Note: Thanks to Reinbeauchaser for the constructive criticism on this chapter, I made a few little changes, I hope it helps with those inconsistencies.
Chapter Seven
Once the formal introductions had been made, the three turtles and April listened to the man, called David, speak about what they knew of the scientists and their experiments.
"AMI do a lot of drug making and testing, some of it they tell the public about, and some they keep quiet," David explained. "The stuff they make public they keep on the ground floor and second floor, mainly they test medical drugs on rats and mice and stuff. We're the experiments they keep quiet, in this room. There are dogs, cats, birds and fish, and of course, us humans."
"But you must have gone missing from somewhere? Shouldn't people be looking for you?"
"Not us, brother," said Joe, a Negro man who was the eldest of the group. At first, Leonardo had assumed he was in his seventies, as he looked well worn, but he was actually only in his mid-sixties. His explanation enlightened them why. "They did what every mad scientist guy does in the movies. They took us off the streets, so no one would know we're missing."
"Been down that road before," Donatello murmured, remembering back to the escapade involving the homeless people and the garbage company.
"So, AMI pick us off the street, and are testing their new drug on us, Y-56. Two at a time, they give us the drug, put us into the room, and watch what we do. How we react to it, they said."
"What does the drug do?" Donny asked.
"Y-56 is one of their 'basement' drugs, the ones they don't want the public to know about. It is a social drug, designed to get a person drunk in mere minutes. I suppose the idea is that it saves time and money. Anyway, the drunk effect lasts for about six hours. When you want to stop being drunk, then you take a drug called C-56. Again, after a few minutes, you begin to sober up, without any symptoms of a hangover. It takes about half an hour to be totally sober again, and have the alcohol removed from your system. I guess they did it so you could drive home afterwards."
"What if you take Y-56, but don't get to take C-56 afterwards?" Raphael asked, feeling the need to move things along.
"If you don't take C-56 drug after six hours, then you start to get a sort of hangover – you have a headache and you feel nauseous. If you still haven't taken C-56 twenty-four hours after taking the Y-56 drug, then it starts to poison you. We were all given Y-56 the day after your brother was. Only they," he pointed to those in the beds on the opposite side of the room to him, "weren't given C-56 when we were. And they still haven't been given it. The moron scientists upstairs want to see how long they can live without it. All part of their testing and stuff. So far, two have died, and those three will too, probably within the next day or two."
"Our brother is in the same situation," Leonardo explained uneasily. "We think he was given the Y-56 drug, but not the cure for it. Or maybe he was given C-56, but it didn't work because we've been mutated, we just don't know. He can't remember hardly anything about what happened that evening."
"Yeah, that's one of the side-effects of not taking C-56, the person's memory comes back in bits and pieces, something those so-called scientists are trying to work on," David explained distastefully as he referred to the men that had brought him to where he was. "But you were right the first time – they didn't give him C-56. I was the first one to be brought in here, and when I was, the leader of the pack reported to the boss about your brother. He said the idiots had given your brother the drug on the spot, not knowing how long he would be knocked out for, but they had been interrupted in the alley and dumped him. The guy who found him seemed to know him, and took him somewhere."
"Yes, our friend Casey found him and brought him back to our lair," Donatello filled in.
"Now that we're all just about up to date here, we need to see about getting that C-56 thing to Mikey and the others," Raphael said, reminding one and all that time was ticking away for Michelangelo.
"Agreed," Leonardo said, getting down to business, before he thought of something. Hesitantly, he asked, "There will be more C-56, right? I mean, you said that they planned on seeing how long the others would last without it. Does that mean..."
"They have more," David assured them, watching as the three turtles and the human woman collectively sighed with relief. "They have a few more bottles of it. I've heard them say that once they have finished with our batch, as they call us, they'll dispose of us somewhere and find more subjects."
"You mean... they'll kill you?" April asked, speaking for the first time. He voice wavered slightly. "Guys, we can't let that happen," she urged.
"And we won't," Leonardo said firmly. "David, we may need your help and the others' help in this. Raph, you and I will fix it so that Donny and April can search for C-56." Leo turned to the test subjects and asked, "Can you give us any idea where the drug might be kept?"
"We've tried to break out a couple of times," David said. "Their security isn't great, but we've not exactly been treated well down here, and we're weak from it. You, though, would stand a better chance." He paused for a moment, as though trying to remember what he had seen from his ventures out of the basement. "The entire first floor is offices, admin, and so on," he told them. "You won't find anything worthwhile there, and believe me, we've looked."
"The next floor, usually locked, off limits, they take us for the tests there," Joe said. "We only been down one part of it, where they do the tests on us. We don't know what's down the other part, that part is guarded."
"One of the few places in the building that actually is," David added, before an afterthought came to him. "Mindy made it up to the next floor once – go ahead, Mind, tell them what you found."
The teenage girl, with jet-black hair streaked electric purple, faltered a moment. "Didn't get far," she said quietly, fiddling with her nose-ring. "Just, like, labs and stuff up there. Probably where they do real tests, not on us. Looked cleaner than here."
"We'll look up there too, if we don't find what we're looking for on the second floor," Donny said encouragingly.
"All right," Leonardo said, standing up from the bed. "Raph and I will go first, and once we've distracted them, Donny and April start searching – and make it fast, we don't have a lot of time. Once we've found C-56, we'll see about turning the scientists into the police and freeing you guys."
Joe rolled his eyes. "Free us? To go back on the streets? At least this joint got a bed," he said, patting the thin mattress he was sitting up on.
"Hey, you think your place is bad, you ain't seen our home," Raphael called as he followed Leo down the hallway and towards the wing where the guards were.
Leonardo and Raphael stealthily climbed to the guarded floor, and sure enough, saw the armed guards patrolling the corridor as they peered around a corner. Leo pulled Raph back in order to quickly discuss a strategy.
"Okay, Raph, we want to avoid a fight if we possibly can, because that will mean less time to get the antigen back to Mikey," Leo said, speaking slowly and clearly so that his brother would understand fully. "I can see the control room from here; we can easily reach it. There's one guy in there. Quietly, we'll deal with him, and then fix the cameras so that Donny and April have a clear path down there. Then we'll find a way to deal with the guards, and hope that Donny and April find the C-56 quickly."
"Good plan, Leo, well-thought through," Raph applauded with sarcasm. "One thing, though, do not patronise me in future, thank you." Leo rolled his eyes, and peeped around the corner again. The two waited until the guards were walking in the opposite direction before tiptoeing across the hall and into the control room.
They did not have time to sigh with relief yet. Still as quiet as mice, the two crept up behind the bored-looking individual sitting at a desk, observing the monitors. Raphael grabbed the man's hands whilst Leonardo spread duct-tape over the man's mouth. Finally he tied the man's hands, knees and ankles with the sticky, black tape, and left him in the corner whilst they fiddled with the security cameras via the computer.
"Don thinks of everything," Leonardo said, placing the roll of duct tape on the surface whilst he watched his brother try to master the computers before them.
"All right, April and Donny are good to go," Raphael said, having temporarily blocked the cameras. After a few minutes, the sight of a foot in the corner of one of the screens told Raphael that they were making their way through the corridors.
"At least they passed the guards," Raphael murmured, looking at a cluster of the monitors.
Something was amiss. "Hey, speaking of those guards, where'd they go?"
At that moment he sensed something, as did Leonardo, and turned around in time to see two armed guards appear in the doorway, ready to fight. In an ice-cold voice, one of the guards said, "We're right here."
Raphael glanced at his brother, who had his hands around his katana blades, and said, "Hey, Leo, just so you know, I didn't arrange this one."
"I believe you, Raph," Leo said back, not taking his eyes off of the two guards, waiting for one of the two sides to break the silence and begin the fight. Leonardo decided that they should get the fight over-with, before they could attract anymore unwanted attention. He lunged towards the two guards, blades poised to swipe.
Meanwhile, Donatello and April were in one of the rooms on the second floor. April was hacking into the company computer files, desperately trying to locate where C-56 was kept, whilst Donny rummaged through the metal, glass-door cupboards, searching for any signs of the antidote.
After a few minutes of tense silence, April cried, "I've got it!" She re-read through the file and elaborated, "The antigen is kept in vials in the next room, with labels reading XTL109. Come on, let's go!"
Poking his head out of the door to check for security first, Donny and April moved to the next room. They began searching through the cupboards, looking for the label with the serial number matching that found on the computer. Eventually, Donny found the right case of vials.
"Let's get back to the basement," Donny said as they rushed out of the laboratory.
On the way, they passed the security room, where Leonardo and Raphael were engaged in battle with the guards. More had showed up since the original two, and the turtles were beginning to struggle.
Donny saw that his brothers needed his assistance, and gave the case of vials to April. "Go back to the basement, quickly. Find out from David how much of C-56 to give to each of the guys on the left side of the room, and give them the shots of it. We'll be back as soon as we can."
April nodded, and hurried back down the corridor towards the stairs leading to the basement. In the meantime, Donatello pulled his bo staff from the hold on the back of his shell, and picked his way through the guards, already weakened from fighting with his brothers.
"Great timing, Don," Leonardo complimented, already feeling the pressure ease from a third turtle joining the fight.
"No trouble," Donny replied modestly, throwing aside a guard with his Bo.
In a far corner of the room, Raphael's Sais locked with one Asian guard's nunchucks. He had flinched when he had first seen the weapons, but now he was intent on detaching them from his opponent's hands as quickly as possible. He snarled, "Grr, Mikey don't know what he's missing."
As soon as Splinter saw that intruders had entered his home, he stood up and advanced towards them, trying to move as far away from where Michelangelo lay as possible. He had a pretty good idea that they were there for his son, if they were connected with the scientists. If they had started testing something on him, then the chances were they wanted to see some sort of results from that test.
"Unless you are here to cure my son, I suggest you leave now," Splinter said coldly. He knew that the gang would not leave without putting up a fight for the turtle, but it suggested that Splinter was unaware of this, and it would give the rat's foe the opportunity to underestimate him.
The members of the group were not shocked to see that the giant rat could talk, or in fact, that he had referred to the turtle as his 'son.' Clearly, they were indifferent people who had been exposed to a lot of bizarre happenings in their life, and were now desensitised to such things.
"I'm afraid we can't do that, old man," the leader of the gang said, paying no attention to the fact that Splinter was actually a rat. Dressed in a black t-shirt with ripped sleeves and jeans slashed at the knees, he took a step forward, towering over Splinter. Then, as if the rat had suddenly disappeared, he ignored him and turned to the men behind him. "Get the turtle," he commanded.
Thoroughly irritated now, Splinter rapidly lashed out with his walking stick, striking the leader's ankles with such force that he was knocked off his feet and landed on the ground with a loud thud.
In a second, chaos reigned in the lair. The gang momentarily forgot their search for Michelangelo, and charged at the rat that had knocked their leader down. They hit all at once, all clumsily bashing into each other, but Splinter ducked and rolled out of the way, escaping unscathed. He quickly manoeuvred himself so that he was between the thugs and his son. Almost immediately, the brutes scrambled to their feet and began some better-prepared and better-executed attacks on Splinter. Some used weapons, such as bats and chains, others opting to use only their fists.
As good a fighter as Splinter was, he struggled this time, as he was well outnumbered by the gang. He tried in vain to keep his foes away from the couch and away from his son. Suddenly, out of the corner of his eye, he saw movement a little way behind him.
Mikey had awoken to the commotion, and looked up to investigate the source of the noise. His eyes widened when he saw the battle between humans and rat taking place in his living room. He squinted, trying to focus. Eight humans to one rat. He shook his head, determined to try and even out the odds.
Unsteadily he stood up, struggling for a moment. He instinctively reached to his belt for his nunchucks, but was dismayed to find that they had at some point been removed. He quickly glanced around the area for them, hoping to find them in close proximity, but no such luck. Boy, does my head hurt...
He took a moment to compose himself, before moving towards the group, where Splinter was getting into difficulties fighting the brutes. One of the males looked up to see the turtle walking shakily towards them, and sneered. He moved away from the rat and proceeded to Michelangelo, holding his club tightly in his hand. Mikey took up a stance, ready to fight.
It was at that moment that Splinter noticed his son was awake and had moved away from the couch. He watched helplessly as one of the gang aimed his club at his ailing son and struck. Mikey attempted to block the hit, but in his state could do little more than dodge away and put his arm up in defence.
Sensing that defence was not working, Michelangelo decided to try and attack instead. He ducked down to the floor and executed a weak sweeping kick at the man's ankles. He caught them, but could do little more than make the man stagger back slightly.
Mikey struggled to stand up, but need not have bothered when he found he swiftly had to roll out of the way to avoid another attack, this time from a second man, carrying a heavy, rust-coated chain. The turtle came to a halt on his shell, groaning for a moment on the ground as the fire roared in his gut. He prised his eyes open and looked to the side in time to see his Sensei struck to the ground. The turtle strained to keep his eyes open and to stay conscious. Muffled, he could hear the deep voices of the scientists hastily make plans.
"Should we get the rat too?"
"Don't bother, we have what we came for. Find something to tie the rat up with, and then we'll go."
Mikey swallowed, closed his eyes for a moment, and opened them in time to see the bat strike him on the head. They needn't have taken the trouble, he thought to himself as his world started to become a numb black.
I would have passed out anyway.
The three turtles joined April in the basement, knowing that the guards would not be far behind. April looked up to see the three brothers panting and gasping for breath. She knew they were missing the presence of Michelangelo in more ways than one. "Was there a lot of them?" She asked.
"Yeah, and more on their way, too," Raphael said, his hand already on the handle of his sai.
"All three of these guys have been injected with C-56," April said, gesturing to the three on the left side of the room. Already their colour had returned, and their breathing seemed to be returning to a normal rate.
"We know of a way out without going back up to the ground floor," David said hurriedly. "A fire escape, just off this corridor."
"Yeah, well, shall we start making tracks before..." Raph was cut off by heavy footfalls, followed by guards appearing in the open doorway. "Ah well, too late."
"April, we'll keep these guys busy, can you help get the others out of here?"
"I'll do my best," April said to Leonardo uneasily. There appeared to be a lot of the muscular guards, and the only exit was the narrow metal-framed doorway, which one guard could easily fill and keep blocked with his body.
"We'll hold them off," Leo assured her. "Probably better take these guys to the hospital, it's only a couple of blocks away."
Quietly, April said, "The vial for Mikey is on the tabletop, over there. I'll see you guys later."
"Sure thing," Leo replied, turning his attention back to the battle that was about to commence. He gripped his katana blades and slowly drew them out of their sheaths, vaguely aware of the metallic clink accompanying them. He gritted his teeth and glanced sideways at his brothers. He received curt nods from them in sync, and so the leader turned back to face the guards. Altogether, the three turtles let out battle cries and launched themselves at their foe, weapons clashing in a fierce clang of metal and wood.
April, David, Joe and the others quietly helped the ailing ones out of the room, careful to be discreet and not be spotted by the guards. They all escaped undetected, and it was only when they were half a block away from the hospital that one guard cursed loudly, having realised they had lost their test subjects.
The guards outnumbered the turtles, and slowly the foe began to have the upper hand in the fight, patiently battling whilst the turtles became weaker.
"Leo, think this is a good time to book?" Donny asked, struggling to hold a large guard at bay with his Bo staff.
"As good a time as any," Leo said, fending back two guards with his two katana swords crossed over in an X-shape. "Don, grab the vial and we'll make a break for it. The sooner we get it back to Mikey, the better."
Using every ounce of strength he possessed, Donatello pushed the guard back with his Bo, and reached for the vial of C-56 on the table. One guard realised his intent, and threw his weapon, a small dagger, towards the vial. With a well-practiced aim it hit the vial dead centre, smashing the thin glass bottle and letting the liquid slowly spread over the table.
