*Lest you think I'm exaggerating with all the rain...this part of Africa is one of the rainiest places on the planet. It's not called the rainforest for nothing. ;)
Sneaking off the air strip itself was almost child's play for the four turtles, who easily melded their own forms to appear as one with the shadows, and had to deal with little more than an electrified fence to get to the other side of freedom. Donatello had to sacrifice a couple of his shock absorbers that he'd clamped to the fence to interrupt the flow of electricity, but it was for a worthy cause.
They'd slipped silently through a neighborhood nearby, made up of what looked like mostly one room dwellings, before running into a section of actual storefronts and apartment buildings. Donatello was hesitating on top of one now, rubbing his eyes a little wearily to remove trailing rain drops from the showers that had been pursuing them. Leonardo and Michelangelo had already made the leap to the roof across from him, a feat they'd been taking one at a time over the uncertain surfaces.
The distance itself wasn't impressive, but the purple-masked turtle still felt the necessity to glance below before attempting it. There were still people on the street at this hour, some on foot while others were on bicycles, seemingly in no hurry to get anywhere. Time was a luxury they appeared to have in droves. He inhaled slightly before making the jump, eager to get out of the way before Raphael got sick of waiting for him to go.
The purple-masked turtle landed nimbly on the slanted surface, but he wasn't ready for the tile to shift underneath him. He fought to regain his balance, but his legs were out of his immediate control. The turtle landed hard on his side, and the sheer force of his own weight sent him sprawling over the edge to a lower level of the roof.
Donatello grappled to catch ahold of something, the slippery roofing tiles providing zero traction for him to grip with his fingers. As he plummeted backwards, a sharp jerk around his neck startled him, as his cloak caught the corner of the ledge he'd just fallen from. It slowed his descent by a fraction of seconds, and he scrambled helplessly in that upside-down position to catch himself on something else.
There were arms suddenly underneath him, unexpectedly supporting his shell. He was so tangled up in the material of his cloak, that he couldn't even see what had stopped his disastrous stumble.
"I've gotcha Donny, don't struggle!" his red-masked brother urged him, as Donatello gasped anxiously.
"I'm caught," Donatello replied tightly, as Raphael stretched on his tip-toes to relieve some of the pressure of his brother's weight off the captured cloak, that was barely clinging to the edge of the building.
"Raph, have you got him?" Leonardo's voice carried from above them, as loudly as the blue-masked turtle dared.
"Yeah Fearless, he ain't going anywhere!"
"Donny, I'm going to cut you loose! Raph's right there with you, he won't let you fall," Leonardo said very calmly.
The purple-masked turtle stayed completely still, confident in the fact that he was safe in their hands. Raphael guided him down carefully from the backwards position he'd been trapped in, lowering him to the roof on both feet. The red-banded turtle didn't let go of him until he was certain Donatello was alright crouching on the roof, and even then remained within inches of his shell.
"Are you all right Genius? Did you hit anything?"
"No Raph, I'm fine...I think. Thanks a lot."
"Are you sure?" Raphael persisted. "You hit pretty hard."
Before Donatello had time to answer, Leonardo had landed on the lower level beside the two of them.
"Is everything okay?"
"Yeah, I'm sorry Leo. I completely lost it," the purple-masked turtle said meekly.
"Well, I guess you're going to have to make sure you get some sleep tonight Donny," Leonardo replied, with just enough of a teasing tone so that it didn't come off like lecturing. "Nice catch Raph. I think it's time we headed down, the material up here isn't the most stable surface on the planet."
"I couldn't agree more," Raphael added, before casting a glance down at the street, several feet beneath them.
They didn't have direct access to the ground, but the very building they were perched upon seemed so run down that it looked abandoned, as if no one had done any maintenance on it in years. Donatello caught the red-masked turtle's somewhat probing glance, and nodded himself.
"It doesn't look like it's been touched for some time, at least, there's no electricity running to it in any case. It might not be structurally sound."
"We'll have to watch our step, but it's probably the best place to stop," Leonardo said assertively. "It'd be nice to get out of this rain anyway."
"Why wasn't I invited to this party?" Michelangelo suddenly called from above them.
"'Cause you got too far ahead numbskull," Raphael shot in return. "Bring your shell on down, we're heading into this building."
"Mike, wait!" Donatello cut in before the orange-masked turtle could move. "Let a couple of us get inside first, we shouldn't risk putting the weight of all four of us on this ridge."
"Donny, if you think I need a diet, just say so," the youngest turtle chuckled.
Raphael rolled his eyes at Donatello, and then honed in on an already cracked window. The red-masked turtle brought all of his force behind the handle of one of his sai, and finished the job of breaking the glass. He took a few seconds longer to clear remaining jagged shards, and then ducked his own frame through the window.
"Raph, take a light." Leonardo urged, and shoved a flashlight from his bag into his brother's waiting hand.
The red-masked turtle handled his weight carefully on the floor, as he tried to make certain that it would support him. He flashed the beam across the cavernous room, laying eyes on a number of bugs, but nothing actually worth mentioning. "C'mon you guys, it looks clear," he said over his shoulder. Raphael took a couple more halting steps forward, gripping his light in one hand, and one of his sai tightly in the other.
Donatello ducked inside next, and shrugged out of his own bag to find his flashlight. He joined Raphael in the sweep of the room, and then made straight for a doorway that seemed to be leading off of it. From the remnants of debris in the hallway, he could surmise that no one had lived there for quite some time. As he returned to the room, he walked in on all three of his brothers taking off rain-soaked gear.
Michelangelo cast a glance back at the window Raphael had broken, and grinned widely. "Think we should leave a note?"
"To say what, 'Jambo'?" Raphael snorted. "That's the only African word I've got down so far."
"Let's stay together, and get a better look around," Leonardo suggested.
"...Go three more blocks, and you should see it on your left Doc," Donatello assured the man over the cell-phone. "We'll be watching for her...No Luke, we'll be okay. You've gotta do, what you've gotta do...Uh huh. We'll go wait there."
The purple-masked turtle hung up the phone, and looked at his expectant brothers. "They're close by. Luke's going to drop April off, and go back to the strip to stay with the others on the Gulfstream. They don't want to leave the plane unattended, I guess it's been getting weird attention."
"They touch that plane, and we're gonna have to introduce some Africans to ninja turtles," Raphael said angrily. "And if they hold onto Heff much longer, they're definitely gonna meet one!"
"Raph, you know we can't do anything." Leonardo tried to stay patient. "The men have to stay visible and legal. We have to let the others handle this."
"No harm in sayin' I'd like to," Raphael growled in return.
"So anyway," Donatello interjected. "We need to watch for April, because she'll be here soon."
The turtles had taken up residence on the first floor of the old apartment building after working their way down from the top, and Donatello and Raphael headed over to a side window, which would give them a partial view of the street. Once they were clear of the others, Raphael's arm unexpectedly found Donatello's shoulder.
"That was a little close up there Donny."
"I know, I'm lucky you were there," he replied seriously, fighting off the small smile that threatened at his brother's unusual display of affection.
Raphael gave him a parting pat as they caught sight of a nearing vehicle. They waited a few seconds to catch a visual on April, and then Donatello flashed the beam of his flashlight so she would know where to go. The red-masked turtle reached through the open window to help the woman get inside, pulling her off the ground as if she weighed no more than a feather.
The two turtles showed her to where Leonardo and Mike had cleared out a small corner, and they started to settle in for the night.
"So, how was your date?" Raphael couldn't resist asking finally.
April shot the turtle an extremely dirty look. "Don't make me hurt you." Then she glanced around at the others to include them again. "This is some place you guys rustled up."
"Donny just stumbled onto it," Raphael volunteered, earning himself a dirty look from another direction that time.
April shuddered slightly as if cold, though the actual temperature made that hard to believe. "It's been a rough few days guys. I can't tell you how glad I am to be here with you, instead of back in Mbandaka by myself."
"We're glad you're here too April," Leonardo said quickly. "I just wish everything wasn't so messed up. This latest entanglement is the last thing we needed."
Donatello had been fiddling with his scanner as he leaned against the wall, reassuring himself with Marcus' vital statistics again. "We're a lot closer to Marc than we were this morning," he pointed out. "We'll get there guys. If I know Kat, she's got something up her sleeve for helping Heff get out of this."
April nodded as if listening, but didn't say anything. Leonardo latched onto the silent moment to change the subject slightly.
"What about this girl April, his translator? She's going to know about us before this is all over with. What's she like?"
"Her name's Rebecca," the woman clarified. "She's smart, kind of quiet...very passionate about this country. She's a good girl guys, a really good girl."
April's expression was suddenly so sad, that it made Donatello cock his head, and put the scanner down.
"What is it April?" he had to ask.
"I've just been thinking," she answered softly. "We're all desperate to find Marcus. You guys are risking your own lives, probably more than you ever have. You crossed the ocean to get here. But Rebecca..." The woman trailed off, now on the verge of tears.
Michelangelo leaned over, grazing her shoulder lightly. "What about her?"
"I don't think she hasanybody," April finally said. "She only left one contact number with the organization, and I called her grandparents to let them know she was missing before the media broke the story. Do you want to know what her grandfather said to me? He told me Rebecca was dead to them, something to do with all of her 'foolishness' about the Congo. He literally said he didn't care what happened to her, that none of them did."
The turtles didn't know what to say to that, so no one said anything right away. After a few seconds, April continued.
"She grew up here as a missionary's kid, with her parents and an older sister. They spent almost the girls' entire lives in Africa. Then she was forced to return to the US about three years ago for some reason, and has been fighting to come back here full-time. I have this feeling that something happened to her parents and sister, that they're not around anymore. There was no contact info, and she's never talked about them in the present tense, as in anything they're doing right now."
April paused for another long moment. "It's heart-breaking to think that people could treat their own family that way, but especially someone like Rebecca...You guys just have to meet her. She's an amazing person, so genuinely moved by the plight of other people. It's as if their cause, their suffering is the only thing that drives her.
When you first look at her, she just appears as this pensive girl, wrapped up tightly in a protective shell. You can tell there's a lot going on in there, but you'd be hard-pressed to find out what it is. Then you get her out here among these people, speaking their languages like she's one of them, and all the life inside of her comes out."
April sniffed and wiped away a tear, now focusing hard on the floor. "They say there's often more to someone than meets the eye. She fits that description perfectly."