Jade finally arrived and looked up at the Starcourt Mall neon sign above her as she walked in its front doors after attaching her bike to the bike stands. 

Okay, where was Scoops Ahoy; where was Scoops Ahoy? Jade thought until her eyes finally landed on the nautical themed ice cream shop. There you are ... 

As Jade approached she noticed that no one was working the front or even serving ice cream. I guess he could be in the back? She thought while walking to side door.

Before opening the door, however, she heard Dustin's distinct voice saying something about a card opening a door, evil Russians, and those evil Russians having guns ... it sounded like they weren't talking about something in the news but rather a plan or a scheme. 

"Um ... hi! Dustin and Steve, what are y'all talking about?" Jade asked with a very inquisitive and almost apologetic face for barging in. 

"Oh hi ... um ... yeah ..." Steve said while jumping up from his seat, "We were just talking about ..." he looked to Dustin for help. 

"We were just talking about the evil Russians that we think are working underneath this very mall," Dustin said matter-of-factly. He looked around at Robin and Steve's shocked faces and continued, "What? We can trust her. Plus she can probably help!" Dustin said giving Steve a certain kind of You-Get-What-I'm-Saying-Look. 

"Yeah, I can help with anything!" Jade explained before anyone could change their minds, "So explain all this to me ... Russians are doing what now?" 

...

After taking about 45 minutes of Dustin and Sailor Steve talking over each other trying to explain what their theories were, and finding out that Robin is surprisingly smart knowing all those languages and figuring out the code (which, to Jade's dismay, she did not like hearing that Robin is so smart, but it simultaneously made her like Robin more), Jade was finally up to speed. 

"So ... what now?" Jade inquired.

"Well ... we are trying to figure out a way into the facility other than the back door. There has just got to be a way in ..." Robin said the last part as if to herself. 

Steve, fooling with his sailor's hat, spoke up and said confidently, "Well ... you know ... I could just take him out." He finished with a shrug. 

"Take who out?" Robin and Jade said at the same time looking at each other. 

"The Russian guard," Steve said matter-of-factly, "What? I sneak up behind him, knock him out, take his key card; it's easy!" 

Dustin interrupted, "Uh ... did you not hear the part about the massive gun?" 

Steve eyeballed Jade and looked back to him, "Yes, Dustin, I did, and that's why I would be ... sneaking," he said with an emphasis on the last word. 

Jade, Robin, and Dustin smirked at the same time.

Dustin continued, trying to knock some sense into the boy, "Well, please, tell me this, and be honest: have you ever actually won a fight?" 

"Okay! It was one time --" Steve tried to stick up for himself and his bright ideas.

"Twice -- Jonathan, the year prior," Dustin interrupted.

"Wait ... Jonathan Myers beat you in a fight?" Jade asked, completely shocked; she didn't think Jonathan had it in him, well, just from the short time she met him. 

"Yes --" Steve spoke up.

"And, wasn't it Billy Hargrove the second time?" Robin said with a bit of a smirk on her face; she winked up at Jade. 

"Yes, but the first one doesn't count," Steve said, sitting up straighter trying to appear taller. 

"Why wouldn't it count?" Said Dustin, defiantly. " ... Because it looked like he beat the shit out of you!" 

As Dustin and Steve continued arguing, Jade noticed Robin looking up at the wall towards the air vent, and immediately knew what she was on to. 

"That might just work ..." Robin said only loud enough for Jade to hear over Dustin and Steve while she moved closer to the wall too. 

"The air vents," Jade and Robin said at the same time turning to each other. They immediately chuckled realizing it would take women to figure this stuff out while the men argue. 

"I'm Jade by the way; I've known Dustin and Steve and their friends for a few years, but I ... uh ... went to a different school," Jade said and looked over to see Steve catch her eye when he heard her say his name. 

"Hi, I'm Robin; nice to meet you." 

"Yeah, you too!" 

"So ... it just so happens ..." Robin stated, while going over to a big metal filing cabinet and pulling out papers, " ... that I have some of the blue prints for the mall!" 

"How in the hell did you get those ... and why?" Steve asked, completely shocked. 

"How is a story for another time, but why? Well your friends always needed back routes to the movie theatre, so how did you think I knew what to tell you for you to tell them?" She said.

"Genius!" Dustin said with a smile from ear to ear, "And, jeez, thanks I guess! Saved us two dollars every time!" 

"TWO DOLLARS?!" Jade said, completely taken aback by how cheap everything was in this time. Jade noticed Robin looking at her weird and immediately covered up by saying, "I mean ... two dollars? That's nice to save that!" Jade awkwardly said shaking her head after, amazed at her own stupidity and carelessness.  

"Uh ... yeah ... so ..." Robin laid out the papers on the table, "Here are the blueprints, and I think, here are the air ducts and where they lead to!" 

"Not bad!" Dustin said.

"So this is us: Scoops," Robin said pointing to the blue outlined square that was apparently Scoops Ahoy. "And this -- is where we want to go," she continued pointing to another blue box. "It turns out, this secret room needs air just like any old room," she picked up a red Expo marker and began drawing on the sheets, "And these air ducts lead all the way to here!" 

"Nice one!" Dustin replied to all of this. 

Steve immediately found a screwdriver to undo the screws and peered inside the vent on top of a ladder with Jade and Robin standing below looking up. Jade's thoughts began to notice how much she really did love that sailor's uniform ...

"Fwashlighth," Steve mumbled with the screwdriver in his mouth. Dustin obliged handing him the red flashlight, "Yeah, man, I don't know if you're gonna fit. It's, like, super tight." 

"I'll fit," Dustin replied confidently and almost proudly, "Trust me. No collar bones -- remember?" 

"What?" Jade said under her breath and Robin shrugged and looked just as confused. 

"Oh yeah, he's got some disease or something. It's like craydo ... cray- something?" Steve mumbled on having seen Jade and Robin's reactions, "I don't know; he's missing bones or something; he can bend like Gumbo."

"You mean Gumby?" Jade said, seeming to take the words right from Robin's mouth.

"No, I'm pretty sure it's Gumbo," Steve said quite confidently. Jade and Robin smirked and shared a moment after he turned back around. 

Suddenly, Dustin's echo-ey voice was heard saying, "Just shut up, and push me!" 

"Okay!" Steve reluctantly began pushing his feet up. 

"Grab my ass!" 

"What?!" 

"Touch my butt! I don't care!" 

"I don't want to!" Steve, however, began to push Dustin's butt. 

"Push harder!" Dustin squealed almost like a pig. 

"Okay, I'm gonna just shove you. Are you ready?" Steve said with half of Dustin's body in the vent, the other half on Steve's back.

The last shove just made Dustin more stuck to which Jade and Robin heard a distant "shit!" in the vent. They couldn't hold their laughter anymore and began shaking with laughter at the sight. 

"Scoops Ahoy?! All hands on deck! Ahoy!" Jade heard a voice coming from behind the front register along with dinging, and found a small black girl with cute overalls and a pink backpack trying to get their attention. 

"Hey! How about her?" Jade said, pointing to the little girl. Robin smiled at her and nodded.

... 

Author's Note: 

Hello readers! Please don't forget to rate/like chapters! Also, please feel free to comment wherever and whenever, I love it! Thanks, xoxo.

Here's my fave photo of Steve (Joe) by the way: