Chapter 1
Crossroads Academy, Monday, November 6th, 7 p.m.
Professor Dare spoke to the gathered members of the Investigation track. "Our first order of business today is the announcement of a group project. You will be split into teams of three, each of which will be given a briefing from the Bow Street Runners about potential Stranger activity. The Runners will collect only the initial information used to decide the potential activity is worth investigating. Your task will be to complete the investigation, whether by interviewing Bystanders, examining the scene in person, or any other techniques you have learned.
"Because you are students in your first term, you will be given cases judged least likely to be dangerous, to you and to Bystanders. This means that the majority of you will likely not encounter a Stranger at all, but will instead have to compile evidence and present a compelling argument that Stranger activity is not involved. You should see this not as a disappointment but a good thing—no Stranger activity means no chance of Strangers harming Bystanders. It will also be a good learning experience, as judging whether or not Strangers are involved in a situation is one of the primary tasks of the Runners, and it will serve you well to learn to recognize the signs of a mundane situation."
Koren Fellows raised her hand, and Professor Dare called on her. "What do we do if there's no Stranger involved, but something bad is still happening? I'm not going to stand by and let somebody get raped or murdered in front of me because the person doing it is human."
"In the unfortunate case that the situation the Runners have identified is still a bad situation despite involving no Strangers, standard procedure is to alert the Bystander authorities. The Runners have contacts in the police forces, FBI, CIA, and other agencies through which they often pass on information, but feel free to contact the authorities yourself, as long as you can do it without making them suspicious and causing more problems down the line. It may be difficult to explain the situation as a teenager who is not in the system, if you are Heretic-born, or to explain what you are doing so far from home, if you are Bystander-kin. In such a case, you may contact the Runners when you turn in your report, and they will pass on the information for you."
Koren spoke up again, not bothering to raise her hand this time (although she did wait for a pause in the professor's speech). "Yeah, that's great and all, but what if someone is being murdered right in front of me?"
There was a crinkle around Professor Dare's eyes, as if she wanted to smile but felt obligated not to. "We at Crossroads are monster-hunters, not vigilantes, but of course you will not be punished if the only way you have to protect someone is by acting directly. We simply ask that you not go looking for excuses to directly intervene when more legitimate channels are available, and that you not expose Bystanders to Heretic magic or abilities."
"What? Why the hell not?" Koren exclaimed, trying to moderate her language but only succeeding in kicking it down a notch from what she really wanted to say.
"Wait, it's not like anybody would know after the Bystander Effect makes the Bystanders forget, anyway," realized Sandoval Mason, aka Sands.
"Rules are rules," Professor Dare said mysteriously, allowing herself a tiny smirk this time. "Now! Are there any other questions?"
"How will we be graded on the project?" asked Rudolph Parsons, a laid-back boy who always seemed to do exactly the required amount of work—no more and no less.
"I will hand out copies of the rubric now." Professor Dare laid her hand down on the stack of papers sitting on the table next to her. A second later, it had disappeared, and one sheet of paper was now resting on each student's desk. "In general terms, you will be graded on the completeness of your investigation, your discretion when dealing with Bystanders, the coherency of your logical reasoning, and your success in addressing whatever situation you encounter. Regarding outside help, this project will follow a similar grading scheme to your team hunts. The Runner initially assigned to your investigation, along with myself, will be on-call. If you do not need to ask for our help, you will gain a small point bonus, but if you do need our help and fail to ask for it, your grade will be marked down significantly. If you encounter a situation you cannot handle and innocents die because you failed to ask for help, you will fail the assignment unless you have a very good explanation for your decision. It is true that we will not be holding your hands on this mission both as a learning experience and so the Runners can examine situations more likely to be dangerous. However, your safety and the safety of innocents is our top priority, and you will not jeopardize that out of pride." They spent several more minutes going over the details of the rubric and what exactly would be expected of them on this project before Professor Dare chose the teams by selecting students' names out of a hat. "Koren Fellows, Sarah Mason, and Travis Colby."
One look at her twin sister's face, and Sands saw all that she needed to know—Scout wasn't ready to be split up with her yet, not on something this big. And truthfully, Sands wasn't comfortable with it either. She squeezed her sister's hand and whispered, "As soon as we get the chance, we'll talk to her about switching groups, alright?" Scout replied with a thumb up.
When the groups had all been selected, Professor Dare announced, "Because of the specific nature of this assignment, there are not enough cases that fit the criteria for all of your groups to start tonight. I will hand out those we do have, and you will be excused from classes until you complete your assignment. The rest of you will maintain your normal schedules until a case comes to my attention." Professor Dare handed out the available cases, speaking briefly with each group before sending them off to gather supplies. Fortunately, the groups Sands and Scout were in did not yet receive a case. When Professor Dare was done speaking with the last group that had received a case, Sands and Scout stood up and approached her.
"Professor, we'd like to talk to you about the groups."
Unfortunately, Koren was sitting in earshot. "What, do you have a problem with working with me, Mason?" she challenged.
Professor Dare eyed the twins disapprovingly. "I will not switch the groups based on a schoolyard disagreement. Working professionally with people you dislike personally is an essential skill for a Heretic, and I would not deprive you of the chance to learn."
Sands said, "It's not that, it's…well, you know how Scout is. We just don't think it's a good idea for us to be split up on an investigation like this."
The Professor gave a small sigh before speaking directly to Scout. "I had hoped to give you the opportunity to expand your comfort zone a little in a controlled setting. Although it will not be impossible, you will find it difficult to be an effective investigator without being able to talk to others yourself. You will not always be able to rely on your sister."
Scout whispered intently in Sands's ear. Sands turned to her sister and whispered back, "Are you sure?" Receiving a nod, she turned to Professor Dare. "Scout says she's working on it, but she doesn't think being split up for an entire investigation is a good idea just yet. But we promise to try to split up for at least part of the assignment if we are assigned to the same group."
Professor Dare considered their proposal before nodding. "Very well. In that case, the two of you should have no problem being in the same group as Koren."
Sands held back a grimace. She hadn't lied; Scout didn't want to switch groups just because she disliked Koren, but the fact was, neither Mason liked her. Koren had an abrasive personality, to put it lightly. Still, they could tell that this was the best offer they were going to get. "Sure, no problem," Sands said, while Scout nodded.
Crossroads Academy, Friday, November 10th, 7 p.m.
"Koren, Sands, Scout. This case came in during dinner," Professor Dare said, handing Sands a file folder. "Look it over, come up with a plan, gather any equipment you may need, and return here."
The three girls went and found a place to sit and examine their case. Sands opened up the folder. "Let's see what we've got." She started to read aloud. "Suspicious Deaths in Hawkins, Indiana. On the night of Sunday, November 5th, hundreds of homes in East Hawkins had surges and power outages. The same night, 12-year-old Will Byers vanished as he rode his bicycle home from a friend's house. The bicycle was found abandoned in the woods next to the road, and a search party was formed on Monday, November 6th. The boy's mother, Joyce Byers, claims to have received a phone call from her son. Although she admitted she could only hear breathing, she claimed to recognize it as her son's.
"On Tuesday, November 7th, local diner owner Benny Hammond was found dead, apparently having committed suicide. The timing is suspicious, as it was the first suicide in Hawkins in years.
"A party Tuesday night was the last time anybody has seen 17-year-old Barbara Holland. Her car was eventually found at the bus station, and the local authorities believe she ran off, but the timing is again suspicious.
"On Wednesday, November 8th, a state trooper found the body of Will Byers in the quarry, ruling that his cause of death was the fall from a great height into the water.
"On Thursday, November 9th, Joyce Byers and her elder son, Jonathan Byers, had a public argument where Joyce was heard to emphatically claim that the body the state troopers discovered was not her son, and she knew he was still alive. Also on Thursday, it was discovered that locals Dale Jones and Henry Anderson disappeared on a hunting trip.
"In conclusion, while Joyce Byers may have had a psychotic break due to her son's disappearance, as seems to be the prevailing belief, the abnormally large number of deaths and disappearances all at one time may be indicative that this situation is worth a second look. Joyce's belief that her son is alive with no proof and no way to explain away the dead body is the sort of thing that may slip past the Bystander Effect. That said, it is something of a long shot, so this case is of the lowest priority."
The three girls looked at each other for a second. Then, Sands said, "It does seem suspicious, but there's barely a hint of Stranger involvement. So…I guess this will probably be a dud. Woo hoo." Sure, Professor Dare had said to be glad that there were no Strangers hurting anybody, but Sands had kind of been hoping for a fight.
Surprisingly, Scout and Koren were united in shaking their heads "no". Scout leaned in to whisper in Sands's ear, "Memory magic."
"Yes, well, I get that the Bystander Effect could be messing up Joyce Byers's memory, but usually it's more thorough than that. There could be memory magic, but I'm not really seeing it."
"No, that makes perfect sense," Koren said. "Some Stranger could be attacking the people and leaving excuses for the deaths, but it didn't wipe Joyce Byers's memory correctly, and she still remembers that her son is only taken, not killed. Or whatever. The point is, there's a lot of things it could be."
"You're right," Sands said. "But for now let's focus on getting there." She looked through some of the papers in the file beyond just the summary. "This says there's a bus stop downtown. We can have the Pathmaker drop us off there and say we took a bus in. Just let me check the bus times so it's reasonable," she said, shuffling through the files some more.
"Nah, let's just drive," Koren said. "I don't know how far the Pathmaker location in Indiana is from this little town—Hawkins, that's right—but it can't be too far. Indiana's not that big of a state. Plus, we'll probably want a car to get around better once we're there. There has to be some car we can borrow or rent, right?"
Sands looked at her in some surprise. "Uh, yeah, there's a pool of cars Heretics can take out on missions at each location on Earth. Dad's taken us on trips in them before. But more importantly, you can drive?"
"Yeah, of course I can drive! I got my license as soon as I turned 16. You can't? Neither of you?"
"It didn't seem that important, and we had better things to do!" Koren looked at her skeptically. "Okay, we both agreed it was useful, but we'll have plenty of time to learn to drive whenever, and it would have been too much of a hassle to have to be escorted to Earth all the time for driving lessons and practice. It's not like we needed to go anywhere with a car!"
"It's still pretty lame," Koren said bluntly.
Sands started to bristle in anger, but Scout put her hand on her sister's shoulder and pointed to her wrist. Sands took a breath, calming herself. "Right, we only have so much time. We need to get there and rent a room somewhere for the night before everybody is asleep. But first we need to figure out what we're going to bring."
"They were searching for the lost boy in the woods, so we'll definitely want flashlights to look around tonight," Koren said. "And of course a few changes of clothes so we can blend in."
"Maybe we should wear our uniforms," Sands suggested. "Like Professor Dare says, we need to lie about who we are, but we're too young to pretend to be police, so what if we take a page out of Flick's book and say we're reporters for a school newspaper?" Scout gave a thumbs up, and Koren somewhat reluctantly agreed that it might be a good idea. The three girls brainstormed some more, dispersed to gather supplies, and met back by Professor Dare, who took them into the Pathfinder building and sent them on their way to Indiana.
Author's Notes:
This chapter was to set up the plot and introduce the crossover characters. They'll be getting to Hawkins next chapter, so there will be actual Stranger Things characters in that one.
Heretical Edge is a web serial written by Cerulean about (among many, many other things-it's a long story) a society of monster-hunters known as Heretics who investigate unusual occurrences and hunt the monsters they call Strangers to protect Bystanders from them. A bit over a year after I started reading it, I came across the amazing TV show Stranger Things, about a serious of unusual occurrences caused by a monster hunting people in the small town of Hawkins, Indiana. I couldn't resist combining the two.
Anyway, this should be understandable to fans of either series, although you won't get a couple of references here and there. I don't think this is a problem, since a lot of the story is about the characters from one series learning about the other, so you should fit right in with the characters from the series you follow. That said, the story will primarily be following three Heretics (Sands, Scout, and Koren), so while Stranger Things characters will feature heavily, you should be prepared for that. I don't think there should be any major spoilers for Heretical Edge at all.
If you haven't read Heretical Edge, it's freely available online, and while the writing's not quite up to par with Stranger Things, it's still excellent, and faaar better than my meager attempts at writing. Plus, it's full of the same sort of mysterious monsters, smart and resilient characters, and emotional character interactions that make Stranger Things great, so you should really give it a try if you liked Stranger Things.
Oh, and for any Heretical Edge fans too lazy to look up the date, this takes place in the week between the Meregan trip and the time Professor Dare put Flick, Koren, Vanessa, and Rudolph in a group for a history project.
(A note on timing): I moved up Stranger Things by more than three decades, but only had to change the date by one day to get it to line up with Heretical Edge. I think it's not unrealistic for the show to take place now and not in the 80s if we assume a few minor changes like the following:
It has to be an area with spotty cell reception to justify the use of the radios, although they'd probably use smaller versions than in the show.
Instead of punch card readers for the door locks, they'd have magnetic strips.
Film isn't totally gone, so Jonathan could still be developing pictures with film.
"Should I Stay or Should I Go" could easily still be Will's favorite song, since it's not exactly unknown now.