April had been working with the Mousers for two years, but, she realized belatedly, she had never heard one chew through a wall.
She was still trying to figure out what that noise was when Donatello leaped to his feet, squeaking loudly. Whatever he said brought his brothers from the other rooms at a run, converging upon the Mouser as it climbed over the rubble it had just created. But before they could fall upon it - and then, probably, on her - two uniformed police officers appeared behind it, their weapons raised.
"No -" April cried out. "No!"
But no one could hear her, and it was already too late. The chamber exploded in noise. The whole thing was over almost before it began, and the Turtles lay lifeless on the floor.
No - not lifeless. One of them turned slowly to face her. It was Raphael, and he uttered a single guttural syllable.
"Youuuu…"
Then his eyes slid closed, and everything was still.
The world seemed to hang in that moment for a long time, and then one of the officers turned his head and spoke into his communicator. "Central, this is squad 54, shots fired."
There was a reply, but April couldn't understand it. Whether the crackling was on the line or in her ears, she didn't know.
"You shot them," was all she could seem to say.
In what seemed like a blink, the taller officer was kneeling next to her, his gun holstered again. "Ma'am, are you April O'Neil?"
She nodded mutely.
"Are you all right?"
"You shot them," she said again.
The officer didn't respond. Reaching into his heavily-loaded belt, he pulled out a type of Swiss army knife. From this he unfolded a small but sturdy-looking pair of metal cutters, with which he began working away at her handcuffs. Over his shoulder, she could see the other officer checking each of the motionless Turtles.
"Hey Kev," said the officer. "This one's still alive."
Her heart leapt and, before she knew what was happening, so did her body. The chains pulled taut and she fell, slamming painfully against the concrete floor as the taller officer only partially managed to catch her.
"Calm down, ma'am," he said, although he didn't sound particularly calm himself.
"Animal Control," the shorter officer was saying into his communicator. "We have a - well, I don't know what we have, but it's an animal and it needs to be controlled."
"No, no…" April said, over and over, and even though it was quiet now, no one seemed to be listening to her. The world faded into a blur as the tall officer released her from the handcuffs and led her away from the underground chamber. There was a walk through the sewers, a police car waiting to take her to the station, and the officer's disbelieving face as he dutifully recorded everything she said about the past days' events. Yes, she wanted to press charges against her former employer. No, she wasn't injured and didn't need to go to the hospital. What had happened to Raphael? To the animal?
They wouldn't say.
There was an official copy of the statement to sign, and another police car, and then she was home. It had only been two days, but she couldn't seem to remember how to function in a normal life.
It took her months to find out where Raphael had been taken, six years to earn a PhD in herpetology, and weeks of lengthy phone calls to secure an interview at that field's premier research institute.
The interviewer was a kind but irritated woman who looked to be nearing retirement age.
"Dr. O'Neil," she said, as soon as they sat down. "I appreciate the effort you put into your studies and commend you on your degree - your dissertation on reptile intelligence was an excellent piece of work - but the answer, as it was six years ago, is no."
"But Dr. Donahue, I have all the qualifications now," April protested. "I discovered the Turtles. I -"
"Yes, I am aware," Donahue interrupted. "You have also claimed many times that they speak English. Yet Jimbo has never uttered any sound at all, nor displayed any other remarkable behavior, aside from that which one would naturally expect, given his unique physiology."
"His name is Raphael."
The older woman declined to respond to that comment.
"They are intelligent," April insisted. "Their home -"
"Was a wreck," Donahue cut in. "All that could be said was that Jimbo and his companions had a predilection for collecting garbage. I'm sorry, Dr. O'Neil, but I'm afraid I can't offer you a position at this time."
"At this time?" April echoed hopefully.
"Excuse me, I misspoke. Ever."
"Let me see him," April begged. "I know I could prove -"
"Good day, Dr. O'Neil."
She sat obstinately for a moment, but there was nothing to say. She left before the interviewer had to call security. Having lost her reputation, her savings, the court case against Stockman, and any hope of finding a new job, she was at least going to preserve her dignity.
For all the good it would do her.
Kathy Donahue drummed her fingers on her desk, then turned to her filing cabinet. Pulling out an overflowing drawer, she withdrew one folder and laid it open on top of Dr. O'Neil's résumé.
Two things about Jimbo's story had never made sense. First, O'Neil had stated - and the police officer's report had concurred - that she had been chained to a wall. Yet there had never been any evidence that anyone other than herself and the four Turtles had been in the underground chamber, leaving open the question of who had handcuffed her. Everyone involved had assumed there had been another person, but that the evidence had been destroyed when the chamber had collapsed, apparently due to O'Neil's Mousers having returned sometime between when she was rescued and when the police went back to investigate the scene of the crime.
Second, the wound on Jimbo's leg appeared to have been caused by the same Mousers, but it was unknown who had so neatly bandaged the injury. O'Neil denied having done so, and nothing in Jimbo's behavior suggested he was accustomed to a human caretaker. To posit a human being who had shown up just before the incident, tended to Jimbo's wound, held O'Neil prisoner, and then vanished without a trace stretched credibility to the breaking point.
But then again, so did suggesting that the Turtles themselves could provide medical care and operate a system of restraints.
Donahue closed the folder and tucked it back into place; it took three attempts to get the drawer to close all the way. For a moment she sat staring at nothing in particular, and then she rose from the wheeled chair and left the spacious but cluttered office.
The elevator was at the end of the hall; she took it down two floors to the lab. The sweltering afternoon promised thunderstorms, and all the herps were in their indoor enclosures. Donahue passed the large habitat of the Aldabra tortoise, and the larger one of the Komodo dragon, and came to the largest of them all.
Jimbo was in his usual posture when she entered: sitting against a wall, knees drawn to his plastron, gaze fixed vacantly on the floor. His injury had healed long ago and when the mood struck him he would move about the enclosure, but like most reptiles he spent a great deal of time completely motionless.
"Where did you come from, Jimbo?" she asked, rhetorically and not for the first time.
The Turtle didn't react.
"Where did you come from… Raphael?"
She thought she saw the slightest hitch in his breathing, the slightest widening of his eyes. But then it was gone, and for the rest of her career she would wonder if it had ever really been there at all.