Chapter 3: The Shed
Another night, another hunt. The boys had once again split up in search of mutagen. With Laura now helping find a retro-mutagen, they were going through more canisters of the stuff than they could collect.
"This blows," Mikey yawned as he leaned against a heating unit on one of the rooftops. "Why can't we do anything fun anymore? It's all looking for mutagen every night. Talk about a snooze fest."
"Quit your complaining," Raph said as he shuffled around some loose newspapers littering the roof. "You know we gotta find all this stuff."
"But it's been weeks now," Mikey complained, "Don't you think we would have found all there is to find by now?"
"Tell that to our fearless leader," Raph muttered.
Leo and Donnie weren't faring any better than Raph and Mikey in the search. In their case, it mostly consisted of them following whichever weird signal Donnie's tracker managed to pick up, which wasn't all that reliable, according to Leo. But Don insisted that the theory was correct, but a lack of proper equipment and parts has left him with a makeshift device that breaks down regularly, picking up odd signals now and then.
"There's nothing on this street," Leo said giving the alley a final once over, "Let's move onto the next one."
"Okay, just give me a . . ." Donnie muttered, adjusting something on the side of his tracker, "I've almost . . . Got it!" The tracker started beeping and the egg beaters on the top started spinning.
"You got something?" Leo asked peering doubtfully at the trackers screen.
"Yeah, I'm picking up a signal about . . . two blocks over." Donnie started scaling the fire escape, holding up the tracker. "From the looks of it, it's not at ground level."
"The roof it is," Leo said, swinging ahead of Donnie, "You sure it's for real this time?"
"I guess we'll find out," Donnie said testily as they pulled themselves onto the roof.
After a few minutes of searching, Leo spotted the unearthly telltale glow that could only come from the ooze, "Over here Donnie!" The glow was coming from a shed window that had been smashed. The door was locked, but it didn't take long for Donnie to fix that.
Sliding open the door the brothers gasped at what they found: not just one, but multiple canisters of mutagen lined up against the wall. Pages of chemical formulas and drawings were taped to the walls and a number of binders and files littered the floor in neat stacks.
"This is amazing," Donnie said examining the pages stuck to the wall, "Do you know what this is?" He asked glancing at Leo who met his glance with a blank stare.
"Doodles of a mad man?" he suggested. Donnie was too busy to notice his sarcasm.
"It's almost like the chemical makeup of ordinary DNA, but it's not quite right. There're extra phosphate groups on the 3' end where there should be a hydroxyl, and the configuration isn't right. There're discrepancies in the major and minor grooves of the double helix."
"Translation," Leo interrupted Donnie before he really got going.
"If this is what I think it is, then it seems like the Kraang's mutagen alters the DNA in a way that no other mutagen does. Instead of just altering the sequence of nucleic acids, it's altering the backbone and three-dimentional structure of the DNA itself! How can something function like that? There's no way for proteins to bind to the DNA properly without the grooves, there'd be no way to regulate gene expression, and how would it fold around the histones like that? You would need a whole new set of proteins and enzymes to process this!"
"Sorry," Leo said shaking his head, "I meant the English translation." Donnie looked over to Leo, still not hearing him.
"I think I know why it's been so hard to create a retro mutagen. All this time, I've been trying to restore the correct genomic sequence that had been disrupted, but if the mutagen's done damage to the backbone and structure too. . . But how could it do that?" Turning back to the pictures, Donnie started absorbing everything, theorizing to himself.
Realizing that Donnie was lost to him, Leo left him in the shed and called Raph.
"What now? Something happen?" Raph's voice crackled over the line.
"Donnie's ooze scanner finally gave us a good reading," Leo gave him the address of the building, "get over here, we'll need help getting it all back to the lair."
As Leo hung up, he felt a presence nearby. His instincts took over and he melded into the shadows, out of sight, before he could even register what was going on. The door to the roof opened and lady Leo guessed was in her late forty's stepped out. She had short, greying hair, and looked almost like a business woman of sorts. Glancing around nervously, she scurried over to the shed.
Donnie's still in there, Leo thought in panic as the lady approached. As he was about to move, he felt a hand touch his shoulder and nearly screamed. He glared at Donnie who had evidently been aware of their guest and had time to sneak out.
"She must be the one who's done all this research," Donnie whispered.
The lady inspected the lock on the shed door that the guys had left unlocked.
Oops, Leo thought.
She looked around again, with tension in her eyes, she wrenched the door open and rushed into the shed to take stock of her precious work. She saw that nothing was missing and sighed in relief. But worry flooded her face again and she started carefully taking down all of the notes she had taped to the walls, piling them into the large duffle bag she had brought with her. Once she was done with the wall hangings, she proceeded to pile in the binders and files that littered the ground. When the bag was full, the lady stuffed the rest of the files into an empty box she found lying in the corner. She struggled to lift the bag on her shoulder and carry the box at the same time.
As she left, she looked back at the glowing canisters with longing in her eyes. She didn't want to leave them alone when she knew that someone had already broken in once already, but her research notes were more important, and she couldn't bring all of the canisters with her anyways. She stood contemplating for a few minutes before balancing one canister precariously on top of the already full box before leaving, the door to the roof slamming shut behind her.
"Now what?" Donnie asked after he was sure they were alone, "We can't just leave her with a canister of mutagen and all that brilliant research. Who knows what could happen?"
"I know, I know," Leo said thinking, "But we can't just leave the rest of the mutagen here alone."
Leo noticed a dark shadow creeping up behind Donnie. He tensed, ready for a fight, but relaxed when he recognized the looming figure.
"—Aaah!" Donnie jumped as Mikey pounced from shadows.
"Haa haha," Mikey laughed, "Gotcha D." He flipped away as Donnie tried to hit him.
"So where's this jackpot you hit?" Raph asked appearing beside Leo.
"Great timing," Leo said, "There're canisters in the shed, you guys take care of them while we chase after a runaway. Come on Donnie, we can still catch up with her." With that, Leo and Donnie were off to the next rooftop before Raph could process what was happening.
They spotted the lady on the street a few blocks away, loading the box and duffle bag into the trunk of a car, but keeping the canister of mutagen with her. She slammed the trunk shut and gazed back towards the shed where she had left the rest of her research and materials. She contemplated going back for the rest of the canisters, but glanced at her watch. She had already spent too much time here as it was. She couldn't stay, but she hated to leave the rest back where anyone could find it. These were dangerous chemicals, and it could lead to disaster if someone were to unknowingly come into contact with it, or release it from its confines.
Clatter!
A noise from the ally makes the woman jump. She watched as a cat scurried away into the shadows. Now frightened, the woman forgets the rest of the canisters, hops into her car and drives off down the road, revealing the man hole that the car had parked over.
Leo emerged from the ally, feeling bad for scaring the cat off, "Did you get it?"
"Shell yeah," Donnie said pushing up the man hole cover and climbed out of the sewers, "Trackers on her car, now we'll know where ever she goes."
"What do you think that was about? Where did she get all that mutagen?" Leo asked once they were safely in the shadows again.
"I don't know, but from those notes she had, I gather that she was deciphering the chemical breakdown of the mutagen and detailed chemical reactions in how it splices the DNA and forces new cell tissue to grow!"
"Come again," Leo said lost all over again.
"A step by step process on how the mutagen works along with what it's made of."
"Can it help you make a retro-mutagen?"
"I'd say so, it's exactly what me and Laura have been trying to unravel."
"Let's meet up with Raph and Mikey and see what's left in the shed."
A/N: Who is this mysterious woman? Where did she come from? Where did she get the mutagen? This all relates back to one of the points in the 2k12 verse that they totally left hanging in the show, and it really ticks me off that they did. Can anyone guess where this is all heading? Who is this mysterious scientist lady? To be revealed in Chapter 5.