Chapter 9: Amplifier
Raphael watched Michelangelo's baby face and wondered if he'd ever see his brother's goofy grin again. Taking a seat at the edge of Michelangelo's bed, Raphael opened up a comic book he'd found in the sewer earlier.
Hopefully, Raphael's tried and true method of getting Michelangelo to smile would work. This method was embarrassing as hell but he was willing to try anything. When they were kids Michelangelo loved it when Raphael read comics while doing the different voices.
"I found a comic, it's the fifth issue but it looks like you might like it." Raphael said. "It's called Cold Star. Based on the cover it looks like this guy goes around the galaxy fighting aliens." Raphael peeled open the first page and began to read, "You thought you could stop me, Cold Star." Raphael said, playing the voice of the bad guy.
"Now feel the effects of my mind absorbing ray." The bad guy said. He had his ray gun pointed at Cold Star while he pressed the button to activate it.
A yellow beam surrounded Cold Star but nothing happened. "What? Why isn't it working?"
"The key to defeating your mind absorbing ray is a strong will…" Cold Star said, his hands on his hips like a true hero. "Now release all of the minds you've stolen, Dr. Aintgood."
"Never! My ray may not be able to stop you but I have other weapons at my disposal." Dr. Aintgood said.
"Oh Yeah, well I have a secret weapon" Cold Star said, "the likes of which you've never seen before."
Instead of turning the page to see what the secret weapon was, Raphael closed the comic book, his face flushed with embarrassment and anger. "Alright, Mikey, if you want to know what the secret weapon is you have to wake up."
Michelangelo's sleeping face remained unmoving, no smile, not even a twitch. "You hear me, Mikey? Wake up!" Raphael let the rage bubble up inside of him. He wanted to feel anything but the emptiness and so he welcomed the heat of his anger. "Stop playing around and wake up!" Raphael slammed his fist on the mattress, the comic book fell to the ground with a flutter.
Raphael wrapped his arms around Michelangelo, hugging him around the middle. He rested his cheek against Michelangelo's plastron and could hear a heartbeat. It wasn't good enough for Raphael. "Come on, little bro. I know you can do it. Please. You have to wake up. Or I don't know what I'll do."
Michelangelo's eyes opened slowly and he lifted a hand to pat the top of his brother's head. Raphael lifted his head and froze. "Man." Michelangelo's voice cracked a bit, "I'm really hungry."
"Idiot." Raphael let go of his baby brother and sat back. "You've had us worried sick and all you care about is food." Raphael couldn't help but laugh and soon Michelangelo joined in.
The laughter caused Leonardo to peek his head inside, finding the hysterics to be unusual considering the circumstances. Seeing Michelangelo sitting up in bed with Raphael, laughing, made his bitter heart start beating again. He hurried into the room and wrapped his arms around both of his brothers.
"Hey, it's okay guys." Michelangelo said but didn't fight to end the hug. Hugs such as these; ones that involved Leonardo and Raphael were ultra-rare because of the deteriorating nature of their relationship.
Michelangelo smiled but that soon faded when he realized that something was missing from the hug, "Where's D?" he asked effectively ending the hug.
Casey, surrounded by the Mighty Mutanimals, described the events of his recent escape from Springhill Academy. Leaving out the fact that half of his team was incapacitated or missing, he began with how he'd been brainwashed and ended with how his solo mission to get the fragment back lead to his current situation.
When Casey was finished telling his story Slash nodded and tossed a manila folder onto the table where a few pages slipped free. "This is all the information Pete collected on his mission a few days ago."
The sports clad teen looked at the file and one of the pages caught his eye so he picked it up. He saw the words Clairvoyance Program and immediately thought of April. "This is the program for psychics, right?"
"Correct, all of the missing students you saw at the school are all psychics." Rockwell said.
"What does he need psychics for?" Casey asked.
"By using these particular students as a conduit to tap into the Power Fragment, Evixus plans on creating something called the Hivemind." Rockwell answered and handed Casey another paper, an email to the headmaster explaining just that.
"Hivemind." Where had he heard that before? Casey's eyes lit up once he remembered "Yeah, Evixus said something about that before I escaped."
"So far that's about all we could gather from these files, the rest of it doesn't make sense because we are missing a key element. Something that ties all of this together." Rockwell said.
"Yeah, we think that it might have something to do with these tablets the students are carrying around all the time." Pete said, "I managed to snag one but the Doc hasn't been able to find anything."
"Yeah! They're transmitting a frequency that only humans can hear. I heard it when I was with Donnie. It was just like the one I heard when my mind got taken over." Casey said.
"A frequency? I've searched this thing as thoroughly as I could, I didn't find anything like that." Rockwell said, "Puzzling. Perhaps because it is alien software. I wish there was a way I could find that frequency."
"Donnie might've figured something out, he's good with alien tech. I mean he was able to tap into the frequency hidden in the Power Fragment. Maybe we can use his computer to get into this tablet."
"Yes, Perhaps Donatello and I can figure this out together." Rockwell said and turned his attention to his leader, "Slash, might I suggest working with the Turtles on this one?"
"That might be a good idea since we don't know what we are up against." Leatherhead added.
Slash didn't need time to think about this one, "Right." He said. "Pete, you stay here, keep an eye out for any activity and call us if anything changes."
"On it." Pete said, hurrying away to his workstation.
"We'll need as many helping hands on this as we can get." Slash said.
"Something I forgot to mention. My team is a bit short staffed at the moment. "You see, Donnie has been kidnapped and Michelangelo is…"
"Michelangelo is what?" Leatherhead said, alarm written all over his features yet he managed to keep his anger in check. "What happened to him?"
"He's alive but," he paused, "It's a long story. I'll explain on the way to the lair." Casey said.
When they reached the lair Leatherhead was anxious to see Michelangelo again and so he was the first one over the turnstiles. What he found brought the biggest of smiles to his face. Michelangelo was sitting on the couch reading a comic book, awake and looking fine. "Michelangelo." He said.
"Leatherhead!" Michelangelo sprung to his feet and embraced his reptilian friend in a tight hug.
"Casey said that you were in a coma."
"Oh, you mean my nap? Nah, no biggie." He smiled, then became aware of the other Mutanimals filtering in behind Leatherhead. "Oh, Hey guys. What's going on?"
"The Doc needs to borrow Donatello's lab." Slash said, while Leonardo and Raphael entered the room with confusion written on their features.
The Turtles lead Rockwell and the rest of the Mutanimals to Donatello's lab, the mutant monkey wasted no time in getting to work. While Rockwell worked on organizing Donatello's findings the others shared what they knew with one another. When they were done Rockwell sat back in his seat, Donatello had, indeed, found a way to tap into the alien technology.
"Gentlemen." Rockwell said, calling to the attention of the Turtles, Casey and his own comrades. "Using the program developed by Donatello, I was better able to decrypt the contents of this tablet."
The group gathered around Donatello's workstation and Rockwell continued, "From what I can tell, in addition to the information we've collected, it seems that the students are being sent subliminal messages by way of these tablets."
"Aw, that's creepy, dude." Michelangelo wined.
"Indeed." Rockwell said, "But that isn't the half of it. Evixus is implanting negative thoughts into their minds." He turned his attention back to the computer program he'd been working on for the past hour, "The frequency, while indeed similar to the one Casey heard, is completely different." Receiving looks of confusion Rockwell thought it better to show rather than tell. "I will play it for you and you can hear it for yourself." He said and pressed play.
"No one wants you around."
"You're worthless."
"You're pathetic."
"You will never be good enough."
"You're a burden."
"Your friends hate you."
"You're better off dead."
"Turn that off." Leonardo ordered and it was done. "This mental and emotional abuse. If every student in there is forced to listen to this all day then their minds wouldn't stand a chance."
"Yes, they'd have weak minds. Perfect for mind extraction." Michelangelo said, flipping through the comic book he still had in his hands. "It makes total sense, just like in this issue of Cold Star, Dr. Aintgood was able to suck out the minds of everyone with a weak mind and they became a hoard of mindless vessels."
Ignoring Mikey, the others carried on until Casey spoke up"Could these messages lead someone to act in ways and do things they wouldn't normally do?" Casey asked.
"Why, yes. It is a form of manipulation, after all." Rockwell said and the moment the words left his mouth Casey shoved a tablet, with a yellow case, into his hands. "What is this?"
"April's tablet, I swiped it from her room last night while I was looking for clues." He said.
"Casey." Leonardo started, he didn't need Casey holding on to false hope. The blue clad turtle had seen the truth behind April's eyes, she was fully aware of what she was doing, her betrayal was real.
"Hear me out, Leo. April might be a victim in all of this. Once you see that April has been brainwashed like these others then you'll see that she is still on our side." The look Casey was giving him made him falter, it was better that he found out sooner rather than later anyway.
"Fine, Rockwell, check April's tablet." Leonardo said.
"Alright." Rockwell said then replaced the tablet connected to the computer with April's and ran Donatello's program. "It will take a moment to sync up." He said.
"I don't understand. If Evixus wants to extract minds then how can he get everyone in the world to use those tablets? It would be impossible." Raphael said.
"Impossible to get everyone to use a tablet, yes. But not impossible to get everyone to hear these messages. If Evixus had something powerful enough they could boost the signal throughout the entire world."
"Something powerful, something like an amplifier?" Casey said suddenly, "Does the amplifier have to be an object? Can it be a person?"
"What are you getting at, Casey?" Raphael pressed, he hated it when people beat around the bush. The fiery turtle began to wonder what it would be like to read people's minds, to get them to spit it their information.
"I told you about how the missing students were in these weird chambers, right?" he waited for them to nod before continuing, Raphael snarled a bit but nodded too. "Well, I just remembered something, there were two other chambers there, they were empty but one of them was labeled Amplifire."
"I suppose it could be a person but it would have to be someone with a strong mind. If there was such a person then Evixus would have enough power to absorb the entire planet in a matter of months. But there is no human on earth with that capacity of psychological power." Rockwell said.
"Maybe no human, what about a superhuman, say the mind of a mutant?" Leonardo asked. Suddenly the room was quiet, they all knew the magnitude of their situation now.
"That son of a… Evixus is going to use Donnie's mind to conquer the world." Raphael said and gripped the handles of his Sais, "and April helped him do it."
"We don't know that for sure." Casey said. "Rockwell, please check April's tablet, it has to be ready by now, right?"
Rockwell nodded, so lost in his conversation was he that he'd forgotten all about the April's tablet. He turned his attention to the computer screen and clicked on the mouse a few times before frowning. "That's odd."
"What?" Casey asked.
"I don't know how to say this but it seems that April's tablet is clean. In other words, there are no signs that Evixus used this tablet to control your friend."
Casey backed away from the group. "No. I was so sure." He said. "There's no way, Red would never do this to us. This has to be a mistake. You guys don't really think that she'd deliver Donnie to Evixus, do you?"
Casey's answer came in the form of an earsplitting tsunami of sound. "AGH!" the others, unable to hear the sound, watched him with concern as he covered his ears. The sound brought him to his knees.
"Casey!" Leonardo knelt down next to his comrade and placed a gentle hand on his shoulder. "What is it?"
"It's AGHH. That sound… again." He tried to cover his ears harder but he couldn't. "It's so loud." Casey fell over and rolled into the fetal position, trying to curl away from the pain he was feeling. "It feels like my ear drums are gonna burst."
"Quick give him these." Rockwell said, handing Leonardo a set of earbuds. "They'll filter out the sound." He said.
Leonardo helped Casey insert the earbuds and the young boy gasped when he could no longer hear the sound. "Ugh, Thanks. Wow. These are amazing, how the heck did you happen to have these? Not that I'm complaining." Casey directed his question at Rockwell.
"I found them on Donatello's work desk he must've invented these buds for you and April once he discovered what the frequency could do."
"Good old, Donnie." Casey sad and was struck by extreme sadness because while Donatello was developing these earbuds to keep the two humans on his team safe, April was coming up with her plan to kidnap him. Not only that, but the fact that the sound that was currently being broadcast through the city only proved that April had delivered Donatello to Evixus. "I can't believe I was wrong about April."
A/N:
Information overload, I know but don't worry Chapter 10 will bring you more action than you can handle. As always, I hope you enjoyed this and thank you for the amazing reviews, you guys make me smile.
In the next chapter the frequency causes chaos to spread throughout the city, luckily the Mighty Mutanimals and the TMNT crew, well most of them, have teamed up. Though, Raph may be a little reluctant to let his baby brother back into the fray. The plan to infiltrate the school and shut down the Hivemind computer is underway, our heroes have it all under control, right?