Suspicious Minds (Stranger Things Novels #1)(35)

Gloria put her elbows on the table. “I might be able to help with that part. If you can get into his office, the best thing would be documents that describe experiment protocols. Also subject records.” She frowned. “You might need to find a key. Brenner’s not a slouch. Most scientists would lock up classified information.”

“I can pick a lock,” Alice said.

Crap, but then…“He’s too arrogant for us to need to,” Terry said. “I bet he takes the protections all around him in Hawkins for granted enough not to worry about the security inside his office.”

Gloria lifted two crossed fingers. “I think…I might be able to grab some samples of the drug cocktail. In case we need it for proof or to analyze somehow.”

“All right,” Terry said.

Gloria lifted her eyebrows. “Then we have a very slim, risky plan.”

“So we do,” Terry said.

It felt better than not having one, slim or not.

Alice nudged Andrew’s arm. “I read about your protest, big brother. Can’t believe you got arrested. Everything okay?”

Her obvious concern made Terry’s heart grow. This might have been the only five minutes today she hadn’t spent worrying about him.

“I’m fine,” Andrew said, ducking his head.

“He meets with his advisor and the dean on Friday. We’re hoping he gets off because of the other guys,” Terry said.

Andrew gave her a grateful look.

Gloria lifted her fingers again, still crossed.

“Yeah,” Terry said. “We need all the luck we can get right now.”





3.


Ken got out of the van last and hurried to catch the others so they could walk to the lab entrance together.

The entire approach had grown as familiar to him as his own handwriting. Once outside the city came the cornfields, followed by the woods, and then the chain link and the speed bumps, one, two, three, as they rolled through the security stops and on into the building for their LSD. He felt like he’d seen it in glimpses, before they’d made the first drive. He knew the others didn’t believe that he was psychic. What people believed didn’t matter.

The truth did. He didn’t see monsters, but he got feelings. Certainty would lodge itself in his chest. He had dreams with snatches of reality mixed in. Flashes of intuition. These came unpredictably—which he always thought was funny—and so he was never surprised if an inkling showed up. Or if it didn’t.

He hadn’t been lying when he told the others he knew they’d be important to each other. It’s just…that was most of what he knew.

So, sure, he understood why other people didn’t believe he was psychic. Maybe he wasn’t. Maybe there just wasn’t another good word to describe it.

The entry protocol had also taken on a familiar rhythm. Each of the women scanned in with ID cards, then Ken last. The driver usually played escort, bringing them to the elevator where Brenner or one of his staff would meet them. The driver, of course, was also a plant—one of Brenner’s orderlies who almost always peeled off with Brenner and Terry, into whatever room she was taken into.

So it went today.

When the agreed-upon two hours into their trips arrived, and he began to shriek about how the walls were bleeding, the guy assigned to watch him shifted nervously.

“They’re bleeding! The walls are dripping blood!”

“Keep it down,” the guy said, fidgeting.

“Pull an alarm!” Ken roared. “You have to tell everyone! Invaders! Don’t you see the blood?!”

“Uh…” The man stood in his orderly costume looking around as if someone might help him, but they were alone.

It was now that Ken would pull out his big gun—a packet of ZotZ. He’d bought his mom’s Halloween supplies and when he’d seen this new type of candy in the aisle, it had called to him. He’d bought three packs and put them in a desk drawer in his dorm room. He’d known why the moment Terry said she needed a diversion.

Keening and covering his mouth, he put a handful of the candies with the sour exploding centers in and chomped down, then threw his head back so the guy could hear the fizzing sound and see the foam. He jerked as convincingly as he could, imitating his uncle mid-seizure.

As anticipated, the practically-a-kid orderly flipped out.

“I think he’s got rabies!” he said before he rushed out the door.

“The blood! The blood!” Ken shouted, barely able to keep from cracking up. He ran out into the hallway and pulled the fire alarm lever on the wall, then darted back into the exam room and proceeded to swallow the remaining ZotZ and convulse on the floor.

The alarm shrieked on and the orderly finally returned with a tall female doctor who gave Ken one look and said, “We’ll have to get Brenner.” The orderly did nothing, and she shoved him. “Get Brenner! And tell him to bring some sedatives.”

Ken turned his face toward the floor so he could grin.

Go, Terry, go, he thought. You can do this.





4.


Terry discovered that having comrades-in-arms and a shared plan made everything feel different.

She had both less and more weight on her shoulders.

Everyone else believed Brenner might be into something he had no business messing with, too. Meeting Kali followed by the revelation of Alice’s monsters—and Brenner’s electroshock—just gave her more reasons she had to get to the bottom of this. People in this area were conservative, generally speaking. They wouldn’t approve of government-funded acid trips. That might be enough to end the whole thing. But even Terry knew they needed proof that wasn’t their word against his. And they still didn’t have a real idea of what was happening.