie?" Mike demanded, looking past Lucas' shoulder at Smith.
"I've got bigger problems than you right now, Wheeler," Smith told him. "I'm still in charger of this operation, which means it's my job to stop the Russian and the Firestarter. That takes priority."
"What about after that?" Mike asked.
"Well, if I mess this up, my boss will probably reassign me to work sanitation at a base in Alaska, so you won't ever have to see my face again. How's that sound?"
"You're going to try to stop those two psychics?" Dustin asked Smith incredulously. "With bullets?"
"That's right," Smith said.
"You don't know what you're getting into," Dustin told him.
"I know bullets," Smith countered.
"Bullets didn't work on the demogorgon," Dustin argued.
"The what?" Smith asked.
"I don't think you can deal with this on your own. Maybe you need El to help you," Dustin suggested. "What if we make a deal. El takes care of this little problem for you, and you agree to leave Allie alone for good."
"I think we can handle it, hot shot," Smith said. "You guys don't want to be anywhere near this. If you don't want to let us help YOU-"
"We don't," Mike interrupted.
"-Then I still say you should run. Just get as far away as you can." Smith started backing toward the door, maybe afraid that El wouldn't let him go, but she did. With a heavy groan of old rusty metal, the warehouse door slid open and Smith disappeared.
Hopper skidded to a stop and jumped out of his with Sam right on his heels. They looked frantically up and down the line of squad cars. Cops began shouting for them to leave, but Hopper ignored them as he searched up and down the line of parked cars and armed men. They had set up some kind of road block, arrayed as if they were waiting for Godzilla himself to come stomping down the street.
Sam grabbed Hopper's shoulder and pointed when he found the person they were looking for.
"Lou," Sam yelled over the noise of all the assembled cops. "What is all this?"
"What are you doing here, Sam?" Lou asked, stepping away from his own squad car, where he had been crouched behind his open driver's door like a shield.
"You first," Sam insisted. "What's going on here?"
"They called out everyone," Lou told him. "Chicago PD, fire department, SWAT, even the national guard is on their way."
"Who called you out?" Sam asked, gaping around at all the assembled men, trucks, and guns.
"The Suits," Lou told him. "They're running the show now. We're waiting for something. They still haven't told us what it is."
"You're expecting a shoot out?" Hopper asked, completely lost.
"Use your eyes," Lou snapped, waving his hand toward all the guns. "Now both of you need to get out of here. If we weren't all on the firing line, someone would have arrested you by now. Get somewhere safe. You don't want to be anywhere near whatever's about to happen."
Smith skidded to a stop behind the firing line, still yelling instructions into his radio as he got out.
"Where were you?" Agent Stoneman, who'd been in charge of the scene while he was gone, demanded.
"Never mind," Smith said. "Where's Walter?"
"This way," Stoneman said, taking him down the line.
"The National Guard units?"
"They're ten minutes out," Stoneman answered.
"Why did you move the timetable up so fast?" Smith asked.
"Because of Walter," Stoneman told him. "He came in and started raving at me. Said he had another dream. I'm glad you get to deal with him now."
They'd reached one of the many white vans, though this was was parked a short distance back from the firing line. Smith opened the door and found Walter inside, fidgeting nervously.
"Go make sure the army units get positioned right," Smith told Stoneman, who nodded and left. He turned back to look at Walter. "What did you see?"
"The Russian, and the Firestarter," Walter rasped at him. "I know where they're going to be. This road, right here."
"When?" Smith demanded.
"Right now. You almost missed it. Where were you?"
"Never mind," Smith said. "You're sure about this? It's a lot more detail than you usually give us."
"I'm sure," Walter growled.
"Is this from your same dream? The one about the fire?" Smith pressed.
"No, a different dream," Walter told him.
Smith turned to look back over his shoulder at the firing line that had been set up while he was away. He should have more than enough firepower to take down two individuals, if nothing went wrong.
"Alright, Walter, I want you to take this van and get a few blocks further back," Smith said, still looking at the firing line. "You're more valuable behind the lines, and I don't want to risk something happening to you up here."
A sudden cry of pain from Walter made Smith jerk his head around. He looked back into the van to see the older man, his back rigid and his neck held at an unnatural angle. His body spasmed, and he gave another cry of pain. Smith instinctively took a step toward him, as if to help.
"He knows," Walter hissed, his eyes going wide.
Smith stopped where he was and stared.
"He sensed me," Walter said, his neck muscles visibly straining and his eyes beginning to bulge.
"The Russian?" Smith asked, lifting and then dropping his hands, realizing that he was completely helpless against some kind of psychic attack.
"He caught me spying on him," Walter said, a trickle of blood starting to run from the corner of his eye. "He knows we're waiting for him. Get everyone away. Call off the-"
There was a loud snap, and Walter was jerked out of his seat, his neck flopping over sideways. He hung, suspended on his feet for a moment, and then crumpled to the floor, blood leaking out of both eyes and ears.
Smith was frozen for a few heartbeats. He had a hand on his gun, but there was no one around to shoot. He continued to stare down at the lifeless body for a few more heartbeats before a loud explosion snapped his attention back to the world outside.