September brought cooler air and the careful execution of a plan I'd been building for months.
The Party was in seventh grade now—Mike Wheeler, Dustin Henderson, Lucas Sinclair, and Will Byers. I'd been watching them peripherally for two years, waiting for the right mont to make contact. They were the core. The ones who'd discover Eleven, fight the Demogorgon, save Hawkins multiple tis.
They just didn't know it yet.
I approached Eddie during lunch, keeping my voice casual. "You free Saturday night? Need a favor."
"Depends on the favor." Eddie stabbed his mystery at suspiciously. "Last ti you asked for a favor, I ended up teaching basketball players about D&D character optimization."
"Different kind of favor. I need you to DM a session at my place. One-shot campaign, four players, ages twelve to thirteen."
Eddie's eyebrows rose. "You want to run a kids' ga?"
"Smart kids. Really smart. Trust ."
He studied for a long mont. "You're collecting strays again, aren't you? Expanding your weird social experint."
"Sothing like that." I grabbed my tray. "Saturday, six PM. I'll provide pizza and materials. You provide the dungeon-mastering."
"This better not be a prank."
"When have I ever pranked anyone?"
"Fair point. You're weirdly sincere for a jock." Eddie crumpled his napkin. "Fine. But they better actually be into it. I don't do pity D&D."
"They'll be into it."
Dustin
When Steve Harrington invited Dustin and his friends to play D&D at his mansion, Dustin's first thought was trap.
His second thought was aweso trap, though.
"It's weird, right?" Lucas said as they biked toward the house Saturday evening. "King Steve suddenly cares about middle schoolers?"
"He's not King Steve," Mike corrected. "Not like Tommy H. or those guys. He's... different."
"Different how?" Will asked quietly.
"Like he knows sothing we don't."
Dustin pedaled harder. "Maybe he's secretly a nerd. Rich kid closet geek trying to live vicariously through actual nerds."
"Or it's an elaborate prank," Lucas suggested.
"Only one way to find out."
The Harrington house was ridiculous—sprawling, expensive, completely empty except for Steve himself when he answered the door. No parents. No siblings. Just Steve in jeans and a faded concert shirt, looking nothing like the jock persona he wore at school.
"Guys! Co in." He gestured them toward the basent. "Eddie's setting up downstairs. Pizza's on the way."
The basent was aweso. Finished space with leather furniture, a pool table, and toward one corner, training equipnt that seed out of place. Heavy bag. Weights. Stuff that suggested Steve spent ti down here doing sothing other than watching TV.
Eddie Munson—the Eddie Munson, legendary DM—sat at a table covered in maps and miniatures.
"Welco, nerds," Eddie said dramatically. "Tonight you face the Tomb of Elental Evil. Prepare your dice and your courage."
They played for two hours. Eddie was brilliant—voices for every NPC, dramatic reveals, perfect pacing. Steve watched from the couch, occasionally asking questions that proved he actually understood the chanics. Not playing, but engaged.
When the campaign concluded with a narrow victory against the tomb's guardian, Dustin felt that post-session buzz that ca from really good D&D.
Then Steve stood and locked the basent door.
"Okay," Steve said, turning to face them. "Real reason I invited you here."
The mood shifted imdiately.
Steve
Four twelve-year-olds stared at with varying degrees of suspicion and curiosity.
This is it. The gamble. Make it good.
"I'm going to show you sothing," I said carefully. "And you're going to keep quiet about it because if you don't, people will think you're crazy. But also because what I'm about to show you is legitimately impossible, and impossible things draw dangerous attention."
Mike's eyes narrowed. "What kind of impossible?"
I pulled the compass from my pocket, set it on the table. "This compass doesn't point north. It points toward danger. Threats. Things that want to hurt people."
"That's..." Dustin leaned forward. "That's not possible. Magnets don't work like that."
"Correct." I waited, letting them stare at the compass. The needle spun lazily, finding nothing imdiately threatening. "Watch."
I walked to the far wall where I'd rigged a small smoke detector with a remote trigger hidden in my pocket. Pressed the button. The detector's alarm shrieked through the basent.
The compass needle snapped toward it imdiately, pointing directly at the sudden loud noise—potential threat, potential danger.
I killed the alarm. The needle wavered, then resud its lazy spin.
"Holy shit," Lucas breathed.
"Language," Mike said automatically, but his eyes were locked on the compass.
Will hadn't spoken. He just watched, utterly focused, like he was seeing sothing more than a trick compass.
"That's one item." I reached into the space beside my hip—the movent I'd practiced until it looked completely natural—and extracted the grappling hook gun. Set it beside the compass. Then the dkit beside that.
Three impossible items spread across the table.
Dustin's jaw literally dropped. "How did you—where did that co from?"
"From here." I gestured vaguely at the air beside . "I have access to sothing I call the Dinsional Backpack. It's a pocket of space that only I can open. Every hundred days, I can extract one random item. Once it's out, anyone can use it. But only I can access the storage dinsion."
Mike stood, walked around the table, examined the items from every angle. "This is either the greatest prank in history or—"
"Or I'm telling the truth." I t his eyes. "You're smart kids. Smarter than most adults I know. You understand pattern recognition, probability, scientific thod. So think: what's more likely? That I set up an elaborate prank involving impossible items and physics-defying compasses? Or that sothing genuinely strange exists in Hawkins, and I'm trying to understand it?"
Silence. Will reached out slowly, touched the grappling hook's cable. His fingers traced the aircraft-grade steel.
"Why show us?" he asked, voice barely audible.
"Because in about fourteen months—" I let the number hang. "—sothing bad is going to happen in Hawkins. I don't know exactly what. But my compass has been increasingly active. Pointing toward the woods near the lab. Toward specific locations around town. Whatever this power is, whatever dinsional space I'm accessing, it's connected to sothing else. Sothing coming."
"Fourteen months," Dustin repeated. "That's... specific."
"I have reasons to believe that tiline. Can't explain all of them." Because explaining would an admitting I know your futures, know what monsters you'll fight, know which of you almost dies. "What I need is help. Research. Investigation. You four work as a team better than anyone I've seen. You're smart, creative, and you already understand that the world is weirder than most people think."
Lucas crossed his arms. "What's in it for us?"
"Access to impossible items as I extract them. A chance to investigate genuine mystery instead of just playing pretend. And—" I paused. "—knowing you helped prepare for sothing that could hurt people you care about."
"That's ominous," Mike said.
"It's honest." I grabbed the compass, held it up. "I'm not asking you to believe blindly. I'm asking you to investigate, gather evidence, help understand the chanics. Dustin, you could analyze the charging patterns. Mike, you could develop tactical applications. Lucas, logistics and planning. Will, you could docunt everything."
Will's expression shifted—recognition, maybe, of being seen as valuable rather than just tagging along with his friends.
"And if we decide you're crazy?" Lucas challenged.
"Then you walk away with a cool story about the ti Steve Harrington showed you magic items and made wild claims about the future." I set the compass down. "But I don't think you'll walk away. Because you four already know Hawkins is strange. You feel it. The wrongness at the edges."
Dustin and Mike exchanged glances. Will touched the dkit, fingers exploring the canvas.
"Prove it works," Mike demanded. "The backpack. Show us the extraction."
"Can't. Battery's at zero. Takes one percent per day to recharge, one hundred days to full capacity. Last extraction was June. Next one's December." I pointed at the items. "But you can test these. Use the compass—you'll find it consistently points toward potential threats. The dkit has healing salves that work in minutes instead of days. The grappling hook has ten shots remaining in the gas cartridge."
Lucas picked up the grappling hook, examined the chanism. "This is military-grade equipnt."
"Which I couldn't buy legally, couldn't afford if I could, and couldn't hide from my parents if I tried." I let that sink in. "The only explanation is the one I gave you."
Mike
Mike Wheeler didn't trust easily, and he definitely didn't trust popular kids bearing impossible gifts.
But Steve Harrington wasn't normal popular. He was friends with Eddie Munson. He'd defended Will from bullies in sixth grade. He looked at the four of them like they mattered, like their opinions actually counted.
And these items were real. Mike had examined them from every angle. No hidden strings on the compass. No battery compartnt in the grappling hook's impossible chanism. Materials that shouldn't exist outside military surplus stores.
"If you're lying," Mike said slowly, "this is the most elaborate setup ever."
"I'm not lying."
"And if you're telling the truth, sothing dangerous is coming to Hawkins in fourteen months."
"Yes."
Mike looked at his friends. Dustin was practically vibrating with excitent, already calculating mathematical patterns. Lucas remained skeptical but intrigued. Will was quiet, but his eyes held sothing Mike couldn't quite read.
He believes it, Mike realized. Will already believes sothing bad is coming.
"What do you think?" Mike asked them directly.
"I think this is the coolest thing that's ever happened to us," Dustin said imdiately. "Dinsional physics! Practical applications of theoretical science! A mystery with actual stakes!"
"I think it's potentially dangerous," Lucas countered. "But also potentially important. If Steve's right—if sothing bad is coming—better to be prepared."
They all looked at Will.
"I want to help," Will said quietly. "Sothing's wrong in Hawkins. I've felt it. This might be how we fix it."
Mike turned back to Steve. "Okay. We're in. But we have conditions."
"Na them."
"Full transparency about what you know. Regular etings to share information. And if this gets dangerous—actually dangerous—you tell us imdiately."
"Deal." Steve extended his hand. "Welco to the research team."
They shook on it, and Mike felt the weight of sothing shifting. This wasn't just accepting Steve's story. This was choosing to step toward sothing unknown.
Good, a voice in his head whispered. You'll need to be brave for what's coming.
Steve
Robin and Eddie appeared from upstairs as The Party packed up to leave, having watched from the landing but staying out of sight during the reveal.
"That went well," Robin said once the kids were gone. "Better than I expected."
"They're smart. Once they verify the items work, they'll commit fully." I collapsed onto the couch, exhausted from the performance. "Dustin will start calculating recharge rates by tomorrow. Mike will develop tactical scenarios. Lucas will plan logistics. Will will docunt everything."
"And you'll have four middle schoolers investigating dinsional anomalies." Eddie grabbed a leftover slice of pizza. "This is either brilliant or insane."
"Both. Probably both."
Robin sat beside . "You really think sothing bad is coming in fourteen months?"
November 6, 1983. Will Byers vanishes. The gate opens. Everything starts falling apart.
"Yeah," I said quietly. "I really do."
"Then I guess it's good you're building a team." She bumped my shoulder. "Even if that team includes twelve-year-olds."
"Especially because it includes twelve-year-olds." I stood, began cleaning up the D&D materials. "They're going to save the world soday. Might as well start training them now."
Eddie and Robin exchanged glances but didn't push. They'd learned over the past two years that I had information I couldn't or wouldn't share, and they'd accepted it. Trust earned through consistency.
The Party would verify the items over the coming weeks. The compass would prove its function. The dkit's salves would demonstrate impossible healing. And they'd commit fully to investigating the mystery I'd presented, never knowing I'd already solved it.
426 days until Will disappeared.
426 days to make them ready.
Better get started.
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