Chapter 2: Mutagen Hunt
"Pizzaaaaaaaa," Mikey whined as Raph dragged him away from the side of the roof.
"We just ate," Raph told him pulling from the tails of his ninja mask, "Besides we need to concentrate on finding mutagen right now."
"Maybe there's some at Antonio's," Mikey perked up turning to Raph who whacked him over the head. "I'm serious man," he said rubbing his head, "We've gotta check this out, the pizza could be in danger." He pointed in the direction the pizza guy left in after making his delivery, "What if the Kraang are putting mutagen in the city's supply of pizza?! The streets are gonna be filled with pizza loving mutants!" His voice louder as the thought of the Kraang desiccating his beloved pizza bounced around his mind.
Raph smacked Mikey over the head again, "Yeah, cuz the city can't take another pizza crazy mutant."
"You totally get it," Mikey said, "We have to get to the pizza place before the Kraang do." He jumped onto the adjacent roof, skirting the route the pizza guy took minutes before.
"You gotta be kidding me," Raph sighed and started to follow his numbskull of a brother. Raph knew that nothing could stop Mikey from the sweet smell of Antonio's pizza, or any pizza for that matter, even if he did eat before they left the lair. Better to just go along with it for now, less of a hassle. The pizzeria is in their section of the city their covering tonight anyway.
Just as he was about to jump to the next roof, Raph's thoughts were interrupted by the jingle of his T-phone. He pulled the shell shaped device from his waist band, it was Leo.
"Anything?" Leo asked as Raph answered.
"We found the pizza guy," Raph said and gestured to Mikey to come over.
"Dude!" Mikey yelled into the phone, "We totally figured out what the Kraang are gonna do! They're going after the pizza!" Raph pushed Mikey's face away and help the phone up to his ear again.
"Mikey's hit the jack pot this time," he said sarcastically, "How's it going on your end?"
"Well, we found another burrito in a microwave," Leo sighed and Raph could hear the sound of metal clattering in the background followed by Donnie's muttering as he tinkered with his ooze tracker.
"Genius's toy still not working?"
"It works just fine!" Donnie yelled from the other end. Raph just rolled his eyes.
"We're getting nowhere like this," Raph said.
"Just keep looking," Leo said annoyed, "there's still too many canisters unaccounted for here, we're bound to find some.
"Technically there's a –"
"Don't give me the odds Donnie." Raph shook his head at Donnie's ever working brain, "You guys just make sure that your section of the city is covered tonight, and be sure to call if you find any bad guys to bash."
"No promises," Raph said smiling at the idea of a fight tonight.
Hanging up, Raph turned to Mikey who was looking over at one of the other buildings.
"What is it? Do you see something?" He asked.
"Isn't this where we took down the Stockman Pod?" Mikey asked, pointing out a building roof nearby.
"Yeah I guess that was around here." Raph said remembering the fight, and the look on his face when they stuffed into the dumpster. "Why? What're you looking for, another chance to beat the snot out of Spankboy?"
"No, I just thought that we've already looked around here, haven't we?"
"Not that I remember," Raph said, "Let's check it out." He jumped onto the roof, and started scanning for any sign of the glowing mutagen canisters.
After a long night of searching with nothing to show for it, the four brothers returned to their underground lair, hidden in the sewers. Mikey was playing with his Action Kick Unicorn man in front of the TV, Leo and Raph were competing in a Space Heroes Pinball tournament, and Donnie was in his lab trying to uncover the secrets to retro-mutagen.
He was sitting at his computer, imputing data from his latest series of failed experiments. But he wasn't discouraged; if there's one thing years of experience in the field of scientific study has taught him, it's that everything's gonna fail again and again until some fluke gets it right. The hard part is finding the fluke. Until then, all you can do is try to understand why it's all wrong.
Metalhead sounded off a series of beeps and Donnie stopped typing to listen. "Interesting," he said translating the robotic language in his head. He glanced over to a rack of test tubes that Metalhead just finished analyzing, that contained various samples of mutant DNA. Uploading him with AI has allowed Metalhead to help run tests and analyse Donnie's samples. He had just finished running specs and the results made no sense.
"Why would there be so much phosphate?" Donnie asked Metalhead reading graph of absorbances, "There's no way DNA can remain stable like that. Maybe the mutagen is altering the polymerases by adding phosphate groups to the . . . No that wouldn't work. Then it would be too reactive, the amino acids wouldn't bond like that. What about primers? No same thing, wouldn't bond right."
Donnie scratched his head and sitting back down at his computer. He brought the graph up on the screen, "Let's see . . . so we got extra phosphate for whatever reason, what else . . . There seems to be trace amount of calcium? Calcium? Wha—why? Ugh. That would be why my amplifications aren't working at all. There's calcium inhibiting the whole process. Stupid divalent metal ions. Now I gotta come up with a method that allows for rapid DNA replication that won't stall in the presence of calcium, unless I can remove it. But it doesn't make sense, where are these foreign groups coming from? What do they accomplish? I can't even rely of the A260:A280 ratio to determine DNA purity!"
"Donnie?" Looking up from the jumble of incoherent mess on the screen, Donnie saw Leo poke his head into the lab, "everything okay? You were talking to yourself again."
"Just peachy," Donnie sighed, "I'm trying to figure out exactly how the mutagen works and what it does to DNA. But it's proving more troublesome than originally thought."
"Well, it is a highly dangerous substance from another dimension meant to mutate the entire world," Leo said lightly as he peered over Donnie's shoulder at the screen, "Woah. What's with the scribbles?"
"That, dear brother, is the absorbances of mutated DNA."
"Uh huh," Leo said nodding, waiting for further explanation, "And what do the scribbles say?"
"They say that there's a lot of crap that don't belong which is also gonna interfere with further analysis."
"So it's gonna take a while?"
"I wish I could say otherwise," Donnie looked around his lab, "it would go faster if I had better equipment, but at least I got Metalhead to keep me company." He patted Metalhead who responded with a series of beeps and clicks, "Yeah, I suppose Tim's here too. But he's not much of a conversationalist."
Leo walked up to the Pulveriser and placed a hand on the glass, it was cold. "Any head way on getting him unfrozen?" Leo asked remembering the way Donnie tricked him into drinking the mixture that turned him into a block of ice.
"No," Donnie replied quietly coming up beside Leo. Leo knew Donnie felt responsible after all that happened with the Pulveriser; getting caught up with the Kraang when they first met, then him joining the Foot Clan, his mutation, then him going all Mutagen Man on them and attacking April . . . it hasn't been a good run as of late.
"I haven't had much time, what with the mutagen hunts and trying to find a retro-mutagen."
"Don't push yourself Donnie," Leo said patting his shoulder, "make sure to get some rest and let me know if there's anything I can help with." Leo knew that Donnie had been staying up way too late, and sometimes not sleeping at all, working himself to find a cure and to help April's father who was mutated into a giant bat.
Leo left the lab, heading for bed, leaving Donnie to contemplate. Sure, it's his top priority to find a cure for April's dad, and it's what he wants to do. On the other hand, Timothy was his responsibility. He couldn't just leave him stuck in a jar to thaw out for the next seventy years.
"But even if I do manage to thaw you out," Donnie told the Pulveriser, "you're still a mutant. Mr. O'Neil isn't the only one who needs a cure. So retro-mutagen should be the priority. Also this way, we don't run the risk of you getting into the mutagen again and attacking us again." Donnie smiled at the Pulveriser, happy with his logic. Well, his mind was, but his gut held the guilt. He'd been side lining Tim's problem for too long, and he was getting nowhere with the retro-mutagen. Might as well take a break and try to figure out how to thaw Tim out.
Looking back at his old records, he recreated the substances that would cause the reaction and started picking the whole thing apart. Clinking test tubes and humming machinery caused Leo to once again poke his head into the lab. He saw an alert Donnie still bustling away, his tongue peeking out as he was mixing reagents together, causing mini explosions, and writing down measurements. Leo watched him for a few minutes and noticed that is hands were a little shaky, and that his eye lids kept dropping lowed. He cleared his throat after Donnie nearly pipetted a blue liquid into his coffee mug.
The noise didn't register right away and it took Donnie a second to realize Leo was standing right in front of him.
"Oh," Donnie said staring at Leo, "I didn't know you were still up."
"I wasn't," Leo replied matter of fact, "and neither should you be." Grabbing his brother by the wrist, Leo led Donnie out of the lab.
"But I just have one more thing to do," Donnie said trying to fight off the fatigue, and pulled out of Leo's grip.
"Donnie," Leo chased after him, "come on, it's late. It's time to sleep. You know, sleep. The thing you do when you're tired."
Donnie stopped and stared at Leo again, swaying slightly. He suddenly shook his head to wake himself up, "Yeah, okay. Sleep. Right. Just let me clean up a bit." He started gathering up test tubes and turning off equipment. Leo helped Donnie store his samples his fridge and clean up the cluttered work space. He then led Donnie back to the bedrooms and watched Donnie fumble for his door knob. When he was happy that his stubborn brother was in for the night, he entered his own room and collapsed in his own bed. He was asleep in minutes.