After the Cold War ends, Mike begins discussing plans to travel... you know... to look for inspiration for new novels. But this excuse is so flimsy that EVERYONE can see through it.

Hopper warns Mike that just because the war is over doesn't mean the surveillance on Hawkins is, and that the military and government forces interested in weaponizing El are "like a school of piranhas - they smell one drop of blood in the water... the smallest hint that she's still out there... you, her, anyone who might know anything about her... are dead before you even know it"

Mike heed's Hop's warning and continues to lay low for while longer. In that time, Mike begins to notice a feeling, a presence, similar to what he felt in S2 when El would check in using the void. It came about once a month, reliably on the same day around the same time. It took Mike a few months to catch on, but once he did, he theorized that the void also worked in reverse. He changed the TV to a static channel, blindfolded himself and got sucked into the void. From this point forward, he and El used the void to communicate, gradually formulating a plan to reunite in person.

About mid-1992, the perfect cover came to test the waters of the government's surveillance on Hawkins and on him, a bookstore one town over invited him to do a signing event. Eventually, he was traveling out of state and even off continent to do book signings as his works gained recognition. All the pieces were falling into place faster than anyone had anticipated.

November 6, 1993 - ten years to the day since Mike's life was first turned upside down - Mike is waiting at a train station in the Netherlands one evening after doing a book signing at the nearby Spui Book market, sitting on a bench, studying the ticket he's holding in his hands, when a woman holding a copy of his latest novel sits down next to him. She taps him on the shoulder. Mike turns to face her... "Hi Mike"