Encounters:
Mikey and the Desperate Mother
"Yep, I'm heading home, Leo. I met with Nobody and got the low down on the guy he wants us to watch," Mikey said, talking into his shell cell while he jogged across the rooftop of an apartment building.
He listened as he jumped across to the next building. "Nope, just the one night. Nobody said he'd be back in town day after tomorrow."
Mikey rolled his eyes in response to Leo's next admonition. "Chill bro'. I'm not making any detours. It's dead out here anyway."
Finally released from the call, Mikey tucked his shell cell away and leaped onto a fire escape. Scaling it to reach the top of the next building in line, Mikey paused to take in the view.
New York City at night could be beautiful or desolate, depending on where a turtle happened to be. This was one of the in between areas, but it was near the river, so from the right vantage point it was very picturesque.
Neither he nor his brothers had been topside in days. They had come in after daybreak one morning and Master Splinter had grounded them. The only reason Mikey was out at the moment was because their friend Nobody had called to ask for a favor.
Because it was Mikey's shell cell he always called, it was the youngest turtle who was allowed to go out and meet with him. It felt good to stretch his legs. Mikey loved his family, but he didn't love being cooped up with them for too long. Especially not with Raph when that particular brother was in a foul mood.
Mikey wished he could have snuck out with his skateboard. Unfortunately, Leo had strategically placed himself between Mikey and his board. He probably figured that his little brother would dally if he had the chance to session some surface terrain. Leonardo was in double henpecking mode.
Making a mental note to get himself a second skateboard that he could hide in the tunnels, Mikey turned away from the river view to continue his journey home.
He was just speeding up to make a particularly long jump when a woman's screams brought him to a skidding halt. Changing direction, Mikey ran towards the sounds as the blast of a car horn mingled with the woman's cries.
"Let me go! No! No!"
Reaching the edge of the roof, Mikey looked down at the street. A block away, a white SUV was double parked in front of a townhouse. Its front driver's side door was open and a large man was fighting with the woman who sat behind the wheel.
It was clear that the man was trying to pull the woman out of the vehicle. Mikey had no idea why, but he could guess that he was probably seeing a carjacking in progress.
The woman was not giving up her SUV easily. Mikey had witnessed a few carjacking's in his life, but he'd never seen anyone put up such an intense struggle.
Moving fast, Mikey sped towards the scene. As he drew closer, he could see the woman clawing at her attacker with one hand, the other holding the steering wheel in a death grip.
Mikey was still half a block away when the man drew back a fist and punched the woman in the face. The blow rocked her back but she continued to fight, kicking at the man with one foot.
He hit her again, stunning her enough so that he could grab her leg and drag her from her vehicle. Tossing her to the ground, he leaped into the driver's seat and she made a desperate lunge to latch onto his ankle.
"Help! Help! Help me!" she screamed.
The attacker tried pulling his leg from her grasp but she refused to let go. Porch lights were beginning to come on, the woman's screams attracting the attention of the neighborhood.
Mikey was nearing the SUV when the car thief kicked the woman in the face. The blow snapped her head back and she let go of his leg, giving him time to slam the door shut.
As the SUV pulled forward, Mikey shifted his focus to the prone woman. Clearly injured, she lurched to her feet and began a stumbling run down the street, chasing after her stolen vehicle.
"Lady, stop! You're hurt!" Mikey called out, astonished that she was still trying to save her car.
She paused long enough for him to catch up to her and then clutched at his arm. Blood ran from a gash in her forehead and she was breathing hard. If his appearance shocked her at all, she didn't show it, no doubt too dazed from what had just happened to register the fact that he wasn't human.
Her next words chilled him to his very bones.
"Help me! Please! My baby's in the car!" she shouted.
Mikey took off like a shot, racing after the vehicle. Now he understood why the woman was fighting so hard; it wasn't for the car, it was for the child who was still inside.
As he ran, Mikey reached into his belt for the collapsible grappling hook his brother Donatello had designed. Snapping it open, he began swinging it on the length of three hundred pound test line that was attached. Despite the situation, Mikey couldn't help but chuckle at the thought that he was fishing for an SUV.
The street they were on led to one of the tourist river docks, but there was a crossroad between the two which ran alongside the river. If the thief didn't want to end up on the dock and thus in a dead end, he was going to have to slow to make his turn.
When the SUV began to slow Mikey closed the distance to it, giving him the chance to throw his grappling hook. It landed atop the vehicle and caught on the luggage rack.
Gripping the fishing line tight, Mikey was jerked off his feet. The thin line bit into his palms and stung like crazy, but he ignored the pain to reach higher on the line and pull himself up. It took only a couple of seconds for him to grasp the metal rack and swing onto the top of the moving vehicle.
Scrambling across the roof, Mikey reached the area above the driver's side of the SUV. With one hand firmly locked on the roof rack, he leaned over the side to grab the door handle.
The thief saw him just as Mikey flung the door open.
"What the fu . . . ?"
"Stop the car!" Mikey demanded.
Eyes wide, the man hit the gas pedal rather than the brakes. The SUV shot forward and Mikey barely pulled himself up before the momentum swung the door closed again. Unfortunately, the thief was leaning out when it happened and the window struck him full in the face.
The SUV shot across the crossroad and onto the dock. Through the glass, Mikey could see the man slumped over the steering wheel.
His foot was still on the gas pedal and the SUV barreled towards the barrier at the end of the dock. Mikey could hear the baby inside the vehicle, its cries shrill and panicked.
There was no time to do anything but brace for impact. Hanging on for dear life, Mikey put his head down and held on as tight as he could.
The SUV struck the barrier hard, wrenching the footings loose from their moorings. Though it slowed the vehicle slightly, it wasn't enough to keep the SUV from plummeting into the river.
It hit nose first, the hood going under the water. Mikey bounced against the roof as it hit, and then let go so he could stand up to access the situation.
The back end of the vehicle was still floating above water. From experience, Mikey knew that it wouldn't sink straight away and he had a few minutes.
His first objective was the baby. There was water up to the front windshield, so he couldn't go in that way if he didn't want to flood the car. Moving to the back, he pulled one of his nunchaku and began spinning it to build momentum.
Mikey had once listened to Don explain how Newton's Second Law of Motion applied to the nunchaku. All Mikey remembered of it was something to do with force and acceleration. He didn't much care about the science behind how his weapon worked, he just knew that the faster he spun, the harder he could hit.
With a hard jerk of his arm, Mikey struck the back windshield. It shattered upon impact, thick pieces of glass falling in chunks both inside and outside of the vehicle.
Swinging himself feet first into the SUV, Mikey moved across the small storage area to lean over the back seat. The baby was still strapped into the car seat, red faced and wailing with such anguish that it made Mikey's heart hurt.
It took him a second to figure out how to unlatch the safety harness and extract the child. From the pink color of the little onesie the baby was wearing, Mikey deduced it was a girl.
"Shh, baby, it's okay," Mikey crooned, holding the infant against his chest. "I've got you. Let's go find mommy."
The SUV was tipping farther forward now, its front end fully submerged. Mikey crawled through the back window and slid into the water, doing his best to keep the baby from getting too wet.
Shifting the infant so that she was wedged against the lip of his carapace, Mikey kept her braced with one hand as he swam towards the ladder that was attached to one side of the dock. As his fingers closed over the first rung, he heard the sound of heels running across the boards above him.
"Oh my God! Is she okay? Is she okay?"
Looking up, Mikey saw the mother leaning over the edge of the dock. "She's scared but okay," he answered as he climbed up to her.
The mother's arms were outstretched and as soon as Mikey was close enough, she took the little girl from him. Clambering onto the dock, Mikey squatted next to the woman, who held her baby tightly against her chest.
"Thank you, thank you," she whispered, tears streaming down her face.
"He doesn't deserve it, but I've gotta go in after that guy," Mikey said, standing up.
She mightn't have heard him, her entire focus on her child. Mikey spun around so that he was back on the dock's edge and dove into the water.
Swimming to the SUV, he saw that only the luggage rack was still visible. Water had rushed into the broken rear window and flooded the vehicle. Even as he was drawing near it, the entire SUV sank.
Mikey shot down into the watery depths, his eyes swiftly adjusting to the gloom. He spotted the SUV still slowly descending and with a quick kick, sped towards the opening he'd made.
His first obstacle for reaching the man were the car seats themselves. The backs were so high that there wasn't enough room for a mutant turtle between them and the roof of the SUV. Remembering a car commercial he'd seen, Mikey located the mechanism that would flatten the seatbacks.
Once they were out of the way, he swam to the front of the vehicle. The thief was still out cold and inhaling water. Feeling along the side of the seat, Mikey found the lever that would drop the seat back and pressed it.
The man flopped down towards him and Mikey grabbed him beneath his arms. Tugging him out of the seat, Mikey dragged him out through the back window and up to the surface. Hooking an arm across the man's chest, Mikey pulled him close enough so that the man's head rested on his shoulder, keeping it above water.
With firm, fast strokes Mikey swam back to the ladder, towing the man along with him. When he reached the ladder, Mikey made an adjustment in order to drape the man across his carapace.
Maintaining a firm grip on his arm, Mikey climbed the ladder. At the top he swung the man onto the dock, pushing him away from the edge and then joining him.
Mikey tried to find a pulse, but there wasn't one. Nearby, the woman still sat on the dock, rocking back and forth. The baby's cries were no longer strident, but she still whimpered in her mother's arms.
"Is he . . . ?" the woman asked, watching as Mikey began to perform CPR.
"I don't suppose you have a phone?" Mikey asked, not wanting to pause in his ministrations to retrieve his shell cell.
"It was in my purse, which is in the car," the woman said.
He was about the grab his shell cell when Mikey felt the man jerk under him. When he started coughing, Mikey carefully rolled him onto his side, supporting his neck in case he'd suffered a spinal injury.
The man spit up some water and then took several deep gasping breaths. As the choking subsided, Mikey eased him onto his back again. Blinking blearily up at Mikey, the man's eyes glazed over and he fell unconscious.
Mikey undid the man's belt and pulled it out of the pant loops, using it to efficiently bind the man's arms tightly together. Then he dashed back over to the woman, dropping to one knee beside her.
"Are you all right?" Mikey asked, taking his shell cell from his belt.
One eye was swollen nearly shut, there was a laceration on her forehead, and her lip was cut and puffed up to twice its normal size. The skin on her arms and legs were scraped badly, and one finger was bent at an odd angle, but she nodded in answer to his question.
"I was taking the baby inside to my mother so I could find a parking spot down the street," she said. "He just came out of nowhere."
Her chin trembled, on the edge of tears as the adrenaline receded.
"You couldn't have known," Mikey said in a soothing tone. He flipped open his shell cell but the sound of approaching sirens made him shut it again. "Sounds like someone called for help."
"What's your name?" she asked.
"I'm Mikey. What's yours and the little girl's?" Mikey asked.
"I'm Madeline and this is Marie," Madeline said. She managed a small smile. "Three m's."
Mikey stroked the little girl's head and her whimpering slowed. "So Madeline, I hate to ask this, but was he after the car or your baby?"
"Probably the car," Madeline said. "My husband and I are solid, we're not rich, and there have been a lot of car thefts in the neighborhood. That's why I was being so picky about where I parked."
"My bros and I usually patrol for stuff like that," Mikey said, cognizant of the sirens drawing nearer. "I'll tell them we need to double the watch on your neighborhood. Maybe this guy was the lone culprit, but it wouldn't hurt to make sure."
"You . . . um, you're . . ." Madeline began, finally addressing his unusual appearance.
"Yeah. We don't show ourselves much 'cause of how we look," Mikey said.
"I couldn't care less," Madeline said firmly. "To me you are the most wonderful person I've ever seen. You saved Marie's life. I don't know what he would have done to her if he'd gotten away. I can't thank you enough. I'll never forget you."
Mikey could see flashing lights coming closer to the dock and stood up. "Glad I could help," he said. Going to the edge of the dock, he looked back at her and smiled, nodding towards the emergency vehicles that were coming into view. "As a favor though, please do forget me."
Madeline's expression softened. "Don't worry, I completely understand."
Diving into the water for the third time that night, Mikey quickly swam away from the dock and out of sight.