It was around 10am the next morning when April received another phone call, which was actually reassuring in a way. Her first move was to immediately find Sarah, who was back out at the tent with Mike and the other girls. Seeing the turtle sitting there reminded April that he'd want to hear this news probably more than anyone else.
"I need to get back into downtown Dayton, I just got a call on the Battle Shell. It was impounded, towed from wherever the guys left it." April told everyone at once.
"I can take you down there." Sarah said briskly, rising to go grab her purse.
"That's what I was hoping - you don't mind going right away?"
"Of course not. The sooner we get the van out of their hands, the better." Sarah replied, as Mike got to his own feet.
"I second that." The turtle echoed. "Maybe you ought take one of the guys with you April."
"I have driven the Battle Shell before Mike." April said a little indignantly.
"No, I--I know April, I wasn't trying to disrespect. I was just sayin'..." The turtle stammered as the woman cast him a smile.
"We'll be alright Mike. I swear I can handle that vehicle of yours'."
"I never meant that you couldn't, I was thinking about...other people." He said honestly.
"You think this is a set-up?" The woman suddenly understood the turtle's hesitation.
He held up his hands helplessly. "I'm feeling a little paranoid is all."
"The call definitely came from legitimate police, I did check the number back. Would you feel better if Tim came with us?"
He shook his head a little sheepishly.
All three humans left about five minutes later, a somewhat awkward silence purveying in the Cavalier, until they'd had made it back to the highway. April caught Sarah glancing at her in the rear-view mirror for the third time, and finally crossed her arms.
"What?" She said aloud. "Do you want to say something to me?"
"Sort of." Sarah replied. "Or rather, I wanted to ask you something, but I didn't want to make you uncomfortable either."
"Do you need to pull over for girl talk? I can get out of the car." Tim said a little impishly.
"It's not really like that, I was just wondering...I wanted to ask if you were happy April. Not right now specifically, just in general." She asked quickly, before she could talk herself out of it again.
The woman cocked her head curiously. "Why do you ask Sarah?"
She really wasn't sure how to phrase the next stage of the question, so she decided just to come out with it. "I mean, are you happy with Marcus? I know he's not...well, he's not Casey. I realize I've seriously broken from the pre-existing script, and it's not really fair to you. I'm not trying to buck important traditions, or be 'God' of my own universe here. The truth is, I just enjoy the freedom that comes from able to write things my own way, and not have to conform to a certain mold. I don't have anything against Casey, or any of other glaringly obvious details that I leave out of my own version of reality."
As Sarah finished, she took a sharp breath, and turned her full attention back to the road.
"Sarah...I'm happy." The woman assured her. "It's not typical or expected, but Marcus is....he's special too. Don't worry about me, or us."
Sarah nodded as she gave the woman another glance in her mirror. "It's nice to finally meet you April...it really is."
"Well it's certainly interesting to meet you too. And I appreciate you sticking your neck out here - I know it hasn't been easy."
"I got them into it." Sarah said simply, and then cast an inclusive look in Timothy's direction. "Sorry. I'm not trying to ignore you."
"Hey, I'm just the armed escort. I'm only along for the ride." He pointed out sardonically.
They collected the van without incident from the impound lot, and the two humans followed the Cavalier all the way back out into the country in West Milton. When they got back to the house, April pulled off alongside it, so that the van could be completely out of sight.
The minute they came around to the backdoor, Luke and Marcus raced outside to meet them, as if they'd been waiting around with baited breath.
"I told you guys it would be fine." April complained. "You don't have to take the door off the hinges or anything."
"Did Donnie bring his wireless printer from the city?" Luke asked with absolutely no lead-in, as if April would actually know the answer.
"I don't have the faintest idea Luke - you'd have to check the van. You have an urgent need to print something?"
"Maybe. I'll be right back, just...just hold on." He said hurriedly, and dashed in the direction of the Battle Shell.
"Marc, what's got you two so worked up?" April asked the man at once.
"We found blue-prints on that flash drive, very detailed plans outlining some kind of structure. It doesn't seem like they have anything to do with the Technology Center. Everything is set on single level, like a...I don't know, like a sprawling complex of some kind, nothing like the buildings downtown. The basic idea we've gotten is that the structure itself has been in existence for awhile, and the plans were being drawn up for renovations." Marcus answered, and held his breath when he saw Luke returning with the printer under one arm.
"We have a strong feeling that it's connected to Stolle," Marcus continued. "As well as whoever this woman is. That they were settting things up in advance, so they'd be prepared to handle everyone at once."
"It sounds as if you have some kind of basis for your feeling." Tim spoke up. "Would you like to tell us what that is?"
Luke cast the group a somewhat harried glance, as he headed back in the direction of the kitchen. "The plans included details for the design of very specific holding areas. Give us a few minutes to get stuff printed off, and we'll share everything that we have."
Less than an hour later, the seven humans (plus one turtle) had retreated back under the cover of the trees, with an outline of several pages of schematics. It had taken awhile just to get things laid out in a proper order on the picnic table, so that now one set of eyes after another was trying to read behind the intricacy of the designs.
Michelangelo had stared at a certain page blandly for a little over ten minutes, half-heartedly listening to the others talking back and forth, about using the existing building code to try and locate the property in some kind of public record.
If Donnie was here, he'd be all over this, Michelangelo thought bitterly. I'm so sick of feeling useless. Why am I even bothering to pretend I know what I'm looking for?
The orange-masked turtle sighed heavily, as he glanced back down at the table again. He was immediately distracted from the physical lines on the paper, by some stray particle that had been cast by the wind. As he dusted off the edge of the page, he noticed a faint outline of numbers and degree markings that he'd hadn't seen before.
The turtle's heart skipped a beat. He didn't know how to read them, but he was fairly certain he knew exactly what they were supposed to represent.
"Doc." He said swiftly, grabbing the man's shoulder since he was the closet to him. "Look at this. Look, and tell me what you see."
Luke took the paper from him, squinting a little to make out what the turtle was trying to show him.
"Marc, hand me that magnifier, will you?" He requested instantly, in a tone that stopped the entire table at once.
"What is it Luke?" Karina asked him. "What did you find?"
"Hold on." The man replied. "Just one second..."
He paused for a closer look, holding the glass directly above the numbers. "Can somebody write these down for me as I read them off?"
April already had a pen in hand, so she scribbled down the numbers quickly as Luke fired them off.
"What is that, is it supposed to be the longitude/latitude?" Marcus could hardly stay seated as he asked.
"That's sure what it looks like." Luke replied. "We need to get these numbers plugged into the mapping system, see if it pulls up the existing property."
"That's a great find Luke." Tim commented. "Nice work."
The doctor cast Michelangelo an appraising smile. "I wasn't the one who found it."
Confirming the location of the complex didn't turn out to be a difficult thing, and it spurred April back on to her own personal project of finding Stolle's network with new fervor. The woman had only been met with discouragement on her previous search attempts, but now that they had a building to work off of, she was all the more determined for some kind of evidence that they were there.
She settled behind Donatello's laptop for what was surely the thirtieth time, and signed into Lilah's network at the Technology Center. She'd been through so many various feeds over the last two days, scanning without any prior success to find Stolle's own back-door, which they were all hoping could grant them access to his own system.
That is, until he realized that he had company. The thought of Stolle discovering her presence inside the network and shutting her down again, was the thing she actually dreaded more than anything else as far as the computer was concerned.
Just like before, she thought ruefully. But I do have to at least get in there first. I should have already found his gateway by now. I swear, I'm not getting up again until I do.