A/N: Oh My God, an update! From ME? Wow, that is a miracle in itself. Sorry to keep you guys waiting, but college and work at the same time is no fun. Anyway, here's the next chapter and it's only going to get more interesting, so stick around. I'll try to get the next chapter out sooner. Try is the key word there. Later dudes and dudettes.

Chapter Nine: Where Are You?

Leonardo sat at the kitchen table sipping at a cup of his favorite tea and watching the phone that he took from the counter and set it on the table in front of him. He was concentrating so hard; it felt as if he could peel off the paint of the phone with just the power of his mind. He had called Amity earlier that morning, but she still hadn't called back. He didn't want her to worry too much, so he didn't tell her what it was about, but he still thought she would have called back by now. And after putting Splinter down to rest, he would really like to hear her voice, even if it was on the other end of the phone line. And in a big way he wished that all the girls were there. They deserved to be there to say goodbye.

All four of them, prepared a suitable coffin-type structure and found a place in Central park that was hidden from mankind. When they were eight years old or so, they stumbled upon this clearing right by a well-hidden sewer exit. They began to go to the clearing often to get fresh air and to feel the sun when they had times away from their studies. Splinter would only come up to the surface with them in this one spot or to April's when they were older. It was a small clearing surrounded by dense trees and shrubs.

Splinter was put near the largest tree in the clearing with a carving on the tree to mark the now scared spot of the fallen master. Each turtle put their own few words on the tree's surface, hoping to catch a specific phrase that would catch at least a part of their late father's presence. They stood out in the night air for at least an hour after they had finished. Sitting with their legs folded and hands at their sides, they meditated with their master one last time before heading back home to the liar.

Leonardo rubbed his eyes once again and took another sip from his cup. He has been up all night worrying and thinking. He had tried to get some rest after calling Amity, but then woke up having a deep feeling inside his gut that something wasn't right. He retired to the kitchen and decided to baby-sit the phone while waiting for his return call from Amity. He looked to the clock on the wall and found it to be close to nine in the morning.

'She would be getting ready for work about now. She would be calling back at any time,' Leonardo thought to himself and yawned. After a few minutes, he decided to take the initiative and try again.

One ring…two rings…three… four…

"She wouldn't actually, physically go to work this early. Where is she?" Leonardo looked at the clock again and then hung the phone up. The unsettling feeling began to sink back into the pit of his stomach and he gulped down the rest of his tea, "I can't take this much longer."

"Can't take what?" Raphael walked down the stairs from his room, "You talkin' about Mikey's snoring? 'Cause I agree, I can't take that much longer either."

"No, it's not that," Leonardo looked back at the phone, "Amity isn't answering any of my calls."

"So? Maybe she had an early morning and rushed out before checking her messages."

"No, then she would have called from her cell," Leonardo began to pace by the table, "I'm worried, Raph. Have you been able to reach Callista?"

"No, but she's a busy girl…" Raphael thought and tried not to jump to extremes as his brother was beginning to.

"At nine in the morning?"

"You got a point there, Leo. But it could still happen," he shrugged and began to rummage for coffee.

"Hey guys, do you know if the shell cells are working okay?" Donatello came from his room with a shell cell in hand.

"As far as I know," Raph flipped his out after setting the coffee can on the counter and looked at the screen, "It looks fine, Don. Why'd you ask?"

"It's not picking up Eros, Amity's, Callista's or Delaney's signals," Donatello sighed and sunk into a chair by Leo, "I tried calling Eros first, but when I couldn't reach her I tried the other girls. None of them are answering. I get a faint signal that goes on and off from Delaney's, but other than that… nothing."

Mikey came bounding down the stairs humming a song to one of his cartoons and looked at his brothers, "What's the haps, dudes?"

"Have you heard from Delaney lately, Mikey?" Donatello asked from the table.

"Not since the note Klunk delivered last night," Mikey shook his head and tried to preoccupy himself by making some cereal, "Why?"

"We can't get a hold of any of the girls," Leonardo added.

"Maybe their cells are on the frits?" Mikey suggested.

"And their home phones too?" Raphael asked, "How come you aren't so worried about it, Mikey?"

"Because I know that Delaney was working on a case last night with Carson," Mikey nodded, "At least that's what I got from Klunk's letter."

"Have you checked?"

"Why should I, I trust her with Carson," Mikey said, "Believe me, he may get desperate, but Delaney will put him in his place anytime, anywhere with a good smack to the back of the head."

"I meant if she made it over there okay," Raphael rolled his eyes.

"No, I was kind of distracted here, if you didn't notice," Mikey said sarcastically.

"What about the rest of the girls?" Donatello interjected and looked at Mikey.

"Girl sleep over?" he shrugged his shoulders, "Look dudes, all I know is that Delaney is safe at the department, tearing up a case. Okay?"

Suddenly Michelangelo's shell cell went off and he answered it, hearing a man's voice on the other line instead of Delaney who he was expecting.

"Hello?"

"Uh… hi," Michelangelo looked at his brothers funny and then at his cell, turning up the volume so that all his brothers could hear the other voice.

"This is Michelangelo, right?" the man sounded unsure, "Please tell me I got the number right."

"It depends on who's calling, dude."

"It must be, Delaney always uses the 'dude' reference and always said it was because of your influence," he chuckled a bit, "Hey Mike, long time no talk. It's me, Carson."

"Carson!" Mikey smiled and sat in the next empty chair next to Donatello, "What's going on? How's the night run treating you?"

"Night run?" Carson echoed back.

"Yeah, I got a note from Delaney saying that you guys were working on a case all of last night. I was wondering how it was going."

"Mike… Delaney and I didn't go over a case last night," Carson paused for a moment, "And she hasn't come in this morning either. That's why I'm calling you."

"What?" Michelangelo leaped from his chair, "But her note…"

"I haven't had contact with her since last night around nine or so. She said that there were some files that needed to go over for the Karten case, but she said we would go over them when she got here this morning. But she hasn't yet. I've tried all of her other numbers, and I was hoping that you would know where she was."

"Carson, you're not pulling my leg, are you?"

"Of course not. My partner's missing, I wouldn't kid about that."

"My God," Mikey looked at his brothers who all took glances at one another.

"What's happening over there, Mike?"

"My brother's and I… well, we haven't had any luck in contacting Delaney, Callista, Eros or Amity this morning… at all. I thought for sure they were having a girl get together and Delaney was with you."

"They're all missing?" Carson asked from the other side of the phone call, "Just a second, Mike."

"Okay," Mikey nodded and heard Carson put the phone down and walk away. Michelangelo looked at his brother's with a scared face, "She wasn't there at all last night. I miss read the note. She's missing."

"They all are, and I don't like it," Leonardo looked at the lair phone, "We got to go find them."

"And how do you expect we do that?" Raphael asked.

"We go out and search for any clues that we can," Leonardo turned toward his room to get his katanas ready. Donatello retreated to his lab to get his bag of tricks to go out looking with Leonardo. Raphael turned from the other two and headed straight for the garage.

"Where you going, Raph?" Mikey asked.

"I'm going to look my own way," he grabbed his huge leather jacket and walked out the door and found his bike. Michelangelo heard him turn the engine on and speed off before Carson got back on the phone.

"You still there, Mike?" Carson breathed into the phone.

"Yeah, I'm here," he added quietly.

"Can I meet you someplace? Get together and go over some things. I think I may know something about Delaney's whereabouts… but I'm not absolute sure. No one knows her better than you do. You may give me a little more input to my thoughts."

Michelangelo froze in his spot. Carson wanted to meet him. In person. Face-to-face. Leonardo and the others wouldn't have it. But they weren't here, and Carson was probably the only person who had anything close to an idea of where Delaney may be and who may have her. He wasn't going to let the opportunity slip by just cause he may be seen by another human. Carson knew his voice at least and if he did end up seeing him, there wasn't any fear that he'd report him. He was a friend.

"Michelangelo?" Carson called from the other end.

"Where and at what time?" Mikey asked into the phone as he went to grab his overcoat and hat from his room.

It had been a good three hours since Delaney had woke up in this nightmare. Entombed in the stupid, scientific facility where everyone is looking in at you. She was the one being observed now, and she hated it. She was the detective. Not a bloody science experiment. At least not yet. From the feeling she got from Kanin and Grinford, her friends and her time may come sooner then they think.

Every once in a while they would see another personnel walk through the lab, or work with the equipment, but nothing too out of the ordinary. It looked as if most of the assistants and research team had left for the day. Even Grinford and Kanin left for the day out the front door about an hour ago. Or at least in the direction everyone thought was the front door. After they took the puppy back into the back room, Kanin came out gave the girls a wink and then left through the double doors, leaving her lab coat behind on a stool. Grinford followed not that far after, with fur all over his lab coat. He grinned at the cage all of them were in and left after Kanin.

For the last hour the girls have been sitting in the dimly lit cage in the same room with the whimpering animals. They had to make sure that the research people were all gone before Amity could continue her work on the shell cell. They brought it out after Kanin and Grinford left, but kept hiding it when other personnel kept coming in and out of the other rooms. Soon enough, they believed they were alone and Amity began her work. Eros and Delaney still kept a look out for a good thirty minutes after the last person left while Amity worked hard at the cell.

The small window at the top corner of the room barely lit the small workspace that Amity gave herself to work on the shell cell. Delaney stood by her trying to help anyway she could and put her input in when needed. Callista sat against some crates and kept bouncing a small super ball against the wall, catching it every once in a while with one hand and then would switch off to the other hand. Eros seemed a little restless and kept pacing from Amity and Delaney to Callista. She finally settled near one side of the cage to look out at the animals in the cages on the far wall.

"Crap!" Amity jumped back from her work on the shell cell and little as a spark flew up at her and threatened to light her hair on fire, "That was a close one."

"At least you have ninja reflexes," Callista said as she got up and began to throw the ball harder against the wall and had to actually move to catch it.

"Where did you get that ball anyway?" Delaney looked from Amity's work over at Callista who caught the ball again.

"I snuck it in," Callista rolled her eyes, "In the inside of my bra stuffing."

(A/N: Just a quick note. Callista is joking with Delaney, since Delaney brought the shell cell into the facility in the stuffing of her jacket.)

"Ha ha… Callista," Delaney shook her head and shook her fist at her friend in a playful manner.

"I wonder what they do to those poor animals," Eros thought out loud to herself, "Behind that curtain I mean."

"I would worry more about us, bull's eye," Callista caught the ball and turned toward the cages of animals, "And I doubt you'll be wondering for long."

"Why do you say that?" she asked worried.

"I didn't like that look Kanin and Grinford gave us when they left."

"They have more planned for us, no doubt," Delaney stood up and walked up next to her two other friends, "I bet what ever is happening over there, will happen to us more than likely."

"Okay. I think I got something," Amity said and handed the semi- deformed shell cell to Delaney, "I think it might work. Give it a go."

Delaney punched in Michelangelo's number and held her breath, "Come on… come on, baby… Please work…"

Michelangelo turned a corner towards a coffee shop that Cason said he'd meet him at. There weren't that many people walking around this time of the day around the certain portion of the city. It was a good time to pick; especially when most of the people have gone to work and have all ready grabbed their cup of coffee. He looked around the corner to see Carson standing outside the shop looking at his watch and looking up and down the street.

Michelangelo smiled, 'Must think that I'm coming in a cab or something.'

All of the sudden his shell cell began to vibrate and he opened it up just in time to hear the other end getting cut off as if someone hung up on him. He looked at the screen waiting for the name of the caller to be shown, but no such luck. The screen just flashed 'caller ID unavailable' back at him. It wasn't long enough of a call to pick the source up.

"Well, fine then. Stupid wrong numbers," he put the shell cell back on his belt and began to make his way to the shop making sure not to attract any bad attention.

Delaney turned her face away as the shell cell let off another small spark and then went dead. She sighed and looked in her friend's direction. She shook her head in response and put the cell back in Amity's hands.

"Yeah, that looked like it worked well," Callista said with her usual sarcastic tone.

"I don't know what route to take," Amity thought as she sat down, "There are dozens of different relays that they could transmit through."

"Just try your best, Amity," Delaney said, patting her friend on the shoulder and then looked out the small window in the corner of the room, "Meanwhile, we got to think of a way to at least have a plan B if the shell cell doesn't come through."

"And what exactly did you have in mind for plan B, dear leader?" Callista asked a little intrigued.

"I have no clue yet," Delaney sat down on one of the crates, "That's why I said we have to come up with one. If we put our minds together on this, we may just get something good."

"Great," Callista looked at the curtain, "What if we make them take us behind the curtain?"

"We want to get out of here, remember?" Eros pointed out, "And the door to the outside world and freedom, as far as we know, is the opposite way of where you're planning."

"I know," Callista nodded, "But, if we can get out of this God forsaken cell, we could kick the shit out of them and run the other way. We all got our specialties, and can and should use them."

"We can't use brute strength against these guys, Callista," Delaney shook her head, "They'll be expecting that. Especially from you."

"Then what?" she threw her hands in the air, "I'm all out of ideas. You know how I think that way."

"I don't know what to do yet," Delaney sat on one of the crates at the side of the cell and looked out the window.

"Well, this isn't a good predicament we've gotten into," Eros smiled despite the situation, "Amity's brain power is stuck on fixing the shell cell, Callista wants us to commit suicide and go behind the curtain of uncertainty and Delaney's brain is still fried from the chloroform. Hell knows I'm not going to come up with a plan here, guys."

"Then we just wait," Delaney looked over at her, "We need to be patient until we can figure out something."

Delaney drew her feet up into a lotus position and began to meditate. Maybe through meditation she could reach Splinter. He always was able to calm her and communicate with her. Even in the most tough of spots. Although, when she tried to reach him, she received nothing back. No warm energy that she usually felt from him. No comfort… just black nothingness.

She opened her eyes and looked out the window again, 'Mikey… please be okay. Don't let them see you.'