CHAPTER ELEVEN
It had been a taxing few hours for the Turtles.
In between Michelangelo trying to calm down and get through to Kala, whilst simultaneously keeping her and April from making cat calls and even attempting cat scratches at one another, Agatha attempting to plead her case and enlist the Turtles help in the Guggenheim art thefts and the Neutrinos asking for similar help in their own quest to convey the splendour of Dimension X in picture with a little bit of mutated muscle watching their backs, it all proven to be a tad much. Neutrinos and Turtles were now taking a well earned kip on the sofas while the tv played silently, with only an attentive Agatha watched on as a commercial for Pen Pal Soda came on.
Donatello was the only one managing to stay awake, as he had work to carry out on his own Dimensional portal device. The work had begun feverishly, as time was of the essence, but with everyone winding down as the hours ticked by, he found it much easier to get by and work at a snail's pace, or an average and regular Turtle's pace at best.
Then came the unwelcome intrusion he'd been dreading.
"Whatcha working on?" asked Kim Sagan as Donatello crammed two micro batteries into a small pocket device which resembled a tuning fork on top of a cylinder with two crooked handles at the left and right sides of it.
"You're not here, you're in my head. Not real" Donatello said
"Pity, the power of illusion makes for a good professional tailor" Sagan said as he examined his threads, a lean crisp white outfit with a glowing red tie.
The world around Donatello shifted into that of a swimming pool centred in the Caribbean. Donatello tried to ignore it
"This is just my rattled mind stretching back over the last few months. It doesn't mean anything" Donatello said
"So you have pictured vacationing here? With your girlfriend?" Sagan asked in a soothing manner that oozed a slimy form of charisma.
Donatello's temper was quick to swell
"Leave her out of this" he said
"I can't can I? You and her, you were part of it all, part of my little downfall" Sagan replied.
"You put yourself under" Donatello snapped back
"Perhaps I did...but I didn't stop thinking even if I stopped moving...coma patients, oh they can hear every word exchanged to them in a hospital, but they can't reciprocate in verse. Oh no, can't give back any love. You just lie there in a hospital bed while they think of a hundred ways to play God. A hundred possibilities...and then they come up with the one solution that conjures up a thousand" Sagan revealed, "Three little letters, I believe you've heard of them"
"EDX" Donatello said dryly.
"Easy as ABC . They slipped a prism into my hand, pressed down on it, and all of a sudden I was a man with all the keys to the candy shop...'course it got boring a bit quick for me. It was all a dream, I knew that, I'm more precise in living the dream rather than sleep-walk it"
Sagan lay down on a deck chair next to the pool, clicked his fingers, and a beautiful woman with flowing brown locks sporting a bright blue two-piece bathing suit walked up to him carrying a drink
Donatello realized it was Irma
"That's enough" he whispered
"Oh don't look so surprised...this is your head in I'm in, I have to settle with the wenches you employ" Sagan said, and took a slurp out of the drink. He took the time to savour the taste
"Oh..bitter, she does love a turn of the scotch doesn't she? I wonder if that's because she's content...or still as empty...or maybe, since this is your head, she keeps it around the house for you? You DO work awfully hard"
"How can you be here?" Donatello demanded
"For a long while I wasn't, I could tell I had company. Like I was wired into a conscious internet, I saw so many people tempted, so many give in...and then, HE swooped in, him like a savant silver surfer with wacky cat beach lingo, his word was just and happening, and oh he saved them all...and then he tried to better himself, and that's when he invited you in"
"The shared meditation" Donatello realized
"I hung around, we can all do that, the young ones, they taught me that, there's a reason the peddlers always target the youth market, they realize everything before the rest of us do. I watched as...Mikey, that's who you call him right? I watched as he came in to teach them just to say no, something corny, something that set them all back, and most of the time it worked. That's the drawback about kids, they can be conditioned so well if the guiding hand is as radical as they are"
"So you crept into Michelangelo's head, and found me waiting" Donatello said
"I hitched a ride, and now I'm keeping you afloat, the thorn in your side...would be funny, would be appropriate, but you're too busy. And frankly so should I. So we'll play a game. A very short game if necessary. You want to know the title?"
Sagan got up and walked over to Donatello, he pulled himself closer and whispered "Wake up" to the Turtle before gently shoving him into the pool
Donatello felt an electric shock as his eyes snapped open and he realized he put his finger on a live terminal stored in the device. The cry alerted the other Turtles and their guests
"You ok Donatello?" asked Leonardo
"More than ok, it's done" Donatello said, "This device I've prepared will access and open a direct communion with my portal on this end of reality, allowing us to come through it at any juncture at any point in Dimension X"
"Digging your groove there Don" said Dask, "Now, we better get a move on, only so many hours left before our deadline"
"Where do we even start? You worked out the riddles we were given or what?" said Zak.
"All the answers we'll need lie back on Denzreneigh" said Dask, before clasping his mouth, as if he had just said something he wasn't meant to say.
"Denzreneigh?" said Kala, "Where's that?"
"It's in the father fields of Dimension X. Co-ordinates are 4AVCV32" he said, clutching his mouth again.
"You ok?" said Zak
"I don't know, I suddenly have an urge to tell you all things I shouldn't be" said Dask.
"Well whatever the reason for telling us, it sounds like you know your way around this place...I've never heard of it, or the father fields, and Dimension X Is our happening" said Kala, "And right now, given the stench of the sewer and the company my Mike is keeping, I could do with a happening place"
"Don't think for an instant I'm letting Mike out of my sight on this trip Kala, I'm tagging along. We need to have a bit of a girl talk, and Mike needs to learn first hand the kind of issues that can come between suitors"
"Can't I just stay home and do the washing up while you two go out and talk shop?" Michelangelo asked
"It's a domestic learning curb honey, you'll thank me later" April said
"In the meantime, I'll stay behind and help your aunt with the art theft case April" Leonardo said
"I insist Raphael stay behind too" Agatha said
"Me? What am I, the red-bandana league to you or something?" Raphael said
"I need someone with just the right bit of honesty written all over their faces" said Agatha, holding a crunched-up can of Pen Pal soda in front of him
"Oh" Raphael said.
Donatello punched in the co-ordinates supplied by Dask into the portal remote and pressed a few buttons, a tear ripped apart in the fabric of reality
"What are we waiting for? Let's paint this pretty picture already" said Zak, taking the blank canvas supplied to them by Tibbit and Bronze and carrying it into the portal, swiftly followed by Michelangelo, April, Kala, and a slightly hesitating Dask, who was welding the hyper-knife.
Donatello bid Leonardo and Raphael farewell, and, somewhere, in the back of his head, Sagan also joined in and bid them adieu mockingly.
The game was 'Wake up'.
The winner would have to be very alert.
As he entered the portal, Donatello knew that, deep down, the acquisition of dreams to come would be rich in abundance if he were to succeed, but for now, he would have to say goodnight to restful nights.