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Lucas and Mike are talking amongst themselves. El is quietly listening to the two of them, who are trying to come up with a theory about where the gate may be. Robbie taps his thumbs on the table, weirdly comfortable hanging out in the Wheeler's basement with a bunch of kids.
"It would take a lot of energy to build a gate like this. But that's got to be what happened," explains Mike.
Lucas puts a hand to his chin. "Otherwise, how'd Will get there, right?"
"Right." Mike looks at El. "What we want to know is, do you know where the gate is?"
El shakes her head.
"Then how do you know about the Upside Down?"
El swivels her head to Dustin, watching as he spins around the basement, holding a compass in his hand. Robbie stares at him. "Dustin, what are you doing? Dustin?"
"Dustin!" Mike and Lucas shout.
Dustin stares between all of them. "I—I need to see your compasses."
"What?" inquires Mike.
"Your compasses. All of your compasses, right now!"
The four boys hurry around the basement, looking for all the compasses they can find. They dump them onto the card table. Robbie stares at them. "What's exciting about this?"
"Well, they're all facing north, right?"
"Yeah, so?" questions Lucas. He rolls his eyes at his friend.
"Well, that's not true north."
"What do you mean?" Mike wonders, furrowing his eyebrows together.
Dustin stares at him, annoyed. "I mean exactly what I just said. That's not true north. Are you both seriously this dense? The sun rises in the east, and it sets in the west. Right?"
"Which means that's true north," adds Robbie, catching on to what Dustin is saying.
"So what you're saying is the compasses are broken," replies Mike.
Dustin sighs, grabbing a compass. "Do you even understand how a compass works? Do you see a battery pack on this? No. No, you don't. Because it doesn't need one. The needle's naturally drawn to the Earth's magnetic North Pole."
"So what's wrong with them?" inquires Robbie, running a hand through his curly hair.
"Well, that's what I couldn't figure out, but then I remembered. You can change the direction of a compass with a magnet. If there's the presence of a more powerful magnetic field, the needle deflects to that power. And then I remembered what Mr. Clarke said. The gate would have so much power—"
"It could disrupt the electromagnetic field," finishes Robbie.
Dustin nods, smirking. "Exactly. Meaning, if we follow the compasses' north they should lead us to the gate."
Jonathan is standing in the field behind his house, practicing with the gun he got at the funeral. He shoots at a can set up on a tree stump. He misses several shots. He sighs, lowering the gun. Nancy walks up from behind him, carrying a bag with their supplies.
"You're supposed to hit the cans, right?"
YOU ARE READING
Shadows of the Night •a Stranger Things story•
FanfictionOver the years nightmares have been a frequent friend in the Hopper house. Chills and a scream lodged in the back of her throat is the only way that Christine Hopper knows how to wake up. Her father tries hard to believe his daughter has a handle on...
