Crush Culture [M.Wheeler]

[12] TRAITOR

Mike sits in front of Eleven, stabbing his pencil through the lined paper like Mr. Clarke has showed them earlier.

"It would take a lot of energy to build a gate like this. But that's got to be what happened. Otherwise, how'd Will get there, right?" Mike asks.

"R—Right." She responds softly.

"What we want to know is, do you know where the gate is?" Lucas speaks up. Nori sighs, looking up at Dustin, who was spinning around with his compass.

Eleven shakes her head.

"Then how did you know about the Upside Down?" Lucas questions in frustration. She sighs, looking down at her hands.

"Dustin, what are you doing?" Nori finally asks, squinting her eyes. "Dustin?" She asks again, due to no response.

"Dustin!" Mike joins in, so does Lucas.

"I... I need to see your compasses." Dustin states.

"What?" Mike furrows his eyebrows.

"Your compasses. All of your compasses, right now!" He yells.

***

They set all of the compasses they could find onto the table, Dustin checking them carefully.

"What's exciting about this?" Mike asks.

"Well, they're all facing north, right?" Dustin smiles.

"Yeah, So?" Lucas shrugs.

"Well, that's not true north."

"What do you mean?" Nori chimes in, feeling as Mike rests his hands on her shoulders and places his chin on top of her head.

"I mean exactly what I just said. That's not true north." Dustin responds obviously. "Are you all seriously this dense?"

Lucas shrugs once more, waiting for him to get to the point.

"The sun rises in the east, and it sets in the west. Right?" Dustin explains, as if he were speaking to a child.

"Which means that's true north." He points behind Nori and Mike.

"So what you're saying is the compasses are broken." Mike takes away.

Dustin sighs in disappointment. "Do you even understand how a compass works?" He picks one up. "Do you see a battery pack on this?"

"No." Nori says.

"No, you don't. Because it doesn't need one. The needle's naturally drawn to the Earth's magnetic North Pole." Dustin concludes, setting it back down onto the table.

"So what's wrong with them?" Lucas asks.

"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—"