Chapter 1
September 27,1986
The Party was sitting by Hopper's lake the day the world ended. It was a peaceful end of summer type of day where it wasn't to hot and it the leaves were not ready to fall yet. Max Mayfield was shooting cans with her own wrist rocket while Lucas was gently instructing her. Dustin was repairing his radio after a mishap with Will and a slingshot lesson. Will had an art book and was drawing nature, and his best friend and step sister. El was sitting down with her boyfriend, Mike. The two were snuggled together, Mike writing in his notebook campaign ideas while El read over his shoulder.
Mike looked over his shoulder and smiled at his girlfriend reading over his shoulder. He quickly kissed her cheek. She smiled and began stroking his hair. The pair looked out to their friends and smiled. The past few years had been a challenge with the threat of the Upside Down finally ending. Now they just had to worry about teenage hormones and homework.
"Hey, Mike, if you and El can stop being disgustingly adorable, you think your going to have that campaign ready be next week?" Dustin called while putting knobs in place. "Yea, it should be ready. Just fine tuning a few things" Mike said. "And I'm helping!" El said excitedly.
"Make out sessions are not help." Max said with a laugh. She fired her rock at the can but it diverted away, Max looked over to see El wiping her nose. "Oh you bitch." Max said as El gave her a shit eating grin.
Dustin kept messing with the knobs in his radio. A signal came in.
"We found the subject, preparing for extract." A voice came in over the radio.
Everyone stared at the radio as the voice came in, they all turned over to Mike. "We need to get to get to Hop." Mike said. They gathered their things and bolted away from the shore.
The group ran, then split off in multiple directions. Will and Dustin went one way, Lucas and Max another. Mike and El made a beeline for the cabin. They could hear people coming from behind trees. El used her powers and flung them out of their way.
Mike held onto El's hand as they saw the cabin in sight. They rushed forward to the cabin. They had prepared for this, Mike and El had a couple of backpacks with supplies so they could go on the run if the government returned. El used her powers and unlocked the door. They reached the door and pulled it open, coming face to face with Martin Brenner.
The pair stepped back as Brenner's smiling face stepped out of the doorway. Behind him, a soldier came out with Joyce and Hopper handcuffed. The soldier threw them to the ground and trained a pistol on them.
"Don't try anything else. I hate to cause anymore pain today," Brenner said. He then delivered a swift kick to Hopper's side. El glared at him. "Leave them alone you bastard." El said. Brenner seemed to smile wider.
"You have a lot of nerve showing your shit eating face again." Mike snarled. Brenner began laughing, especially when his men came in dragging the rest of the Party. "I forgot how much spirit youth had." Brenner said approaching El and Mike.
Brenner pulled a paper from his suit and handed it to El. "This is what makes what I do legal." Brenner said. El snatched the paper from his hand and both Mike and El read it.
It was an order from the President to retrieve subject Eleven by any means necessary. The US Government had just declared her as property. Mike was seething with rage. Brenner continued to smile.
"I showed you that, so you know the steps I will take if you don't come willingly. I will execute each of these people, starting with this surrogate mother of yours." Brenner said kicking Joyce in the side. "You wouldn't be so smug if I wasn't handcuffed." Joyce snarled.
"If you keep defying me, well, look up." Brenner said. They both looked to the skies and saw it, a plane circling Hawkins. "That plane has a massive payload that I will authorize to wipe out this ignorant little town." Brenner said, his smile now becoming more feral.
Tears welled in El's eyes as she saw these men were ready to kill innocents, just to get her back. She lowered her head and faced Mike.
"No, this isn't fair." Mike said, tears coming down his own face. El pulled Mike into a hug. He held her for dear life, wishing he could take her far away from this nightmare.
"It's ok Mike. I'll be fine. I won't let others die for me. I can live knowing you all are safe." She said. Mike looked down at her and with his courage waning, delivered a deep passionate kiss to her. When they broke apart, El reached for her necklace, a charm Mike had gotten her for Valentine's Day, and handed it to him. "I love you El. I will always love you." Mike said. She smiled sadly. "I love you to." She said. She then walked over to Hopper and Joyce. Using her powers, she set them up. Brenner motioned for his men to stand at ease. He knew he had won.
"El, please no. You can't go." Hopper said, tears of his own falling down his face. El was still crying, as she pulled her dad into a hug. "I have to Dad. I can't let you all get hurt. Not for me." She said. "Sweetie, we would gladly sacrifice more for you. We just don't want you to go," Joyce said. El looked to her mother and pulled her into a hug as well. "I won't forget you." She said.
She turned to Brenner, despite still crying she faced him. "You leave them alone. You stay way from them." She said. Brenner nodded, "They were expendable, no need to worry about them," Brenner said.
A soldier came to El and placed a bag over her head and led her away. Once she was in a vehicle, the car left. Brenner then walked up to Mike and placed a hand on his shoulder. "No hard feelings huh?" He said.
Mike punched Brenner square in the jaw. He fell back in surprise. He then began laughing. "Oh you have spunk all right." He said picking himself up. "Here is the rules now. You will all be watched. If you think about coming after me, or try to retrieve Subject Eleven, I will kill her. If she tries to escape, I will kill you all and then I may just sterilize this town off the face of the earth. Am I understood?" Brenner said with a snarl. Mike gave him a curt nod. "And now, it's over. Go about your lives. Pretend she never existed. Because as of now, Jane Hopper is gone." He said. He gathered his men and they left. Will and Dustin ran to Hopper and Joyce and began uncuffing them. Joyce gripped onto Hopper, sobbing uncontrollably with him as their daughter was taken.
Mike knelt to the ground. His entire world just ended. Max was sobbing into Lucas, who was also letting tears fall freely. Will was pulled into the hug with Joyce and Hopper. Dustin walked over to Mike and knelt with him. None spoke as they cried. Mike looked to the retreating cars. Brenner was going to pay for this. One day he would.
15 years later- July 15th 2001
The alarm woke Mike from his sleep. He looked around, bleary eyed and confused. When he realized he was in his apartment in Indianapolis, he centered himself. It was the dream again. The day he lost the first love of his life. Mike gets out of bed and begins doing his morning workout. 100 pushups, 100sit ups, and a few sets on his weight equipment.
After that fateful day, Mike declared he would not be helpless again. He started paying more attention in gym class. Hopper taught him how to work out and Virgil Sinclair taught him and the rest of the Party how to fight. Over time, his friends had given up with workouts but Mike kept them up, mostly now out of habit.
He took martial arts in collage, where he majored in computer science and minored in English literature. Now he worked at a tech firm, keeping busy most days as they developed new software. Mike though, kept a few other skills fresh. His collage roommate taught him how to hack, a skill that Mike used occasionally to look into Martin Brenner's activities. Not that he needed to anymore. One day on the news he saw the smug bastard in a confirmation hearing as Secretary of Energy. Mike felt sick seeing his nemesis get put in a high office in government.
Mike tried not to think to much about how things have gone. He steps into the shower after his workout and cleans off the sweat from his workout. Mike got out of the shower and saw a voicemail on his answering machine. He hit the button and the automatic voice said he had one new message.
"Hey Mike, call me back ASAP. I need to talk to you about Harrison this weekend." Max said. Mike grabbed the phone and dialed her number.
"Hey asshole, why didn't you pick up?" Max asked. She said it with affection, or at least as much affection as she could, considering their history.
"Sorry, I was in the shower. What's going on with Harrison?" Mike asked. Harrison was his son with Max, during their brief relationship four years ago. They both considered it a nice distraction. And Mike loved his son to death. He helped Mike forget about his heartache because Harrison was born out of love. Even if they both were together after Lucas and Max broke up for the thousandth time. But during that brief relationship, Mike realized that while he loved Max, he didn't Love her. The feeling was mutual and they shared custody of their three year old.
"Look, I know it's your weekend with him, but mom wants to take Harrison for the weekend. She never gets to do grandma things since Billy moved back to California." Max said. Mike groaned. He loved Susan to death, ever since she divorced that scumbag Neil Hargrove she was practically a third mom. But she also really loves being a grandma and when Billy took his family back to California she started wanting to spend more time with Harrison. Luckily it usually once a month. "Ok, fine. But I want him next weekend." Mike said. Max laughed. "Hey, for this, you can keep him for two weeks." Max said. That perked him up.
"That sounds like a great idea. Thank you." Mike said. "No doofus, thank you. Mom really appreciates this." She said.
"All right, well I gotta get ready for work, talk later." Mike said. Max said her own good byes and hung up the phone.
Mike put on a dress shirt and black slacks as his coffee brewed. He was finishing putting on his shoes when a knock came to his door. Curious, Mike opened the door and saw a strange sight.
It was dressed in a black trench coat, wearing what seemed to be a motorcycle helmet with no visor. The face on the helmet was cold and black. It was maybe 5'4'' to Mike's 6'2''. Mike looked warily at the new figure
"Michael Wheeler?" A digitized voice asked. "Yea, that's me, what do you want?" He asked.
The figure in black surprised him by delivering a powerful kick into Mike and sent him backwards. Mike fell to the floor as the black figure strode into the apartment. Mike got up and dodged a punch from the figure. Mike then delivered a punch of his own into the helmet. It hurt his hand with how tough it was. The figure grabbed his arm and flung him onto his kitchen table. Mike was hurting as the figure grabbed a knife from his kitchen counter.
The figure was about to deliver a stab into Mie but he rolled out of the way and kicked the figure in the head, knocking it off balance. Mike jumped up, grabbed his coffee pot and smashed the pot into the figure's head. He then grabbed the figure and punched it in the stomach. It recoiled but then grabbed Mike by his shirt and hoisted him up. The figure was about to stab Mike when it seemed to be looking at something. Using the knife, the figure checked the waffle charm that Mike wore around his neck. It stared for a long moment before dropping Mike on the floor. It began shaking, and let out an ear piercing scream. Mike's windows blew out and the figure fell to its knees, not moving.
Mike took this as an advantage and rushed out of the apartment. He must have been hallucinating when he thought he heard a small voice, "Mike?" It said. Mike looked around and just saw the black figure. He then ran to the garage.
It was a short elevator ride to the parking garage, and he began walking to his Mercury Grand Marquis. It was a tank of a car that he got last year. He got into his car and started it. He hen began driving, heading down the five floors quickly. As he reached the bottom floor, several men in suits got his attention. These were government agents. He hit the gas and accelerated quickly.
Two SUV's tried to block his exit, but he managed to get away with just a scrape at his passenger side. He made it out of the garage and floored it out to the street. In his rearview mirror, he sees a man step out and give him a two finger salute.
Bravo Company
The leader known as Jericho saluted his prey. He was amused by the spunk he showed. His second in command, a muscular Hispanic man named Lopez approached him. "Get the helicopter ready, track him. And find out why the asset didn't eliminate him." Jericho ordered. Jericho was a slimmer man to Lopez, but no less dangerous. He wore a simple suit with a black tie, his .45 tucked into his shoulder holster. His men dressed similarly, to blend in and to appear to be federal agents when in reality they were an elite mercenary unit. Jericho went to one of his vans and pulled the door open, a german man with wild hair was looking at monitors. "Your bucket of bolts failed. You said that thing was field certified." Jericho said simply. The man, Doctor Hans Strauss, looked up from his monitors and fixed a glare to Jericho.
"It was field tested. But even advanced technology still has glitches." He said getting out of his chair. The pair walked to the elevator and headed to the fifth floor apartment. Inside, they saw the asset kneeling on the ground, unmoving.
"So Doc, what happened?" Jericho asked. Strauss shrugged his shoulders. "My hypothesis is only rudimentary but it seems it had a sensory overload." Strauss said as he began working on the helmet.
"Ok, keep it away from coffee, got it." Jericho said motioning to the coffee on the floor. He looked at the photos on a mantle. He was slightly surprised his quarry was a nerd. Lots of pictures of him and his friends throughout the years. One that stood out was a younger version of him in 1984 at something called the Snow Ball. The girl with him doesn't seem to be in the later pictures. "Must have been some woman." Jericho said.
The phone rings and Jericho answers it, just to be polite. "Is it done?" The cold voice on the other end asks. Shit, its their client. "No, he got away, your secret weapon blew a fuse and somehow this nerd can drive a car really well. But we'll catch him," Jericho says.
"Good, catch him alive and let the asset finish him. Do that and I will triple your salary," He said. Jericho let out a low whistle, that was a lot of money. "What did this guy do to deserve this level of work?" He asks,
"That's classified. I am paying you to track, not ask questions. Now get back to work." He said slamming his receiver down. Lopez had entered the room with Nicholi and Smiley, two more members of his squad.
He looked at his men and the mad scientist working on the asset. "Ok, new plan. Smiley, get me all the intel you can on Michael Wheeler. His friends, his family, his likes, his dislikes. I want it all." He says. Smiley nods and heads out. "Did the chopper find him?" He asks. Nicholi nods. "Good, you get the others, we are going to catch him." Jericho says. "Who was that on the phone?" Lopez asks,
"Our employer, The Secretary of Energy. Dr. Martin Brenner."
AN: As always, please read and review. I have three chapters of this and i am working on a 4th. I will try and publish the whole thing along the week
