There's No Place Like Hawkins//Stranger Things. SH

FIFTY SIX

E Pluribus Unum

While Steve was trying to calm Catherine down and catch her up on what she had missed, Robin and Dustin were arguing about how the latter, Steve and Cat knew about the machine they had just witnessed in action. "I don't understand. You three have seen this before?"

"Not exactly." Dustin told her.

"Then what, exactly?"

"All you need to know is it's bad. It's really bad. Like, end-of-the-human-race-as-we-know-it kind of bad."

"And you know about this how?"

"Um, Steve?" Erica asked, pulling the older teen's attention away from his distressed girlfriend. "Where's your Russian friend?" They all looked to the ground to see the once unconscious soldier no longer there.

Dustin turned to his older sister as an alarm started blaring. "You let him get away?!"

"I was trying to contact Nancy and get us some help. But nooo, Hopper has to be off in goddamn Illinois. For fucks sake!" Cat yelled.

"He's in Illinois? What the hell's he doing there?" Dustin asked her.

"Do I look like I know?"

While the two siblings had been arguing, Steve had run to the door, opening it briefly to see the soldier he had knocked out pointing in the direction of the comms room before all of the soldiers started running towards them. He slammed the door shut. "Shit." He grabbed Catherine's hand, pulling her along behind him as he began to run up the stairs. "Go, go, go, go, go!"

The others followed behind the pair, Cat using her adrenaline to push through the pain of her leg. They ran up the stairs, pushing through a glass door into a room filled with scientists. They all stared at the teenagers and pre-teen in confusion. Cat's attention focused on the bright light behind the adults in white lab coats. She stared at the machine and what it was firing a beam at.

The gate. They were opening the gate.

"No, no, no, no." She muttered as Steve pulled her along. "This can't be happening. No, no, no." Cat barely registered as they ran down some stairs and along a walkway- pushing past confused scientists. She was pulled back into focus when Steve pulled her behind him into a small room, and he and Robin forced all their weight on the door to keep the Russians out. "I'll help." Cat said, speaking loud enough for the others to hear. She raised her hands, sending energy pulses towards the door. Her nose began bleeding like a faucet.

Erica and Dustin were climbing down into the vent- their only way out. "Come on!" The younger Henderson called to the older three.

"Go! Just get out of here!" Steve yelled back. Even with Cat's powers helping to hold the door, it still wasn't enough to keep the Russians out and so Robin and Steve still had to use all their energy to stop the door from bursting open.