They had made the wrong decision. Raphael was sure of it.
They had had two choices after the Blue Lotus and those mooks with the stun guns had swarmed them — either they could flee into the night and come back later, or they could retreat into the Spartan building and find someplace to hide.
He had only had a split second to decide for himself and Mikey. He had known this when Don had collapsed, a dart in his arm filling him with poison, and Leo had dropped down in convulsions when one of those stun guns had struck him. Raph couldn't get to them — he tried to carve his way through the ranks, but the ninjas had been popping up everywhere around him, and those stun blasts had been lighting up the air around him as he tried to dance out of their way.
So, gritting his teeth and hating himself for it, he had done the only other thing he could do: grab Mikey and run back to the building. The idea running through his head was that if those goons took his brothers prisoner, then being inside meant a better chance of finding them. Right? Right.
Wrong. Raph was already regretting it. Leo would never have made that choice, he was sure.
"You think they know where we are?" Mikey whispered.
"Pipe down," Raph whispered back.
The two of them had managed to lodge themselves above the removable plates of the office ceiling. It took most their strength to hang on to the pipes that ran above them, the air ducts that rattled overhead, all without accidentally alerting anyone to their presence. That also meant keeping Mikey shut up for however long it would take, which seemed less likely with every passing minute.
Footsteps pattered down below them, and urgent voices muttered amongst themselves. Raph strained to hear, even as his muscles strained to hang on to the pipe he was suspended from.
"… checked the basement levels completely. They're not there."
"What are we hiring these Blue Lotus fools for if they can't catch another ninja?"
"They're currently combing the upper levels."
"We know they're somewhere in the building. How can it be so hard to find two mutants? It's not as if they're small!"
Raph felt a snarl uncoiling in his throat, and had to resist the urge to burst out of the ceiling and give these oily, slippery misfits a good thrashing, Turtle-style. His sai were practically begging him to use them.
"The more specimens we are able to collect, the higher the chances of the project's success. We don't even know how many of these creatures there are."
"How is our new specimen?"
"Still suffering from the effects of Dusk, which made him seem rather passive at first. He's remarkably resilient, though — he still managed to fight off 68-G despite his condition."
Raphael let his head drop down lower, listening to every word that passed. They had to be talking about Donnie.
"He's in the lab for further experimentation. The same battery of tests that 410-B went through — rather unpleasant, but necessary. They should yield a fair amount of data on what characteristics are, for lack of a better term, species-wide for them."
"Ah, 410-B — how is the prodigal specimen?"
"Recalcitrant, as always. I'm afraid we had to gas him. Again." A deep sigh. "It really is quite a shame that the memory wipe was incomplete — had it worked properly, he would have been the perfect soldier. As it is, I suspect we only gave him some minor memory issues."
"What are you doing with him now?"
"He's being kept in the same laboratory as 411-A. Since all the biological testing on him has been completed, there remains the other tests of his personal attributes, such as loyalty."
"Just don't let those two get away. They're far too valuable."
"Then find the other two, and perhaps we'll be able to move the project forward ahead of schedule."
The voices faded away as the sound of footsteps rang out below. Raphael gripped the pipe more tightly, and was able to swing himself up on top of it, straddling it.
"They're keeping Don and Leo in a lab?" Mikey whispered. "Dude, I've had nightmares that start that way."
"Me too, Mikey," Raph grunted. "So we better find 'em before anything else happens in that lab."
"What do you think they meant by all that stuff?" Mikey continued, resting his head on the air duct. "About Leo being the perfect soldier?"
"I'm startin' to get an idea," Raph whispered grimly. "First we gotta find a place to hide—"
"I thought we had that."
"Would you shut up? Someplace to hide where we ain't hanging from the ceiling," Raph snapped. "Then we grab some idiot and make him tell us where they're keepin' Leo and Don."
"What about those Blue Lotus guys?" Mikey said, starting to slide down from the air duct.
"We can take 'em on as long as those guys with the stun guns ain't there," Raph said grimly. "Let's go."
He listened for a few minutes to the silence below, except for the faint whirring of the air duct under Mikey. Then he knocked the panel out from under himself, and slithered down to the carpet. The hall was deserted, but he knew that could change at any moment — especially if there were any security cameras around the place.
"Come on, Mikey," he called up as Mikey inched down towards him. "We got maybe two minutes before those idiots figure out where we were."
They ran silently and swiftly through the halls, staying close to the walls and only pausing in shadowy spaces where few could see them. There didn't seem to be any cameras in this area — none that Raph could see, anyway. But he kept his eyes open for them anyway.
As they reached the stairwell, Raph paused. Heavy footfalls on the stairs, echoing through the cavernous space. Voices, trying to be quiet but echoing just as loudly.
"Hide," he ordered, turning and pushing Mikey into the janitor's closet.
It wasn't the best hiding place — it was pitch black, it smelled of bleach and oil, and Raph could feel that his foot had landed in something squishy and wet. Even worse, they were crammed in so tightly against one another that if they were found, they wouldn't have the space to fight. Shell, he thought darkly, they wouldn't even have the space to jump out without tripping over a bucket and two brooms.
"—check every room on this floor. And if you don't find them here, we'll move on and sweep the next floor. They're somewhere in the building, so find them."
Raph gritted his teeth, and tried to wiggle his hands over to his sai. They were going to get caught — possibly any minute now, given how close they were to the janitor's closet. And if those guys had stun guns, the two of them might be ending up in a lab with Leo and Don.