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She was incredibly relived when she saw them, the Sheriff and Jonathon’s Mom; finally some adults are getting involved (being eighteen for three months doesn’t count). Jonathon’s mom rushed across the mall to check on him and his brother and the Sheriff went over to magic power girl Elle.
Behind them were two men she didn’t recognize. There was an older looking bald man and somewhat younger man leaning on him. The younger man was definitely injured in some way, wincing every few steps, and clutching at his side.
They sat down at a bench a little ways away from everyone and Robin thought she heard them talking quietly in Russian to one another. Were they Russians? They clearly weren’t after her and Steve and the kids. Did they defect?
Shortly after the reunions finished she learned they were Murray, not Russian, and Alexei, Russian. And not just any Russian, but a Russian who knew how to shut down the nonsense they saw in the underground bunker. They had hope. They could actually get rid of the mind flayer.
After they finished laying out the plans, there was still the elephant in the room.
Mrs. Byers finally brought up what Robin had been thinking, “What is Alexei going to do?”
She looked toward Alexei who had been contributing quietly here and there, but he became silent and just looked toward Murray who he was still leaning on.
Murray sighed, “Well in a perfect world, Alexei could come with us down to the bunker and help shut down the machine but…”
The Sheriff cut in, “But he was grazed by a bullet less than thirty minutes ago, not to mention the Russians would immediately recognize him and kill us all on the spot.”
Murray cringed at the blunt truth, “Okay children, time to appeal to me, which of your two groups is least likely to accidentally kill the most valuable resource we have in shutting down that machine.”
Dustin spoke up first, “If he comes with us he will be able to communicate with you guys.”
“Also we’re more likely to encounter the mind flayer again,” Nancy contributed.
Murray still looked unsure.
Then it hit Robin and in shaky Russian she said “I speak little…”
Alexei‘s head immediately turned toward her and before she could finish her sentence he said, “I’ll go with you.”
Even though only Murray and Robin knew what he said everyone else clearly understood.
“I can uh help him to the car,” Steve said as he started walking toward Alexei. But Alexei got up before Steve was halfway there.
“I’m fine,” he said. Although it didn’t look easy for him to walk, he was managing alright. If he can walk fine then why was he leaning on Murray earlier? But that thought quickly left Robin’s head as she refocused on getting to Dustin’s radio.
“You’ll start going straight for fifteen intersections,” said Dustin said, after Murray radioed that he had finally reached the ventilation system.
“You’re sure about that kid?” said Murray.
“Well I don’t know who else you are going to ask,” said Erica.
“Put Alexei on”
“I’m pretty sure we’ve been down there more recently than him” said Erica.
“And what about radio silence?” said Dustin.
“Radio silence for you not for me, put him on now!”
Robin had already nudged Steve and they got up to help Alexei out of the car and up the hill. His wound had gotten aggravated on the aggressive car ride over, especially that last turn. Robin didn’t think he looked too good, so she insisted he should rest in until he was needed.
“Fine, we just have to get him out of the car,” said Erica
“Why is he in the car? And where’s the car?” Murray barked.
“You’re wanted” Robin said as she reached down to open the car door.
“Thanks, heard Murray” he said as he winced in pain as Steve helped him stand up.
“He’s loud,” she said and she saw slight grin break out across his face. She hoped that means he’s feeling better.
“Where’s Alexei?” she heard yelled over the radio.
“If you don’t get quiet about your Russian friend, his Russian friends are going to find you and blow your head off!” Luckily Erica could be as loud as she wanted.
Thankfully Steve and Robin made it over with Alexei to the radio before Murray could respond.
After that came a frantic, at least on Murray’s side, Russian exchange.
Robin could only catch every few words, but it didn’t sound like Murray was asking a technical question or anything.
She heard them say “hurt”, “car”, “bad”, “fine,” “sick,” and then “dear.” She was pretty confident about that one. She spent some time studying pet names. Her dating pool is already, limited so she doesn’t want any language barrier in her way. But why is Murray calling him dear?
Suddenly Murray is yelling in English, interrupting her thoughts, “Put the Russian girl on.”
Alexei handed her the receiver, “Uh my name’s Robin.”
“I don’t care, just listen to me. We are going to give this three hours okay? If after three hours I’m still not out of this god forsaken commie hell. You are going to take him to the hospital. Tell them he’s your uncle visiting from Russia and you were out hunting with him when he got hurt. A doctor needs to see him soon. I don’t want his injury getting infected. You got a dictionary with you right? Study some medical terms in Russian while you’re waiting…”
Dustin grabbed the microphone from her, “How many intersections have you gone past?”
“What?”
“How many intersections?” he said forcefully.
“Eighteen?”
“You were supposed to turn at the fifteenth one. Stop getting distracted, if we don’t close the gate and stop the mind flayer an infection will be the least of Alexei’s problems.”
“Right,” she heard Murray mumble, almost sounding embarrassed.
Dustin and Erica focused on getting Murray through the ventilation system; Robin was surprised at the ability they had to remember the way. There was only one point where Erica thought the turn was at the seventh intersection, but Dustin though it was at the sixth. (She heard Dustin quietly singing a Weird Al Yankovic song to himself as Murray proceeded through the tunnel. Dustin told him to stop at a certain lyric of the song. Turns out he was at the seventh intersection at that point, so Erica was right there)
But now all Steve, Alexei and she could do was wait. Robin was thinking through the questions she had about the Russian man. It was intriguing that a not so evil seeming guy like himself got involved, and eventually shot due to some USSR government plan. And did he have any idea that the machine he was working on could cause the horror that was the mind flayer? She didn’t think so, seeing his concerned face looking down at the mall below. Well there was one way so satisfy her curiosity; anyway he might appreciate some distracting small talk.
“So you were in the Russian,” she wasn’t sure how to say military, “fighting people group?”
“No, uh…secret science group,” she’s sure that wasn’t the official name of it, but she was glad he was dumbing down his vocabulary for her and speaking slowly.
“How was it?”
“Not good, they forced me. I was too good in school.” She wasn’t completely sure that word meant forced, but she thinks she put it together that the secret science group wasn’t where he wanted to be.
“Were there other forced people with you?”
“Not many, a lot of fighting people,” he grinned at using her term.
“You don’t like the fighting people?”
“No, I’m very… different.”
“I’m very different too.” He looked at her and she thought could feel a mutual understanding between them. She wanted to push just a little bit more though, “They talked about their girls a lot?”
“Yes, but I was…alone,” he looked panicked for a second like he said too much. She tried to think of something to say, but he quickly changed the topic, “You speak Russian well. You learned in school?”
“No, only learned for three days.”
“That’s” And he said a word she didn’t know. He saw her confusion and instead said “That’s very good.”
“Only learned to break the code,” she said.
“You broke the code?” She nodded. He looked thrilled and clapped her on the shoulder with the arm on his good side.
She blushed at his praised.
He sighed, “It’s very good to speak Russian with someone else, not Murray and not fighting people.”
She said quietly to herself in English, “It’s nice to be with some else who is alone.”
If he overheard her, he didn’t look her way.
Suddenly they see flashing lights in the distance, at the mall.
As soon as Steve realized they weren’t hearing from the group in the mall he started sprinting toward the car. She started running after Steve; she couldn’t let him leave alone. After Dustin threw her the walkie talkie, she remembered Alexei, “Steve wait!” She looked toward Alexei and saw he was looking between Robin and the radio tower.
He made eye contact with her he said, “I want to stay with the car.”
She yelled, “He’s coming with us” as she helped him to his feet and he leaned on her while they ran to the car.
After they got in she heard him muttering to himself, “I hope this was right.”
She looked at him and said with almost without thinking (she had to think a bit to say it Russian), “You’ll see him again.”
He looked at her with a mixture of surprise and wariness.
After that was a whirlwind of adrenaline and terror. Suddenly after Steve hit Billy with his car she, Steve and Alexei were crammed into the trunk of Nancy’s to escape the mind flayer. They barely managed to get both Alexei and the walkie talkie in. Thankfully they only dropped the walkie talkie.
They were still speeding away when they heard Dustin over the radio, “Uhh Alexei’s not here, but he should have a walkie talkie, I can tell you what he or uh Robin says. Robin, the number Murray gave the Sherriff is wrong. We need Alexei to tell you the combination.“
Alexei turned to Robin as soon as he heard his name. She told him, “The number code is wrong.”
Alexei nodded anxiously, held up his hands and wiggled his figures, “I’ll show you the number and you tell the boy.”
Steve shoved the walkie talkie at her. She grabbed it and said, “ I’ll tell you the combination. Tell me when you’re ready.”
The next thing she heard was “Robin! Come in Robin! Or Steve? Alexei?”
She tried again “Dustin! Tell me you hear me!”
After she let go of the walkie talkie button, it was obvious she couldn’t be heard, “Don’t know what happened, they aren’t coming in.” But Dustin’s shaky voice still came through clear.
Then she noticed the bottom of the walkie talkie where the microphone was, there was a large dent that must have been from the earlier fall. How stupid were they to be so careless? “Fuck! It’s broken,” she cried. Immediately Nancy and Steve started a frantic discussion about if there’s any possible route to take to both escape the mind flayer and get Alexei to the radio.
Alexei on the other hand looked like he lost all hope. He was staring into space and she could barely hear him mumbling “I can’t help” “He’s going to die” “I can’t help” “He’s going to die” At that point she took his hand, she couldn’t just do nothing. He didn’t stop mumbling or look at her, but she thought she could feel him squeeze her hand slightly.
The walkie talkie started up again. She just wanted to toss that useless thing out the window. She hated that a stupid kid’s toy was what was stopping them. Then the singing started, the car quieted and they witnessed a strange moment of innocence in the midst of their frustration and helplessness.
Then what must have been Dustin girlfriend said the number. She started to think of how to translate it for Alexei to see if it was right, but Alexei must know how to count to ten in English because he just started yelling “Yes! Yes!” as he wrapped her in a hug. Before they could get too happy the mind flayer turned around, so they do too.
Then one moment she’s hurtling firecrackers at a monster from another dimension and the next she was struggling to translate the word prescription.
“I did my best to patch him up, but I really think it’s best if he sees an actual doctor” says the young EMT after she finishes bandaging his side.
“I told you already,” said Robin, “He doesn’t want to go. At least not yet, Right Uncle Alexei?” She quickly says the same thing in Russian to him. He takes a break from frantically looking across the mall parking lot to look directly at the paramedic nod vigorously and say “Yes” in English.
“Well don’t say I didn’t warn you,” and she went to the other side of the ambulance to do some paperwork.
It was at that moment she saw the three figures walking across the pavement. She gently nudged his shoulder, pointed at Murray and said “It’s him.”
He turned his body too fast and it was clear that it hurt, but it didn’t seem to bother him much. She tried to help him off the ambulance, but he didn’t want any. He just needed to move as fast as he could toward Murray.
Robin couldn’t help the grin that broke out on her face when they hugged, she’s not completely sure who they are to each other, but does that really matter?
Alexei gestured over toward the ambulance where she was sitting. Murray must have wanted to ask the paramedic some questions, because they started walking over.
She turned toward the paramedic and asked to borrow a pencil and some paper. By the time she finished writing Alexei and Murray had reached the ambulance, Alexei was leaning on Murray again like when she first saw them in the mall.
Alexei said to her, “Thank you Robin, for your help.”
“Oh it was nothing…” she started to say.
“No, thank you, “ Murray said.
She wasn’t sure what else to say she remembered the notebook in her hand, she torn out the piece of paper and handed it to Alexei, “I was hoping I could keep practicing my Russian.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” said Murray suddenly grabbing the paper. Did he really think keeping in touch was a bad idea? “What would your parents think if they answered the phone to hear a full grown Russian main asking for you?” He started writing something on the piece of paper then he tore it in half.
On one piece was a phone number, on the other was what she was pretty sure was the Russian word for ice cream. He pointed to it “This is the code word, be sure to keep them separate, alright?”
“I will” she said happily taking the papers from him
“Luigi’s pizza,” Murray said answering the phone.
“Crown” Murray changed up the code word every two weeks.
“Really? Again? Didn’t you call two days ago?”
“Who else is calling you here? Are we really tying up your phone line?”
Murray sighed and she could almost hear him shaking his head, “Alexei, your teen friend is on phone.”
“Hi Robin, English or Russian?”
“English if you don’t mind.” Alexei said he preferred practicing his English with her. According to him Murray was too nice to mention any grammatical error he made, which she had a kind of hard time believing. “You’re boyfriend’s kind of grumpier than usual today”
“Well he didn’t get many sleep last night.”
“Eww, gross,” she said teasing him, and not bothering to correct his minor mistake.
“Not what I meant,” he said chuckling.
“Anyway, so there’s this girl at my new job at the video store. Steve thinks she’s flirting with me, but I want a second opinion...”