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CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE RISE OF THE NERDS
Abby, Dustin, and Steve all exchange a glace as the pulsing continues. Abby cannot hear the words that the boys across from her utter, but the meaning behind their glances speaks more than words can. She can feel the horror that grows in the pit of her chest the longer she stares at the rip in the gate. It's a great big blackness that threatens to consume her from the inside, that threatens to tear her down in a fit of asphyxiated breath and tears, but she knows that they cannot afford for the inevitable fit of panic that she will find herself in. They cannot afford to get caught. Not now. Not when they've discovered what's really going on beneath the layers of Hawkins.
She keeps her head up high and her breaths controlled as they scramble down the blue stairs. Robin is bursting at the seams with questions that spill out of her mouth faster than Abby can keep with. Her eyes are still wide, her face has paled considerably. Her hands shake slightly as her thoughts travel to the monsters that had roamed Hawkins before the gate had closed. Steve and Dustin answer the questions the best that they can without revealing too much about the threat that they face.
"Um, Steve, where's your Russian friend?" Erica asks.
She stares pointedly at the empty spot on the ground that they have all converged around. At first, Abby doesn't understand what Erica has asked, and then suddenly, it clicks. The absence of the body that they had hastily left behind them, the red lights that begin to flash around them, the alarm that suddenly blares to life.
"Shit," Steve whispers.
He runs for the heavy metal door and yanks it open. Through the crack, Abby glimpses the man that they had carelessly left on the ground behind them hunched over, being supported by a group of his colleagues as he scrambles to describe what had happened to him. It's then that they catch sight of Steve who widens his eyes in a surge of panic and slams the door behind behind him.
They don't need to be told twice to run. With her heart beating wildly and vision blurring, curses spilling out of her mouth as her voice wavers, Abby stumbles up the blue steps, away from the shouting of the Russian guards and back toward the gate. Suddenly, the thought of facing the rip between realities seems much more appealing than being caught in the claws of the cat who has finally given up playing the game of cat and mouse.
They crash through the double doors and push through another set only to find themselves facing another group of scientists. They pause for a brief moment as the scientists that occupy the observation room turn to stare at the six trespassers who have appeared before them, bedraggled and clearly panicked. Before anybody can say anything, the six are off again, bounding down the nearby stairs, harshly pushing aside Russians dressed in red and blue hazmat suits. There is no room for mercy, anybody who dares to step in their wat faces the consequences of the battlefield.
