"We're going down! We're going down!" Steve screams. He pushes his hands against the wall to keep himself upright.
"Yeah, no shit, Harrington!" Robin and Lyn scream at him.
"Shit! Shit! Why don't these buttons work?!" Dustin slams his hands down on random buttons.
"Press the button!" Erica pulls herself from Lyn's arms and made her away over to Dustin.
"What do you think I'm doing?!" He screams in her face.
"Come on, press something! Just press the button!" Steve screams at them. Erica rolls her eyes and elbows Dustin out of the way to push it herself. The elevator came to an abrupt stop putting Steve, Erica, and Dustin back on their ass. Robin and Lyn, who stayed on the ground, lift up a little before being slammed back down.
The boxes fell off the tables and shelves. "Shit." Lyn curse when two boxes land on her left leg.
"My groin, it fell on my groin." Steve groan outs. Dustin ran over to get the box off Steve while Robin and Erica got the boxes off of Lyn.
"Is everyone okay?" Robin looks around at everyone else as she helps Rosalyn to her feet.
"Yeah, I'm great, now that I know that Russians can't design elevators!" Steve made his way over to the buttons to slam his fist down on them.
"I think we've clearly established that those buttons don't work." Robin points at them.
"They're buttons. They have to do something." He yells in frustration.
"Yeah, if we had a keycard," Robin snaps. Lyn, Erica, and Dustin put their heads in their hands when they realize she was right.
"A what?" Steve tilts his head.
"It's an electronic lock, same as the loading dock door. If we don't have a keycard, it won't operate, meaning... " Robin explains to him.
"We're stuck in here. I can't believe that you and Dustin did this." Lyn glares at the two males.
"How the hell is it my fault?" Steve and Dustin point at their chest.
"Because you two were having another one of your male ego fights over who would push the buttons and you ended up locking it. If you two would get over ourselves and let Erica do it, we would be on our way to Hopper right now." She went to move behind the shelves, so she wouldn't have to see their faces, but when she put pressure on her left leg she let out a yip. "Fuck." She sat down on one of the boxes that fell.
"Babe, are you okay?" Steve went to check on her, but before he could touch her she slaps his hands away.
"Don't fucking touch me right now!" Lyn glares at him until he moves out of reaching distance. He could feel the waves of rage coming off of her.
"You should have left her at home this morning." He mutters to Dustin. If he left her at home, then she would be safe and not mad at him. At least he would die a hero in her eyes and not as the dumbass that got her killed.
"Just so you nerds are aware, I'm supposed to be spending the night at Tina's, and Tina always covers for me. But if I'm not home for Uncle Jack's party tomorrow and my mom finds out you four are responsible, she's going to hunt you down, one by one, and slit your throat." Erica slides her thumb across her throat to seal her threat.
"I don't care about Tina! Or Uncle Jack's party! Your mom's not going to be able to find us if we're dead in a Russian elevator!" Steve leaned over the boxes between them to yell at her. For the first time since she joins their little group, she was speechless.
"Hey. What if we climbed out?" Dustin points up at the top opening of the elevator.
"Dustin and I will check it out." Steve walks over to the ladder on the side with Dustin follow him.
"You guys should." Lyn mutter from her pouting spot on the box.
They climb up and not even a minute pass before Dustin yelled down, "Climb out is not an option."
Lyn looks down at her leg, as she moves it around. It was sore, but she wasn't meeting any other resistances. She figures it was just a bruise muscle. She pushes herself up and forces herself to walk through the pain. "Are you sure you should be walking?" Robin asks.
"I'm fine. It's just a bruise. If I baby it, it'll be more painful later. Something tells me that'll be my death." Lyn walks around the large elevator. She quickly got used to the dull pain, where she hardly even notices it. She stops to rest before repeating the process again.
Steve and Dustin climb back down from the roof. "Lyn, are you okay?" Steve went over to his pacing girlfriend.
"I'm fine." She put a hand up to stop him from getting too close.
"Really, because you look like you're losing your mind." Dustin tilts his head and raises an eyebrow.
"Shut up!" Lyn and Steve turn to snap at him. He put his hands up and walks away from the couple.
"Look, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to get us stuck here. But, I promise I'm going to get us out. That would have been a lot easier if we were all on the same team with no hostility." Steve took small steps closer to her as if she was an angry wild animal he was trying to corner.
"That was a very sneaky and manipulative way to get me to forgive you." She reaches out to take his hand.
"Not sneakier than the time, I got mad at you when you forgot my birthday. So, you bought that lacey number and..." Steve uses his free hand pull her close and rub her back.
"Aahh… you guy realize that we can hear everything right. We might be in a big elevator, but it's not that big." Robin yells at them. Dustin and Erica had their hands over their ears.
Lyn blush in Steve's arms. He let out a throaty laugh and gave her a kiss on the forehead. "Alright, now that we are a team again, let's get to brainstorm." He let her go to clap his hands together.
Lyn groans as she held her head. She had a mean headache from staying up half the night trying to think of a way out. Her body was sore from having to sleep on the hard floor. On the upside, her leg was better. She now only felt the pain when she had to put extra pressure on it like picking up boxes. She put her nose in the air when she smelled a familiar foul scent that she had to deal with at work. "Can you redirect your stream, please?" She yells up to one of the boys when she saw piss dripping down.
"Sorry," Steve yells as he moves. Lyn let out a sigh when she realizes that it didn't matter where he pissed it was going to leak in.
A banging sound made Lyn turn around to see Erica hitting a vial on the edge of a barrel. "Hey, Hey! Be Careful, Careful, Careful! We don't even know what that is." Robin ran over to take it from her.
"Exactly, it could be useful." Erica went to reach for it, but Robin moves it so she couldn't.
"Useful how," Lyn went over to stand by Robin.
"We can survive down here a long time without food, but if the human body doesn't get water, it will die." Erica waves her hands around like that would prove her point.
"I hate to break it to you, but this is not water." Robin shook the vial.
"No, but it's a liquid and if it comes down to me drinking that shit or dying of thirst, I drink," Erica took her opening to grab it from Robin when she got distracted by a noise.
Lyn took it right from the little girl's hand. "Nope, I don't think the Russian would have soda locked up like this." She shook her head at the girl's grumpy face. "You alright, Robin?" She turns to the teen that had her ear to the door.
"Someone's coming." She told them.
"Shit." Erica and Lyn hiss.
"Come on, we'll hide up there…" Robin climbs the ladder. "We've got company." She told the guys. Lyn and Erica climb up the ladder after her. They hide on the solid metal part as the doors open.
They watch through the holes in the middle as two Russian men walk in, one went to grab a box while the other sniffs the air. Lyn didn't have to speak Russian to know that he smells Steve's pee. Luckily, the other man didn't smell it and they shrug it off. They walk out with a couple of boxes.
Steve grabs the green vial from Lyn's hands. He waited by the opening. When he heard them driving away on the golf cart, he jumped down and shove the vial under the door to keep it from sliding down.
"Let's go." He waved for them to come down. Erica throws her backpack to him and Steve throws it under the door with Erica sliding under soon after. Steve chants, "GO, GO, GO." Robin and Dustin slide through.
"Come on, Lyn." He encourages, not that she needs it. She got on her belly and slide out as fast as she could. With the adrenaline pumping through her, she didn't even feel her bruise muscles. "Come on, Steve, let's go!" Robin call. It was a really tight squeeze, as he slides under. He barely made it as the door smash the vial right when he was out.
They stood up when they heard the sizzling coming from the green slime melting the floor. "Jesus Christ." Steve gasps.
"What are the Russian doing with this shit?" Lyn pulls at the roots of her hair.
"Ooh! You still want to drink that?" Robin smirks at Erica. The girl gave her a sour look back.
"Holy Mother of God," Dustin whispers making them turn around to see the longest hallway any of them ever seen.
"No wonder they have golf carts." Lyn sighs.
"Well, I hope you guys are in good shape. Looking at you, roast beef." Steve pats Dustin's stomach where the pig was on his shirt. He began to walk down the hallway while the rest of them stayed staring down at the daunting walk. "Let's go, come on." He looks back and waves at them. Lyn let out a sigh before following him.
"I mean, you have to admit as a feat of engineering alone, this is impressive." Dustin looks around the long hallway.
"What are you talking about? It's a total fire hazard. There are no stairs, there's no exit, there's just an elevator that drops you halfway to hell." Steve shook his head.
"They're Commies. They don't pay people, they cut corners." Erica looks up at Steve like he was stupid. He was looking down on her with the same expression.
"I don't think you care about a fire hazard when you're building a secret lair." Lyn let out a sigh when she couldn't see the end to the hallway when they have been walking for 10 minutes. Erica stuck her tongue out at Steve.
"To be fair to our Russian comrades, I don't think this tunnel was designed for walking. Think about it, they developed the perfect system for transporting that cargo." Robin points out that this wasn't supposed to be some office place.
"It all comes into the mall like any old delivery." Dustin piggybacks on her idea.
"And then they load it up onto those trucks and nobody's the wiser." Robin completed the thought.
"You think they built this whole mall so they could transport that green poison?" Steve asked making sure he understood the situation they were in.
"I seriously doubt it's something as boring as poison." Dustin shook his head.
"It's got to be much more valuable, like promethium or something," Lyn said the first important green thing she could think of.
"What the hell is promethium?" Steve looks over at his girlfriend. She normally wasn't the one saying the big confusing words.
"It's what Victor Stone's dad used to make Cyborg's bionic and cybernetic components," Robin informed him.
"You're all so nerdy, it makes me physically ill." Erica held her stomach like she was in pain.
"No, no, no. No, don't lump me in with them. I'm not a nerd, all right?" Steve shook his head, pointing at Dustin and Robin.
"Why are you so sensitive, Harrington? Are you afraid of losing cool points to a ten-year-old child?" Robin teases.
"No, I'm just saying I don't know jack shit about Prometheus." Steve shrugs to prove his clueless status.
"Since when do you brag about not knowing things?" Lyn rolls her eyes at her boyfriend's childish behavior.
"Promethium, Prometheus is a Greek mythological figure, but whatever. All I'm saying is, it's probably being used to make something." Dustin corrected Steve.
"Or power something." Robin
"Like a nuclear weapon?" Dustin raises an eyebrow.
"Totally," Robin nods her head in agreement.
"We are walking towards a nuclear weapon. That's great. That'd be great." Steve muttered sarcastically. Lyn gave him a pat his back.
"But if they're building something, why here? I mean, Hawkins, seriously of all places. At the very best, we're a toilet stop on your way to Disneyland, but maybe that's it." Robin said making Lyn, Dustin, and Steve stop in their tracks. Robin and Erica kept walking, leaving them behind.
"You think the Russians know?" Lyn whispers to the boys.
"About the Upside down," Steve wanted to make sure they had the same thought.
"They could." Dustin nods.
"So it's connected?" Steve look over to see that the two girls were far enough not to hear but still in sight.
"It's a good possibility." Lyn shallow the lump in her throat. Russian spy seems a lot more appealing when she thought about those flower fang monsters.
"How," Steve asks them.
"I don't know, but it's…." Dustin trails off. He didn't want it to be connected either, but it was like Robin asked, why Hawkins?
"Possible." The three said together.
Robin turned around and saw them whispering to each other. "I'm sorry, is there something you'd like to share with the class?"
They share a look, not knowing how to explain what they were talking about. Before they could come up with anything, static hissing and a Russian voice came out of Erica's backpack. "Walkie," Dustin said. Erica took her backpack off and put it on the ground to dig through it. They crouch down around her to listen to it. Erica hands it over to Robin who had the best luck of understanding anything.
"It's the code," Robin told them.
"Wherever that broadcast is coming from..." Dustin looks at the walkie that was coming through much clearer now than it was before.
"It's close and if there's one thing we know about that signal..." Robin nod.
"It can reach the surface." Dustin finishes for her.
"You guys are getting creep with this sentence finishing thing." Lyn looks between the two.
"That's what freaking you out right now." Steve raised an eyebrow at her. She shrugs her shoulders, it was odd. They just meet, but it was like they share a brain.
They finally came to the end of the long hallway to see two workers. They hide behind a few cabinets as the workers walk past them. Steve looks around the corner and waves his hand to them. "Clear, let's go."
"Okay, that was close." Dustin let out a breath of relief.
"Too close." Robin was uncomfortable with them walking around this place blind. They had no idea what was around every corner.
"Relax. Alright, relax. Nobody saw…. " Steve words died on his lips as they turn the corner to see a busy workplace. Everywhere Lyn looks there were people: some were in lab coats, others in military uniform with guns straps to their backs, and there were even two walkings around in red astronaut outfits.
"Shit Jesus!" Steve curses. He instructed them to hide behind a red cart when he saw a guard on top, patrolling the place.
"Red Dawn," Dustin whispers to us.
"I saw it. First floor, northwest," Erica whispers to Steve. Somehow he became their undeclared leader, being that he was the one always gave them the all-clear.
"Saw what?" Steve asks her.
"The comms room," She told him.
"You saw the comms room?" He asked in amazement that she noticed the rooms. Lyn was too, she was too busy noticing all the people to notice anything else.
"Correct," She nods her head.
"Are you sure?" Steve looks around the cart to see for himself.
"Positive. The door was open for a second, and I saw a bunch of lights and machines and shit in there." Erica told them.
"That could be a hundred different things." Dustin shook his head.
"I'll take those odds," Robin told Steve. He looks over at Erica who was nodding her head, then to a shrugging Dustin and then to Lyn, who was holding on to his hand for dear life.
"We got to take some kind of chance. We can't just stay here." She squeezes his hand.
He sighs before looking around the cart again, "Alright. We're going to move fast, we're going to stay low. Okay?"
"Okay." They whisper backs. While crouching down they move to hide behind another machine, and then they waited for another opening.
"Let's go," Steve whispers to them. They quietly and quickly went into the door that a man in a lab coat came out of.
Lyn held her breath as a man in a military uniform stood up from the control panel and look at them in confusion. He slowly reached for his gun when Robin stepped forward and said something to him in Russian. Lyn watches with wide eyes, wondering how this could work since the only words that Robin knew where the ones in the code.
They exchanged a few words, but the man looks more confused now than before and he put his hand on his gun. Steve let out a scream as he tackled the guy. They both fell on top of the control panel. The guy was able to push Steve off of him and into the panel on the other side. He took a swing at Steve, but Steve lay down to dodge it. The guys pick Steve up and throw him face down on the panel. Steve elbows the guy in the gut and picks up the microphone to bash the guy over the head with it, successfully knocking him out.
"Dude! You did it! You won a fight!" Dustin cheers.
Lyn ran over and wrap her arms around Steve's waist. "What a man?" She teased as she put her head on his chest. She wanted to hold onto him forever after seeing him charge a man with a gun. Steve laughs softly and kisses the top of her head.
Dustin went over to take the key card off of the man. "What are you doing?" Erica asks him.
"Getting us our ticket out of here," Dustin held the card up.
"You want to walk all the way back?" She points at the door.
Lyn tone out the kids arguing to looks up at Steve, "Don't ever do that again."
"Considering the situation we're in, I can't promise that." He gave her a peck.
"I'm starting to feel like I'm a citizen in Gotham." She put her head back on his shoulder and held him a little tighter.
"How's that," He swings them side to side, wanting to enjoy this calm moment, no matter how short it was.
"It just feels like Joker keeps attack the city. I keep thinking batman locking up for good this time, but nope he's out again." She let out a bitter laugh.
"Does that mean I'm batman?" Steve smirks making Lyn let out a real laugh.
"Guys, there's something up there." Robin ran down the stairs to tell them. They walk up the stairs to go through another door.
"Fuck," Lyn gasps when she looks through the windows on another set of doors at a group of scientists working to drill a hole into the earth. It was a familiar sight of another lab. One that she never saw up and running, but Dr. Owens took them there to give them a peace of mind that it wasn't running anymore. It was official the damn Russian were trying to get into the Upside Down.