Jenna was almost half-asleep herself when Luke burst into the room, and she jolted fully awake when the door crashed into the wall.
"Sheesh Luke, what's your problem?" She mumbled a little sleepily. "You could have woken Donnie!"
"We have to get out here Jen! April and Marc spotted some emergency vehicles close by, including a couple of cops heading straight for us!"
"Wait, what? How are we--"
"You and I have to get the guys moving out that passage, the one Nicholas told us about? The others are going to meet us around back, so we've got to get Donnie up right now!"
The young woman scrambled to her feet from her perch beside the turtle on the floor, whose own exhaustion had permitted him to sleep through their entire exchange. With a reluctant sigh, Luke shook Donatello's shoulder, and tugged insistently on his good arm.
"Don, wake up! I'm sorry, we have to move!"
It was a good five seconds before the turtle even responded to his pulling. "Hm?"
"Jenna, help me." Luke urged, coming around so that he could be responsible for for the turtle from his more fragile side.
Between the two of them, they got the groggy turtle upright, and held on as he shifted unsteadily on his feet.
"Wh...what are we doing?" Donatello asked.
"We have to leave." Luke repeated. "The real question is whether or not you're actually capable of making it more than a couple of feet."
"I'm game to try Doc." The purple-banded turtle murmured.
Leonardo stuck his head inside the room at that moment. "Tim's run up front to deal with Sarah's car, he'd said he'd meet us!"
"How on earth does he have time to do that before someone starts poking around this place?" Luke demanded.
"Got me Doc. Knowing him, he's probably got something in his head. How are we in here, ready to go?" Leonardo finished a little urgently.
"Ready or not, we have to." Luke answered. "C'mon Donnie, let's try a few steps together and see what happens. We'll all get out of here one way or another, I promise you that."
Once again, Timothy was running under an ulterior motive, and going up front to pick-up the Cavalier was only a small part of it. True, the authorities could easily trace the vehicle's owner, and he didn't want the woman to be connected back to any of the strangeness of this evening. But the real urge that was driving him at the moment was a stalling tactic, to distract whoever was arriving from coming inside the building long enough for the others to escape from the back.
As he got closer to the entrance facing Route 42, he grabbed up his cell-phone almost on a whim, and dialed Karina at the hospital.
"Hey, I need you to just listen to me for a minute, alright?" He said at once with no formal greeting. "We've got company down here, the EMS is responding faster than we anticipated. The guys are on their way out, but I'm going to try and keep some people busy for awhile up front, give them some more time."
"What people Tim? You can't afford to get tied up with that scene either!" The woman responded at once.
"I don't think i have a choice, that's why I'm calling you! Talk to your sister for me when you can, I'll probably need help to get out of this. My badge might give me a fraction of leeway, but I don't see myself being able to explain anything that's happened here tonight. Don't freak out, okay? They're cops, not bad guys. Worst thing that they'll do is arrest me. I need to go, I'll call you back if I can."
"Tim, don't hang up the--" Karina started, but couldn't finish the sentence before he'd already cut out. "Phone." She said aloud to herself, suddenly clenching the device in a death grip. "Shoot. Shoot!" She proclaimed angrily, as her gaze drifted to the hallway where she knew her sister was resting.
Screw visiting hours, she thought with extreme irritation.
Karina looked left and right before she started moving, and then kept a continual eye out for anyone that could be watching. There were three nurses by the station, but they were presently glued to a television set, not paying her any heed whatsoever. With a soft swallow, Karina stole down toward Katherine's room, and slipped inside before someone else would see her.
She ducked around the curtain into the semi-darkness, and found her sister hooked up to an IV on the other side, sleeping comfortably.
"Kat." She kept her voice low, but firm. "Kat, wake up."
The woman stirred instantly, then squinted to focus on her sister's outline. "Kari...hey. What's up? Do we know something about Greg, or--"
"No, sorry. It's Tim, he could be getting himself into a load of trouble right now. Cops are getting too close to the building, and he's serving himself up as a distraction!"
"Darn it!" Katherine was fully awake now. "Kari, your phone, where is it?"
"I've got it right here Kat. Is there somebody you can call?"
"I think so, but without the laptop, I don't have access to the numbers! I've got to reach Victoria, she ought be able to find what I need in the Government database." Katherine replied quickly.
Jenna's mother had slept horribly that night, waking up about every half hour on the hour. Regardless of the fact that the others had tried to reassure her, she knew that their move on the Compound that night was going to be more complicated than they had let on. Even after Jenna had given her the "all clear" signal about an hour earlier, she'd still felt unsettled.
So when the phone rang again, she wasn't the least bit surprised, except to find Katherine on the other end of it.
"I'm sorry to bother you, but I need your help." The woman explained. "You can still connect to the Consulates' database from home I hope?"
"Yes, but what am I looking for?" Victoria asked, even as she swung both legs over the mattress.
"I need the listing for General Meyer, he's the acting commander over Wright Patterson."
Victoria repeated the name to herself as she dashed to the corner in the living room, and snagged her reading glasses off the desk. "Hang on, let me get this thing booted up."
She shifted to balance her phone with her ear, so she could use both hands to type and not be forced to hang up on Kat. "Alright...Air Force." Victoria said aloud over the receiver. "This is going to take a few minutes."
"Call me back. I'll get another ball rolling on this end of things in the meantime."
Victoria didn't bother asking Katherine what other ball she could possibly be referring to, and let the woman go so that she could focus completely on finding the information she needed.
As Katherine was starting to dial another number, the door to the hospital room flew open, and an extremely testy nurse jerked the curtain back.
The woman shot an evil eye at Karina. "Miss, you can't be here!"
"The heck she can't." Katherine stated evenly. "I've been a captive long enough, and no one's gonna tell me what we can and can't do. I checked myself into this place, and I can check myself out!"
"Mrs. Barrows, you're not in your right mind, we're only trying to help you. Don't fight this, we don't want you to hurt yourself." Another distinctly male voice called from behind the nurse, as three orderlies crowded in behind her.
Katherine yanked out of her IV without so much as a blink in their direction. "So help me, if you people try to sedate me, you're going to have a whole new set of problems on your hands! I'm not crazy, I just have an emergency to deal with. I'm a Federal Agent, it's my responsibility! That trumps every stupid rule and regulation that you people have. Now back the heck up! Where are my clothes? Somebody get me my darn clothes this instant!"
The purple banded turtle ended up needing Luke and Jenna's help to put any kind of speed under his shell. Leonardo took the electric torch to lead their way down the pitch-black passage, concern for Tim growing with every few steps that he took.
I shouldn't have let him go - not that I actually could have stopped him. None of us seem to have taken up with listening to each other as of late.
Michelangelo had been keeping one eye mostly on where they were going, and the other constantly glancing over at his red-banded brother. Raphael was not up to his usual tricks. He could tell that his brother was pushing the absolute limit of what his body would allow him to perform, fearlessly willing himself to keep putting one foot in front of the other, despite the tremendous effort it took.
When the turtle stumbled in his gait, Michelangelo was ready for it, or at least, he thought he was. He tried to steady Raphael at once, but his brother's weight pitched forward without him.
"Leo!" Michelangelo's high pitched yell stopped the oldest turtle in his tracks, and brought a flurry of footsteps to the orange-masked turtle's side, who was already kneeling by Raphael.
"Let me see Mike, let me see him!" Luke urged the turtle, and rolled him over quickly with Leonardo's help.
"Brother, he's out cold!" Luke stated after a couple of seconds.
"Doc, can you help me get him back up?" Leonardo asked swiftly.
"Of course, but are you strong enough to handle him on your own?"
"I have to be. I don't think it can actually be much further now - we just have to keep going!"
