040 Making a Movie?
After spending Thanksgiving with Hopper and Eleven, Richard returned home. The house, which hadn't been cleaned for two days, was still tidy, thanks to his habit of doing daily chores.
He lay on the couch and relaxed for a while. In the quiet house, even the slightest sounds became impossible to escape Richard's ears. Richard yawned and stood up, walking straight to the vent above his bedroom door. He pried open the external cover, and a strange device flashing a red light with a faint ticking sound appeared before him.
Richard grinned. Without saying a word, he directly removed the device's battery.
Afterward, Richard did another sweep of the house. He found listening bugs and surveillance devices under the trash can and inside the room's alarm clock. Without exception, he dismantled every single one of them.
As Richard cleared out one hidden device after another, both the intelligence personnel from Hawkins Lab and the military's spooks fell silent. One by one, their faces turned red, their expressions dark as storm clouds.
"Which dumbass installed these things? They were all cleared out in minutes!"
He placed the dozen or so collected bugs and surveillance devices on his workbench. After a moment's thought, Richard dismantled the parts of the listening devices. He modified and combined those parts with the cameras, recoded the camera probe's software, and slightly altered the paint and casing. Before long, these spy devices had completely transformed into home security cameras.
Richard kept two for home use, and for the rest, he planned to give them to that guy Eddie to fence later. That guy had plenty of connections.
Perhaps the intelligence team members monitoring Richard's house never dreamed that their high-tech espionage equipment would be so poorly hidden in the eyes of a high school senior. Not only were they discovered instantly, but what was even more outrageous was that he dismantled them, repurposed them for himself, and even planned to sell them on the black market. It was like rubbing salt in the wound.
After a "simple" cleaning of the house, Richard originally wanted to stay in and spend the day chilling. But around three in the afternoon, a well-dressed woman who looked a bit worn out but was decked out in expensive clothes came to visit. She was wearing a designer fur coat and sparkling, luxurious jewelry. Seeing Richard come to open the door, the lady was moved and thanked him gratefully.
It turned out this lady was the mother of the unlucky kid, Troy. She came this time to thank Richard for saving her child's life, bringing many gifts. The most valuable was probably a check for twenty thousand dollars, which Richard could cash at the corresponding bank at any time.
Richard accepted it without hesitation. Before his and Steve's "Dark Tea" officially opened for business, he didn't have a stable income. Besides, he felt no guilt in taking this money.
Richard didn't pay special attention to Troy's current condition, appearing neither particularly warm nor cold. Perhaps sensing Richard's attitude, and having her own matters to handle plus a traumatized son to care for, Troy's mother soon took her leave.
In the afternoon, Robin, who had the day off, came over with snacks and drinks to visit the recovered Richard. The two buddies spent the whole day cooped up at home just watching movies and chatting. Robin didn't leave until it was almost time for her shift the next morning.
Richard and Robin left together because he also happened to need to go downtown to first cash the twenty-thousand-dollar check from Troy's mother.
After successfully exchanging the check for cash and depositing it into his bank account, Richard ran into Steve, who had specifically come looking for him, just as he stepped out of the bank.
"Richard, are you going to the party Jones is hosting tonight?" Steve took off his Ray-Bans with a face full of smiles. He leaned one shoulder out of the car window, lightly tapping the door of his precious BMW. "Nancy, Jonathan, and Barbara will all be there."
"A party?" Richard considered it for a moment and nodded in agreement. "Sure."
Even though he had cleared out all the surveillance and listening devices in the house, Richard had still heard some movement coming from outside when he went to the bathroom in the middle of the night. He guessed these people were likely intelligence personnel from The Lab. They had given up on electronic surveillance and switched to old-school human surveillance.
Since that was the case, he might as well put on more of an act and behave more in line with typical teenage behavior, so they would drop their surveillance of him sooner.
"Hey, awesome, let's go, get in!" Steve was even happier. In the past, whenever he invited Richard to join an activity, Richard almost always turned him down. Although he didn't say it openly, he actually felt a bit hurt and doubtful, wondering if Richard truly considered him a friend. Now, all his unhappiness and doubts vanished.
Richard vaulted over and flipped into the back seat of the car, asking, "The party is tonight, right? Where are we heading now?"
"Our shop is done with renovations. Don't you want to check it out?"
"Oh? That was fast?" Richard's interest was immediately piqued.
Arriving again at the bubble tea shop he and Steve had taken over, compared to last time, the shop was now completely renovated. Even the displays and the shop's mascot were placed at the entrance to welcome customers. All that was missing were the machines for the counter and the shop's sign above the door.
"Dude, I have to say, the renovation design you suggested is really solid. It's got a great vibe." Steve was very satisfied with the results of the renovation.
Richard also nodded in approval. The contractors were quite reliable, having restored about seventy to eighty percent of the aesthetic he wanted. He asked, "Roughly when can we open?"
"The 20th of next month," Steve replied.
Richard looked thoughtful. "The 20th? That's right before Christmas. Maybe we can take advantage of that and launch a 'Grand Opening + Christmas' double celebration event to rake it in."
Steve stood by, silently listening to his buddy's planning. Every time he heard a good idea, he couldn't help but be impressed, but as he heard more and more marketing tactics that were increasingly cutthroat, he couldn't help but feel a bit alarmed.
As expected, was this good friend of his more suited to be born into his own family?
If his old man could have a "ruthless businessman" son like Richard, that old capitalist father wouldn't even know how to contain his joy.
"How much money do we have left?" Richard calculated briefly, silently deciding on a feasible opening plan, and then asked Steve.
"Over thirty grand left," Steve replied.
Richard nodded, squinting his eyes and grinning. "Not bad. I've got twenty thousand here. Let's each take a portion of the money to promote our shop."
"Uh, how do you plan to do that?"
"Let me ask you, are there any abandoned mansions in this town? The kind that looks like only rich people could afford to live there."
"Uh... there should be some, I guess." Steve was a bit uncertain. In his memory, there were quite a few uninhabited abandoned houses in town, but abandoned grand mansions were rare. He hadn't paid much attention to them.
Richard thought for a moment. "No worries. We can check the town library later."
Steve nodded and asked with a puzzled look, "Even though I've got your back no matter what, you have to tell me what you want to do, right?"
"Make a movie," Richard said seriously.
Steve processed this. "Oh... so it's making a movie... WHAT THE HELL!?"
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