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"Sh-Boom"
Oh, life could be a dream
(Sh-boom)
If only all my precious plans would come true
- The Crew Cuts
Joyce reached out for the keys to the truck as Hopper tossed them to her, but they fell at her feet and she had to scramble to pick them up.
"Come on, Joyce, quit screwin' around!" he shouted, opening the door and scrambling into the back of the car with the guy he had handcuffed himself to.
"Shit!" Joyce exclaimed, searching through the ring of keys for the one to the car.
"Joyce. Drive!"
"I'm trying!" she shouted back at him. It would be a lot easier if he'd stop yelling at her.
She finally got the right key and stuck it in the ignition as Hopper screamed "Joyce! Driiiiivvve!" from the back seat.
The ignition caught and she jammed her foot on the gas, swinging the big car around in a circle in front of the farmhouse just as the guy with the big gun came out and started shooting. He hit the car several times, including smashing the back window, before Joyce got them out of the driveway and onto the road, taking out the Hesses' mailbox on the way. Fortunately, they wouldn't miss it, since they didn't live there anymore.
Once they were on the road, Hopper leaned his head back against the seat, panting. "Still think it was our government?"
Joyce rolled her eyes. As if this was all somehow her fault. "You tell me how I was supposed to know it was, what, the Russians? Is it the Russians? Why is it the Russians?"
"Hell if I know."
"Hop, where are we going?"
"I don't know. We can't go into Hawkins with this guy, though. Somewhere … I don't know. Wait, yes, I do. There's this guy. We can go to his place; he might know something. Head for Illinois."
"Illinois? Hopper, what—?"
"Will you just trust me, Joyce?"
She really didn't have much choice. "Okay. Illinois it is."
Toward dawn, it became obvious that the car wasn't going to go much further.
"Hop. Hop?" No response, except a bunch of Russian words from the other guy. Joyce risked a quick look into the back and saw that Hopper had fallen asleep. She felt bad waking him—he'd had a long couple of days—but something had to be done about the car. "Hopper!"
"What?" Then he must have seen the column of smoke coming from the engine. "Shit. All right, pull over."
Dawn was breaking as Joyce pulled the car into the woods, far enough off the road to avoid being seen easily, and Hopper popped the hood and started tinkering with the engine, swearing more and more violently as he banged on various parts.
Hopper had handcuffed the Russian guy's arms around a tree, and Joyce decided to try explaining the situation to him, to see if she could get any answers from him at all.
She'd gotten to the magnets, picking up two rocks and banging them together to illustrate the point. "Okay. Magnets. Magnets?"
"Magnete?"
"Yes, magnete! Okay, so, uh, magnete on my fridge, my icebox, they—" She dropped the rocks. "They fell. Demagnetized, stopped working, Do you understand?"
He nodded. "Da."
"Okay, so is that because of the machines that you're working on?"
"Machina."
"Machina! Machina, yes." She made rumbling noises, like a machine.
He repeated the word back at her, but then he pointed past her at Hopper. "Machina. Vroom-vroom."
"Oh. Not the car. The machines at Hess Farm where we kidnapped you?"
"Joyce!" Hopper shouted from the car. "Please! You're giving me a headache. Both of you."
She held up a hand to the Russian guy, signaling he should give her a minute while she calmed Hopper down. "Hey," she told him, "I am making progress."
"Progress?"
"Yeah."
"What'd you learn? You learned that Smirnoff over there—"
"Alexi," Joyce corrected. They had at least gotten that far.
"Smirnoff is Russian, and works for Starcourt. Two things we already knew."
"Thought we knew, but know we know know, because I confirmed them. You're welcome!"
"Yeah? Why don't you confirm whether this baby will start, huh?" He tossed her the keys. "Keep it in park, please!"
"Yeah. Duh! 'Do something useful'," she muttered to herself as she put the key in the ignition. "You 'do something useful'." The car turned over, and something inside whirred, but it didn't catch. She leaned out of the car. "It's not working."
"Try it again."
Same thing. Hopper climbed up on the bumper and looked more closely inside. As Joyce pressed her foot down on the gas, Alexi called from his tree. "Hey. Hey!" Then something in Russian, and then "Stop. Stop!"
"Shut up, Smirnoff!" Hopper shouted.
Another stream of Russian, as Alexi grew more agitated. Hopper climbed down from the car and advanced on him, shouting at him. Then something in the engine exploded in a shower of sparks, sending a plume of black smoke upward.
The engine was whistling now, like a teakettle. "Shit!" Joyce jumped out of the car and ran into the woods, getting behind a tree just as the engine blew up.
"Well. That sucks."
"You think? What are we going to do now, Hop?"
"I guess we walk."
Joyce started to protest, and decided Hopper was in no mood to be argued with—and besides, they were stuck without a car in the middle of the woods. They really didn't have any other options.
They started toward the road, with Alexi, still handcuffed, behind them. He was a little smug right now—deservedly so, in Joyce's opinion, since he had been the one to figure out that the car was going to explode, and had probably saved Hopper's life.
"What's the plan?"
"We're walking," Hopper said, as though that should have been obvious.
"I thought this friend of yours lived in Illinois," she said as they trudged through the woods.
"He's not really a friend; he's more like … an acquaintance."
"Oh. Okay, well—"
Before she could get her question out, Hopper reached back for Alexi, dragging him forward by his cuffed hands. "Hey, hey, keep up! Keep up, keep walking."
"Easy," Joyce protested. "Okay, so this acquaintance lives in Illinois, correct?"
"Yeah."
"So, we're walking to Illinois."
"Yeah. We're gonna walk to Illinois. I figure we'll get there by, like, Friday evening, I hope that works with your schedule. Jesus Christ, Joyce, we're not walking to Illinois, okay?"
She put her hand on his shoulder, partially for balance and partially because she always felt better when he got sarcastic. Yelling Hopper didn't think things through, but sarcastic Hopper usually figured out a plan. "Okay, well, then, what are we doing?"
"I don't know. Okay? I will—I will figure something out."
"Isn't there someone in Indiana who speaks Russian that—?"
"You know what, I'm all ears, Joyce." He grabbed Alexi by the arm and started walking faster. "I'm all ears!"
"Fine," she snapped. "I'm just saying." Still, she couldn't help but wonder if Scott Clarke spoke Russian. If she could get to a phone, maybe she'd ask him.