Chapter 9: Transparency

Through the small vent opening, I tensed up as I watched the ninja slowly and silently stalk the distracted red haired woman, teeth gritted and blue eyes narrowed. My nostrils flared, but all I smelled was the dusty vent metal around me, unable to catch the humans scents below.

My mind raced as I tried to parse the situation playing out in front of me.

This vent was too small for me to fit through. I wouldn't be able to just kick it open and dash out if she was attacked. I could keep searching for a larger vent, but that would take the scene in front of me out of view, and would possibly take too long. If I yelled a warning, I could possibly startle the hostile ninja into quick action before I could do anything.

Hm. I did have that screwdriver that I had pilfered. If needed, I supposed I could bash out the vent and lob it as a projectile...

The ninja suddenly leapt up behind her, hands raised with fingers curled like claws. "BOO!"

The red haired lady jumped, screeched and whirled about, grabbing a paper cup of coffee off her desk and smashing it in his face.

"Fuck, April!" the ninja reeled back, now drenched in brown liquid. He yanked off his ninja hood, revealing a long mane of black hair, sputtering and wiping his face

"CASEY JONES! You JERK!" The woman snarled, clutching at her chest as if she was trying to calm her heartbeat. She growled and reached back to grasp for a pencil off of her desk, throwing it at him angrily once she found one. "You almost gave me a heart attack! You're lucky that coffee was cold!"

"You're telling me!" the ninja named Casey ducked as the pencil bounced off of his shoulder harmlessly. His voice was thick with a Brooklyn accent, indicating he was probably a native of New York. He wiped at his face with a sleeve. "Doesn't make it any less gross!"

I sat back on my heels in the vent and exhaled quietly in relief, hand on my plastron. Then I shook my head and rolled my eyes at the humans below. Typical. Well, at least I wasn't going to have to blow my cover just yet. I settled back to continue watch them.

"Serves you right for sneaking up on me." the redhaired woman, April, huffed, sitting back down and digging out several napkins out of a drawer, handing them to him. "How did you even get down here? This is a secured facility!"

Casey held up his keycard in one hand as he reached over and took the napkins, sticking out his tongue playfully. "I'm a lieutenant in the Hamato clan, remember? I gots me some privileges with that title." He moved around to sit on the edge of her desk and began dabbing at the cold coffee. "Angel and Irma sent me down looking for you when you didn't show up for supper. Or 'Dancing with the Celebrities'. Or a reasonable hour for bedtime."

Now that he was in the light, I could see that the burgandy-clad ninja was a tall, scruffy looking, muscular man who looked like he'd be more at home in a hockey rink then a dojo. I was surprised to hear that he was a lieutenant. His movement while sneaking, while proficient, wasn't exactly the level I would expect of a higher-ranking ninja. He moved like somebody who preferred to wade right into the middle of a battle, fists swinging gleefully and stealth and finesse be damned.

"Sooo..." Casey drawled out, wringing his long hair free of coffee, "Why are you still down here, O'Neil? I'm fairly certain closing time was hours ago."

"My roommates worry too much, they didn't need to bother you about this." April grumbled as she went back to her computer, starting to type again. "I'm in the middle of a big project I want to get done. Don't worry, I'll just finish writing this section, Casey, then I'll head up to my room. It'll only take a minute."

"Or in a couple of hours." Casey scoffed. "Don't kid yourself, Red. You know as well as I do that you're going to end up working all night again if I don't stop you, and then you'll end up tired and crabby, and then you'll finally stab Stockman with a pen tomorrow like you've always fantasied doing, and while that would be absolutely hilarious to watch, Donnie will become all depressed because his girlfriend ended up in jail for attempted homicide."

"Casey! Quiet!" April hissed at him, reaching over to smack him lightly on the arm. "That's supposed to be a secret!" She crossed her arms and huffed. "The only reason you know is because you're nosy!"

"Uh, the only reason I know is because I was innocently fetching supplies from the supply closet for Irma and I opened the door only to find you two snogging in there." Casey rolled his eyes, then glared at her. "Which, I might add, traumatized me for the rest of my life, thank you very much."

"We were NOT 'snogging'!" April protested, her face almost as red as her hair.

"Hey, all I know is that I walked into find my boss and my best friend attached at the mouth!" He apparently thought of something, and turned to her. "Oh, and speaking of Donnie, have you heard anything about what he and the rest of the Hamato bros have been up to lately? I haven't even talked to Raph in days, and my fists are starting to get itchy. I have a quota of thugs I need to punch, and it's being neglected."

April sighed, shook her head, and sat back in her chair, swiveling around a little. "No, but it's something big. I've rarely seen Donnie so worked up or excited about something before."

"Like... 'Possibly world-ending dangerous' big?" Casey looked curious and intrigued.

April shook her head slowly, obviously pondering this. "No, I don't think so. It's something else. Something... personal."

"Well, I do know they're actually moving Master Yoshi over to the States here." Casey offered, snagging a handful of funsized candy bars from a bowl on her desk and unwrapping them from their tiny wrappers. "So that's going on right now."

"Really?" April perked up, suddenly looking far more interested and hopeful then she probably meant to. "Does that mean that he's...?"

Casey sobered up a little a shook his head sadly. "No."

April sighed, obviously deeply disappointed.

Casey popped a chocolate square in his mouth. "You missed a really great scene earlier, though. Xever apparently messed something up bad involving the room they're building for him, and Donnie basically took him apart piece by piece on the spot. I didn't even understand half of the words he was spitting out at him! I wish I got it on video, it was awesome."

April looked up, brow furrowed. "Donnie was dealing with one of Dun's cronies alone? Raph wasn't there guarding his back?"

Casey shrugged. "Oh, I wouldn't say that he was exactly alone. I was there, and you know that I always got their backs. Plus there was as half a dozen clan ninja surrounding us as well, but yeah, Raph and Mikey stayed behind in their quarters, from what I understood."

"Strange." April tapped her desk thoughtfully. "It's not like the brothers to split up like that. Just what are they up to?"

"Eh, they'll tell us when they're ready." Casey slid off her desk, chewing on the pilfered candy. "I know what you're going to be up to, though. Saving your work, and heading back upstairs with me before Irma starts to send out search parties."

"I'm almost done!" April protested, clinging to her keyboard. "Just a few more pages left to go over!"

"Red, I will throw you over my shoulder if needed, and, yes, it will be awkward for everybody involved carrying you down the hallways like that." Casey warned her.

April sighed in defeat and turned to push a few buttons on her keyboard reluctantly. "Fine. You asshole." she grumbled without any real venom.

"And proud of it." Casey ate another piece of stolen candy smugly.

April saved her work, then shut down her computer, before standing up and cricking her back with a wince. "Just so you know, Jones, you now owe me a coffee."

Casey frowned and narrowed his eyes as they walked together towards the elevator. "Oh, come on, April! That's hardly fair!"

"Yeah, well, that's what you get for sneaking up on me." she stuck out her tongue at him as the doors opened.

I watched as they stepped into the elevator, the door shut behind them, and they were gone, leaving me alone in a now completely dark lab.

Huh. Donnie had a girlfriend?

I pondered this for a moment, and decided that I liked her. I approved.

I turned to work my way back, realizing that I wasn't going to learn much from the empty lab without getting out and poking around, something I was reluctant to do.

It was good to learn that the Hamato brothers had allies. And, just like I had suspected, there were at least two factions at play here; Darius Dun, Stockman, and their minions, who were not liked by the Hamato brothers and their allies.

Casey and April had been right about one thing. It was absurdly late, and I could feel the weariness in my muscles.

I just had one more thing I wanted to briefly check over tonight on my way back to my sanctuary.

One floor up, on the third floor, I carefully searched through the vents. This floor was a little different from the others, and was obviously more of a 'home' then the others. There was a set of double doors that I assumed led to the brothers' private quarters, which I kept a wide berth around, a small private dojo, which caused me pause for a few seconds, and I could even see the double glass doors at the end of a hallway which lead to a familiar garden sanctuary.

And, off to the side of that particular hallway was a doorway that was propped open, with yellow construction tape draped around it.

Was that the room they were building for Yoshi?

Perhaps I'd find some clues in there.

I slipped through the vents, and was pleased not only to find that the vent in the ceiling was larger here, allowing me to slip out, but there didn't seem to be any cameras in the room.

I carefully moved the vent to the side and dropped down into the dark, completely empty room, landing in a crouch. My eyes darting about, I gave a tentative sniff of the air, but, as I suspected, nobody was around. I stood up and began examining the room curiously.

It was a fairly good sized room, but was currently completely devoid of any furniture, decorations, or even paint on the grey wall. Looking closely, I could see instructions penciled in on the dry wall at certain points, obviously plans for the room layout and design, but I couldn't make sense of them.

I noticed that the only wall that didn't have any pencil marks was the wall that must've been shared with my Sanctuary. Curious, I looked it over. I noticed a strange, small panel in the corner, and lightly touched it experimentally.

I jumped as the wall suddenly shimmered and changed, and immediately shot back up into the vents, crouching and hiding.

When no alarms went off, I peeked back out.

Surprised and intrigued, I slipped back down into the room.

What once had been a solid wall was now a large window, showing a premium view into the garden.

I ran my hands over the wall experimentally. It didn't feel like glass. What was this?

I chewed the inside of my cheek as I thought this over, and suddenly felt mildly concerned. Thinking back, I had noticed six large rectangular shapes in the wall, two for each floor, but I had dismissed them as a cosmetic design.

But if they were secretly windows... had anybody secretly watched me when I climbed up and disappeared into the vent?

I reached over to the small panel again, lightly touching it once more, and the wall shifted back into a solid wall, showing no indication it had ever been transparent.

Not finding any more clues in the empty room, I climbed back up into vent, closing it behind me like I had never been there, and quickly made my way up through the labyrinth back up to my secret entrance. Once there, I perched just inside, just at the edge of the three story garden, and peeked my head out, looking cautiously from side to side at the room-sized rectangular shapes on the wall around me.

They were all solid looking. I would never guess that they were actually windows. It made sense, though. With a garden as beautiful as this, it would really add some calming atmosphere to an underground complex.

But now, with the brothers keeping me such a big secret that Donnie hadn't apparently told even his girlfriend, my guess was that they disabled the windows so nobody could see into the garden anymore.

I narrowed my eyes, studying the layout critically. Even if the windows turned out to have a one-way mode, and people could look out over the garden without my knowledge, if I kept close to the wall between the windows, it would extremely difficult to spot me.

I... should be safe for now.

I easily slid back down to the garden, kept in the shadows as I skirted the edge, then finally wandered out as normal at the far end of the room, as if I had been back there the whole time.

I rotated my shoulder, stifling a yawn, suddenly sympathizing with Donnie earlier. I hadn't slept hardly at all the previous night, and most of this night was already almost passed. I felt exhausted. Instead of sleeping in the pond again, I decided to try and actually get a good rest for at least a couple of hours in the hammock of the tiki hut, and started to head in that direction.

On the way, I noticed the teddy bear I had woken up with. One of the brothers, probably Mikey, had moved it up to sit against a tree. I slowed down, and paused. Crouching down, I sniffed at it, then picked it up, examining it curiously.

It was old and worn, definitely not a new toy purchased specifically for me. The eyes were mismatched buttons, and one arm looked like it had been sewn back on more then once. Had it been one of the brother's toy when they were little? It smelled like Mikey, so I assumed it was his.

I eyed one of the cameras out of the corner of my eye, and briefly wondered if the Hamato brothers were watching me.

Eh. Why not?

I carried the bear with me back into the hut, crawled into the hammock, and curled up around it, falling asleep almost immediately.