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THE WEEK IS LONG, the silver cat feeds when blue meets yellow in the west. That was what they had translated. After hours of working on it, long after Scoops Ahoy and the mall itself had closed, that was what they came up with. And it made no sense to any of them.
Lexie wracked her brain, for anything that might sound familiar. Maybe something that someone who was Russian would use to communicate that only another Russian would know. But she hit a wall there, too, because she didn't know much about Russia or things that only a Russian would know.
"I mean, it just can't be right," Steve was saying as he pulled the gate down and locked the store for the night.
"It's right," Robin maintained, sounding like she was still thinking about what it could all mean pretty hard.
"I mean, if you created a secret code, you'd want it to be difficult to figure out," Lexie brought up and Robin pointed to her and nodded in confirmation.
"Honestly, I think it's great news," Dustin said as he, Robin, and Lexie started to walk away from the ice cream parlor.
"How is this great news?" Steve asked disbelievingly, following right after them. The neon lights of the mall were still there, but dulled since everything was closed. The hallways were cast in a faint, pinkish red sort of glow. "I mean, so much for being American heroes. It's total nonsense."
"I'm pretty sure only you and Dustin wanted to be American heroes," Lexie interjected and Robin smirked, letting out a little laugh.
"It's not nonsense," Dustin told him, ignoring Lexie's comment because it was glaringly true. "It's too specific. It's obviously a code, like Lexie said."
"What do you mean, a code?"
"Like a super secret spy code," Dustin elaborated.
"That's a total stretch," Steve dismissed, sounding unsure.
"I don't know, is it?" Robin ventured with a shrug,
"I mean, not everyone has the same setup as Dustin. If I were the Russians, I'd do it in the middle of nowhere, too," Lexie tried reasoning, again not sure how to think like a Russian exactly.
"You guys are buying into this?" Steve asked incredulously. He glanced over at Lexie, who he had caught up to and was walking beside. "I thought you didn't care about being an American hero."
"I don't –"
"Listen, just for kicks, let's entertain the possibility that it is a secret Russian transmission. What'd you think they were gonna say, 'Fire the warhead at noon?'" Robin ventured as if it was obvious. And Lexie had to agree, it kind of was. They knew of pretty much everyone in Hawkins, and there was nobody from Russia communicating via radio all of the time.
