Chapter 15: The Hawkins Lab Investigation
September 21, 1983. Forty-six days.
The number burned in my mind as I stood in the basement at 2 AM, hand hovering over the dimensional pocket.
It's time.
The backpack had sat at 100% for three months. Waiting. But the compass activity had spiked over the past week—pointing insistently toward the lab even from my house. Whatever was happening in that facility, it was accelerating.
I reached into the dimensional space and pulled.
The Supernatural Detector materialized in my hand—handheld device the size of a transistor radio, screen with readings I didn't fully understand, speaker that would beep near dimensional anomalies. Simple. Effective. Exactly what I needed.
The backpack reset to zero with an almost audible pop in my mind. Five items now. Five tools for surviving what was coming.
I tested the detector immediately, walking it around my basement. Silence. Carried it upstairs to where the compass pointed weakly northeast—single beep. The device worked.
Now for the real test.
"This is insane," Lucas whispered. "We're going to get arrested."
"We're camping," I said, adjusting the straps on my backpack—the normal kind, filled with camping supplies as cover. "Totally normal teenage activity."
Dustin bounced with nervous energy beside me. "My mom thinks we're at Mike's. Mike's mom thinks we're at Lucas's. Lucas's parents think—"
"We know the cover story." Lucas checked his watch: 11:47 PM. "Can we just get this over with?"
We'd parked my car a mile from the lab perimeter, hiked through the woods with night vision goggles and the new detector. The September air carried early autumn chill, leaves crunching too-loud under our feet.
The lab appeared through the trees—brutalist concrete and chain-link fence, floodlights casting harsh shadows. From this distance it looked mundane. Government research facility. Nothing special.
The detector started beeping.
"Dude," Dustin breathed, staring at the device in my hand. "It's detecting something."
"Fifty-meter range," I reminded him. "We're still thirty meters out."
We crept closer. The beeping increased—steady rhythm like a heartbeat. Twenty meters. Faster beeping. Ten meters—
The detector went insane.
Constant alarm, screen showing readings that spiked and dipped wildly, electromagnetic chaos registering from inside that facility. I switched it off before the sound carried, but the damage was done.
"Something's in there," Lucas said unnecessarily.
I pulled out the NVGs, scanned the perimeter. Six guards visible, patrol patterns predictable, cameras covering the main approaches. But there—northwest corner, where the fence met the tree line. Blind spot. Three minutes between patrols.
"We're not going in," I said before either kid got ideas. "This is reconnaissance only. Dustin, photograph the fence line. Lucas, count security posts. I'm mapping the patrol timing."
We worked quickly. Dustin's disposable camera clicked softly. Lucas whispered numbers under his breath. I timed the guard rotations with my watch, noting everything.
The detector stayed off but I could feel what it had registered. Something massive underneath that building. Something dimensional. Something opening.
Forty-six days, I thought. The gate is already forming. Just not fully breached yet.
"Steve." Lucas grabbed my arm, pointed.
A figure emerged from the woods behind us. Flashlight beam. Heavy footsteps.
"Run," I breathed.
We scattered—three different directions like I'd trained them. Confuse pursuit, make them choose targets. I went east, crashed through underbrush deliberately loud, drawing attention.
The footsteps followed me.
I let them close slightly, then used grappling hook to swing up into a tree. Perched on a branch fifteen feet up, breathing controlled, as the figure passed below.
Hopper.
Chief of Police Jim Hopper, flashlight scanning the ground, radio on his belt silent. Not calling for backup. Investigating alone.
Interesting.
I waited until he moved past, then dropped silently and circled back to the rendezvous point. Dustin and Lucas arrived minutes later, both winded.
"Was that—?" Dustin started.
"Hopper. Yeah." I packed the detector carefully. "He's gone. Let's move."
We made it halfway to the car when the flashlight beam caught us square.
"Going somewhere, gentlemen?"
Hopper looked tired. Lines around his eyes, coffee-stained thermos in one hand, expression caught between annoyed and resigned.
"Chief Hopper." I put on my best dumb-jock smile. "Funny meeting you here."
"Funny." Hopper's tone suggested he found nothing funny. "What are three high schoolers doing in the woods at midnight near a government facility?"
"Camping?" I tried.
"Try again."
Lucas shifted nervously. Dustin opened his mouth—I stepped on his foot gently. Let me handle this.
"Heard some weird stories," I said, adjusting my story on the fly. "About the lab. Government experiments, strange lights, that kind of thing. Wanted to see for ourselves."
"And what did you see?"
"Nothing. Just a boring building with bored guards."
Hopper studied me for a long moment. His eyes were sharp despite the fatigue. Cop eyes. Seeing more than I wanted to show.
"You're Steve Harrington. Richard's kid."
"Yeah."
"You used to be just another punk jock. Now you're..." He gestured vaguely. "Something else. Mentoring kids. Good grades. Heard from Joyce Byers you've been hanging around her sons' friend group."
Shit. He's been paying attention.
"Just helping out at the middle school AV club," I said carefully. "Community service looks good on college applications."
"Right." Hopper's expression suggested he didn't believe a word. "Here's what's going to happen. You three are going to go home. You're going to stay away from this facility. You're not going to come back here, not going to investigate, not going to play junior detective."
"Why?" The question slipped out before I could stop it.
Hopper's face darkened. "Because government property is off-limits to civilians. Because there are armed guards with orders to detain trespassers. Because I don't want to explain to your parents why you got arrested or shot."
But his eyes flickered toward the lab as he spoke. Brief. Unconscious.
He suspects something too. He's been investigating.
"Understood, Chief." I started backing away, guiding the kids with me. "Won't happen again."
"See that it doesn't."
We walked away. Hopper didn't follow, but I felt his eyes on us until we reached the car.
Hopper
Jim Hopper watched the three kids disappear into the woods and fought the urge to follow them.
Steve Harrington. The Harrington kid had changed over the past few years—from typical rich-boy jock to something focused and purposeful that Hopper didn't fully understand. Mentoring middle schoolers. Training them in something that looked suspiciously like combat prep. And now investigating Hawkins Lab at midnight.
Smart kid. Too smart.
Hopper had been investigating the lab himself for weeks. Strange incidents. Power fluctuations. Government vehicles coming and going at odd hours. Workers with haunted expressions. And that feeling—that cop instinct that screamed something was deeply wrong inside that facility.
He turned back toward the fence line, studying the building through the trees.
What are you hiding? he thought. And why does a high school kid think he needs to know?
He'd keep an eye on Steve Harrington. And if things got dangerous—when they got dangerous, his instincts corrected—maybe having a capable kid on his side wouldn't be the worst thing.
Steve
"That was close," Dustin said as I drove us back toward town.
"Too close." I checked the rearview mirror obsessively. "But we got what we needed."
"The detector readings were insane," Lucas said from the backseat. "Whatever's in that lab, it's big. Active. Growing."
"Yeah." I turned onto Main Street, town dark and empty at 1 AM. "The dimensional boundary is thin there. Something's pushing through from the other side."
"When?" Dustin asked quietly.
"Soon. Weeks, not months."
Forty-six days. Forty-six days until everything changes.
I dropped them at their respective houses—cover story intact, parents none the wiser. Then drove home through empty streets, detector and NVGs hidden in my trunk, compass pointing steadily toward the lab even from three miles away.
The house felt cavernous and wrong when I entered. Parents in London. Empty rooms. Just me and the countdown.
I went to the basement, pulled out the coded journal, documented everything. Detector readings. Guard patterns. Hopper's investigation. The way the dimensional energy felt concentrated and purposeful.
The gate was forming. Growing. Preparing to tear reality open.
And I had forty-six days to make sure everyone survived when it did.
The next morning, I called a meeting.
The Party assembled in my basement—all four of them, plus Robin who'd become their unofficial supervisor during research sessions. Eddie was at work, Chrissy at cheer practice. Just the core research team.
"Something's active in the lab," I said without preamble. "The detector confirmed massive dimensional activity. Whatever we've been preparing for—it's happening."
Mike leaned forward. "How long?"
"Less than two months. Maybe six weeks."
"That's..." Dustin's voice cracked. "That's really soon."
"Yeah." I pulled out my notes. "So here's what we need to do. First, we accelerate combat training. Three times a week minimum. Second, everyone memorizes all five cache locations by heart. Third, we establish communication protocols—if something happens, how we contact each other, where we rally."
"What about adults?" Lucas asked. "Hopper caught us last night. He knows something's wrong too."
"Hopper's investigating on his own. We keep our distance for now. If things escalate, he might be an ally. But we can't depend on adults understanding what's coming."
Will had been silent, sketching in his notebook. He looked up. "Steve. In your estimation, how dangerous is this? Really?"
Life-threatening. World-ending. The kind of danger where kids die and reality breaks.
"Dangerous enough that I've spent three years preparing," I said instead. "Dangerous enough that I need you all to take this seriously. Not as a game or a fun mystery. As actual survival."
The room went quiet. Four twelve-year-olds processing the weight of what I was saying. Robin watched from the corner, expression unreadable.
Finally, Mike spoke: "Then we train harder. Learn everything you can teach us. And when it starts—"
"When it starts, you follow my lead. No heroics. No stupid risks. We work as a team, use the resources we've built, and everyone comes home alive."
"Everyone?" Dustin asked softly.
I don't know. I can't promise that. Too many variables. Too many ways things can go wrong.
"Everyone," I said firmly. "That's the goal."
They left an hour later, newly motivated and newly frightened. The training schedule had tripled. The cache locations were being memorized. The countdown had become real.
Robin stayed behind.
"You're terrified," she observed.
"Yeah."
"But you're not telling them everything."
"No."
She studied me. "This thing you know. This future you've seen or predicted or whatever impossible thing lets you know what's coming. It's bad, isn't it? Really bad."
"Robin—"
"I'm not asking you to explain. I trust you. But Steve, you can't carry this alone. You're building weapons and training kids and preparing for war, and you're eighteen. That's too much weight for anyone."
"Someone has to carry it."
"Then let others help carry it. You've got friends. Use them."
She left before I could respond, her words hanging in the basement's stale air.
Let others help carry it.
But how could I, when explaining meant revealing everything? When the truth sounded like insanity?
I went back to training. Six hours that day. Fight Master absorbing techniques from new martial arts videos. Body adapting, skills cementing, capabilities expanding.
Forty-six days until November 6th.
Forty-six days until the world ended and I had to be ready to save it.
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