Ok, time for the first chapter, hope you liked the preview/prologue.
I don't own TMNT.
Don sighed and carried another large cup of coffee into his room. He glanced at the digital clock sitting next to his computer to read the time.
3:30am
"Maybe I should get to bed," Don thought and then shook his head violently, "Leo's the one who needs the most sleep."
His weakened heart valve was causing his heart to suffer and waste away from the lack of oxygen. The purple clad genius turtle would've done the math and figured out exactly how many more heartbeats that his brother had left, but he had to focus on finding something to help Leo. Online articles, many on sites the tech-loving turtle had to hack, revealed locations, scientific observations and possible replacements, for humans. That's where the trouble was, since they were mutant turtles their organs were different. Their hearts were much larger than a human's, so even if they could find these replacement heart valves, it would be a miracle if they found one that fit much less one that could handle the pressure without breaking and deteriorating in the bloodstream. Then of course, there was the matter of the surgery that would be needed. The purple clad turtle shivered and walked up to his computer, it and the digital clock the only things that lit up the dark room. Don sighed and sat his cup of coffee down before reaching out to grab the back of the computer chair he always sat in when researching anything.
He almost moved to sit down when…
"Go corndog…uh,"
The purple clad turtle glanced down to see his younger brother asleep in the chair, his head resting on his crossed arms where they lay across the keyboard. Don frowned and gently shook Mikey's shoulder. The younger turtle opened his blue eyes, that were slightly duller than usual and glanced up at his older brother.
"Mikey what are you doing here?" Don asked with a slight glare, he didn't have time to deal with his little brother, he had to find an answer!
"Just looking up video game cheats, I thought you were going to bed," Mikey said with wide eyes as he closed the screen he was viewing before Don could see it.
Don's eyes narrowed in determination, "Not until I find some answers."
The orange clad turtle went to speak up but snapped his beak shut before getting to his feet, surrendering the chair to his older brother.
"Good luck," Mikey said quietly and slipped outside the lab and into the main room. He glanced at the couch to see his red and blue masked older brothers watching TV, like nothing was really going on and they had forever to waste! Mikey glared at them from a distance and then exited the main room and quickly stomped through the hallways, slamming the door to his bedroom as he continued stomping into his room.
The purple clad turtle opened a new web browser and ran through the web browsing history. With the program he had it stored every visited link from the past week. Finding the URL of the site Mikey had been on he clicked it.
"What was Mikey really looking at?" Don wondered, "I know it wasn't cheat codes for his video games."
When the page loaded Don frowned and his eyes drooped, along with his shoulders. Right on the screen, was a research facility that built custom heart valves. The purple clad turtle sighed. Even if they could get the right size and strength heart valves, there was still the matter of time. Mechanical heart valves lasted a long time, on average 20 to 30 years. It wasn't like those were just laying around for them to pick up. Sighing, Don read the article anyways. He found a lot of what he previously read. A Biological valve was another alternative but humans mostly got these from pigs since the heart system of both species was very similar, so where would a mutant turtle get one, it couldn't be from a normal turtle or human. They were too different. Plus, there was the possibility that the body would reject it.
The article went on to talk about open heart surgeries and a practice that took biological tissues from cows and horses and sewed them into metal frames to work as heart valves. Again though, this was from humans and even if by some miracle the purple clad turtle could find a replacement heart valve, there were so many factors in making it all work out.
Don closed the window and yawned, looks like his three hour nap didn't do much to help. He opened an old browsing window before the article he had previously been viewing popped up on the screen again. He got annoyed and moved the mouse up to close it again when the cursor ran over the browser history button and showed that the window had been opened and used for the past three hours. Don frowned, Mikey was trying to help, trying to find an answer. Yes, this research facility could be what they needed but even if they did order a customized heart valve, the order would be strange. So strange that it would be…suspicious. Besides, the money had to be paid in advance and wasn't like they had $45,000 just tucked in their mattresses. And that was the minimum price. The facility also needed to know the procedure, specialist's name and name of the hospital where the surgery was being preformed.
Too many factors, too many.
Back in Mikey's room, the youngest turtle sat in silence, glancing down at a notebook in his lap from where he was sitting on his bed. He sat still for a few seconds before climbing to his feet. He walked towards his closet, banging his leg against a drum set he had set up that used to drive his brothers crazy all the time. He didn't really feel it though and he had played it show much in the past that none of his brothers came to investigate. The orange clad turtle slid aside his closet door and ducked inside, after digging through a bunch of random objects he found what he was looking for, a large stack of old newspapers. He crossed the room and sat on his bed again, flipping through the papers, looking for something. Finally, after ten minutes, he found the small article and studied it. After skimming through it he tore it out of the paper and sat it on top of the notebook throwing the remaining newspapers under the bed. He
He sighed and scooped up the notebook again…glancing down at the article.
Saint Marie-Claire Hospital
-Building abandoned in 1975
The orange clad turtle had already looked the hospital up. On the many articles he had read, it was mentioned as a still active medical facility. He stuck his head out the door and crept down the hallway, the main room was empty. Don was in his lab, Raph and Leo were probably in the dojo, meditating since Leo couldn't train. Light was coming from underneath Splinter's door. He was meditating again too. He had been doing that a lot lately. Mikey saw the phone and silently slinked over to it.
He had lost his oldest brother twice, it wasn't going to happen again. He picked up the receiver and dialed in an old number the turtles had rarely seen fit to call, ever. The phone rang four times before the line was picked up.
"Hello, who is this?"
Mikey gulped and he spoke hesitantly, "Hi Professor Perry."
Ok, if you don't know who Professor Perry is, I suggest you go watch the second movie and yes, I'm aware that I'm not focusing that much on Leo and/or Raph in this chapter. I'm trying to avoid that, at least for the time being. I don't really see Michelangelo always acting like the baby though so he's stepping up in this story.
This is it for now. Reviews please? I want to hurry up and post the next chapter.
~Moonsetta
