"Kinda spooky for a nerd hangout."

Thus was Raphael's reaction when he first saw the AJB Genetic Research Facility. His thoughts were well-founded. Though Donatello's quick Internet research showed that the labs were still active, it seemed as though the building had fallen into disuse. Chips of concrete had crumbled off and the infrastructure seemed to have eroded somewhat, baring the skeleton of the edifice. The dirt road surrounding the facility showed no evidence of use over the past few months, at the least. The wire fence was warped and rusted, causing a creaking sound to echo through the air as the clouded-over sun began to slowly seep towards the horizon.

Donatello was happy that they had left Michelangelo behind; he would most likely have been scared stiff at the sight of the place. "Strange," he murmured as he and Raphael carefully approached the building. "I traced a shipment made here less than a month ago. Unless this is a Hollywood front, I can't understand why a genetics laboratory would look this way."

"Can a Hollywood front actually be listed as somethin' it ain't?" Raphael asked. Donatello shook his head. "I've no idea." Raphael looked at the building in consideration before shrugging his shoulders and quickening his stride. "Might as well check it out."

Donatello grabbed hold of his arm and pulled him back. "Hold on, Raph. I'm not liking this." Seeing his brother's eyes roaming around the large property, Raphael questioned, "What? Security cameras?" Donatello didn't answer for a moment, but finally shook his head again. "No. No security cameras. If this place was closed down only in the past few weeks, I'd at least be able to spy some evidence of their security system. But… I don't see anything. So either it's all been taken away already… or it's so sophisticated and well-hidden that I just can't see it."

Raphael looked at Donatello levelly before gazing back at the building. He said nothing, only stood there in contemplation. Not sure if he was more unnerved by the eeriness of the building or by his brother's reticence, Donatello stated, "C'mon. Let's go back to Allison's and see if we can find someplace else." Raphael didn't budge. "Raph, come on."

"Is there the slightest chance 'a that chemical bein' in there?" Donatello considered Raphael's question, looking back at the seemingly-deserted labs. "I don't know. There might be, if the facility is active and they just have really bad housekeepers. Or if they've closed down and haven't moved all of their stuff to their new location-"

"That ain't what I'm askin'," Raphael broke in. "Is there a chance, or ain't there?" Reluctantly, Donatello answered that there was. "But Raph," he pleaded, "I've got a bad feeling about this place-" Raphael wouldn't listen. Instead, he told Donatello, "No people means no chance 'a gettin' caught. And turnin' back means we just wasted time. I'm here, so I ain't wastin' time when there's no chance 'a me gettin' caught. You don't wanna go, then just tell me what to look for, capisce?" Knowing that Raphael wasn't going to let up, Donatello agreed to go in.

Sticking to the shadows, the turtles kept their eyes open for surveillance cameras or any other security measures that may have been taken. Both of them have been through enough to know that when something seems simple, mistakes get made far too easily. With their stealth and caution, the pair made it to the back of the building.

Here, Donatello breathed a sigh of relief. The road at the posterior of the labs exhibited numerous tire tracks. None of them seemed too fresh, but the knowledge that they weren't entering a mysteriously vacant genetics lab caused him to breathe easier. He looked to see if Raphael noted the signs of life, but found that his brother had used his sais to pick a lock holding a pair of doors closed.

Gaining entrance, Raphael slipped into the dark building, silently beckoning Donatello to follow. Donatello slowly crept towards him, but stopped. He thought he heard a sound being carried over by the evening breeze. He looked around, but saw nothing and no one. His suspicions about their locale being reawakened, Donatello made a quick visual sweep of everything in the vicinity. Looking upon the ground, he saw what he had feared to see.

To one side, what he had initially thought were tire tracks were too neat and even to belong to a vehicle. It seemed as though someone had scraped something across the dirt to hide prints and make one think that they were just the marks of a car or truck. And it looked as though this ruse had been committed recently. Very recently. Someone was here, Donatello discovered. Someone knows we're here, and just tried to cover up their tracks. But… why not come out and stop us?

Realizing that Raphael had continued on, Donatello looked up at the door. Approaching it, he was chilled when he realized what was wrong with it. A padlock. What self-respecting scientist protects his laboratory with a padlock? Even if the place was abandoned, it would be covered by better security devices than this. Unless… someone wanted them to come in.

A trap, Donatello realized. We're walking right into a trap.

Still, no one had jumped Raphael, and his brother was trying various doors on the inside. The best thing Donatello could think of to do is to stay close to Raphael. For them to be separated and possibly defeated in an unknown genetics lab would be a terrible way to continue their "vacation."

Raphael paid no mind to the fact that his brother scurried in after him as though he were startled by something. Just as Donatello joined him at his side and tried to tell him something, Raphael opened a door and looked within. Pushing the door open all the way, he stepped to the side for Donatello to see. "Place looks and smells worse than your room," he commented.

Distracted from whatever he had been trying to say, Donatello gaped at the main laboratory, his mouth open in surprise. "Wow," he breathed. "This place is incredible." He began spouting off the complex names of the various apparatuses he could recognize. When the terms reached more than five syllables, Raphael quickly lost interest. Moving to a glass cabinet, Raphael squinted at the small letters on the vials of substances within. "Fascinatin' as this might be," he said, "we got a girl to get back to. Which one 'a these is the one we need?"

Seeming to remember their current situation, Donatello quickly made his way next to Raphael. The fact that everything appeared to be in operating condition only confirmed his suspicions. This lab was still very much active, and they needed to get out of there as quickly as they could to avoid becoming its latest experiment. After a few seconds, he spotted the amber-colored liquid and was relieved to see that there was a good supply of it.

"There," he pointed. He tried to slide the glass cabinet opened, but it was locked. "Great," he muttered. He wasn't even given the chance to ask Raphael to carefully pick the lock before one of Raphael's sais went through the glass. Startled, Donatello jumped slightly as Raphael reached in and took the vial. "Stupid, but effective," Donatello remarked. "Now, let's hurry on out of here."

"You're not going anywhere!"

Both of the turtles stiffened as they heard the authoritative voice behind them. In slow, miniscule movements, they both turned just as a bright light was flashed on them. The glare threw them both off balance, but they managed to make out two men clad in black, aiming some rather heavy artillery at them.

Getting over the initial surprise, Raphael clenched the vial as securely as he could and glared at the men who meant to become their captors. "So ya snuck up on a ninja. Betcha can't wait to write to Mom about that. So I'll let ya write your letters, and me and my buddy are just gonna head on out, and nobody's gotta end up in a body bag. That sound cool with you?"

"I'm afraid that's not possible." Raphael froze again at the new—yet familiar—voice. Seeing the third person step into view, Donatello shook his head anxiously and murmured, "Oh no. It can't be."

"There appears to be nowhere in the country where I can carry on my work free of freaks." Staring at the two of them dispassionately, Agent John Bishop stopped directly behind his two gunmen. "It's not everyday that a pair of sentient reptiles break into one of my facilities and attempt to make off with one of my compounds." Eyeing the amber fluid in the bottle that Raphael seemed determined to protect, a grim smile tugged at the edges of his thin lips. "And judging by the one you've attempted to steal, I'm imagining that there must be an intriguing explanation behind this." His eyes darted over to Donatello. "I take it that you're… ill again?"

"No," Donatello said, hoping to explain calmly by appealing to whatever remnant of humanity Bishop may have in him. "It's not for me. It's-" And once again, Raphael's temper flared up and got him raving. "It ain't for him, you self-righteous bastard! That damned virus that you 'n Stockman cooked up's wreckin' a girl's life! She needs this, 'n she needs it now! You even think about stoppin' me from helpin' her, and my foot's gonna hafta be surgically removed from your ass, ya got that?"

Bishop merely looked at the enraged turtle. His expression seemed placid, but Donatello imagined that he could see a degree of perverse interest and cruel calculation. "As always, you impress me with your colorful language, considering that you were born in an aquarium." Raphael growled and had to be held back by Donatello. "Raph, no!"

Looking up at Bishop, Donatello prayed that the agent would be able to put aside his hatred for everything non-human and see they were once again on the same side in this case. "Look Bishop, we've got this friend. A human friend. Almost a year ago, she came in contact with a very concentrated version of the outbreak virus. We're thinking that there must've still been a creature on which the cure didn't work, causing the virus to get stronger. She mutated and we managed to throw together a cure, but it was far weaker than we would have liked for it to be. She changed back into her human form, but she's been going into a gradual relapse for the past few days. Today, she completely went back to her mutated form. We're pretty sure it's not serious enough to affect her sanity or be as contagious as it was the last time, but she needs to be fully cured. She's an innocent human being. If you keep us from helping her, then you're going against your own mission of protecting humans at all costs."

Throughout Donatello's explanation, Bishop's eyes didn't appear to shift from Raphael. When another ghost of a smirk seemed to play on his lips, Donatello's uneasiness grew. "Heart-wrenching tale," Bishop finally said flatly. "Truly, truly pitiful. Unfortunately, you are attempting to illegally procure a chemical of which I have a vital need. I think it would be best that this woman be brought back here, where we can run the proper tests and be sure of a complete detoxification."

The words were hardly out of his mouth when Raphael barked, "Are you kiddin'? Bring her here and let ya stick her under a microscope? I wouldn't put it past you to run your cockamamie experiments on her in your little torture chamber, human or not."

Another silence passed. At length, Bishop called, "Hayes." The man to his left asked, "Yes sir?" Narrowing his eyes, Bishop asked, "How many turtles does it take to relay a message?"

"Just one, sir."

Before Donatello knew what had happened, Raphael crashed against the glass cabinet. Shocked, Donatello stepped backwards, gaping down at his fallen brother even as he withdrew his bo. Something that looked like a dart of sorts was protruding from Raphael's chest. Just as he thought the worst, the two gunmen moved so that they were between Raphael and Donatello. "He's only unconscious," Bishop's detached voice told him. "He should be absolutely healthy when you come back to trade the girl in for him."

Donatello's eyes shot back up at the agent. He could see the quietly smug expression on Bishop's face and felt a shiver of self-loathing in the fact that he had just tried to make a deal with him. "I'm not leaving here," Donatello told him lowly, "without my brother."

In a move more natural to Raphael, Donatello ran for Bishop, meaning to at least erase that confident air from his face. Bishop's smile only turned slightly sour, the way Michelangelo's face does when he reaches an easy obstacle in a video game. "Then it seems that you'll have to be removed from the premises."

Before Donatello could accept the implications of Bishop's words, he felt something sting his leg. He grunted, trying not to let that small pinprick bring him down. He barely realized that Bishop's fist was quickly coming up close to his face before he felt the numbing impact of it and hit the floor shell-first.

"You're lucky I'm willing to bargain with you, reptile." Donatello tried to sit up, but Bishop lowered his foot on the turtle's throat. His vision beginning to blur, Donatello could do little else but stare up at Bishop's pale face. The light shone off of the man's glasses, making it look as though his eyes were two burning pools of light. Bishop leaned down close to the turtle and quietly stated, "I want that girl. I have both Raphael and the cure. If you want either of those two, then your course of action is simple. Two hours. I don't have to tell you what will happen if you're late." If he said anything more than that, it didn't matter.

Donatello's world faded into blackness.