Hey there, everyone! Took a little longer to get this one typed up, but here it is. Hope you all enjoy it! Be sure to review and let me know what you think. I love hearing from all of you!
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Thank you to SSJ2Luke for beta-reading! *gives him a round of applause
Leonardo was the first turtle to propel down the rope and duck into the shadows behind a piece of technical equipment. His serious blue eyes watched Donatello, then Raphael descend to the floor and disappear into the shadows as well. As silent as a whisper, the leader slipped through the darkness on silent feet, ready to meet anyone who may be lurking in the shadows with them. He gently rapped his knuckles three times, then twice more against the side of the farther wall, issuing an 'all clear signal'. He heard the 'rat-a-tat, rat-tat' repeated from his right, then from his left as his brothers repeated the signal that the room empty save for the three of them.
Leo, still practicing a great amount of caution, lurked through the shadows to the front of the room where stood a large metallic door with a large electronic key pad guarding it, shutting the room up tight. Donatello withdrew the auxiliary cable from his bag once again and attached it to the key pad. Slipping the jack into his T-Phone, the genius ran the same decoding program to crack the security code. With a loud beep, the door lock clicked and Raph checked the resistance of the handle. The knob turned easily. Leo addressed Donnie with a quiet, stern voice.
"Donnie, go see if you can get into the computers and find out where they took Emma. Raph and I will find Mikey."
Donnie raised an eye ridge at him questioningly. The leader flickered a short, quick glance toward Raph, providing Donnie with all he needed to know: Leo didn't want to leave Raph alone right now.
"Establish radio communication in thirty minutes," Leo continued, "If you don't hear from us by then, get out of here." Donnie looked a little rebellious for a moment, but he nodded in acceptance. He reached into the bag and pulled out two com links. The genius turtle installed one to his big brother's ear before slipping the other into his own.
The three brothers slipped out of the room and Donnie slipped away down the dark corridor, vanishing from sight around a sharp corner. Drawing his katanas, Leo threw a glance toward Raph, who in turn drew his sais and held them defensively.
"Let's go."
Without another word, Raph and Leo ran swiftly in the opposite direction that Donnie had taken. For the next few minutes, the two brothers slipped quietly through the winding halls, carefully avoiding the security cameras that were obscurely hidden in the ceilings. After the third long corridor, Leo craned his neck around a corner and started sharply. He held out a hand to Raph, stopping him in his tracks.
Standing before one of the metallic doors stood a tall, thin man in a lab coat. He was thoughtfully flipping through the papers on his clipboard, his back to the two turtles. Raph's eyes searched his brother's serious blue ones, a silent question lurking there. Leo nodded shortly in acquiescence and sneaked up behind the tall man's preoccupied figure on swift, silent feet, Raph close on his heels.
With a steely flash of movement, Leo smacked the man on the back of the head with the hilt of one sword. He grunted in pain as he dropped his clipboard to grab the place where he had been hit. Leo used his free hand to knock the man forward into the wall, which he hit with his shoulder before sliding to the ground. The man froze with his hand still pressed against the back of his head as he stared up at the two turtles and the sword pointed directly at his chest.
"Put your hands up," Leo said coldly.
The man lifted his hands timidly, his eyes not leaving the shining edge of the blade. Leo looked over the man who cowered at his feet. A laminated ID badge, like the one Miriam had had, identified him as Dr. Douglas Salonga, MGG.
"Where is my brother?" Leo was fairly sure that he didn't have to explain who he meant.
The man's frantic eyes flickered toward the door that he had been about to enter.
"Open it. Now!" Leo ordered, jerking the katana upward a fraction in a commanding gesture.
Dr. Salonga rose unsteadily to his feet and turned to the key pad lock affixed to the wall. His long fingers shook uncontrollably as he punched in the key code. There was a loud beep as the door slid open. Leo grabbed the back of the man's long lab coat and shoved him into the room ahead of him, Raph lumbering close behind them with a purposeful step.
The light from the hallway momentarily illuminated the many cages that lined the walls of the room for a few moments before the door slid shut. The chorus of unearthly shrieks and wails that came from the rats and monkeys in the cages sounded like the tortured screams of the damned. In the dim light, it was hard to make out the forms of the lab animals, but their glowing eyes and shining teeth betrayed their presence, even more than the noise. Raph fumbled for the light switch by the door and flicked it up, bathing the room in harsh, bright light.
Mikey sat on the floor of a large chain link cage near the back wall, his knees pulled into his plastron and his head buried into his knees. His hands and feet were secured with thick metal restraints, chained together like a high security prison inmate. Leo took in the many bruises and scrapes that decorated Mikey's face and body, especially the one that discolored the back of his head. He rarely got near the precipice of rage like Raph usually did, but as Leo stood looking over the demure form of his baby brother, he felt the hot tightness in his chest and his breathing grew shallow as he tried to force himself to stay calm.
"Mikey!"
The young turtle's head shot up at the sound of Raph's pained voice. Leo's eyes narrowed at the sight of the leather strapped muzzle that had been affixed to Mikey's head, forcing his mouth shut. Mikey stared with wide, disbelieving eyes at the forms of his brothers. He scrambled to his feet and staggered a little, clutching the links in the cage to help regain his balance.
"Mhm! Mm!" Mikey grunted through the muzzle as he shook the cage links frantically.
Raph's face was awash with relief and he bounded across the laboratory, awakening the hostile cries of the captive animals in the cages once again. He grasped the chain links over Mikey's large fingers. Leo shoved the man roughly across the floor, clenching the lab coat and the shirt beneath it unceremoniously as he propelled the trembling doctor further into the lab.
"Unlock the cage," Leo ordered coldly, shoving the frightened man forward toward the lock.
Dr. Salonga scowled mutinously at the leader for a fraction of a second before Raph's withering glare humbled the skinny doctor. He pulled a ring of keys from his pocket and selected one tentatively.
"Move it, or I'll gut you for the rats!" Raph threatened hotly, thrusting the tip of one sai toward the man's throat.
With a terrified squeak, the doctor stuck the key in the lock and jerked it open. Mikey's knees gave out as the cage door squeaked open and the young turtle sank to the floor, breathless. Raph pushed past Leo and the doctor and bolted through the cage door, kneeling before his baby brother.
"God, Mikey…" Raph breathed brokenly as he reached around Mikey's head to unhook the buckle that secured the muzzle. Leo's body trembled with silent fury as he looked over the clear imprints of a chain discoloring Mikey's throat as the youngest turtle looked gratefully up at his hotheaded brother.
"Keys for the cuffs?" Raph inquired shortly, holding out one large hand towards the figures outside the cage. Dr. Salonga shook his head jerkily.
"I-I-I don't have them." he stuttered, voice unsteady with terror.
Raph snarled up at the doctor and jammed the tip of one of his sais into the lock, jiggling it expertly. There was a soft click and the locks sprung open on the wrist restraints. The ankle cuffs were removed just as quickly and Raph tossed the chains into the far corner of the cage.
"Come on, Mike. Let's get you out of here."
Mikey nodded wearily and draped his arm over his broad shoulders as Raph pulled his him to his feet. He leaned heavily on his brother as they shuffled from the cage.
As soon as his brothers were clear of the cage entrance, Leo grabbed the keys from the doctor's trembling fingers and shoved him into the empty cage with one fluid movement. Stumbling heavily into the back links of the cage, Dr. Salonga protested indignantly as the blue clad turtle slammed the door closed behind him. Ignoring the protests, Leo locked the cage before turning his attention to his little brother. Raph pulled up a metal chair and set Mikey in it. The orange masked turtle looked like he was in pretty bad shape as he sat demurely in the chair.
"What happened, Mikey? Are you alright?" Leo asked with a quiet urgency. Mikey shook his head bewilderedly, his eyes slightly glassy.
"I went to get Emma's medicine when this chick blindsided me, guys. She attacked me, but I took her down." He looked sort of pleased with himself, his goofy grin sagging a little on tired lips before melting into a shameful pout. "Then, someone choked me, I didn't see who it was." Mikey massaged his bruised throat gingerly as he spoke. "I lost my chucks…," he finished lamely and stared at the floor.
Leo's gaze drifted to the bruises on Mikey's neck, his tactical mind analyzing the possibilities of where they may have come from.
Raph's eyes were fixated on Mikey's forearm that hung limply at his side. Leo followed the gaze and stared dumbly at the purpling bruise on the inside of Mikey's elbow. He swallowed back the bile rising in his throat and forced his mind to stay clear, to stay calm. Raph's teeth ground together and a rumbling growl resonated deep in his throat.
"What did they do to you?" Raph whirled on the terrified doctor, "What did you do to him?" Dr. Salonga cowered at the turtle's irate tone, huddling against the back of the cage.
"Raph," Leo warned reservedly, desperately attempting to curb his own temper. Raph exhaled heavily and raised his hands as if to say, 'I'm fine.'
"I really screwed up, bros," Mikey continued shakily, his breathing shallow and tearful, "I tried to fight it… but I couldn't do it…" He wrapped his arms around himself guiltily. Leo frowned at his brother's lament. Couldn't do what?
"Mikey, take a breath. Just tell us what happened."
Mikey did as Leo had asked and heaved a deep sigh. His voice was a little stronger as he spoke again.
"They stuck me with some drug. I don't know what it was. They made me tell 'em where Emma was." Raph stiffened visibly at his brother's admission, and Mikey must have sensed it because he stammered into speech quickly, his eyes carefully averted.
"I didn't want to, but… they made me," Hot tears pooled in the big blue eyes, threatening to spill over in a cascade, "I put Casey and April in danger, didn't I? Are they okay?" Mikey asked pleadingly, looking between his big brothers. Leo rested one hand on his brother's shoulder and squeezed lightly.
"They're going to be fine, Mikey." he said kindly, not able to keep the melancholy tone from tinging his husky voice.
"Oh, God." Mikey covered his face with his hands, his whole body trembling violently. Seemingly disconcerted by his brother's distress, Raph knelt next to Mikey and rubbed his shell with one hand. The youngest turtle wiped hot tears from his eyes and looked sorrowfully into his brother's uncharacteristically kind eyes.
"I'm sorry, Raph. I'm sorry that I couldn't protect Emma better."
"It's going to be ok, Mikey. I swear. We're going to make those bastards pay for what they did to you and to Casey. We're going to find Emma and we're going to bring her home. Got it?"
Mikey hiccupped softly and nodded, his face set and determined.
Leo met the eyes of the doctor in the cage once more. He looked frightened, yet curious as his he studied Leo's shell and stance. A new genetic anomaly for him to study, no doubt.
Turning away from the man's scrutiny, he raised his hand to his communication link and hit the button that sent transmissions to the link in Donnie's ear.
"Donnie? We found Mikey. Come in, Don."
All that they leader could hear was the hissing white noise of static.
While Raph and Leo were searching the building for Mikey, Donatello was busy plugging his T-Phone into a key code pad next to a wooden office door and decoding the pass code that would open it. He had bypassed several generic looking metal doors, supposing them to be storage supply closets or small laboratories and had focused on finding an empty office space where he could access the computer systems through a mainframe connected monitor. The first wooden door that he had encountered bore the nameplate of a Dr. Douglas Salonga, MGG and Donnie had pulled up short at once. The doctor who got the files from that hot secretary. This was the place to find the answers he needed.
Quickly, he pulled the cable from his bag and attached one end into his T-Phone and the other into the key code pad. With a few short taps of the buttons, he issued the code-breaking command that would open the locked door. The key pad beeped loudly and the bolt lock clicked as it unlocked. Donnie tugged the door open and shut it quickly behind him. The office space was fairly small, with overflowing filing cabinets leaning against the wall and a cluttered wooden desk facing away from the door, a computer monitor in sleep mode residing on the desktop. Bingo.
Donnie slid into the office chair and pulled his laptop from his bag, connecting the cable to the jack in the computer tower. Within a few seconds, the two CPUs were synced and Donnie began typing furiously at the familiar keys of his laptop. He easily bypassed the security that surrounded the most important files within the Genetech mainframe. Piece of cake, he thought with an easy smile.
The obvious choice to Donnie was to hack into the security feed. His eyes scanned the frequencies for the little girl. He spotted Leo and Raph in a medical lab, shouting at a tall man in a lab coat. Mikey was standing in a large cage, something wrapped around his head and his hands and feed chained together. He scanned the rest of the security feeds carefully.
It wasn't long before he spotted Emma's pink onesie in one of the images and breathed a sigh of relief. She was asleep in a solitary plastic crib in a small space and seemed to be unharmed. She was still in this lab, which was good luck for them. He memorized the location of the security camera before shutting down the image.
Okay… now to get some answers. He scrolled through other files on the mainframe, hoping to find something that would give him a clue to what was going on in this lab. Most of the files seemed fairly standard; maintenance reports, supply inventories and other bland documents that the genetics lab would need in order to run properly. The genius turtle chose to ignore these files and consciously looked for key words that would lead him in the right direction.
One file in particular caught the genius' eye about three quarters down the list. It was a particularly large file, about ten gigabytes of data. The title underneath the file folder icon read 'Project Rebirth'. Donnie raised his eye ridges in interest as he contemplated the file name.
"This looks promising," he mumbled to himself as he clicked on the file. Thousands of documents flashed across the monitor. Donnie's eyes perused through the various documents, noting that they included medical reports, experiment trial logs and other scientific documents. He scrolled back up to the top of the list and double clicked on the most recent document published. It was a report that was sent to the president of the company, and was titled 'Progress Summary: February 14'.
It's as good a place to start as any.
He leaned forward and began reading the report, resting his elbows on the desk as he scanned the laptop screen carefully. It was seemingly written by this ever present Dr. Salonga and the document listed information about the physiological and cognitive progress of the test subject only referred to as GE0932 as of the day that the document was written. It also listed the various compounds and treatments that were being administered to the test subject and the effects that they had on her body and mind. Some of the treatments included prolonged exposure to different frequencies of gamma radiation and various gene stabilizers to keep her body from rejecting the serum encoded in her DNA.
The more he read, the more disturbed Donnie became. God… is this what Emma had to live through? No wonder she hates my lab so much… His stomach twisted in disgust as he read over the specifics of the process for a second time. He exited the report with a shudder and clicked on a medical report, then an experiment trial log, scrolling through each document with a growing sour taste in his mouth. Within a few long minutes, he felt like he had a fairly good idea of what 'Project Rebirth' was trying to accomplish. Goddamn these monsters to hell…
Donnie's hand tightened over the mouse in indignation. So much pain and suffering, and for what? A perfect specimen of humanity? It wasn't worth the lives of Miriam, Casey, April or Emma. No… it wasn't worth it at all. These animals were overreaching their scientific limits; tinkering with the human genome in ways that weren't natural. This made Donnie very angry; even more than the fact that they were planning on using this knowledge as a weapon. That they were planning to make Emma into a weapon to use against innocent people.
It was very clear to him what he needed to do: destroy the files so that they can't duplicate this process ever again. He knew that he could plant a virus into the computer files that will completely fry the entire system beyond repair very easily. He had to make sure that no one else was going to get hurt because of this damned project.
His fingers hovered over the keys, ready to implant the virus, but his overwhelming scientific curiosity stalled his movement. A nagging voice in the back of his expansive brain urged him to find out all that he could about the project that had given Emma life. To find out why. Allowing his need for knowledge to dictate his actions, he hit a series of keys, commanding the system to download the file onto his laptop. Donnie hoped that his hard drive could handle all of the information that he was loading into it.
He typed more desperately, hoping to clear off some unneeded data in order to make room for the incoming information. The old specs of his outdated projects could go, along with some of the unfinished Super Robot Mecha Force Five fanfiction transcripts that were saved on his hard drive. This is worth the sacrifice. A green load bar popped up on his screen and slowly began filling up. Ten percent of the download completed. Donnie stared at the screen, willing it to go faster.
He stiffened and his warm brown eyes widened in astonishment at the pressure of the cold muzzle of a gun pressed against the back of his head.
"Don't move, monster," a deeply accented feminine voice warned, her voice dripping with venomous disdain.
Announcement: The 2014 TMNT Fanfiction Competition is upon us! It's hosted by stealthystories, a TMNT fanfic website, and I hear that it is all kinds of fun! I put the address to the site on my profile if you want to go check it out and you can find the dates and rules for the competition there too! If you're interested in participating, please go check it out!
Thanks for reading!