𝐢 𝐜𝐚𝐧'𝐭 𝐡𝐞𝐥𝐩 𝐦𝐲𝐬𝐞𝐥𝐟

ix. OTHER SIDE

   

THE GROUP all sat on top of the roof, "Erica, do you copy?" Robin asked into the supercomm. "Mm-hmm, I copy. You nerds in position or what?" She asked as Dustin looks through the binoculars, Chris also doing the same with a pair he got.

"It's all quiet here, so you've got the green light." Robin says and Icarus looks at her. "Green light, roger that." Erica says. "Commence Operation Child Endangerment." She adds.

"Can we maybe not call it that?"

"See you on the other side. Nerds."

Steve looks at Icarus who looked back at him, and for a moment they started at each other. Icarus looks away and leans back, checking his backpack and making sure he took the right things he needed. Bottles of water, a couple of granola bars and even a flashlight just in case.

"Alright, nerds. I'm there." Erica says and Icarus looks over at Robin. "Do you.. Do you see anything?" Robin asked her. "Yeah, I see those boring boxes you're so excited about." Erica says and Chris chuckles, putting down his binoculars.

"Any guards?" Robin asked. "Negative." Erica responds. "Booby traps?" Robin asked. "If I could see them, they'd be pretty shit traps, wouldn't they?" She asked and Steve looks at Icarus who was smiling. "Thank you for that." Robin says.

"I'm in." Erica says and Steve sighs, "oh, God." He says as he covers his face with his hands making Icarus smile softly and put a hand to his back gently. The doors then open and Erica walks out slowly, looking at them. She puts a hand on her hip, "free ice cream for life." She says sassily.

"Kid's smart.." Chris says, smiling.

Steve cuts open one of the boxes with a pocket knife. Steve hands the pocket knife to Icarus who closes it and puts it back into his pocket. He opens up the box, revealing a steel box, it had a handle to twist and Steve figures it's how to open it. He twists the handle then lifts up the top of it.

It reveals three other handles, "that's definitely not Chinese food." Steve says and Icarus looks at him before he reached out, already too curious curious, and he grabs the handle. "I think you guys should, uh, maybe stand back.." He says.

Robin, Erica and Chris do except for Dustin and Steve who he looks at. "Just step back.." He says and Steve shakes his head. "No." Dustin says as well. "Step back. Seriously." He says and Dustin shakes his head again. "No!" Steve and Dustin both say at the same time who he looks up at again.

"If you die, we die." Dustin says and Icarus just stares at them with an annoyed look. "Jesus," he mumbled then looked down. "Your fucking funeral." He whispers and then twisted the handle, lifting up the bottle of some green liquid.

"What the hell?" Steve spoke first. "What is that?" Robin asked and Icarus looks at her. "Maybe the Russians' pee?" He says and Chris shook his head. "I have a Russian girlfriend, they pee like we do." He says and Icarus grimaces.

"How do you—" he's cut off when the room moves all of the sudden, catching all of their attention. "Was that just me, or did the room move?" Dustin asked. "Booby traps." Erica whispers.

"You know what? Let's just grab that and go." Robin said, walking over and grabbing the bottle. Steve grabs another one out of the box as Dustin ran over to the buttons, "which one do I press, Erica?" He asked, despite pressing one already.

"Just press the damn button, nerd." Erica says and Icarus looks at her, sighing. "Which one? Be nice." He says and Erica looks at him. "Press open door!" She exclaims as Robin puts the bottle of the liquid into her backpack. "I'm pressing open door." Dustin exclaims right back at her and Icarus sighs. "Just press the other buttons!" Chris yells.

"Get out of the way so she can push the button—" Robin said but is cut off when Dustin and Steve start bickering again. "Would you stop?" Steve asked. "I'm trying." Dustin stressfully says. "Would you let me just do it? Would you stop?" Steve said loudly and Icarus sighed more stressfully.

"Guys!" He shouted loudly and they all stop, looking at him. "If you guys had stopped yelling at each other for a moment and panicking like you just fucking were, you would've realized why the button doesn't work. It's obvious we need a keycard, even from the fucking inside." He points to the keypad which they all look at. Then a red wall comes down from the top which they look at now in shock.

The room starts moving, kind of like an elevator when they all start screaming and Chris grabs onto Icarus who was holding the wall. "Oh, shit." Steve says when he looks around the whole room.

The room had been moving for a while now and the group were all screaming, except for Icarus who just only felt nauseous. "Shit! Shit!" Dustin kept screaming. "We're going down! We're going down!" Steve started screaming. "Ten things Steve has said to Icarus!" Chris yelled.

"Shut up!" Icarus yells at him. "Why don't these buttons work?!" Dustin yelled as he stood at the panel. "Wild guess, I was right about the keycard?" Icarus yells at him. The room stops and all of them fall, Icarus falls onto his back with Chris on top of him, both of them groaning.

"My groin." Steve says making Chris burst out laughing. "It fell on my groin." Steve says and Icarus looks up at Chris. "And Christopher fell on mine, Mayfield, get off." He says and Chris looks down at him. "Aw, but what if I don't wanna?" He says as Dustin took the box off Steve.

"You're gonna have to." Steve said and grabbed the back of Chris' shirt, pulling him up as Robin stood up and walked over to Icarus to help him up. "Is everyone okay?" She asked and Icarus nods. "Yeah, I'm great now that I know Russians can't design elevators!" Steve yelled.

He approached the buttons again, "I think we've clearly established that those buttons don't work." Robin tells him but he keeps pressing them before turning to them. "They're buttons. They have to do something." He exclaims.

"Steve, calm down.." Icarus said as he walked over to him. "If we had a keycard, it would have worked." He says and Steve looks at the keycard scanner before closing the door pannel.

"So what? What? We're stuck in here?" Steve says as he turns to Icarus who nods. "Yeah.." He whispers, looking away. "Just so you nerds are aware," Erica said making Icarus look over at her. "I'm suppose 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 five are responsible, she's gonna hunt you down, one by one and slit your throat." She says and Steve looks up at her.

"I don't care about Tina!" He yells and Icarus looks at him. "Steve." He whispers. "Or Uncle Jack's party!" Steve continued anyway, "you're mom's not gonna be able to find us if we're dead in a Russian elevator!" He continued to yell at her.

"Steve, we talked about this, you have to be nice to kids." Icarus whispers and Steve looks at him. "I don't care." He whispers back at him. "Hey." Dustin says and they all looked over at him.

"What if we climbed out?"

  

   

  

   

  

    

  

     

authors note imagining being in their situation freaks me out 🙂