Chapter Eight: Accidental Rescue

Why wouldn't these guys have some sense of urgency. Hopper was stuck behind the two agents he had led to the hospital, tailing right behind them on their way back towards the lab. The agents got the call that their backup had arrived while in the room with Owens, they decided they would come back later to hear the rest of his story once they had completed their inspection of the building. Instead of initiating the sweep once they arrived at the lab though, the lead agent had instructed them to begin, meaning that El and Mike had no idea that it was happening. Luckily they did this all in the room with Owens, so when Hopper snuck his radio to him before leaving he knew what to do.

That's if Owens wasn't playing him, he could be helping them until his people arrived, but then he didn't give away El yet and Hopper still trusted him, so he just had to have faith that he reached them with enough time to escape if they hadn't already. Of Course Hopper now knew nothing of the situation taking place, he didn't know if the kids had escaped before the soldiers arrived or if the soldiers had found them, he just had to hope they could handle themselves until he got there.

It was irresponsible of him to let them go into that lab, knowing that there was such a high chance of something going wrong. This was meant to ensure her safety and it could have led to her being captured or even killed, he wouldn't know until he got there. He had told the agents he was going back to find out what they found, whether the creatures were dead or not, he didn't know if they believed him though, the man in charge would ignore Hoppers remarks of the events, asking Owens to explain them himself.

He had made sure beforehand that Owens didn't tell them the creatures were dead, that Hopper had come and rescued him not knowing whether the creatures were still there. He thought it would be best to play it as if they didn't know the gate was gone, so they didn't have to explain why it was gone. The gate closing could cause them to suspect El, but she hadn't been seen in over a year, and now if the kids had done their job right they would have no proof it was her. Owens had mentioned to him that he might be able to explain it to them that the tunnels and creatures would have expended a large amount of energy which might have caused the portal to collapse. Hopper didn't care how he explained it, as long as it didn't look like they had anything to do with it.

He could see the lab through the trees now, an area of land cut from the forest and surrounded by fence, it was out of place here but where wouldn't it be. The agents in front had sped up which could not be good, Hopper doubted they were excited to get inside, rather that something had happened and he knew it was nothing good. He followed them through the front gate and up to the lab, where there was a large amount of military vehicles and soldered crowded outside.

The leading agent stepped out of his car and dispersed a small section of the soldiers to make his way to what they were surrounding, Hopper hoped they were just examining one of the creatures and not stood over the bodies of two children. Hopper pushed his way through the soldiers and found himself just as surprised to find Steve Harrington lying stomach down, hands behind his head surrounded by at least twenty soldiers aiming guns at him.

"Report soldier, who is this, why were they inside the lab?" asked the head agent, looking down at the suppressed Steve.

"We found him trying to sneak into the building Sir," responded a strong looking soldier who was one of the few not to appear weary of speaking in front of the boss.

"Do you know why he was trying to enter the facility," the lead agent asked to a collective silence. "Have none of you asked this boy what he is doing here?" questioned their leader to another nonexistent response.

"This is just one of towns trouble makers," Hopper responded, cutting the quiet. "He was probably trying to see some of the death rays you make here when he saw the lights were off, right kid," said Hopper to no answer from Steve, still face down on the concrete. "Maybe you should stop pointing your guns at him," instructed Hopper, the soldiers only doing so when the agent nodded in agreement.

"Get him off the floor," asked the agent pointing at the closest soldiers. "Now boy, you are trespassing on government property, I would lock you away for life, but you are obviously too stupid to be a spy. Chief, why don't you go and teach this boy how to read signs in a cell," the agent answered cruelly.

"Sure thing," said Hopper as he grabbed the oddly silent Steve from two of the soldiers. "Come on lad, your going to have a fun night," said Hopper as he led Steve to the rear of his police car. El and Mike hadn't been discovered, what a relief, they should definitely have made an escape by now… unless there were other soldiers inside.

"What do you mean you all left the building to guard some stupid trouble maker!" Hopper heard the agent shout. So Mike and El were safe, he let out a sigh of relief. "Get back in there you little girls," demanded the agent, his miniature army complying. Hopper made a show of pushing Steve into the back of his cruiser and slammed the door just in case the agent was watching. He got in and started the car, this was going to be an interesting story as he made eye contact with Steve in his rearview mirror.

Down below the lab Mike and El stepped into the thick spore filled air that had spread from the tunnels to the observation room. The bandanas over their faces seemed to be preventing them from breathing in anything harmful, along with the big goggles helping keep it from their eyes.

On the floor besides one of the large consoles was the map Hopper had told them about, a rudimentary drawing of Wills map. Mike picked it up and retrieved his scrunched up partial map from his pocket. Both maps had the hub area where they had burned yesterday and surrounding tunnels, by following the lab's map to the hub they could work their way back to the crop field using his map.

With the new map acquired they stepped through the broken glass window towards the elevator that would take them down into the tunnels. There was rubble mixed in with parts of the gate across the floor, along with a few dead Demo-dogs. The elevator still appeared to be powered, so they stepped inside and El activated the elevator to lower them down into the dark tunnels.

El wasn't saying anything. The last thing she had said was for him to run, before she almost got herself caught to help him escape. He couldn't tell if she was embarrassed or angry, she didn't look like either, but what could he tell behind huge goggles and a bandana covering her face. He remained silent as the elevator continued travelling downwards into the pitch black below them.

After what seemed like forever the elevator hit the bottom of the pit with a muffled thud into the dirt. Mike could see more dead Demo-dogs, lying all across the ground. Some of them had clearly been shot and were still wet with blood, some had impacted the ground from so high up that their bodies had indented the ground on impact. Mike was surprisingly relieved to see that they were definitely all dead, that they had been right in their theory that with the gate closed they would all die. Mike brought his flashlight up so he could check the map on which tunnel they would be going down first.

"I'm sorry Mike," she said as they began their walk down the tunnels. She wasn't looking at him, just focusing on keeping her flashlight to the ground to avoid tripping over any of the vines or slipping on the slimey tunnel floor.

"You don't have to apologize El", he replied, "what you did was brave, far braver than anything the rest of us could have done. And look on the bright side, neither of us got caught we're both okay," reassured Mike.

"For now," she muttered, still sounding like a mixture of sad and embarrassed.

"No. Not just for now," said Mike. "The lab doesn't know you're alive, you are free. They don't care about me or the others, we are not a threat to them, they'll leave us alone provided we don't do something like Nancy and Jonathan," insisted Mike.

"What about the doctor?" she asked, still speaking slightly quieter than usual.

"Owens? I don't think you need to worry about him, Hopper trusts him and so do I," said Mike. "I know he's one of them but he seems different, he wouldn't be helping us if he wasn't, and he was definitely trying to help Will out. You don't need to worry about him, he's on our side." Mike could tell it was going to take more to convince her, and after having spent her entire life under the control or hiding from these people, he understood why.

They continued their steady pace as they made their way through the dark tunnels, filled with small and large spores falling all around them. El seemed to have stopped worrying for the moment, or at least she didn't want to keep discussing it with him right now. They just kept on walking through the tunnels, taking care at each junction to take the correct branching tunnel in the right direction and using the compass to make sure they were still headed in the direction of the pumpkin patch.

"Mike?" asked El after a few more minutes of walking through the darkness. "Will you visit everyday?"

"I promise I will try El, I might have to do things with my family or for school, but I promise if you ever need me I will be there," Mike vowed.

"Okay," he heard her say quietly after a moment as they entered a charred chamber. There was still a bit of smoke higher up in the intersection Hopper had described as a graveyard. Mike pulled out the map they had used to find this chamber from the pumpkin field and put the other map away, he reckoned he knew the way back now, but he didn't want to take an unnecessary risk.

They continued through the murky tunnels, flashlights still pointed low as they took their steps carefully. Soon they would be done with this, maybe with all of it.

"So let me get this straight, you tried breaking into Hawkins lab so you could destroy any evidence of your girlfriend ever being there," asked Hopper to an anxious looking Steve in the back of his truck.

"She's my ex-girlfriend now actually," retorted Steve.

"It doesn't matter, you tried breaking into the one place you're supposed to be avoiding," said Hopper. "Did you even have a plan for what you were going to do, did you even know what you were looking for?"

"Yeah… I was going to sneak in and destroy tapes and log books and stuff."

"What other stuff," asked Hopper mockingly.

"You know, all the other secret recording devices and things," replied Steve.

"Okay. Do you even know where any of the tapes or log books are kept?" taunted Hopper.

"Yes… I do actually. The tapes would be in the recording room," answered Steve.

"Yeah, and what about the log books?" asked Hopper.

"Um… at the front desk, obviously, where else would they keep them."

"Okay, and what were you going to do to them. If you stole them then they would know they had been tampered with, wouldn't they?" Hopper pointed out.

Hopper could almost hear the cogs turning in Harrington's head, "I could have burnt them," Steve finally reasoned.

"Oh yes, such a great idea. Apart from the fact that there would have been no reason for there to have been a fire, would there," said Hopper.

"Listen man, you can insult my attempt at getting in there and actually doing something about this later, but we need to stop those lab guys from finding Nancy and Jonathan on those tapes and tying them to the newspaper reports," Steve declared.

"Sure thing, I mean the tapes have already been wiped and the log book records don't exist, but yeah we should get right on that," mocked Hopper.

"Wait, you already wiped the tapes, when did you do that," Steve asked, clearly annoyed that Hopper had been teasing him this whole time.

"I didn't do it, El and Mike snuck in and did it just before you were caught actually," explained Hopper.

"Wait. You were fine sending two kids in but you thought it was stupid for me to try it," fumed Steve.

"Well one of those kids can crush somebody's brain with their mind and the other knows how to quickly wipe data from tapes using some magnets, wire and batteries, do you really think you knew what you were doing," said Hopper.

"I could have helped, been lookout or extra protection or something."

"Yeah, you would have been a great help, you weren't just captured by the very people you were meant to be deceiving," Hopper pointed out.

"At least I did something, you sent two kids into a dangerous place while you did nothing."

"You think I did nothing! I gave them their only way in and warned them when they needed to get out. I would have been in their instead of them if I could but the only way to pull this off was to have them on the inside," retorted Hopper.

"Then where are they now then, don't you need to get them out or something?" asked Steve.

"No, they got themselves out, and we are on our way to pick them up, Hopper explained.

"Then we are headed the wrong way, we have been driving away from the lab," Steve told Hopper as if he didn't know that.

"That's because we're picking them up from that hole into the tunnels from the pumpkin field, where you took the kids in to burn that chamber," said Hopper.

Steven clearly picked up on the annoyance in his voice, "Hey, that wasn't my fault, they took me there and I couldn't talk them out of it. I figured it was better I help than leave them to be eaten, so your welcome," said Steve, clearly not actually picking up how annoyed Hopper had been that they had done that. It had got them to the gate and it had turned out alright, but Hawkins could have easily lost the five of them because Steve failed to stop them.

Hopper decided to stop talking to Steve, they were almost at the pit and he couldn't stand speaking to him longer than he already had. Hopper didn't know for sure that El and Mike had actually made it out or that they had completed what they had been sent to do, but he felt like they had. A feeling he wouldn't usually rely on but he had nothing else to go on and in a few minutes he'd know for sure, as he drove into the pumpkin patch.

He skid his truck to a stop in front of the pit, switching off the engine but leaving his lights on to provide them with some light. Partially to his annoyance Steve also exited his truck, "Grab the rope from the trunk and tie it to the front," ordered Hopper, at least giving Steve some reason for being there.

Hopper made his way down to the edge of the hole and looked down into the darkness below him, he couldn't see them, he was going to have to go looking. He quickly scrambled back up to his truck and retrieved the flash light, passing Steve who was tying the rope on as he made his way back down to the edge of the pit. But before he lowered himself down into the pitchblack tunnel below, he saw flashlight light flickering beneath him.

"Hey, exits up here!" he shouted down into the tunnel below, he was beyond relieved to know they were out. "Hey, pass that rope," said Hopper, who then dropped it down into the tunnel. "Are you guys okay!" Hopper bellowed down through the tunnel.

"Yeah, no need to be so loud, we are right below you," replied Mike, something Hopper hadn't noticed before probably deafening them.

"El, are you okay?" asked Hopper, unable to properly see her and unwilling to blind them with his flashlight after deafening them.

"Yes," said El loudly, mocking Hopper. He could hear the two kids laughing down in the pit.

"I am fine with burying you both down there," joked Hopper. He put one foot on the rope and lowered an arm down. He could feel the rope moving below his foot as El clambered up, he grabbed her arm and pulling her up the rest of the way, straight into an embrace. "Thank God you're alright kid," exclaimed Hopper, squeezing the mask into his shoulder and probably into her face.

"Get Mike out," he heard El say muffled by his shoulder as she wriggled free from his grasp. She put her arm down into the pit to grab Mike's as he climbed out of the hole.

"Welcome back, did everything go according to plan?" asked Hopper as Mike and El stood up and wiped the dirt of their fronts.

"Mostly, we got the tape from last night with El on it and wiped the one of Nancy and Jonathan along with a few others and made it look like the room had been attacked. We also got the bug list," added Mike.

"We almost got caught," said El as she began making her way back up to the truck. "But they left before they found us."

"Yeah, they all just left the building before coming up, was that you?" asked Mike. Before Hopper could say anything, Steve interjected while untying the rope.

"What do you know, I was useful. That was me, by the way, I distracted them so you could escape," Steve explained basically lying.

"What the hell is he doing here," asked Mike.

"Steve got himself caught trying to do what you did, he didn't even know you were in there," elaborated Hopper.

"I don't see how that matters, I accidently helped, the most important kind," Steve rationalised to himself just as much as any of the others.

"It doesn't matter, we just need to go debrief at Joyces and then we are all done with this… well most of us anyway," said Hopper.

"Debrief? What does that mean," asked Steve as he pulled the rope back towards himself. He had been expecting that question from El, not the highschooler.

"It basically means he's going to tell us what happens next, mainly to forget what happened, don't talk about it with anyone and stay away from the Department of Energy," answered Mike.

"Yeah… along those lines," replied Hopper as he entered the drivers seat of his vehicle.

"Then can you just drop me off at my car so I can go home," Steve asked, seemingly not fond of the idea of spending any more time dealing with this.

"No. You can go get your car tomorrow, now get in so we can go," ordered Hopper as he started the engine. El and Mike had taken the back seats which meant Harrington got in the passenger seat next to him, hopefully the kids in the back could draw out the story of how it all happened long enough to prevent Steve from annoying Hopper any more than he already had.