Act 1

Donatello scrubbed at his face tiredly. It was a long shift.

He was in his lab, illuminated by the many screens in front of him that showed various security check points that he had set up. But right now, he was more focused on the ringing that sounded through the headphones he had on. He tapped a button to answer the call. The pit of dread already growing at the bottom of his stomach.

"Hello, you've reached Don, your friendly neighbourhood IT guy. How may I help you?"

The line came rehearsed…and he was utterly and completely bored.

"Have you tried turning it off and on again?" he offered monotonously as he spoke to the person on the line. With his right hand, he massaged his temples. He could feel a migraine coming on.

"Calm down ma'am, I am only trying to help you…. Uh huh… okay… is it plugged in?"

There was a pause.

"No problem. Thank you for calling IT Helpline, your call is important to us."

Click.

Donatello repeatedly thudded his head against his desk. He was going insane. Ninjutsu training did not prepare him well enough to deal with this.

When April had suggested this position to him, it sounded like a great idea. He worked remotely, the head office only ever contacted him via email or the phone, he did not have to have face to face contact with humans, and their enemies were none the wiser. The additional income helped the family as well and they did not have to scrounge as much as they did before.

Donatello just did not expect it to be so soul-crushing tedious. He now understood the idiom, 'bored to death' intimately. He didn't know that they were so many technological inept people out there. Raphael was one but Raphael didn't bother with a computer. He was happy enough with the printed dirty magazines that everybody knew were stashed under his bed.

Why would anybody get a computer without learning how to use it first?

It was a question that he asked himself many times. It was also a question that he refrained from screaming at the callers, among other very creative things that Raph would've been proud of. But… Donatello was a patient turtle. His ninjutsu training had seen to that. That and every single call was recorded for "training purposes".

Though right now, he hoped feverishly that that was the last call he had to answer before he clocked out on the online system.

Ring ring ring…

No such luck.

Donatello sighed again, slumped over on the desk in soul crushing defeat as he pushed a button. He wished he was anywhere but here. He wished he was being sliced and diced by the Shredder, or being crushed by Hun, or even taken apart piece by piece by Bishop if it meant getting away from here.

"Hello, you've reached Don, your friendly neighbourhood IT guy. How may I help you?"

There was giggling on the other line.

Donatello's eye ridges raised. This was new. He never had a caller call to giggle at him before.

"Er... Hello? Did you get the wrong number?" he tried again.

"You sound cute," came the reply. Donatello blinked blankly at the response. It was a female voice, a low lazy alto.

"Thanks?" he offered, confused as to where this was going, "So is there anything I can help you with?"

"Say something for me."

"Er… ma'am, I don't think this is appropriate."

Another giggle.

"Yup. Definitely cute. In fact, I almost feel guilty for doing this to you," came the response and he could almost hear the grin in her voice, "…Almost."

There was some clicking over the phone. Then, Donatello stared in shock as his monitors started to flicker. The screen at the top left flicked off before a large winking smiley face animation appeared.

And much to his horror, so did another screen… and another… and another…

Headphones still on, he heard the girl on the other line let out a low whistle.

"Damn, what are you? Interpol or somethin'? Your system's insane! What'cha got in there? You part of the Pentagon or something?" He could almost hear her rub her hands together in glee.

He immediately snapped out of his shock. He was being hacked! Hands on the keyboard, he immediately started typing furiously as he tried to outhack the hacker in his system. Fear and dread raced through him. Who was this girl? Who did she work for? Was she hired to sniff them out? They can't afford to have a breach in the lair.

There was an amused chuckle over the line as his fingers raced across the custom keyboard he had created for his hands. He had managed to slam down the security to his database, isolating and protecting the information that could be traced back to their location. He proceeded to try and isolate the source of the hacker in order to completely block off her access by setting up a trace on the invading system before he worked hurriedly on wresting back control.

"Well well well… I gotta say, I'm impressed. Not many of you IT call guys actually know their way around. You must be something special," came the surprised quip.

"Lady, you have no idea," Donatello muttered darkly, more to himself than to her as his fingers flew over the keyboard.

There was another amused chuckle, "And now you're trying to get back at me eh? I applaud you for the effort."

Donatello scowled at the screen, "Who are you? What do you want? Why are you doing this?" He was having a hard time pinpointing her location. It looked like she was covering up her tracks through various proxy servers across the globe. It would take a lot of time to trace the signal and cut off access. The only thing now is that he had to stall for time and distract her to the best of his abilities. He might not be able to completely block her off but he would at least have a location.

"Who am I? Nobody. Why am I doing this? Cause I'm bored," came the easy reply. Then, she hummed thoughtfully, "TCRI? What's your deal with that company? You've got loads of their stuff."

Sharp stinging fear raced down his spine. Had she managed to break into his database already? Was that before or after he had shut off all access to it and boosted security? But he was slowly wresting control back over his own system as one by one, the winking animation disappeared from his screens. He glanced impatiently at the trace he had placed on her. It was nearing completion and had managed to narrow it down New York… a few more minutes and he would know the exactly location.

"'Ey Donnie! I know yer busy wid that high techie stuff, but can you take a look at my –" Raph just walked in.

"NOT RIGHT NOW!" he practically screamed back.

"Whoa! Chill man, a'ight, I'll come back later. Sheesh."

"Donnie huh? Who's that in the background? He sounds cute too. Perhaps I should stop by for a visit. But I see I'm running out of time," she murmured, amusement still quite clear on her voice, "I gotta say though, I haven't had this much fun in a while. Guess you know how to show a girl a good time. Let's do coffee some time. Whadaya say?"

He need to stall… just a few more minutes…almost… there…

"I don't think that's a good idea. Why don't you tell me why it's a good idea to have coffee with someone who has deliberately hacked into my system?"

She laughed, "I know you're stalling so your trace can find me. I'm surprised you made it this far. Double edged sword though. I can trace your trace. I'll see ya around in New York, cutie pie."

Click.

Donatello slumped into his chair and sagged. That… that was almost too close. He scowled at the screen that marked the trace. The blinking light disappeared but it had managed to narrow the signal down to a small area in the city though it was still too big to completely narrow it down to one apartment building. He immediately checked his IT call records. He was not surprised to see that she had erased all records of the phone call. He immediately clocked out and signed out of the program as he went back and checked all his security measures. Everything seemed untouched and he wouldn't have believed what had happened if it wasn't for that annoying flashing animation of a winking face that she left on his top left monitor.

That stupid graphic was untraceable as well and it looked like it was coded to override all functions to remove it when she left. Donatello scowled at the screen. Stupid hacker calling card.

Then paused.

What did she mean she could trace his trace…?

Did that mean she had found the lair?

Dread in pit of stomach was back.

Just. Fucking. Great.

Donatelloe let out a loud grown as he threw himself back against the swivel chair, the heels of his hands grounding into his eyes in frustration.

His system was compromised.

Leo.

Leo was going to kill him.

A/N: Been on a TMNT kick recently and this was stuck in my head for the longest of time. Tell me what you think. :)