The teens perched themselves on another roof top across from the entrance from the TCRI building. Donnie and April were hunched over her laptop trying to find any information about the company or the building. Mikey and Leo had decided to make a lap around the building to see what they could find, while Holly and Raph were back to looking through the binoculars.

"There's nothing, No information about TCRI or the company at all." April announced. "There's not even any city documents about them taking possession of the building. Its like they suddenly appeared one day, and no one has noticed."

"The only information out there is that it stands for Techno Cosmic Research Institute, but it doesn't say if its a school, or an aeronautics program. Nothing." Donnie read over Aprils shoulder.

"That is the dumbest name I have ever heard." Raph commented, and Holly silently agreed.

"Look, there's more of those guys inside the lobby." Holly said, pointing to a small group of people who had just exited an elevator inside the building.

Raph shuddered slightly, "If I never see another one of those gross, slimy brain things again, it will be too soon."

"Guys!" Mikey yelled as he and Leo landed on the roof beside them, "there's a loading dock around the back of the building and were loading crates full of mutagen into a truck"

"What on earth could they be using that much mutagen for?" April asked.

"I don't know, but I don't like it," Leo said. "Are you guys willing to find out where they're going with all that stuff?" He looked at April and Holly

They both nodded and shrugged, "I'm driving though." Holly said.

"Alright, we'll go in there and find out whats going on." Leo said and the guys all nodded.

"Just be careful, make sure you try to stay out of sight." Donnie said speaking more to April than anyone.

"Its going to be a little tough in that thing." She said pointing in the direction they had parked the Shell-raiser.

"Yeah, but they won't know its just us." Holly smiled a little smugly. She almost enjoyed the idea of scaring someone a little after all the crap they had been through.

"We need to get some stuff first, then we'll let you know when the truck is leaving and you can follow it." Donnie said, anxiety written all over his face.

"Don't worry, we'll be just fine." April reassured him.

Holly got a crash course in driving the Shell-raiser from Leo while Donnie grabbed a couple of things he had been working on out of some compartments. He threw a modified crossbow with a grappling hook attachment at Raph, a glass cutting tool to Mikey, and grabbed out a little flip open device that he tucked inside his own belt.

"Be careful in there." April said, and gave Donnie a quick kiss on the cheek.

"Let us know if you need us to come get you." Holly agreed from the drivers seat.

The turtles were gone before they could blink, so April shut the door and Holly drove them to the other side of the building. The truck was still there, but it was getting ready to leave. A obese man climbed up into the cab of the truck and started it up. The Truck wobbled slightly as the gears engaged and slowly it pulled out of the docking bay and turned onto the street.
They watched as the truck got stuck immediately at a red light, but one it began moving again, they pulled out of their alley way and began to follow.

"Where do you think he's going?" April asked.

"I have a pretty good idea" Holly replied and she followed the truck onto the turnpike.

Leonardo was impressed with his brother. Donnie had shot his crossbow across the gap to the TCRI building and hooked one of the giant letters to enable them to climb across. Plus, having the glass cutter meant they could enter the building anywhere.

"You really had everything covered this time!" Leo commented.

"Yeah, well I was sick of being caught off guard." Donnie said as he tied off the other end of the rope to a nearby water tower. "Anyone want to go first?" He chuckled. The others were silent. "Fine, I suppose its only fair." He gave the knot one more tug, then threw his bo staff up over the rope like a zip line. He took one breath for courage, then threw himself out over the city street. He slid down the line and landed on a ledge high above the street. Donnie chuckled nervously to himself. He knew it would work,

He waved at his brothers that it was all good, and in turn they each followed him over to TCRI. They followed the ledge a little further along to find a nice isolated looking window to cut open. Donnie placed the head of a plunger against the glass, extended out a diamond tipped blade on a long arm and cut a perfect circle into the building. The plunger head allowed him to carefully lower the glass section into the room without it making too much noise.

"Dude, that's sick." Michelangelo said before he was violently shushed by his brothers. They had entered into a completely empty room that was quite large. It looked like it should have been offices, but there was nothing there to suggest anyone even came into this space. Leo led the way to the only door on the opposing wall. The cracked it open and it was like they had walked into a completely different world. The middle of the tower looked like a space ship from one of Mikey's comics. All chrome walls with pulsing power strips running along the walls.

"Whoa," they all exclaimed.

"It's like the outer layer of the building is a front for whatever the heck is going on in here." Donnie said excitedly.

"And what exactly is going on in here?" Leo asked.

"I have no idea, but we're going to find out." Donnie took off into the guts of the building looking for something that may give them a clue as to what was going on.

The saw a few small sentry groups walking around, these guys were just the uncovered metallic bodies with the brains inside the abdomen though. They had no creepy skin bag on them, which they couldn't decide if it was better or worse this way.

They avoided everything this time, not wanting to draw any attention to the fact that they were there. Donnie was running along another corridor when he suddenly skidded to a stop and returned to look through a hatchway.
"Ah hah! He exclaimed and opened the door.

"What is it?" Leo asked.

"Data bank." Donnie said simply.

"How can you tell?" Raph asked looking at the nondescript console in front of them. It was made of the same material as everything else in the building and he couldn't see any indicator of what it was. But Donnie knew a computer when he saw one. He pressed on a few sections of the console before one of them popped open to reveal access ports. He smiled smugly at Raph who just huffed in annoyance back.

Donatello grabbed his little hand held device that he had taken from the Shell-raiser and pulled out some wires with various connectors on them and started trying to find one that might work with this strange technology. After a bit of jimmy rigging, he finally got his mini computer to connect. "Yes!"

He began accessing various information, and the screen flashed through pages of information.

"What is it saying" Hissed Leonardo as he kept watch through the little window in the door.

"I'm not completely sure because its not in English." Donnie said a little snarkily. "It looks like there is a main chamber in the tower though that almost all of the power is routed through." He studied a few more pages. "And they seem to reference something just designated with an 'X' an awful lot."

"How exactly does this help us?" Raph asked, getting frustrated. All this technology and sneaking around was not his style.

"Since I am downloading all this information and transferring it back to my computer at home, I would say that I'll have a better chance to translate it there." Donnie had his smug grin back on his face.
Raph just sneered at his brother.
"Would you knock it off." Leo hissed, "How long will it take for you to get everything you need?

"There is years of information here." Donnie said looking at the sheer quantity of data, "It could take years to get it all, but" he continued seeing the looks on his brothers faces, "I designed this to keep on transmitting for as long as its connected. If the Krang try to remove this, it will self destruct."

"Donnie, that's brilliant" Leo said.

"Yeah, I know." Donnie replied

"You're so modest." Raph said sarcastically.

Donnie tucked his little machine into the control panel and closed it up so that it went undetected for as long as possible. They then all exited the room back into the corridor and continued on to try to find the central room.

April and Holly followed the truck back out to the military base. Holly had suspected this was where they were bringing the mutagen, but why they were transporting it here was another matter. Instead of turning into the compound though, it pulled off at the recycling center and proceeded around to the back of the building. Holy pulled the Shell-raiser behind a nearby building and they both hopped out to see what was going on.

"Why wouldn't he go into the base?" Holly wondered out loud.

"I don't know, but maybe we should find out." April ran across the road to the large lot that was filled with piles of recyclable material. There was a huge container of glass bottles next to the building, and April climbed up it and onto the side of the building.

"Where are you going?" Holly hissed at her.

"To see whats really going on inside this place." April replied like it was obvious.

Holly shook her head before following her friend up the side of the container. April helped pull her up and onto the top of the container before she shimmied up a drain pipe and onto the roof.
"Are you kidding me?" Holly complained. She grasped the pipe and began to climb much less confidently.

"You need to work on your upper body strength." April said as she hauled her friend over the lip of the building.

"Or, we could use the technology I have in my pocket to do the work for us?" Holly said and pulled out her mini drone.

"Well, now you just sound like Donnie." April scoffed and waved away the easier option.

"There are some things that tech is good for." Holly said as she powered on the drone. She flew it over the side of the building and looked around for the truck. It had backed up to another loading dock that was under a thin corrugated tin cover. Holly sent the drone under the cover and looked around.
"There, you see. I didn't have to climb a building to see what is going on."

April pulled a face, but had to admit that the drone was cool. She crouched along more of the roof to see if she could see what was going on inside the facility. Most of the windows were filthy so she couldn't see what was inside. But there one small ventilation port that just had a plastic cover on it that she might be able to see into. "Come here and give me a boost."
Holly flew her drone back up to them and snatched it out of the air. She pocketed it again and went to see what April was looking at. "You won't be able to see anything through that." Holly said.

"No, but the drone might be able to get inside." April poked her tongue out at her friend.
"Fine," Holly handed over the drone and her phone before interlocking her fingers to create a step for April to climb into. She leaned back against the wall to make herself more stable and let Aprils weight lock her fingers tight together. April reached up and wiggled the cover a few times before it came out of the brick. The hole was not massive, but it was just big enough for the little drone to be pushed through. April fired it up and it bumped into the walls a few times before she got the hang of flying it. Once it was hovering, she climbed down and the girls sat side by side on the roof to see the screen. April flew the little drone high in the building and they were surprised to find the building mostly empty. There was some conveyor belts pushed up against the wall, but the entire center of the facility was empty. They looked at each other, confused.

"I don't understand." Said April.

"No, neither do I." Holly said squinting at the screen. "Fly over there." Holly pointed at another area inside the building, and April moved the little drone in that direction. It seemed to be flying just fine, but suddenly it hit something and dropped to the ground

"What the hell?" Holly took her phone back from April and fired up the drone again, She took of vertically and nothing happened. She pulled it back to where they had pushed it into the building and flew in a high arch around the inside of the building.
A door opened at the bottom of the screen and a few of the Krang entered the room. This drone had no audio, so it looked like they were talking to each other about something, but neither Holly or April could be sure. One of the Krang turned and pointed something into the room, and a dome materialized in the room.
"Whoa!" Holly exclaimed. "What they hell is that?"

"I have no idea" April admitted. They watched as a mechanical iris opened up and the Krang disappeared into the dome.

"Where does that go?" Holly asked out loud and tried to fly the drone into the opening before it closed. They caught a glimpse of the inside and it looked massive, whatever it was. The drone bounced off of the Iris and dropped to the floor again. "That's a sphere, not just a dome." Holly's mouth was hanging open at the realization.

"We have to tell the guys!" April said, "Lets get out of here."

Holly agreed, she expertly guided the drone back up to the small opening and hoisted April up to grab her equipment back out of the hole. She had already lost her good drone today, she was not loosing this one too. They scrambled back down to ground level, and Holly grunted and clutched her side as she landed from the drop off the container.

"You OK?" April asked,

"Yeah, just tender still." Holly winced and they took off running back to the Shell-raiser.

"Hey, at least we didn't get caught this time!" April said as they pulled away from the area. Holly just laughed.

Leo and the others were doing almost as well as April and Holly. They had not been detected yet and had managed to find the central room that Donnie had found in the data bank. There were tons of the brains flying around in little hovering crafts that flew them to various instrument panels. There were three very large objects in the middle of the room that all pointed to a platform of some kind.

"Hovering vehicles? These guys have to be from off-world?" Donatello postulated.

"Off-what?" Raph asked.

"Aliens" Donnie said holding his hands up and in front of his shoulders.

"Real aliens?" Mikey asked disbelievingly.

"You do remember that we're giant mutant turtles, right?" Leo reminded him.

"Yeah, but we're still like, 'Earthlings'" Mikey said as if this made total sense.

His brothers all rolled their eyes, "If they're aliens then what are they doing here?" Leo asked.

"Hopefully, once we have some of the files downloaded, I can tell you." Donnie remarked.

"Why don't we get out of here while we're undetected." Leo said. The others agreed, even Raph did reluctantly. So they backtracked to the outside of the building. Donnie watched his brothers cross back over to the other building before detaching the grappling hook and swinging over himself.
"I think this is the most successful reconnaissance mission ever?" Leo announced.

"The most boring, if you ask me." Raph piped up,

"Lucky for me, no one was." Leo responded and both Mikey and Donnie exclaimed at this unusual burn.

Holly tossed her phone to April and asked her to call the guys since she was driving.

"What does this thing run on?" April asked as she pulled up the guys numbers.

"It was an old phone I still had lying around. I haven't had a chance to get a new one yet." Holly shrugged, then she remembered that Aprils phone could still be in the ally way that they were taken from. "Hold on, we're taking a quick detour."

Holly took a couple of turns and headed over to the spot they had been grabbed from last week. They both hopped out of the van and went hunting.
"Chances are, someone picked it up and hocked it" April said not holding out too much hope.

"Some times people are nice though." Holly remarked and checked behind some garbage cans. They hunted around the area, turning over boxes that were stacked ready for the trash collection. Holly even got on her hands and knees to check under the dumpster. As she was standing back up though, she saw a plastic bag tucked into the handle of the dumpster with a note.

"Its not here." Announced April a few minutes later.

"I wouldn't be so sure" Holly said and held up a zip-lock bag with a note in it.

"No way." April said. She read the note which was from a good Samaritan stating that they hoped the Plastic bag would keep the worst of the filth off her phone. "That's so nice"

"Told ya, not everyone in this city is a complete asshole." Holly and April climbed back into the Shell-raiser and headed back to Manhattan.

Donnie's phone rang as the guys pulled him back up to the rooftop across from TCRI. It was a good thing they had left when they did as his ring tone was on and at full volume. He hadn't want to miss a call from April if it had been an emergency.

"Really?" Raph asked, "If that had gone off in there." He pointed across to the building they had just left.
Donnie just shrugged sheepishly and answered the call. "Hey, are you guys alright?"
"Yeah! You won't believe what we've seen though." Aprils voice came through even though it was Holly's number that had flashed on the screen.

"I think we also have some interesting information. But I need to get back to my lab to know for sure." Donnie said.
This time it was Holly's voice that came through, "We're still about a half an hour out, shall we pick you up somewhere or meet you back at the lair."
"The Lair I think." Donnie turned to the others to see what they thought, he had popped the girls on speaker now too.

"Yeah, drive that way and if we see you, we'll flag you down." Leo concurred.

"Guess what else though, we found my phone!" April said happily. "It's totally dead, but someone was nice enough to tuck it out of the way."

"Great!" Donnie smiled.

"And we climbed onto the roof of the Recycling processing center and back down without getting caught" April sounded so proud of herself.

"Wait, the recycling plant? Right next to the military base?" Donnie asked, "They didn't take the Mutagen into the base?"

"No," Was all the reply he got.

"That's weird," Donnie scratched his chin.

"Look we'll let you all about it when were together, Splinter is going to want to hear all this too." Holly said.

By the time everyone was back underground and the Shell-raiser was parked up it was well past one am. Donnie had gone and grabbed his computer and stated working on the files he was receiving from TCRI. When he explained what he had done, April, Holly, and Splinter were extremely impressed.

"Even if we can get a few days worth of downloads, it will be so much information. We might finally find out what is going on in this city." Holly sat back on the sofa and chuckled to herself. "Brilliant."

"I know, and since we weren't even caught it might be weeks before they find my mini server" Donnie said proudly.

"We weren't caught either." April said, "We saw... Something." She finished off looking to Holly for help explaining what exactly they had seen.

"It was an invisible... hole in the ground?" Holly tried.

"You saw an invisible hole in the ground?" Repeated Raph skeptically.

"OK, I get that sounds impossible." Holly said, "It was invisible, one of the Krang made it visible, and an opening appeared into a big sphere in the floor." It still didn't sound very good.

"You've lost me." Mikey said shaking his head.

"Hold on," April grabbed a pen and a sheet of paper and tried to draw roughly what they had seen in Holly's phone screen. She drew the rough dimensions of the room, and then sketched the section of the sphere they had seen.

"How big was the room?" Donnie asked frowning slightly. Holly estimated the dimensions for him. "If this really is a sphere, it would be..." he did some mental math, "A thousand feet in diameter"

"Yeah, I was wondering how accurate my math was on that." Holly scratched her head. "I got a little over a thousand"

"That's just not possible." Donnie said.

"What?" Leo asked for the benefit of everyone.

"If there is a structure that big underground it would reach well below the military base and out under the street."

"You failed to mention that when we were looking at it." April said almost angrily to Holly.

"I wasn't sure" Holly said apologetically.

"The good news, is that you all came back in one piece this time." Splinter offered before there was a fight.

"It looks like our luck might finally be turning." Leo announced happily.
"No!"

"Dude, why?"
"Are you mental, why would you jinx it" Were the chorus of replies he got from everyone.

"So, now we know that the Krang are not human, and they're the ones who mutated us." Donnie summarized for them. "What we still need to know, is why they're still here and what they want."

"We also know where they are though, which is huge." Leo added.

"April, your dad has to be at either TCRI, or the military base." Donnie announced happily. "As soon as we know for sure, we're going in to get him back."
April bit her lip and smiled holding in her tears. The relief at knowing they had useful information about his whereabouts was almost too much.

"I'll start working on this, see if we can get anything useful out of the data." Donnie said and he stood and walked into the Lab.
The others miller around for a while, but soon enough people started peeling off to their own rooms to get some rest.
"Hey, grab us some blankets on your way out will ya?" Holly asked Raph once Leo and Splinter had already departed.
"Just take my room." He said and settled himself into the couch.

"Its fine," Holly said, "Besides, Donnie will be working so April wouldn't get much sleep in there." She indicated at the lab with a nod of her head.

"Well, I am staying here, so figure it out." Raph said.

"Its your room." Holly huffed at him irritably.

"I'll take it!" April said hurriedly, and hopped up and skipped over to Raph's room, she poked her tongue out at Holly as she passed.
"Fantastic, I will go find some blankets for myself then." Holly sighed and walked off.

"If you two are just going to fight, I'm leaving too." Mikey said and hopped over the couch towards his own door. He opened a cupboard and threw a spare blanket to Holly.

"Thank you." Holly said and grabbed one extra.

She went back to the couch and made the second blanket into a pillow.
"Hey!" Raph protested.

"Oh, did you think this was for you?" Holly settled herself onto a section of couch, and let out a sigh.

Raph stood and went to retrieve his own blanket from the cupboard. He sat in the corner of the couch, slightly propped up and closed his eyes.

Pretty soon the Lair was quiet although Raph was still awake. He could hear Donnie muttering to himself occasionally, but that was pretty common. He was just about to settle in again when he heard Holly shifting next to him. She groaned softly and pushed herself up into a seated position.

"Ah, fuck," she whispered to herself.

"That's not very polite," Raph whispered back. She gasped as she clearly thought he was asleep.

"You keep on doing that to me and we're going to have problems." She hissed back.

"Whats wrong?" He asked through a smile.

"It's nothing" she replied more gently.

"You're full of it." He said, and opened his eyes to see what was going on. She was leaning over her knees holding her side. "What happened?"

"I got the shit kicked out of me, and then April made me jump off a shipping container." Holly admitted. "You guys seem to heal an awful lot quicker than I do."

"We might do," He acknowledged. "Do you want an ice pack?" She nodded in the dim light so he stood to get her one. He wrapped it in a piece of cloth and as she lifted her shirt a little to place it on her side, he saw the bruises. "What the hell are those?" He gently pushed her shirt a little higher up her side to see one rather nasty looking one that covered her ribs.

She sighed, "I wasn't planning on showing you guys that." She turned her back to him and pulled her shirt up to her shoulders. "Or these".

"Is all that from Fong?" Raph asked, a flash of rage tinged his voice at the mention of the Purple Dragon members name.
"Yeah," Holly admitted, "My arms don't look much better."
"You should have seen a doctor." Raph said

"I did, but they asked an awful lot of awkward questions and they knew I was lying about some of the details."

"What did they say about this one?" He gently ran a finger down the nastiest looking bruise.

"I fractured three ribs." She shivered slightly under his touch.

"Are you going to be OK?" He asked and helped her lower her shirt back to her waist.

"Yeah, Its just going to take time." She turned to face him now, "They gave pain meds, but they make me sick so sleeping is difficult"

"I should tell the others about this, you could get hurt worse and it would be our fault." Raph scolded her.

"I know, I'll tell them tomorrow." She hung her head and turned to lie back on the couch.

"You idiot," He said gently and reached for her arm. "Come here." He leaned back on the couch and folded one of the blanket into a pillow and put it on his plastron. She bit her lip, but sat between his legs and laid back into him. She was able to turn slightly to relieve the pressure on her one side. She then covered them both with the blanket she had been using and they relaxed into each other.

"You're such a jerk sometimes." She said to him

"You're a jerk sometimes" He retorted, and she chuckled.

"I've missed you this week." She said and looked back at him.

"Yeah, I'm pretty awesome." He said smugly.

"You know, I have you in a pretty compromising position here, you might want to watch what you say." She smiled as his face went from smirk to shocked anticipation.

"Oh yeah? And what if I don't?" He gulped audibly.

She reached up and turned his face to hers. She kissed him and he wrapped his arms gently around her, making sure to avoid her ribs. She turned further into him, and giving in entirely, she swung her legs over his and wrapped her arms around his neck.
Gently, He slipped his hands up her bare back and she shuddered again. He ran his hands all the way up to her shoulders before it dawned on him she wasn't wearing anything underneath her light shirt. Raph puller her closer, and could feel her heart hammering against the inside of her chest. His heart rate picked up when he felt her soft chest pressing into his. He continued to caress her soft skin, going from her back, down to her hips and along her legs. While she explored his muscular arms and his chest. She found the little chip in his plastron and asked him about it. But he was too busy to give her an answer, so she kissed his shoulder just above the nick and this time it was his turn to shiver. Holly kissed him again, this time in the crook of the neck. His grip on her thigh tightened and he inhaled more sharply than usual. She pulled back and smiled at him.

"That's just mean." He said and grinned stupidly back at her.

She shrugged at him, "We should probably calm down a little though." He wasn't the only one getting hot and bothered.

"I wouldn't really want to get interrupted" he agreed, so she climbed off him and settled herself back between his legs. She leaned back again, and sighed exhaustedly. The realization that she hadn't slept properly in a week was overwhelming, and she passed out almost as soon as her head rested against Raph's plastron.
Raph shook his head, and scooted a little lower into the couch so that he could lean his head back on the cushion. He fell asleep a little while later, with one arm up behind his head and the other wrapped around Holly's shoulder.