Lucky for them, Mike spotted two girls — a brunette and a redhead — getting off of the bus that dropped them off at Starcourt just as he, Lucas, and Will were getting their bikes from the bike rack. Amanda stood there awkwardly, waiting for the next bus to come. Why didn't she think to bring her bike? Right. Because she lived half an hour away from the rest of society.

     "El! We need to talk to you!" Mike exclaimed as he jogged up to who seemed to be El and a friend of hers, a girl with braided red hair.

     "No. She doesn't need to talk to you," the redhead retorted. "Yeah," El agreed, matching her face to her friend's, whose eyebrows were brought together in a squint. "Trust me, we do. And since when did you make choices for her, Max?" Mike bit back, then turning to glare at the girl who was supposedly named Max.

     "I'm not making choices for her, dingbat," Max rolled her eyes, "I'm just telling you what's on her mind."

     "Oh, so you can read minds now?" Mike scoffed. "What are you, telepathic?"

     "Are you treating El like she's your pet?" Max threw him a curveball. Mike shook his head out of confusion. "What?!"

     "Yeah. Am I your pet?" El repeated. It didn't seem like she had a mind of her own, she just went along with whatever Max was saying. But what did Amanda know? Chances were, things were probably worse for her than Amanda knew.

     "What? No. Where is this coming from, anyway?" Mike asked. "Then why do you keep blowing her off, huh?" Max asked in return. Amanda took a few steps back to stand next to Will. "Am I missing something here? Did she and Mike used to go out?" she whispered.

Will let out a low whistle. "Oh, God no. They just bicker like an old, married, divorced couple."

     Amanda nodded and tuned back into the argument. "Will you please just listen to me? I have to talk to El about something!" Mike exclaimed. "Anything you tell El, you can say in front of me." Max crossed her arms.

Mike fell silent and shifted his weight from one foot to the other. "That's gonna be a problem because it's kind of a private matter," he grumbled. "Go on and tell him, El." Max nodded at her. El stood toe to toe with Mike, and bit, "I dump your ass."

     Amanda's eyebrows rose in surprise as Mike's face scrunched back in shock. Max and El went ahead and entered the mall while the rest of them stood around Mike and comforted him. "Now what?" Amanda asked. "We go home and regroup. Think you'll make it back okay?" Will asked her. "I should be," she answered, "I'll be taking the bus. I still need an address, though."

     Will told her Mike's address before she boarded the next bus.

*･゜ﾟ･*:.｡..｡.:*･'

Will was setting up DnD, Mike was moping, and Lucas was comforting Mike when Amanda walked the steps down into Mike's basement.

     "Cool hideout you got here," she complimented, "I don't think my house has a basement." She took notice of the makeshift tent that was set up under a desk and pointed at it. "Who was the stowaway?"

     "How'd you get into my house?" Mike sat up when he saw her. "Didn't my parents notice you walking in?"

     Amanda shrugged. "I don't think anyone who can't see me can see what I do. Whether that be breaking and entering or whatever." She went to go sit at the little table where Will was busy with the campaign.

     "Were you always this sassy when we were in school?"

She shook her head. "Didn't have a reason to be. I was nice to everyone, some were nice to me. Why ruin that?"

     "Now I remember. You were in our Science class, right?"

     "I was supposed to present on the importance of recycling the Monday after I went missing."

     Mike nodded. "Did you have any friends?"

     Amanda pondered about that for a second. "Not very many. It was mostly me, Barb, and the occasional teacher that wouldn't mind having their lunch break being interrupted by a middle schooler."

     "You were friends with Barb?" Mike's eyebrows rose. "Yeah?" she answered, her response coming out as more of a question. "She would keep me company whenever I was in the library. What happened? Is she okay?"

     The kids fell silent for a moment and then Will spoke up. "Uh, the Mind Flayer took her to the Upside Down. And she died."

     "Oh no," Amanda whispered. "Was anyone else taken? Did anyone else die?"

     "Will kind of did?" Lucas answered. "What?" Amanda turned to face Will. "A fake body that was made to look like me was found in a lake," he replied, "that was when the lab was trying to cover up what was going on."

     "How'd the Mind Flayer even get in?" Amanda asked. "You wanna take this one?" Lucas asked Mike, who had suddenly fallen quiet when Amanda asked her question. "Um," Mike started, "El, the girl who just dumped me, kind of opened a gate to the Upside Down when she made contact with the Mind Flayer."

     "How did she do that?"

     "She can travel to this place her mind called the Void. It's pitch black and she can reach whoever or whatever she's trying to reach."

     "Mike," said Amanda, not sure where her question was going but she had to ask, "what is 'El' short for?"

     "Eleven," he responded after a moment. "She was one of the kids that was being experimented on at the lab."

     "Well that makes a lot of sense." Amanda let out a huff. "But how is this thing still alive? I read an article that said the gate was closed and sealed up after Hawkins Lab got busted."

"Dustin theorized something about Russians being behind this. I'm still trying to work out how that could possibly be," Mike grumbled. Amanda's arms unfolded as she exclaimed, "Russians? How do communists fit into all of this?"

"I don't know! Dustin said something about receiving some cryptic Russian message when he was trying to contact his girlfriend in Utah. Didn't I just say that I was trying to work this out?!"

Amanda groaned.

Mike let out a long sigh. "We gotta talk to Dustin about this."

*･゜ﾟ･*:.｡..｡.:*･'

"Nice of you to finally speak to me," Dustin said bitterly through a mouthful of chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream as they all squeezed into a booth at an ice cream parlor called Scoops Ahoy!. They all looked at one another awkwardly before Mike spoke up. "We need to talk to you about something."

"Who's the girl in the dirty overalls?" Dustin pointed his spoon at Amanda and almost dropped it once he recognized her attire. "Mandy?" he asked. Amanda nodded. "My mom was given a missing kid flyer with your picture on it. Will went to your memorial. How are you even alive right now?" he questioned, completely floored to see her.

"I'm not. . .exactly alive, to say the least?" she responded at it looked like Dustin was about to fall right out of the booth and onto the floor in the middle of the parlor. "It's a long story."

"Can we all see her?" Dustin asked the rest of them. They all nodded. "Talk to me," he prompted before taking in another spoonful of ice cream. They then went into how it all happened, ending with Mike asking about the Russian message Dustin heard the other night.

"Oh, yeah," Dustin smirked, "I actually have some people working on it right now."

"Great!" Mike perked up. "Who are they?"

Just as Dustin was about to answer, a boy with full, voluminous hair who smelled suspiciously like Farrah Fawcett hairspray came out of the back in a Scoops Ahoy! uniform. "Dustin!" he exclaimed as he got to him, "we got something! Hey guys." He waved to the kids then pointed at Amanda. "Who's the kid in the dirty ass overalls?"

"Steve, this is Mandy. She goes to school with us," Dustin introduced Steve to her. "She's technically not alive. You're kind of looking at a projection of her right now."

"Whoa." Steve leaned into her space and poked her nose. He could feel it under his finger and then reeled back in realization of it all. "Wait, what do you mean she's technically not alive?!"

"She went missing and now she's a ghost seeking revenge," Dustin explained as if it were obvious, "keep up, Harrington!"

"I'm not actually. . .never mind," Amanda started and then decided to drop it. Steve shook his head. "Anyway, Robin and I got something." He nodded his head in direction of the back room. "Come on."

They all got up and followed Steve to the backroom where there was a table with a Russian-English dictionary on it, a whiteboard with the Russian alphabet, and a girl in the same uniform as Steve wearing a Sony Walkman, pacing the room, and mumbling in Russian. "Hey, Robin," said Steve, "show 'em what ya got."

"Didn't realizing it was show and tell today," Robin remarked sarcastically as she removed her headphones but shared what she had with them regardless. "What I got was, 'The week is long. The silver cat feeds when blue meets yellow in the west. A trip to China sounds nice if you tread lightly.'"

     "Great," Mike commended, "what could that possibly mean?"

"That's what we're still trying to figure out, kid," Robin explained. "It clearly has some sort of subliminal messaging behind it but we have no idea what it could possibly be."

Amanda tugged on Steve's shirt sleeve. "Can you ask her to play the message out loud, please?"

Steve turned to her and then turned back to Robin to ask. Robin complied, pulling the headphones out of their jack and playing the message out loud. Amanda got closer to the Walkman and listened intently. As the message went on, she picked up on a strange musical tune playing in the background. "You guys hear that?" she asked. "Almost sounds like. . .music."

     The message ended and Steve asked Robin to rewind it again. "I've heard that before," Steve commented as the message went on, snapping his fingers to remember. "I know where that's coming from!" He busted out of the backroom and made a break for the exit of the ice cream parlor. They all followed him to the stationary horse ride near the entrance of the mall. "I need a quarter."

     "How can this ride possibly — " Robin started but Steve cut her off. "Someone get me a quarter, dammit!"

     They all dove their hands into their pockets and scrounged around for change. "Got one!" Dustin exclaimed as he fished one out and handed it over to Steve. Steve put it in the ride and waited for it to boot up. The ride came to life and let out a tune. It was the same one that was playing on the tape.

"So the Russians aren't in Russia," Steve revealed, "they're here. In Hawkins, Indiana. In Starcourt Mall."