Chapter 25: The Lab Infiltration - Part 1
The bolt cutters bit through chain-link with quiet snick-snick sounds that felt loud enough to wake the dead.
Hopper worked the tool with practiced hands while Nancy and Jonathan kept watch. Midnight meant minimal perimeter patrol—thirty-minute window when guards rotated positions and left blind spots.
The fence section fell away. We slipped through.
"NVGs on," I whispered, pulling the night vision goggles over my eyes.
The world shifted to green-tinted clarity. Guard tower two hundred meters north—empty during rotation. Service entrance fifty meters ahead—motion sensor disabled three days ago when I'd cut the power line during a "vandalism" incident.
Three years of prep. Every detail mapped. Don't waste it now.
"Stay tight. Follow my exact path." I moved forward in a crouch, Fight Master instincts guiding each step to avoid sightlines and sensor zones.
The others followed—Hopper moving with military efficiency, Nancy surprisingly quiet for someone in her first infiltration, Jonathan clumsy but determined.
We reached the interior wall. Twelve feet high, smooth concrete, topped with razor wire.
I pulled out the Grappling Hook Gun, aimed at the wall's peak, fired.
The pneumatic thwump sent the hook arcing over. It caught on rebar. I tested the line—solid—then climbed.
Fight Master made the ascent effortless. Muscles remembered every motion from months of practice. Hand over hand, boots finding purchase, body moving with mechanical precision.
At the top I avoided the razor wire by inches, swung over, descended the far side.
Nancy came next—rifle strapped to her back, jaw set with determination. She climbed competently. Not trained but naturally athletic.
Jonathan struggled more. Arms shaking. But he made it.
Hopper came last, grunting quietly with effort. When we were all down, I triggered the hook's release. It fell silently into my hands.
"Inside," I breathed.
The service door opened with my stolen keycard—lifted from a drunk lab tech at the Hideaway Bar two months ago. Red light flashed green.
We entered Hawkins National Laboratory.
Fluorescent lights flickered in stuttering rhythm, casting the corridor in sickly illumination that made shadows dance.
The air tasted sterile. Chemical. Wrong.
Jonathan pulled out his camera—small 35mm loaded with high-speed film. Started documenting immediately.
"No flash," I hissed.
Too late. The camera flashed once before he could stop it.
We froze. Listened.
No response. No alarms. Just the endless hum of ventilation.
"Sorry," Jonathan mouthed.
Hopper's hand moved to his pistol grip. Nancy shifted her rifle to ready position.
"Sublevel Three," I said quietly. "Gate chamber is in Containment. Follow me."
The lab's interior matched my mental map perfectly—every corridor, every turn, every door exactly where it should be. The show's set design translated to reality with eerie precision.
We passed Observation Room 7. Through the window: restraint chair, electrode equipment, blood stains on the floor.
Nancy's breath caught. "Is that where—"
"Where they tortured El. Yeah." I kept moving. "Don't look. We're not here for evidence. We're here for extraction."
More rooms. More horrors. Containment cells with scratch marks on the walls. Medical bays with equipment designed for experimentation, not healing. A nursery that looked wrong—too clinical, too monitored.
Jonathan photographed everything despite my warning. Flash going off every few seconds.
Evidence for later. If we survive to use it.
"The stairs," I pointed. "Sublevel access."
The stairwell descended into darkness. I switched to NVGs, led the way down.
Two flights. Three. Four.
The temperature dropped with each level. The air grew thicker. Wrong.
At Sublevel Three, the door required biometric scan.
"Shit," Hopper muttered. "We need—"
I pulled out a severed finger in a ziplock bag—stolen from the lab's medical waste three weeks ago during a recon mission.
Hopper stared. "Where did you get that?"
"Don't ask." I pressed the dead finger to the scanner.
Green light. Lock disengaged.
"Jesus Christ, kid."
"Prepared, remember?"
We entered Sublevel Three and the wrongness intensified. The walls here looked organic—cables running along surfaces like veins, sections that pulsed with dim red light.
"What the hell?" Nancy whispered.
"Dimensional bleed. The gate's influence spreading." I moved faster now. "We're close."
The corridor stretched ahead—fewer lights, more shadows. My NVGs caught movement at the far end.
"Guard," I breathed. "Solo patrol. Hopper, you take him?"
"Non-lethal?"
"If possible."
Hopper moved with surprising stealth for a man his size. The guard never heard him coming. Quick chokehold, guard unconscious in seconds, body lowered quietly to the floor.
"Zip ties," Hopper said.
Jonathan tossed them over. We secured the guard, gagged him, left him in a supply closet.
"How long do we have?" Nancy asked.
"Until he's discovered or doesn't report in. Maybe ten minutes." I checked my watch. Twelve-fifteen AM. "We need to move."
Three more corridors. Two security checkpoints bypassed with my stolen keycard. One more guard avoided by timing our movement to his patrol pattern.
Then we reached the final door.
Heavy steel. Biometric lock. Warning labels in Russian and English: AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY. EXTREME HAZARD. CONTAINMENT BREACH PROTOCOL IN EFFECT.
"This is it," I said.
"The gate chamber?" Jonathan's voice shook.
"Yeah."
I used the severed finger again. The lock disengaged with heavy mechanical sounds—bolts retracting, seals releasing.
The door opened six inches.
Alarms screamed to life.
Red lights strobed. Klaxons wailed. Automated voice announcing: "CONTAINMENT BREACH. SUBLEVEL THREE. ALL PERSONNEL RESPOND."
"Fuck!" Hopper shouted.
"Run!" I kicked the door fully open. "Straight to the gate! Don't stop!"
The gate chamber opened before us—massive space, thirty feet across, catwalks circling a central pit. And in the pit's center, suspended in space, a tear in reality.
The gate pulsed red and organic, like a wound that refused to heal. Tendrils of something grew around its edges—vines or cables or nerves, impossible to tell.
Guards poured from side doors. Shouts. Weapons drawn.
Fight Master kicked in.
Time slowed. Threat assessment automatic. First guard charging from the left—pattern predictable, footwork sloppy. Second guard right—better trained, pistol raised. Third and fourth flanking.
I moved.
Bat swung in perfect arc—caught first guard's extended arm, disarmed him with textbook technique. Radio clattered to floor. I scooped it up, clipped it to my belt.
Second guard fired. Bullet whined past my ear—too close.
Hopper returned fire. Guard dropped.
"Nancy, Jonathan—gate! Now!"
They sprinted for the catwalk while Hopper and I covered them.
More guards flooding in. Six. Eight. Ten.
Too many. Can't fight them all.
"Hopper! Move!"
We ran. Bullets sparked off metal catwalks. Hopper fired back without looking, suppressing fire to buy seconds.
Jonathan reached the gate chamber's edge, looked down at the tear in reality, went pale.
"Oh God. Oh God that's—"
"Real. It's real. Clip in!" I tossed him the grappling hook. "We're rappelling down!"
Nancy grabbed the hook, attached it to the catwalk railing with shaking hands. "This isn't safe! We don't have proper gear!"
"No choice!" I helped her secure it. "You go first. Hopper second. Jonathan third. I'll cover and follow."
"Steve—"
"GO!"
She went. Slid down the cable into the pit toward the pulsing gate.
Hopper fired his last rounds, ejected the magazine. "I'm out!"
"Then move!"
He grabbed the cable, started descending—heavier than Nancy, slower progress.
Jonathan went next, camera banging against his chest.
Guards reaching the catwalk now. Twenty meters away. Fifteen.
I turned, bat ready, Fight Master calculating odds.
Can hold them for thirty seconds. Maybe forty-five. Long enough for the others to cross.
First guard reached me.
Bat to his knee—textbook low strike. He collapsed. Second guard swung with rifle—blocked with bat shaft, redirected momentum, used his own force to throw him over the railing.
He fell screaming.
Third guard hesitated.
Good. Fear works better than violence.
I grabbed the cable and slid.
Bullets chased me down. Sparks where they hit metal. One grazed my shoulder—white-hot line of pain.
Ignore it. Keep moving.
The gate loomed below. Red membrane pulsing like a heartbeat. The wrongness intensified—reality bending around the wound.
Nancy stood at the edge, rifle aimed up, covering my descent.
I dropped beside her. Hopper and Jonathan already through the membrane—shapes visible on the other side, distorted by the dimensional barrier.
"You're hit," Nancy said, staring at my bleeding shoulder.
"Graze. I'm fine. Your turn."
"What about—"
"I go last. Now GO!"
She stepped through the membrane and reality twisted.
I followed immediately.
The crossing felt like being pulled through gelatin—resistance and pressure and wrongness. My stomach lurched. Vision blurred. Sound muted.
Then I stumbled through onto the other side and the world changed.
Hopper - Upside Down, 12:30 AM
The air tasted like death.
Hopper coughed, doubled over, trying not to vomit from the sudden wrongness of everything. The temperature had dropped thirty degrees. The air was thick with floating ash and something else—spores maybe, drifting through the darkness like toxic snow.
Behind him, Steve emerged from the gate, stumbled, caught himself. Blood ran down his left arm from the bullet graze. The kid didn't seem to notice.
"Everyone through?" Steve asked.
"Yeah." Hopper checked—Nancy pale but standing, Jonathan coughing violently, both alive. "Where are we?"
"The Upside Down. Parallel dimension. Welcome to hell."
The lab around them looked like it had been dead for decades. Vines covered every surface—thick ropy things that pulsed with faint bioluminescence. The walls had decayed, concrete crumbling, metal rusted. Everything covered in the same organic growth.
Above them, through the gate, voices echoed—lab security organizing containment.
Then mechanical sounds. Heavy bolts engaging.
"They're sealing us in," Nancy whispered.
Steve pulled the stolen radio from his belt. Brenner's voice crackled through: "Attention unauthorized personnel. You have entered a quarantine zone. All exits are being sealed. You have approximately four hours before the dimensional barrier closes permanently. If you wish to survive, I suggest you complete your objective quickly. Good luck."
The transmission ended with a click.
Hopper grabbed the radio. "Brenner! You son of a—"
Static. No response.
"He's not listening," Steve said quietly. "He sealed us in with the monster. Wants to see if we survive."
"Can we?" Jonathan asked, still coughing. "Survive?"
Steve pulled on the night vision goggles, adjusted them, scanned their surroundings. The green-tinted view revealed more of the nightmare landscape—vines everywhere, walls breathing, darkness absolute beyond their position.
"Yeah. But we need to move fast. Four hours to find Will and Barb, push them through weak points, get back here before this gate closes for good."
"And if we don't make it?" Nancy's voice stayed level despite the tremor in her hands.
Steve checked his watch. "Then we're trapped here permanently. So let's not waste time."
He started walking east, away from the rotted lab, into the decayed forest beyond.
Hopper followed, pistol drawn despite having no ammunition. Nancy and Jonathan fell in behind.
The Upside Down stretched ahead—familiar Hawkins twisted into nightmare. Every tree dead and wrapped in vines. Every building collapsed and rotting. Sky dark red, choked with ash.
And somewhere in this hell, two kids were hiding. Waiting for rescue.
Please let them still be alive.
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