Closure is good, this story will have an ending. But you, sweet, intelligent readers, merit a non-crap ending. Much time, that may take. Hurmph. For the wait, sorry am I. BTW, the end of this chapter is sort of grim. Heads up. It will become a pattern.
Chapter 14 – Investigations, part II
"You better hand over the phone, or so help me, I'll kick your hairy butt all the way to New Jersey!"
Raphael, "Turtle Temper"
.
As if from nothing a massive shadow peeled off the tunnel wall. It reminded Donatello of a camping story that April had shared:
The hiking trail began at the edge of a gravel parking lot bookended by forest. April's group was about to set off when, suddenly, from the woods materialized a huge brown bear. The beast loped unnervingly fast along the forest border for a few meters before vanishing back into the trees.
Just.
Gone.
A massive predator camouflaged by a foot's depth of bramble. Nobody would see that bear coming.
Instead of hiking, they decided to go for coffee.
Similarly, Donnie now wanted to be someplace else. He backed away from the huge shade, unconsciously palming his face to confirm that it was properly attached.
In greeting and respect, Leatherhead tipped his giant torso towards the taller of the two Ninja Turtles. The mutant croc had learned that asking Donatello 'how his face felt that day' was not received as the kindness that it was intended to be.
"Michelangelo", Leatherhead rumbled, "It is a delight to see you and your brother, as always. But you are out early. Does the intense heat of this day not trouble you?"
"Elle-Aaaaaaaache", Mikey drawled, "we're on tech patrol. Donnie's gotta scavenge some parts for his Shell-Cell ASAP." Then, stage whispering, he confided: "It got, um…broke."
"Broken. Not broke. My phone doesn't have a bank account", Donnie interjected. Even to himself he sounded like a shrill, uptight jerk: Geez, D.
Mikey squished up his freckles at Don, and continued.
"I thought maybe we could pick up a new phone for you, too, Leatherhead. One that plays different ring tones so, um…you can tell when it's me calling. Instead of, like… Slash, or…something", the younger turtled finished, a little more quietly.
From the gloom, Leatherhead studied his large-hearted friend and carefully chose his words. "I am fortunate to now have several friends including the Mutanimals. Not long ago I could not have fathomed solace or companionship in my life. That I have achieved both is possible because of you, Michelangelo."
Even in the dim light of the sewer, Mikey glowed a little. "Yeah, well: I get that people are puzzles. An' the people we need to be our pieces can change based on life and whatever. And that's OK." He finished, nodding his own head in finality.
"Well, you're certainly puzzling." muttered Donnie. "Can we please pick up the pace? I want to get these parts and fix my phone before April knows, rather than simply suspects, that I'm a massive idiot."
The trio walked onwards, Mikey and Leatherhead absorbed in the easy chitchat of best friends, Donnie daydreaming of private T-phone conversations with April. Private, sexy conversations.
When they arrived at their exit, Leatherhead excused himself.
"I will part with you here. I have some errands to run. I will return and meet you when you have completed your mission."
Once the crocodilian had left, Donnie muttered, "What kind of errands does a ginormous mutant carnivore run on a Sunday at lunchtime?"
"It's NYC. LH knows how to forage", Mikey explained by explaining nothing.
Donnie just went a little cockeyed at his brother, grabbed a rung on the tunnel wall and started climbing.
The brothers hoisted themselves up and through the floor grate. It opened directly into the large warehouse where the Foot had set up their chop shop for mobile phones. With so much demand for cheap, disposable and/or untraceable mobiles, the market was swift, low risk and fairly lucrative. The inside of the warehouse was of course was covered by surveillance cameras linked to Foot HQ. Donnie and Mikey slipped through in the shadows and exploited blind spots in the cameras' positions.
Donnie pointed and explained in a whisper to Mikey, "See that special static-free clean room? It's for sensitive electrical works, swapping internal processors, etcetera. That's where I need to go."
"Then it's time", Mikey said with solemnity.
"Time?"
"Time", affirmed Miley, "For the trench coats."
Mikey pulled Raphael's principal and spare trench coats from Don's pack, neatly unfolding one and handing it to Don, who took the coat more on reflex than anything. As Mikey put on his own coat he quietly explained,
"Dude, it's daytime, an' even I know this place is like the set of Real Dads of Poughkeepsie: it's totally covered in cameras. Sensei says that every bit of cover helps a mission. Plus, it's air conditioned to the max in here. Totally chilly. What a waste of non-renewable energy", he clucked to himself.
Don did as his brother advised: it was a bit chilly in here, even after the heat of the sewers.
The two slunk towards the clean room.
Once inside, Donnie used Mikey's functional cell to snap a photo of the empty room, then taped the phone-including-photo against the security camera lens. He'd been ready to hack the camera's feed to upload the photo until Mikey had suggested the simple MacGyver. He had to concede the effectiveness of the idea.
Next, Donnie had to locate the various electronic parts. Not everything fit, and the bits weren't exactly well organized. He also found and carefully packed up several more contraband parts and pieces he might need for future repairs or phone mods. No point breaking into the same crappy Foot warehouse twice, as far as he was concerned. Also? He was sure that if he looked hard enough, he'd score some Kraang tech. Better to get what he could while he could, especially since everything was miraculously quiet and uneventful. Even with Mikey tagging along.
Karai paused only for the moment that it took her to confirm the identities of Donatello and Michelangelo on the security camera feed. The sophisticated shape recognition software that The Foot had recently implemented had now more than paid for itself by flagging the Turtles as they entered the warehouse. It would take her some minutes to get there. The opportunity was ideal. Karai would be damned if she'd waste it. Today she'd make Father proud: Donatello would be dead within hours.
She spun on her heel, and strode back to where Fishface and Rahzar were waiting for orders.
"Pack the poison, the darts. NOW. And be careful – I wouldn't care if you pricked yourselves, but the toxin was incredibly difficult to get. No second chances with it."
Both henchmen nodded, bowed and made themselves scarce.
"I bet you prick yourself every night", Fishface smiled at Rahzar, as they set about loading the small travel case.
"At least I have one. What's it like, living with a cloaca?", snarled the Hound, nastily.
"Don't knock what you don't understand, mammal", placidly returned Fishface.
It took Mikey slightly longer than usual to become entirely bored with the clean room. Donnie had slapped Mikey's grabby mitt enough times that Mikey recognized the universal family signal that he should leave. He ghosted out into the greater warehouse to look for a fancy new phone for Leatherhead.
Mikey darted, dodged and ducked across the building's floor. He could almost hear the violin plucks sound-tracking his movements. Most of the phones stocked in the factory were towards the centre of the floor: easier for suspicious Foot Clan eyes to catch sticky-fingered employees. Those phones weren't worth the risk of being seen on camera. He stayed close to the periphery and the shadows.
About to concede defeat, Mikey rounded the corner of a large stack of wooden pallets and was struck still and dumb by the sight before him, sitting on a crate. It was as though a surprised Kraang alien had been caught mating with Ripley's pulse rifle. The strange apparatus was part glowing electric pink plasma, part super-shiny silver alloy. It was about the size of a really deluxe smoothie blender.
There were lots of little metals styluses hinged to the main frame, sort of like a centipede's legs, and what looked like a spiky hair net. Clearly the thing was loaded with mutagen, too. Whatever it was, Mikey was absolutely sure that he shouldn't touch it.
Luckily, his satchel was big enough to slide over the apparatus without having to touch it.
Mikey almost fake-casual whistled as he inched back towards the shadows, the clean room and Donatello. And that's when he smelled Rahzar.
On April's walk back home after brunch and training at the Lair, the only reason that she'd stopped to look down the heat-baked, piss-stinky, garbage-strewn New York alley was because her intuition rang like an alarm bell. Waves of trauma and terror floated to the fore of her amygdala, impossible to ignore.
What had happened here?
April took tentative steps into the alley. What the hell was she looking at?
A sports bag. A...a broken hockey stick? Ice skates tilted up at strange angles, almost like they were on display in a shop. Bizarre for a hot summer day. Everything was red, and thick, and pungent.
The broad wooden blade of the stick seemed to float mid-air. The handle was deeply embedded in something...a pile of clothing? April couldn't tell what was anchoring the stick, or the ice skates. Gingerly, she bent down for a closer look.
Of all pattern recognitions, people are hardwired to recognize faces. Through the mess, it was the young woman's nose that April saw first, then her glazed eyes. Once she understood that she was looking at a human face, she oriented the positions and angles of the skates dug into the woman's abdomen, the hockey stick further down towards her thighs. The deeply distressing and macabre puzzle fell together, despite the vehement rebellion of April's mind against understanding.
notreal notreal notreal notreal notreal notreal notreal notreal notreal notreal notreal notreal notreal notreal notreal notreal notreal notreal notreal notreal notreal notreal notreal
Giant, mutant, martial arts animals, and robot aliens, were so much easier to accept than this. April prayed that the rape had happened after the murder.
The teen phoned 911. Then Leo. Then Raph. Then she threw up. The stink of her vomit was an improvement on the fetid stench of the gore. April conversed with the girl's corpse while she waited to the police to arrive. There was clearly nothing else that she could do.
Whoa. Sorry if that was a sharp turn in the narrative. I've been planning what's to come next for a while so it's exciting to finally get my act in gear and I hope that you can stick with me (or at least bother to skim-read the next few chapters) as we go down the rabbit hole (um, sewer tunnel?). THANK YOU FOR READING and possibly reviewing! XD