Leonardo didn't know why Raph was swearing at the television, or why he was doing it in such a strangled voice. "What's going on?" he asked. But instead of answering, Raph only leapt down from his cupped hands and started bulldozing a path through the scientists, pulling his brothers and Lynn in his wake.
As soon as Leo had a clear line of sight to the TV, he understood Raphael's reaction. Splinter was front and center in the shot, and he appeared to be leading a small army of mutants down 42nd Street.
"What in the…" he said faintly, and then louder: "What's happening? Donatello?"
"I have no idea!" Don said. He waved a finger at the image on the television, as surreal as a dream, as bright and sharp as reality. "This was not part of my plan!"
"Are they more creeps in costumes?" Raph asked, though it was hard to hear him, since his snout was nearly pressed against the screen. "It's just another protest?"
"It has to be," Lynn said, and Leo didn't want to believe it, and he struggled to focus on what was real and not on what he hoped might be. "There couldn't possibly -"
She broke off as the reporter Leo had barely been able to hear earlier resumed his commentary. "Details are still emerging," the reporter panted as he hustled along the avenue, his cameraman jogging behind him, "but it appears that a parade of mutants, or mutant supporters, are proceeding towards the United Nations building, with unknown intentions. Our contacts with the New York Police Department say that no permit was requested, or granted, for any such demonstration today. 42nd Street, and its cross streets, are not closed. Traffic is stopping simply due to the sheer number of marchers out here. We may have a very dangerous situation developing, folks, and I mean for everybody."
"Is he saying the mutants are a threat?" Raph snarled. He had barely backed up from the screen.
"Maybe they are," Leo said. His mind was spinning frantically. He had never encountered anything like this before, and his reflexive ability to imagine potential futures was going into overdrive as he tried to identify all the factors and compute all the variables. What if all those people were real mutants? What if they weren't? What if they had peaceful intentions? What if they didn't? What if one of the drivers waiting to turn onto 42nd Street deliberately plowed into the crowd? What if the president got briefed on what was happening, branded the mutants as terrorists, and called in an air strike?
The possibility had been raised before that there might be other mutants in the world. Leo should have taken that idea more seriously. He should have been more prepared to evaluate a situation like this. He didn't have time to curse himself for the error. "We… we don't know anything yet," he said.
The reporter was still running towards the mutants. Leonardo was seriously impressed by the man's courage. He himself likely would have ordered a retreat if he found his team facing a crowd like that, even if the person at the head of the column was the person he trusted most in the world.
Leo had thought the reporter would run straight for Splinter - possibly because, having not seen his father at all in days, he could hardly look at any of the other mutants. Another sloppy mistake. But Splinter slid straight out of the frame as the reporter pushed his microphone at another of the march's leaders.
"Who are you?" the reporter asked breathlessly. "What is this group? Where are you going?"
The mutant - clearly derived from an eagle - was startled, but he was not afraid and he did not try to attack the reporter. "We are mutants," the eagle said, in a strange and squawking voice. "We have been held prisoner. We are finally free. Please, let us through."
"Held prisoner by whom?" the reporter pressed. "Where are you coming from?"
"We will explain all that we know," the eagle replied. "Those who held us captive will come for us again. We are seeking sanctuary. Please help us."
"How did you escape?" the reporter asked, as he hurried to keep up with the tall mutant's long strides.
"The rat has freed us," the eagle said. "He leads us now to safety."
The reporter instinctively followed the story, turning to Splinter and asking for further comment. Leo was busy replaying the last minute in his head. The eagle-mutant had looked at the reporter - really looked, with his eyes, and not peered around as if he was trying to see out of holes in his neck. His beak had moved with careful precision as he spoke. Every feather on his face and head had moved in the stiff January wind.
It had been likewise with the mutants in the background of the shot. A little puff of breath had come out of the mutant cow's nose with every labored step. A mutant iguana was clearly suffering from the cold. A mutant praying mantis made constant quick movements, continuously surveying its surroundings.
"Uh, guys," Mike said, as he took in all the same details Leo was seeing, and rapidly arrived at the same conclusion. "They're not wearing costumes."
For a moment, they were all silent, only half-hearing Splinter's story of how he had discovered the captive mutants and liberated them, as they attempted to come to grips with what this meant. They thought that everything had changed when they themselves publicly announced their existence. Now Leonardo found himself facing down entirely new levels of everything having changed.
Don was the first to recover. "Lynn," he said. When she didn't answer, he grabbed her arm and shook her, while pointing at the screen again with his other arm. "Lynn. We need to get there. You need to get us a van."
Lynn snapped back to the current moment. "Yes," she said. "I can reserve a van from my office. We'll pick up the keys downstairs."
"You go ahead and get the keys," Don said. "I have to call my mom."
"How do we reach her?" Lynn asked, even as she started moving, pushing her way back through her open-mouthed colleagues.
"She's been staying at the apartment with us," Don said. "Just call your own phone number."
"What?" Lynn said. "How long has this been going on?"
"I mean," Don said, "she took us to the grocery store last night. The newspaper just decided not to go with the headline 'Normal woman sighted in local shopping center.'"
Lynn wisely decided not to pursue that line of questioning any further. She just led the Turtles back to her office as quickly as possible, breaking into a jog as soon as they reached the hallway.
"As soon as you're ready," Lynn said, as she dialed the phone on her desk, "take the elevator back to the first floor. Go to the right, take the second left, and then one of the doors on the right is the van pool room. By the time you get there, I'll have signed all the paperwork." She met Leonardo's eyes as she passed Donatello the phone. "Did you get that?"
"I got it," Leo said, and with no more than a nod, Lynn turned to the computer, hastily entering something that Leonardo couldn't see. He had no way of knowing whether she was reserving a van, or alerting the guards that the Turtles were about to try to leave the building. Leo had thought that he and his brothers might be leaving early today, against Lynn's wishes, but he had not foreseen that it might happen like this. He tried to catch Don's eye and signal him to look over Lynn's shoulder and see what she was doing, but Don was facing away from both Leo and Lynn, swearing at his mother to hurry up and answer the phone.
With a final click, Lynn turned away from the computer, grabbed something small out of her desk drawer, and rushed out of the room, snatching her coat from the back of the door as she went.
"That -" Raph started.
"Follow her," Leo ordered.
Raph didn't need to be told twice.
"Mom," Don said suddenly. "Turn on the TV. … If I could explain it, I would. Turn on the TV." A long pause followed. "Mom, don't yell at me. I'm not responsible for this. … Okay, we can discuss the long chain of cause and effect later. Right now, you need to pack up everything that belongs to us and be ready to meet the van downstairs. Maybe ten minutes. We'll drive fast. … Lynn will drive fast. … Mom, don't even."
"Tell her to take the cheese," Mike hissed, as he attempted to insert his own head between Don's head and the receiver.
"We're not taking the cheese," Don hissed back.
"We have to take the cheese!" Mike squeaked. "We're all going to get arrested and put in the zoo! This might be our last chance to make the lasagna!"
"How are we going to make the lasagna if we take the cheese and leave the oven?" Don asked, not bothering to mute his voice this time. "Even I know you have to cook the lasagna."
"Good idea," Mike said. "Tell her to take the oven."
Don shoved Mike away. "Never mind about the lasagna," he said into the phone. "Just get downstairs. We'll see you soon." And he hung up the phone, but he couldn't hide the look of deep worry that passed over his face.
"What are you thinking?" Leo asked, as he peered cautiously around the doorframe and then, seeing no one, led his brothers back into the corridor.
"I have no idea," Don said. "Honestly. It's -" He gestured to his head. "It's blank. I am literally dumbstruck. I do not know what is happening."
"Let's just get out of here," Leo said. "Either with Lynn or without her."
Leo strained his ears as they approached the elevator. He could faintly hear the news report still playing in the other room. He suspected all the scientists were still watching it. Lynn had told them repeatedly that her colleagues had a tendency to get caught up in theory, and to miss real-world opportunities. It seemed that that, at least, had been true.
The elevator car arrived, and that, too, was deserted. It seemed as though all of Stockman's employees really were watching a news report about mutants, while letting the mutants they had in their own building just waltz out.
- Stockman.
Leo didn't realize he had said the name aloud until Mike replied, "Oh, shit."
"Where the hell is Stockman?" Leo demanded. "We haven't seen him in days."
"Are you asking me?" Don asked, as the elevator settled onto the first floor and opened its doors to discharge its passengers. "I haven't seen him in days either."
"Stockman is not as easily distracted as everybody else here," Leo said, as he recalled Lynn's directions and hurried towards the van pool room. "You can bet he'll try to stop us from leaving."
"Have you seen the size of that guy?" Mike asked. "I would love to see him try to stop us from leaving. I mean, what I would really love is to stop him from trying to stop us from leaving. That is -"
"I got it," Leo said.
The van pool room was marked with a large sign that said VAN POOL. That, combined with the presence of Lynn and Raph, seemed to be a good indication that they had found the right place. The fact that Lynn and Raph were both still in one piece also seemed promising.
Nothing suspicious, Raph signaled to Leo, with the minutest shake of his head.
"Are you ready?" Lynn asked. She held up a key. "I got number 52. I think you'll like it."
That seemed like an oddly unnecessary thing for Lynn to say. Leo narrowed his eyes, but he nodded. He'd become too reliant on the van service to and from the lab. He didn't have a back-up plan for how to get anywhere from here, let alone to the UN building in Manhattan. Another critical mistake.
"Let's go," Lynn said.
Leo was closest to the door, having hung back as Mike and Don pushed past him, to cover the exit. When he turned around, he saw that Stockman's security force had just caught up with them.
Or, at least, one security guard had caught up with them.
One security guard whom they had gotten to know well over the past days.
"Hector," Leo said carefully, as he raised his hands into a ready stance. "Please don't make us fight you."
"I didn't come here to fight you," Hector said. "I came to bring you your coats."
Indeed, he had a pile of familiar-looking outerwear in his arms.
"You aren't going to try to stop us?" Leo asked warily.
Hector shook his head. "I saw the news," he said. "I saw the mutants. They are your people. Go to them." He looked at each of the Turtles in turn. "Y vaya con Dios."
Leo didn't know how to respond. Fortunately, his brother did.
"Gracias, amigo," Mike said softly.
"You speak Spanish too?" Lynn asked as, released by the youngest's perfect words, the brothers surged forward to claim their coats.
"Si, hablo español," Mike replied, as he wrestled into his jacket. "Yo soy una tortuga."
Raph fought with his own zipper as they all hurried down the hallway towards the garage. "Are you done?" he grunted.
"Yeah," Mike said with a grin, as he tugged his gloves on. "I don't know any more words."
Lynn flung open the door for them, and they all raced through the freezing garage, following the directions Lynn called from behind. But as Raph sped around the hood of the black SUV Lynn pointed out to them, he skidded to a halt, finding someone already leaning against the driver's door.
"Stockman," Raph growled.
"Dr. Stockman," Lynn said when she caught up, and her voice quavered, but she tamped down her fear. "Get away from our car."
"It is my car," Stockman said, as he rose just slightly to meet them. "This is my lab. You are my employee. And the device that I surmise you are carrying, Dr. Peggiora, is my data."
"How did you know about the flash drive?" Lynn demanded, and Leo shot his gaze from Stockman to Lynn, wondering if he should trust either of them.
"It's what I would have done, if I were about to betray my superior, steal his research, and destroy all his hard work," Stockman replied, and again Leo had the strong sense that everything that had happened between Stockman and Lynn had really been about April. "As for how I knew you were taking this car, which I'm certain you're going to ask about next, in your predictable way - I control all the systems in this building. I saw you reserving number 52 just minutes ago."
"Screw you, Dr. Stockman," Lynn said, and this time the shaking in her voice was from barely controlled rage.
"What's stopping us from going back inside and taking the keys to a different car?" Raph asked. "You can't beat us to all of them."
"Simple, my muscle-headed friend," Stockman replied. "As soon as I realized what Dr. Peggiora was helping you do, I revoked her van pool privileges."
Lynn tightened her fist on the keys to number 52. "And what's stopping us from just taking some other keys, without going through the reservation process?"
"Do you think the attendant would hand you the keys to a car you haven't reserved?" Stockman asked, with a tone of derision. "Oh, no. Not all of my employees are so disloyal."
"Get out of our way, Stockman," Leo said, in a level voice. "Or we will make you. Do you think you are going to win that fight?"
"Don't you threaten me," Stockman said, with dangerous slowness. "I am in control here! There is no escape from Dr. Baxter Stockman!"
"I have just one question about that," Don said mildly. "… Did you disable the garage door motor?"
Stockman went pale.
That was all Leonardo needed to know. "Michelangelo," he said, "remove Dr. Stockman from our vehicle."
"No!" Stockman shouted, instinctively wrapping himself around the hulking SUV's side mirror as Michelangelo approached him. "No! You can't do this to me! I am Baxter Stockman!"
"Get a name tag, dude," Mike said, as he peeled Stockman limb by limb off the side of the car. "You'll save a lot of words."
"I will have my revenge!" Stockman warned him. "You have not heard the last of -"
Leo could surmise what Stockman said next, but he didn't hear it, because he and his brothers were slamming all the doors as Lynn gunned the ignition and sped out of the garage.
When they pulled up outside the apartment building, Emma was standing on the sidewalk. So were the protesters from that morning, still waving their signs and shouting their chants. Leo was momentarily baffled by this, until he realized that, having been standing on a sidewalk all day, the protesters had not heard the news.
Don was clearly having the same thought. "Good job, everyone!" he shouted, leaning out the door he had opened for his mom and her suitcase. "I congratulate you on your persistence! We're going back out for a little while, but you are welcome to stay here as long as you like! Keep up the great work!" Then he ducked back inside and ordered Lynn to step on it.
"And turn on the radio," he added, as he and Leo both realized that they, too, were missing out on the latest earth-shattering developments.
"I am Unum," said a squawky voice that Leo immediately recognized as the mutant eagle. "I am the first. Thank you for listening to me.
"The letters TCRI have been before my eyes my entire life," Unum said, and Leo's heart clenched. "It is only today that I learned these letters have been before your eyes too, as I saw them, many feet tall, on the side of a building in the middle of a great city that I had not known existed.
"As I did not know what was out here," Unum continued, "I understand that you did not know what was in there. You did not know that for years, since I became the first, scientists transformed animals into human shapes. You could not have imagined how this was only the beginning of the torment.
"The scientists were looking for a superior race," Unum went on. "Beings with the intelligence and dexterity of humans, but with the greatest abilities of the animal world. A perfect fusion of man and beast, greater than the sum of its parts.
"But the experiment was a failure," Unum said, and even the strange, screeching tone of his voice did not take away from the power of his words. "All of the mutants, my brothers and sisters and I, are humans in animal form, and nothing more. We have the power of speech, and the power of reason, and the power of empathy. But I cannot fly. Anita cannot lift one hundred times her own body weight. Colby's venom has only the mildest effects, and Patrick's electromagnetic sense cannot detect anything that is not obvious to the human eye.
"The scientists educated us," Unum continued, "and gave us opportunity to develop our unique skills. But when we did not perform to their strict standards, they tortured us. We have known much pain. We have not seen our natural homes since before we can remember. I, an eagle, have never seen the sky. We have seen nothing but the inside of a lab.
"It is only today that Splinter, our cousin, came from the outside and freed us. We are afraid. We know nothing of your world except what we have read in books. We cannot return to our birthplaces; we are too changed from what we once were. Neither human nor animal, we have nowhere to go.
"We ask for your help!" Unum cried, his voice rising. "The scientists are in a panic. Even now, they are destroying evidence of their deeds. They know that what they did was wrong. They know they will receive no shelter from their fellow humans.
"We, the mutants, ask for your aid," Unum went on. "Please, give us a home where we can be safe. Please, bring our tormenters to justice. Though our talents are few, we will repay you in any way we can.
"Your world is beautiful," Unum concluded. "Your sky is large enough for us all. We only pray that you will give us the chance to share them with you."
Lynn hit the Off button on the radio, and continued staring straight ahead as she cruised down the Saw Mill River Parkway towards Manhattan.
"I… I can't believe it," Don said finally. "We are experiments? And there are more of us?"
"But it don't make no sense!" Raph said, gripping his head. "Splinter always said we mutated in the sewers, and it was an accident! He lied about how many of us there were - was he lying about the other part too?"
"Maybe…" Leo was drowning again, trying to play out all the implications of what he had just heard for everything he believed about his own origins. "Maybe Splinter's story was true. All the other mutants were created in the lab, on purpose. But just like Master Splinter said, TCRI accidentally dropped one canister of their mutagen down a storm drain, and that's where we came from. They didn't know about us and we didn't know about them. That… that makes sense, right?"
"But what about the part where Splinter told me he'd known how to find TCRI all along?" Don asked, in anguish. "He said it was because he could trace the smell. But what if it was because he'd been mutated there originally?"
"He… does have a greatly enhanced sense of smell," Leo said.
"Oh, man," Mike said. "It kind of sounds like we have the best mutant powers. Wouldn't it be crazy if the uncontrolled mutation in the sewers led to exactly the kind of superhuman abilities the scientists were looking for?"
"Are we sure we want to be going towards TCRI right now?" Raph asked.
"Just like I said," Mike replied. "Arrest. Zoo. No lasagna ever."
"David," Emma put in. "Do you think you could show me how to make an internet forum for mothers of mutants?"
"Are you kidding me?" Don said. "First of all, I don't appreciate how you make it sound like a trauma support group. And second, I'm a little busy right now managing the global sociopolitical backlash against the sudden appearance of an unexpectedly large population of mutants."
"I didn't say right now," Emma pointed out.
"Lynn," Leo said, before Don and his mother could escalate their verbal altercation. "Was Stockman right? Are you carrying a… a flash drive, with our data on it?"
Lynn pushed out a breath. "Yes," she said. "After the meeting yesterday afternoon, I took all the revised and annotated data and downloaded it onto an encrypted device. Then I kicked off a batch job which - if I don't log in and stop it - will kick off tonight and overwrite all the data on the main servers with garbage."
"Our data is safely in her pocket, and Stockman's copy of it will self-destruct in a few hours," Don translated, before Leo even shot him a questioning look.
"Why?" Leo asked.
"Because it's your data," Lynn said, "and it shouldn't be in the hands of that madman."
"But now it's in your hands," Leo said.
Lynn took one hand off the wheel, fished in her coat pocket, then twisted her arm backwards to pass a tiny device into the back seat. "No," she said, when she felt Leo take it from her. "Now it's in your hands."
"How do you know Stockman didn't download his own copy?" Don asked.
"Because Stockman is an egotistical maniac who is too busy bragging about himself to take proper precautionary measures," Lynn replied. "I'm almost certain he doesn't have a back-up."
"… Thank you," Don said.
"Thank you," Lynn replied. "To pull this off, I had to sacrifice the data I collected this morning. I hope you might help me re-create it someday."
"Maybe we will," Leo said, and then they all fell silent as Lynn eased up to a security checkpoint that the National Guard had clearly scrambled to erect.
"This area is under secure lockdown," a heavily armed and armored man said when Lynn rolled down the SUV's window. "Nobody goes in or out."
"I am Dr. Lynn Peggiora," Lynn said. "I have the mutant Turtles in the back seat."
The soldier hesitated. He hadn't been briefed on this possibility. Leo was not the only one who was failing to cover all the angles today. "Let me see them," he said.
"Sorry, guys," Lynn muttered, as she hit the button that caused all of the SUV's windows to scroll down into the door panels, and an icy blast of wind swirled into the car.
The soldier squeezed a button on his communications device. "Commander," he said, "I have a carload of mutants inbound at Checkpoint Easy. Orders?" He listened to the staticky response. "Affirmative. I have a visual on real mutants." He listened again, his frown deepening, then released the button. "Orders from way up the chain," he told Lynn. "You're clear to enter. Hey!" he shouted at one of his teammates, and then the barrier was cranking up, and the soldier was waving Lynn forward.
She hurriedly rolled up the windows as she drove on into the city. "Are you okay back there?" she asked.
"We'll be fine," Leo said. "Just get us to the UN."
It wasn't clear where the TCRI mutants were, or which streets were officially closed, but a couple of blocks further on it was obvious that traffic was not going to move another inch. "I'm calling it," Lynn said. "We're walking from here." As they all climbed out, Raph grabbed the suitcase Emma had brought from the apartment, while Lynn locked the SUV and pocketed the keys. "If it's still here when I get back," Lynn said, "it's my car. And if not, at least it isn't Stockman's car anymore."
"Seems fair," Mike agreed.
"Kame, ichizoku no tame ni," Leo said, and he was mostly talking to Michelangelo when he said it. "Let's move."
On foot, they made good time to First Avenue. From the high ground, they could see the mass of mutants in the plaza, surrounded by reporters and TV cameras, who in turn were surrounded by soldiers, who themselves were surrounded by every civilian who'd turned out to see a crowd of humanoids assembling outside the headquarters of a global governmental organization.
They paused only a moment to take it in. Then they were rushing down the hill, plowing through the ranks of spectators, shouting their father's name.
Splinter, with his sharp ears, heard them coming. He was turning towards them as they broke through the front row of civilians. The nearest soldiers tightened their grips on their assault rifles, but thankfully they had heard the same orders as the soldier at the checkpoint, and they held their fire as the Turtles, closely followed by Lynn and Emma, came charging through their line. The astute cameramen pivoted to capture the moment; their less alert competitors missed it. And then four frightened young boys, who just happened to be part reptile, were piling into their father's arms, with the whole world watching.
"Dad," Leo said, after he had gasped his first rush of emotions into his father's ear. "What is going on?"
"That is what I would like to know," said a voice Leo couldn't place immediately, and he whipped around to see a man he didn't recognize, who had somehow gotten past the soldiers, and who was now rapidly approaching them.
"Uncle Stephen," Don said, and Leo's memory snapped into place. "Could we ever use a good lawyer right now."
"To be sure," Stephen said, as he assessed the scene with a practiced eye - not trained in the same style as Leo's, but no less discerning in its own way. Leo was relieved to have that perspective on his side right now. "My clients have no comment," Stephen said loudly, as more than few reporters boldly stepped forward, microphones raised. Then, in a more private tone - as well as a significant understatement - he said, "There have been many surprising events in the last few days. We should regroup and discuss."
"Emma's apartment is compromised," Leo said. His gaze slid to the reporters, who were still angling their microphones, trying to catch any kind of a quote. "If we try to go back to the Lair, we'll surely be followed."
"We'll go to my office," Stephen said. "Even the most rabid newshounds know that a lawyer's premises are off-limits." He raised a brow at the one person in the little group that he didn't recognize. "Will you be joining us, Miss -?"
"Dr. Peggiora," said Lynn. "And yes, I'd -"
"Dr. Peggiora will not be joining us," Leo said. Before Lynn could object, he turned to her and pressed the flash drive into her hand. "Take it," he said. "Publish it. We want everyone to know."
"I -" Lynn said. "I've never been a first author. I don't know how."
"Talk to Ron," Don said. "After everything, he'll still help you. Tell him I said so." He took a step back, towards Stephen. "And thank you. Again."
"Are we ready?" Stephen asked.
Leo surveyed his team - himself, Raphael, Michelangelo, Donatello, Splinter, Unum - whom Splinter had signaled to be ready to follow them – Emma, and Stephen. He was not ready. He had no idea how to confront the battle that their campaign had suddenly morphed into.
"Let's go," he said.