One good thing about being a mutant, thought Michelangelo idly. Never any trouble getting a seat on the subway.
Michelangelo sat, legs swinging, occasionally humming along with the song on his Walkman. Since Tuesday was one of his days off from the restaurant, Splinter had called him last night to see if he could come lend a hand this afternoon. The gallery wanted to schedule another exhibition for his paintings sometime this summer, and wanted to see what Splinter had finished up so far. Michelangelo had agreed right away. After all, it'd been a couple weeks since he'd seen Splinter, and months since he'd seen anyone at the gallery, which was once almost a second home to him.
Still ensconced in his own little rock-n-roll world, Michelangelo stepped off the subway at the proper stop, walked through the station, and up the steps. He blinked a bit at the bright sunshine before making his way down the street. Opening the small gate out front, he walked the few steps up to the door of Splinter's apartment building, then let himself in with his key. Splinter wasn't helpless by any means, but at the same time, Michelangelo didn't want to make him go to the front of his apartment just to buzz him in.
As he rode the elevator up, he thought back to when he and his brothers had helped Splinter move into this building. Mr Samuels had willed his house to Splinter, but Splinter was adamant that the house revert back to the Samuels family, even though they showed no real interest in living there. (They did show an interest in the money they could make selling it, remembered Michelangelo.) Splinter and the turtles by this point had begun making their way in the human world - all of them out of school and starting their careers - and no longer needed the luxury of a rent-free home. And at that point, only Splinter and Leonardo were living there in any case. Leonardo quickly found a place near the school where he was student teaching, and soon after, Splinter found a very small but well-kept place. All four had taken the weekend off to help Splinter move in, which was certainly overkill - Splinter didn't have very many possessions. But all of them still felt a slight sense of abandonment. Suddenly, they couldn't just spend the night with Splinter if they wanted to. It was sort of the last push out of the nest - the time they realized that they were truly on their own.
Michelangelo opened Splinter's front door with his key. "Sensei?" he called. "It's Mikey!" He closed the door and paused, but didn't hear anything. Strange, thought Michelangelo. Maybe he's gone out. But then he spied Splinter's walking stick next to the door. Hm, apparently not. "Sensei?" Moving into the apartment, he glanced around at the impeccably-kept living room. Wish I could keep my place this neat, he though absently. He moved back towards the bedroom, and peeked in the open door. He saw Splinter under the covers of the futon, which made him frown. Why would Splinter be asleep at three in the afternoon?
"Sensei?" said Michelangelo, softly.
"You set?" asked Donatello. Natasha nodded, so Donatello knocked on the door. Once he heard the expected "come in", Donatello opened the door, and let Natasha lead him into the office.
Mr Santiago smiled as the two entered. "Ah, yes," he said. "So? How's the project looking?"
Donatello gave him a lopsided smile. "Promising."
"You know I don't like that word," said Mr Santiago, smiling in spite of himself.
"It's accurate, though."
Natasha, Donatello's new assistant, nodded excitedly. "Actually, the testing's going really well so far. We're getting a complete data transfer in just over five minutes. And that's the large capacity."
"Excellent. So where are you having problems?"
"Data loss," said Donatello simply. "We've losing about one half of one percent of the download when the device is moved about ten feet away." As an afterthought, he added, "That's also with a couple obstacles in between..."
"Just half a percent? That's actually really good," said Mr Santiago, who wasn't expecting this kind of result so quickly.
Donatello shook his head. "Not good enough. First off, we can't tell people that it only works if they get it right up next to their computers. It'll be a much better selling point if we can say they just need to get it within six feet or so. And secondly, people aren't going to accept any data loss at all. How'd you feel if I lopped off a few entries on your spreadsheet, or the last paragraph of your favorite book?"
"Understood." Mr Santiago sat back in his chair and considered. He wanted this item in the stores immediately, before their competitors came out with something similar, but he knew that putting out an inferior product would be fatal. "How are you compensating?"
"We're trying a few things," Donatello said. "I've got Natasha working on a error corrector - something that'll look for missing data and retrieve it if it notices any. Only problem is, that'll probably double the time it takes to complete the transfer. So I'm working on upping the transfer speed some more."
"Upping the transfer speed? I thought you had it transfering as fast as it could."
"That was last month," Donatello said, then grinned. "I've had a couple ideas since then."
Mr Santiago smiled back. "And you're the go-to guy when it comes to ideas. All right. Get back on it." As Donatello and Natasha turned to go, he added, "Oh, and great job, by the way."
"Thanks," said Donatello, slapping the door frame slightly.
"Yeah, thanks," added Natasha.
They started back down the hall to the elevator, and Donatello noticed a particular spring in Natasha's step. "See?" he said. "No problem."
Natasha grinned. "I can't believe it! He was really happy!"
"You didn't think he would be?"
"Well, I was kinda worried that it wasn't all done yet..."
They reached the elevator lobby, and Donatello pressed the down button. "Don't be. Mr Santiago's cool. He's worked in R&D before, so he doesn't expect miracles. Just be honest, and don't get his hopes up too high. He'd rather be pleasantly surprised than disappointed."
"Got it." Natasha and Donatello stepped onto the elevator and pressed the "B" key. As they made their way down, Natasha added, "You know, Mr Hamato..."
"Now, I told you before. No Mr Hamato-ing me," said Donatello with a small smile.
"Sorry. Donatello. To be honest, I was kinda worried about this assignment."
Donatello deadpanned, "What - you never had to work for a five-foot turtle before?"
"No!" said Natasha quickly. "No, that's not what I meant!"
Donatello's smile returned. "I know, Natasha - I was just playing."
"Oh. Sorry." Natasha tried to regain her composure. "I was just gonna say that I was worried that this job would be a complete bore, and...well, I didn't know what to expect from you. I've..."
"...never worked for a five-foot turtle. No, that's cool." Donatello held up his hand to quiet Natasha's protest. "I know what you mean. I'm just happy you're comfortable working with me now."
"Oh yeah. More than comfortable. You even let me pick out what music to listen to a lot of the time."
"Yeah, well, my brothers got me used to pretty much any kind of music. From classical to thrash."
"It's just such a great job." The doors opened, and they stepped out into their research space.
"Yeah, it's hard to believe we're getting paid for this."
"And so well!" added Natasha, and they both laughed.
A quiet chirping interrupted them. Donatello grabbed his cel phone and smiled slightly when he saw Michelangelo's name in the display. He flipped the phone open and held it to his ear. "Hey, Mikey. What's up?"
Raphael blew his whistle, bringing all the players to a halt, and all their eyes onto him. Raphael pointed at the one with the ball. "Charging," he said simply.
The kid threw his head back towards the high ceiling of the gym. "You have got to be kidding me!"
"C'mon, you threw an elbow to his chest," argued Raphael, nodding towards a defender wearing a blue tank top.
"They'd never call that in the NBA!"
"Take a look around, Donald." Raphael spun his finger around, indicating the rundown building they were playing in. "This ain't Madison Square Garden." Donald growled and slammed the ball down, hard. Raphael snapped his fingers and pointed to the sidelines. "All right, Donald - time out." Pointing to someone else on the sideline, Raphael added, "Marcus, take his place. Blue possession."
As the game resumed, Raphael headed off the court to where Donald had stomped off. He stood stock still, arms crossed, glaring. Looking up at the tall fifteen-year-old, Raphael said quietly, "Donald, you've got to learn to keep it under control."
"That wasn't charging!"
"Donald, listen," Raphael continued in the same quiet voice. "First off, it was charging." Donald started to argue, but Raphael held up his hand. "No arguing. And secondly, it doesn't matter. I might have missed it. You know refs screw up calls all the time. It happens. Too bad. You got to be ready to have some breaks go against you." Raphael waited to let that sink in, but he wasn't sure it had - Donald just kept glaring at him. Finally, Raphael said, "Listen. You're gonna have to work at letting some of this stuff go."
Donald sighed and looked down at his shoes. "It's tough," he mumbled.
"I know. I been there." Donald looked up, somewhat surprised, and Raphael gave him a crooked smile. "I'd tell ya about it, but it's one of those when-I-was-your-age stories, and I'm guessing you'd rather get back in the game than hear it." Donald nodded, smiling a bit back, and Raphael said, "OK. Remind me to bore you to death with that story later. Get ready to sub back in."
"'K. Thanks."
"Raphael!" Raphael spun around, and saw Brenda, who ran the youth center, waving to him from across the gym. "Your brother's on the phone. He says it's urgent."
Leonardo was trying to get on top of the state-mandated paperwork when he heard a knock on his office door. As usual, he didn't know whether he was happy or upset at the intrution. "Come on," he said. The door opened, and a head peeked in. Surprised, Leonardo said, "Alex?"
"Hi, Mr Hamato," said Alex. "Um, you said you'd be around after school..."
"Right. Come on in." Alex made his way into the small office, and took the seat across from Leonardo. "It's just...well, to be honest, Alex, I wasn't really expecting you."
"Yeah, well, I don't have a lot of time right now, but I thought I should talk to you for a bit. You know, 'bout..." Alex's voice trailed away.
Leonardo tried to cast his mind back to the geography he had been teaching. He was actually an English teacher by trade, but when it came to summer school, teachers pretty much got whatever courses they were assigned. "You're still having trouble with everything?"
Alex put his books down on the desk and made a vague gesture towards them. "Everything's just a bunch of names. They don't mean anything!"
Smiling sympathetically, Leonardo said, "I know how you feel. But actually, they do all mean something. I just don't have time to give you the back story."
"What do you mean?"
"Well..." Leonardo paused to think for a second. "Say you live up on 88th. There's a lot of cool stuff there, right? The shops, the restaurants and all that?"
"Yeah..."
"But if you look at a map, it won't show you all of that. It'll just show a line that says '88th'. They won't have room to put anything else."
"Hm."
Leonardo reached behind him to his neatly-arranged bookshelves and grabbed an atlas. He thumbed through it until he found the map of Japan. He lay the atlas down towards Alex, pointed to a spot, and pretended not to see him flinch a bit at seeing the large stubby green finger so close. "See this island?"
"Yeah..."
"What can you tell me about it?"
"Um...it's called Okinawa. And it's in Japan."
"And that's about it, right?"
"Well, yeah."
"I've been there once. It's one of the nicest places on earth. Beautiful beaches, and some of the best people I've ever met. But you'd never know it from this map." Leonardo tapped the map for emphasis. "All the map can do is show you the basics. What's where. Cities, countries, rivers and mountains. That's about all they have room for."
Both of them leapt a bit as the phone on Leonardo's desk began ringing. During the second ring, Leonardo leaned over and turned the ringer off.
"Um, aren't you gonna answer it?"
Leonardo shook his head and smiled a bit. "They can leave a message. I'm busy." He pointed to the map again. "Geography class is a lot like a map, actually. All I can give you the bare bones, the absolute basics. Sort of a basic structure to build on. So when you hear about something happening in Copenhagen on the news, or you meet somebody from the Rhine Valley, you'll at least know where these places are. And you'll be building on these basics that you learn here in class." Leonardo paused. Alex seemed to understand, but he didn't look entirely convinced. Leonardo leaned a bit closer. "Of course, there's another, secret reason for this class..."
"Besides to make me miss my summer?" Alex said ruefully.
"Nah, that's just a bonus," Leonardo said, grinning. Then he paused and thought again. "You're on the football team, right?"
"Yeah..."
"The coach makes you run drills, right? Running through tires, slamming into dummies, stuff like that?"
"'f course. So what?"
"So why do you do that? There's never any tires on the field during the game."
Alex looked at Leonardo like he'd lost his mind. "It's practice! Drills! You know. So during the game, we know how to step high 'n' stuff."
Leonardo patted Alex's textbook. "Same idea, Alex."
"Huh?"
"As you get older, get a job, all that, guess what? You're gonna need to memorize lists, organize things. You know, make it all make sense. So we get you kids to run drills. Get you to memorize the countries in Europe." Again, Leonardo tapped the textbook. "This here's a tire drill for your brain."
Alex stared at his textbook for a second, then slumped back in his chair. "OK, fine. But that still doesn't make this any easier."
"I hear you. Tell you what. You free tomorrow after school?"
Alex thought. "Nah, I got practice. But I'm free Monday."
"That'll work. Swing by Monday after school, and we'll see if we can work out some memorization tricks to help you out."
Alex looked skeptical. "You really think I can learn this?"
Leonardo smiled. "Alex, I know you can."
"Well, OK." Alex got up to leave, gathering his books.
"I'll see you in class tomorrow." Leonardo watched him leave, still half-smiling to himself. It was nice to get a reminder why he went into teaching into the first place. Finally, he looked down at the blinking light on the phone. Someone had left a message. Leonardo picked up the phone and pressed the "mail" button. A smile played across his face as he recognized Michelangelo's voice, but within a second, his grip on the phone tightened, and he felt himself go cold all over.
