I do not own the TMNT themes and characters.
Chapter Two: Death is but a Dream
"I ordered a twenty-four hour watch on every one of them. How did they escape?"
The Foot tech watched fondly as his life flashed before his eyes. "Master, they were all seen entering their home that evening, and they never came out. We investigated and the house was empty, even their possessions had been removed." Oroku Saki's multi-thousand-dollar desk flew over the Foot Tech's head, crashing to the floor somewhere behind him.
"How did they escape?" Saki repeated.
"We do not know, master." The tech replied. He was seized by his shirtfront and lifted clean off the floor.
Saki held him up with one hand and grated his words out through his anger. "Then go back. Look harder. Find out! Peters was too stupid to get out alone!"
The Foot tech ninja swallowed back a sigh of relief. Orders were good, orders meant that he would live another day.
Oroku Saki easily tossed the ninja aside. He was a good Foot tech: he stood and bowed before leaving despite his treatment. Saki couldn't afford to lose too many like him, there just weren't too many like him available.
"Master, I have received information as to the whereabouts of the disk." Saki allowed himself a genuine smile. Karai, the one he could count on no matter what situation arose. Even when her pesky sense of honor objected, she would obey him in the end. She was his greatest success.
"Where is it?"
"Peters managed to pass the disk to the girl. He dropped it into her bag before she was left at her apartment." Oroku Saki didn't face Karai, he simply folded his hands behind his back and let his face relax. Recognizing this sign from her father Karai relaxed inwardly as well.
"Have the girl collected, and question her as to the disk's current location." Karai's concern would be invisible to anyone else, but Saki didn't have to so much as look at her to sense it. "Make sure she sees and hears nothing about yourself or me." There, now Karai could fool herself into thinking the girl would live, consider it a reward for work well done.
Mondays after a three-day weekend were the worse things, ever. Especially when your bike was among the dearly departed.
The day had gone slowly. Several times Sam had found herself staring at the clock and timing it to see if it really was moving as slow as it seemed. Then there was the home work! It was like her teachers had realized they didn't assign enough last week and were rushing to make up for it. With all the extra work, Sam couldn't even fit everything into her backpack. To make matters worse Sam's fingers were killing her even without holding her extra books. Why did her piano teacher have to push her so hard today of all days?
Samantha had a lot to grouse about during her long walk home.
A hand clasped over Sam's mouth. She dropped the extra textbooks and tried to fight as she was dragged into a store. Her elbow found someplace lucky and Sam pulled free, slipping one arm loose from her back pack to use its weight as a weapon. What she saw nearly made her drop the bag; ninja! Sam took a breath to scream bloody murder but another hand clasped over her mouth, expertly avoiding her attempts to bite. An arm wrapped itself around her middle, clamping her arms to her sides and effectively ruining her chances of swinging her book bag. The arms were too strong for Sam to struggle free. She dropped her bag and it must have landed on a foot because her captor grunted and nearly released her, but he caught her again before Sam could escape.
Something stabbed into her arm; the pain was sharp and deep, like a large needle. Sam tried to fight some more, her eyes were beginning to stream with tears. Her throat began to hurt before Samantha even realized she was still trying to scream. Shortly after that everything started to fade, even the pain.
Oh, Sam thought as her awareness evaporated like a cloud, It's just a dream...
"Stupid sisters." Travis grumbled. He sat on the foot of the stairs waiting for his sister to come home. He normally only had to wait a couple minutes before she came through the door and began tormenting him, but it had been over an hour now and there was no sign of Samantha.
Mrs. McFarthing came to her door. It was always open this time of day so that she could see Travis and watch him until his sister took him to their apartment upstairs. Usually she could close it by now, where could that girl be? "Travis?" The boy looked up at her with an angry expression. His brown eyes had darkened to a distressed, muddy shade. "Travis, would you like something to eat before your sister gets here?"
"No, thank you." He replied. Travis turned back to the door, his arms resting on his knees and his chin resting on his arms. Mrs. McFarthing watched him for a moment before coming out and sitting next to him on the stairs. They stared at the door together.
After several minutes, she put her arm over the boy's shoulder. "I'm sure your sister's fine." She assured him, giving his arm a squeeze.
With speed only little boys were capable of Travis turned and wrapped his arms around the older woman's waist. A moment later the boy was sniffling. All Mrs. McFarthing could do was to rub the boy's back and murmur assurances to him. "Samantha is fine, just fine."
"Fine. If you want to play that little game, fine." Samantha was tied to a chair, she didn't know why, she didn't know where. Her head hung down with her hair falling around her face, a fragile but strangely comforting barrier between herself and this woman, this evil, evil woman.
Sam didn't know how long she had been awake, but that was how long she had been in this white, windowless room. The woman, the evil woman, had come in a while ago and had begun to ask her about a disk Sam had never seen or heard of before. Her wrists hurt and Sam couldn't feel her hands beyond that. Her ankles hurt and she couldn't feel her feet anymore, either. At least Sam could see her toes move inside her shoes. Both arms hurt from being behind her for so long. Sam was tired, hungry, and scared. This entire situation was completely outside her experience. All she wanted was to go home.
"We have taken your bag and its contents completely apart and have found nothing." The woman stated. Her voice was cold, holding just the edge of a threat.
"Did you try reading anything? Sister Abigail says you can find a lot if you know how to use a book." Sam was mentally kicking herself before the slap landed hard across her face. Since when had she been this cheeky? It had to be the terror talking. She had read that panic could make people do stupid things.
"Insolent girl! Do you have any idea what is at stake here?" The woman seized Samantha's hair; breaking Sam's curtain of protection and forcing her to look into the woman's stony black eyes. "We know where you go to school and we know where you live. We know about your family; your mother, father, brother, we know about them. We can take them the same way we took you, and we won't be as nice."
"I don't know where that disk is." Sam's voice cracked.
The woman narrowed her eyes and released her grip on Samantha's hair. Immediately Sam retreated into her frail curtain of protection. Several strands of hair clung to the wet trails down her cheeks. Her hair was almost the same shade of brown as the brush on Travis's head. She hoped he wasn't too scared when Sam didn't show up. He tried to be a tough kid, but he hated to be alone.
The evil woman snapped her fingers. Through her curtain of hair Sam saw two ninja come into the room. One of them carried a briefcase and stood behind the evil woman while the other released Sam's arms. Her left arm was immediately retied, the right was laid against the single armrest of the chair Sam was tied to and the arm was strapped down. He then ripped the sleeve of Sam's uniform, exposing the skin.
The ninja with the briefcase opened it and held it up. From this case the second ninja pulled a rubber tube and tied it around Sam's arm, tight as a tourniquet. "What are you doing?" Sam's eyes widened, this was starting to look like those spy movies her mom loved. "Stop! What are you doing?!" She started to struggle again.
"Do not worry." The evil woman said, her smile wicked, "All you will feel is a small prick and a burning sensation." The ninja lifted a syringe from the briefcase and attached a needle to the end.
"Stay away from me! Help! Somebody please help me!" Sam's voice lifted to a panicked shriek. "Help!" Her voice pierced the metal door and echoed down the hallway.
The kunoichi knelt in front of Oroku Saki; the only sign of her inner distress was the trembling of a loose strand of coal black hair. This woman was one whom Saki had dedicated a great deal of time and energy in training. She was an expert at poisons and chemicals. Her skills of interrogation were unparalleled, even by Karai.
"What news do you have for me?" Oroku Saki asked. His voice was calm; this woman had yet to fail him.
"Master, I have tried everything in my knowledge and skills; she knows nothing of the disk."
"And the bag?"
"Stripped to the seams ,master. There was nothing inside but school supplies and the regular trappings of a teenage girl."
"How unfortunate." Saki waved a hand dismissively, "Kill the girl, make sure she is never found." The woman stood, bowed, and turned to leave. "Ah, and Reiko…" The woman paused. She had not thought that Oroku Saki even remembered her name. "The next time I ask you for information, you will get it for me."
Reiko paled, "Yes, Master."
It was such an incredible waste. Naturally, the girl couldn't go back to her family or the police but she was still in good condition, hardly a bruise on her. Some messy puncture marks on her right arm, but otherwise she was a prime specimen. Dr. Baxter Stockman couldn't stand to see good resources put to waste; especially when he had a project in mind and highly interesting serums just waiting to be tested. To add to this, the poison in her system hadn't taken full effect yet. It just so happened that Stockman kept a store of the antidote.
This girl would be a very valuable tool for science. Yes, a very valuable tool indeed.
Her arm itched, right on the tender part by the elbow, and a sick cold feeling was trickling up her left arm. She was lying on something cold and hard. Then again, everything felt cold right now. Taking a breath, Sam tried to steel herself for any eventuality and opened her eyes.
The thing she was lying on was a metal table. Samantha was strapped down to the table with an IV running into her left arm. Her right arm was bandaged. The itching must be her arm healing from the injections. When Sam tried to shift her weight, she found that she was wearing something soft and thin… and that didn't close all the way in the back. For a fleeting moment of hope Sam thought she might be in a hospital, safe. That would explain the IV and the hospital robe, but not the metal table or the restraints. The hope flickered like a candle in the wind but Sam clung to it.
A black man with a patch over one eye and a fancy wheelchair rolled into the room. "Ah! You're awake!" He seemed genuinely pleased. His voice was warm and comfortable, like Sam's dad's voice.
"Where am I?" Sam asked, she tried to sit up but a leather strap across her chest restrained her.
"No, don't try to sit up. You are in my laboratory. I am Dr. Baxter Stockman." Samantha felt a wave of relief, so he was a doctor! There was no worry about this being a lab; Sam was sure those ninjas had injected her with some strange stuff and the hospital probably had to run some tests to find out what it was.
Dr. Stockman hooked something up to the IV stand. It was a bag of green fluid, almost a darkish neon green. Just looking at the color made Samantha nervous. Was medicine supposed to look that color? "What's that?"
He connected the bag to the tubes leading to Sam's arm. "This, my dear, is a very special serum I've made of a variety of fascinating substances. I plan to use it in much the same fashion as DNA therapy and observe the results. They should prove most interesting."
"You, you mean you don't know what it's supposed to do?" Sam's voice shook. She was beginning to rethink her earlier feelings of relief.
"Not really, no. I have a hypothesis of course, -and it's probably correct considering my intellect- but experimentation and discovery is one of the more enjoyable parts of my career field." He slid aside a little plastic tag and the sick green fluid crept down the tube leading to Sam's arm. Sam tried to pull her arm free. The closer that stuff got to the needle in her arm the closer Sam was to a panic attack.
"What's wrong with you? You can't do this to me!" Sam realized she was wrong even as she said it. Obviously, he could; he was about to. "Are you sick or something?"
"Strange. My old assistant said something like that to me." Dr. Stockman said conversationally as he tightened the restraints. The strange fluid slid into the catheter in Sam's arm, although she couldn't feel anything the thought alone made her retch. "Excuse me. I have much work to attend to." Dr. Stockman started to roll towards the door as casually as if Sam were there for a simple medical procedure. "One of my aids will take care of you when the infusion is finished."
"Where are you going? Let me out!" As soon as the door was open Sam started screaming for help again. This was about as effective as it had been with the ninja.
Travis sat in the doorway of his room, listening to the news as the reporter lady talked about his sister.
All police knew was that one week ago Sam had been seen walking along the route she usually took home from school. Then, she disappeared. Oroku Saki was interviewed and seemed greatly distressed that the young lady he met only the week before had gone missing. He personally promised to use his every resource to help the police try and find the missing girl.
Sam had thought that this guy was the greatest thing. She looked up to Mr. Saki the way Travis looked up to the Silver Sentry. He could hear her talking about how much this guy had done for the city and how amazing he was as a business man. Travis didn't care about all that. Just so long as this guy could find Sam and bring her home.
He really needed to talk to her. Not only did he miss her and not only was he terrified that something had happened to her, but he had stolen something of hers. It was a CD he had found on her desk. It didn't play in his CD player and before Travis had the chance to return it Sam had disappeared. He needed to give it back. And to apologize. And to make her promise she would never leave again.