The daylight hours passed largely without incident. The dumpster had been opened several times, which was extremely taxing on Donatello's already frayed nerves. Each time it turned out to be someone depositing a fresh bag of garbage, not a villain out to apprehend him. Fortunately, no one took notice of the pale, shaking, saucer-eyed turtle dressed in discarded second hand clothes and buried under a mound of trash. For the most part, Donnie was left alone, with only his nightmares and oppressive thoughts as company.
After the last of the dinner rush left the pizza shop, Donnie slipped out of the dumpster, clutching his walking stick in one hand, and a reusable shopping bag containing his precious signal jammer and duct tape in the other. He knew from what he had overheard in the scrapyard last night that the jammer was working, but even so, it would only be a short-term fix. It had been confirmed that there was another tracking device somewhere in or on his body, and Donnie suspected that he knew where.
After his shell had been shattered, he was in and out of consciousness for weeks. His captors could have done anything to him during that time, and he would never have noticed. His shell was the perfect spot for them to have planted a tracker, too. As it healed, it would've grown right over or around a foreign object. It would also be very difficult for him to locate and remove it on his own, given that his arms simply didn't bend that way.
Try though he may, Donnie couldn't think of an effective way to precisely identify the exact location of the device. A metal detector was simple to build, but it would miss anything nonmetal. He'd never be able to assemble an X-ray or ultrasound machine in a reasonable amount of time. He could construct a signal detector, but he didn't think that he could achieve the accuracy needed to find something so small. He also feared the possibility that there was still more than one device on him. He obviously wasn't about to cut his entire shell off. All this lead him to the conclusion that a broader approach was needed.
While a good old-fashioned electric shock would likely do the trick, there was the small matter of keeping his heart beating to worry about. Fortunately, electromagnets were just about the worst thing for electronics, without the nasty, potentially fatal side effects. Building a handheld electromagnet was child's play, as far as Donnie was concerned. It was just a matter of finding the proper components. He knew that he could grab them at the scrap yard but going back there was too risky. He was also afraid to take to the sewers again, after yesterday's incident.
While waiting to leave his comfortable dumpster, Donnie had piled on as many clothes as he could. At first glance, he looked like an everyday homeless person, particularly because it was dark out once more. His heavy limp accentuated this effect. It was the type of thing that most humans would prefer to turn their eyes away from. The disguise allowed Donnie to wander the streets and to search through alleys and dumpsters without anyone paying him any heed.
Over the course of the night, he managed to find all the components he would need to put together an electromagnetic wand. He'd found the parts here and there, as a blueprint evolved in his mind. His major score came from a dumpster located near a hardware store that was going out of business. There was so much good stuff! If only he had his trusty brown duffel. Tempting though it was, he wasn't about to lug a bunch of extra stuff across the city when he could hardly even bear his own weight.
As daybreak approached, Donnie knelt in an alley and assembled the electromagnet. Once it was ready, he tested it out, watching in wonder as a stray piece of metal rose from the street and attached itself to the wand. Donnie cleared it off, and then waved the wand over his body, head to toe. He paid special attention to his shell. Bending backwards was difficult, and there was no guarantee that any of this would work. But, he had done the very best that he could.
Once he was finished, Donnie looked down at his trusty signal jammer. He knew that he couldn't carry it around forever. In fact, he knew that he would have to turn it off, if he were to be confident that the trackers were destroyed. He had to be completely positive that they were dead before he tried to go home. The only real way to know for sure was to turn the jammer off and then wait around to see if anybody found him. It was risky, but there was no way in hell that he was leading his enemies to his family, if he even had any family left.
Donnie groaned and rubbed between his eyes. He had decided to wait two weeks after turning off the jammer before heading home. It was going to be hard to wait, but Donnie was stubborn about this sort of thing. The Pseudo-Shredder wouldn't leave him free for long, if he could help it. If no one came for him after two weeks, it would be safe to assume that he had managed to debug himself. It should also give him time enough to recover from his illness. He knew it was far-fetched, but a part of him couldn't help but worry that he was carrying some weird disease that would set off a pandemic. He'd been avoiding humans as much as possible, but he needed to avoid his family as well. So, he had set the admittedly somewhat arbitrary two-week wait period. After that, if he was still confident that he was not contagious and not being followed, he could finally, finally go home.
But first, he had to be brave enough to turn off the signal jammer. According to his self-imposed rules, the two-week wait period didn't begin until he did. He was too scared to do it at the moment, though. It seemed like everything had been too easy. He'd built the electromagnetic wand in one night, after all. Nothing ever came that easy, especially lately. So, how could this?
With a resigned growl, Donnie heaved the makeshift signal jammer up. The top of the sun was now peeking out from between two buildings and casting long shadows into the alley. Donatello had to get out of here before he was spotted and find a new hiding place for the day. He simply wasn't mentally prepared to turn off the jammer, so he decided to allow himself to indulge in its comforting presence for a little while longer. Deciding against a dumpster, Donnie impulsively took refuge in the sewers.
The tunnel that he found himself in was a large, major artery that was lit with emergency lighting. Deeming the odds of running into a maintenance worker too high, Donnie limped towards one of the shadowy side tunnels. His whole body shook with effort, and he finally collapsed once he was a few hundred yards in. He was pushing himself too hard and he knew it. Donnie dragged himself into a corner, arranged his meager possessions, and fell asleep.
His troubled mind allowed him a few hours rest before a nightmare shocked him awake. He shook his head to clear the unpleasant image that had seared itself into his brain - a one-armed Michelangelo lying dead on the ground. Donnie's breath came in quick, rattled gasps, which he forced himself to control. He pulled his clothing tighter around his aching body, then buried his face in his hands, telling himself that it was okay. He was okay. They were okay.
In time, Donatello was ready to stretch out his trembling limbs a little, figuring he would gradually work his way to standing up. He systematically tested each muscle. When the shakiness failed to dissipate, he realized it may well be a side effect of hunger and anxiety. He couldn't do much about the hunger before sundown, but he could attempt to tackle the anxiety.
Groaning as he pulled himself into a sitting position, Donnie leaned back against the nearby wall and took some deep, centering breaths. He closed his eyes, but reopened them whenever an unpleasant, haunting vision would flash before them. Once the trembling had died down, he found himself staring at the signal jammer in contemplation. He considered what would need to change for him to be comfortable turning it off.
The truth was, he just didn't trust the electromagnetic wand. While it should have worked, there was just no way of knowing for sure without building a signal detector. He couldn't go above ground to search for parts now, as he knew that it was likely still daylight. Not only that, but the parts he would need may be difficult to find.
Donnie sat with his bad arm resting on his good leg, and his bad leg stretched out before him while he stared into the main tunnel. Physically and mentally, he was a mess. At least his fever seemed to be letting up, which was a blessing. The problem was, now that he had been free for a while, his excitement was beginning to give way to crippling anxiety. He didn't know what he would do if he was caught again. He didn't know what he needed to do to feel confident that he wasn't being tracked. The worries were clouding his mind, and he was helpless down here in the sewers without any tools, or any means of a quick escape.
As he stared into the main tunnel, an idea came to him. It was a bad idea, and he knew it. But, at the moment he didn't care. Donnie took off his ratty clothing and used it to cover up the signal jammer. He then grabbed his walking stick and hobbled over to the row of tunnel lights. They were all connected to one electrical line. Donatello had shocked himself plenty of times over the course of his lifetime. Engineering, working in the lab and in the garage, his curious nature - all these things tended to result in certain misadventures.
Donnie had a pretty good idea of what the voltage of the power line supplying the lights would be. It was strong enough to short out anything electrical, but not strong enough to stop his heart...probably. If he weren't so darn anxious, he would have waited until nightfall and looked for a better solution. Right now, he was in a perfect mood to take a stupid chance.
Casting his eyes around the sewer, Donnie found a piece of wood with a few nails sticking out of it. The wood wouldn't conduct electricity, which was perfect. Donnie grasped the plank and used the sharpest nail to cut most of the way through the wire that fed the line of lights. When the nail contacted the newly-developed raw spot, it threw sparks and the lights flickered.
Donnie knew that if he simply reached out and touched the unprotected wire, all his muscles would be paralyzed by the resulting electric current. He would be unable to move away and would be frozen in place while he was cooked to death. He had to make sure that his feet weren't touching the ground when he made contact. Gravity was going to finish this job for him, ensuring that he didn't complete the circuit with his body for longer than a millisecond. Donnie turned his back to the sparking wire. He closed his eyes and sighed, gathering his courage. He then leaped backwards with as much force as he could, using his walking stick to gain some height.
Electricity instantly exploded across his back. He had aimed for the spot where his shell was the most damaged, which he assumed to be the most likely location of the tracking device. It was a direct hit. Donnie felt as though his entire shell had been set on fire and disintegrated. Lightening seemed to travel up and down the partially-healed cracks, throughout his body, and out his feet. He was only aware of this phenomenon for a moment, and then his whole world went as dark as the now pitch-black tunnel.
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