Luke Barrows never slept very deeply. It could easily be blamed upon a combination of his long-term relationship with the turtles, and his on-and-off career inside the Emergency Room. Needless to say, when his cell phone rang on the bedside table, he was awake in a matter of seconds. A call interrupting a normal sleep cycle never indicated anything good, so the man snatched up the phone without even reading the display.
"Hello?" He kept his voice low, hoping not to wake his wife sleeping beside him.
"Doc, we need your help." Leonardo wasted no words on a greeting.
That was all it took for Luke to jerk out of bed, and instantly reach for a nearby dresser drawer to find clothes. "What's going on, Leo?"
"It's Don – he's missing. We can't find his hand-held scanner either, so he might have it on him. Can you look up his location for us?"
"Yes, hang on just a minute!" Luke didn't bother asking why Donatello was missing; that could wait. The important thing was to find him for the other turtles as quickly as possible.
Luke put the phone down while he picked up his personal version of Donatello's hand-held scanner that was sitting on the other side of the dresser. He stole another glance back at the bed while he waited for the computer to boot up, and found Katherine already sitting up on her elbow.
"Luke, what's happening?" she asked.
"I don't know yet, but Leo said that Donny is missing. I'm bringing up his beacon now."
The entire family was equipped with the implanted means by which they could be tracked, but the particular version that the turtles and their girls wore was far more complicated in nature. Donatello's next-generation technology enabled the complex homing device the ability to also transmit medical vitals about individuals in real time.
The blond man caught his breath as the screen of the device flickered to life with a series of red flags. Luke swallowed deeply as he clicked past the initial warnings screaming for his attention, and focused on pinpointing Donatello's coordinates first.
While he waited for the coordinates to load, he grabbed up his cell phone once more. "It's searching, Leo, connecting his physical location to the nearest address. Why is Donny missing? What happened?"
"He and Brandon had a…a misunderstanding earlier this evening. Bran accidentally walked off without his phone, and Don left to return it to him. I know he wanted to patch things up with Brandon too. That was around 11pm, and we just discovered that Donny never came home."
Luke silently calculated the amount of time for which the purple-masked turtle had been unaccounted by the clock on the scanner, right before the desired result came up on the screen. "Got it, Leo. I don't recognize this address, but when I pull it out further, I can tell it's in the vicinity of Greg and Bran's neighborhood."
He recited the street number for Leonardo, and heard the turtle take a shaky breath.
"Great, thanks, Doc. Can you give me some idea of how he's doing physically?"
"Yeah. Hold on for another second." Luke balanced the phone between his ear and his shoulder, and set the scanner down on the dresser top so that he would have his hands free to scan through menus.
The man skipped back to the opening screen to the medical alerts that were being transmitted to the machine, and began reading through them one by one. Okay…wow. His blood pressure is spiking; I don't think I've ever seen it this high. That's not a good sign to start with.
He sighed anxiously as he continued, fear rising over the possible complications he was about to uncover. My God. His heart rate is under 40 beats per minute. Luke felt his own heart rate speeding up as he tried to imagine where the symptoms could be leading. There's hypertension, bradycardia, and…irregular respiration?
Luke clicked back through the history to get a glimpse of his breathing in the long term. This is weird. It reminds me of something like Cheyne Stokes. With the realization, a warning bell immediately went off in his head.
"Cushing's Triad," Luke stated automatically.
"What?" Leonardo sounded utterly confused.
"Cushing's Triad." Luke was temporarily incapable of elaborating.
"You said that," Leo replied sharply. "What does it mean?"
"It means Donny is in big trouble. What mode of transportation are you using?"
"We're on one of the Sliders! We figured we'd make better time if we traveled underground most of the way. If we need to backtrack to get the van—"
"No, don't backtrack, Leo! You need to get to him as quickly as possible. You three will definitely beat me to the scene. Make sure that you grab an oxi from one of the kits, because he's probably going to need oxygen support."
"Will the oxi keep him stable until you get there?"
"I hope so, Leo," he replied honestly.
"Doc, is this something life threatening?"
"Life threatening, and life changing, Leo! Get there as fast as you can, but try not to move him unless you have to. I'll get Kat on tracking down this address, to give you some idea of what kind of place you're walking into. I'll be there as soon I can!"
"Okay, Doc," Leo said tightly.
Luke hung up the phone, and hurried to finish getting dressed. As he turned toward the door, he was surprised to see Katherine getting off her own phone.
"What's the deal?" she asked.
"I have an address. The guys are already en route, and I have to go meet them."
"I'm going with you," she said firmly.
"No you're not, Kat. Somebody has to stay with the baby, and the guys need me. Donny's not in good shape."
"I already spoke with Tim, and he and Victoria will be on our floor in five minutes. Victoria offered to stay with Reina, and Tim and I are going with you."
Luke wasn't in the mood to argue with the bronze-haired woman, and he didn't feel like he had time to either. He wasn't surprised by Katherine's drive in the least. His wife's former career with the FBI usually caused her to take a strong role in uncertain circumstances.
"All right, Kat." Luke got out of the way so that the woman could get dressed.
He strode through the living room of their condo, walking straight for the closet that housed his field kit. The bag was ready to go; the only addition it required was a couple of the formulas that he and Donatello had created with the turtles' unique chemistry in mind. Luke went to the kitchen next, selecting the meds from the refrigerator that he imagined he might need on the scene.
He was grateful to have Tim and Victoria only two floors away from them, but he was also frustrated with the distance they needed to cover. The condo was a temporary solution for him and Kat upon returning to New York City after the earthquake that had destroyed their loft. While it was convenient to be located in the same building as Tim and Victoria, it put him in a worse position to get to the turtles quickly in an emergency like this one.
Luke was trying hard to regulate his breathing and to not panic while he waited for everyone to come together. He was highly experienced in dealing with traumatic injuries, both inside a professional environment and in the field. It was an unfamiliar feeling for the nerves to be building this rapidly in advance of even seeing Donny, but he carried the unfortunate knowledge of what Cushing's Triad really meant.
A knock at the door broke him out of his exercise in anxiety management, and Luke hurried to let his friends inside the condo. He was surprised to find Tim in his full police uniform.
The dark-haired man gave him a knowing glance. "I wanted to be prepared, Luke. There's no telling what we might need to deal with, and the badge helps remove obstacles."
"It can also get you in big trouble with the NYPD," Luke commented.
"That feels insignificant in light of things," Tim answered.
Katherine rushed out of the Master bedroom to join them. "Thank you for coming, Victoria, I really appreciate it."
The auburn-haired woman gave her a reassuring smile. "Go. Everything will be fine with Reina; you don't need to worry about a thing."
Tim held up his keys. "I'm driving. I've got the siren, and I know your penchant for driving badly when you're rushed, Luke."
The doctor shook his head. "Let's just go, please."
As Timothy led them down the hallway, Luke noticed Katherine shift in a way that displayed her firearm.
"You're packing?" Luke asked. He hadn't seen the woman carry the a weapon since she'd left the FBI.
"I'm not taking any chances, Luke. We can't afford to."
He didn't reply to Katherine; it was all Luke could do to continue walking in a straight line. Every fiber of his being was fighting to maintain an even exterior, but he could feel cracks appearing in his façade.
Luke looked in Kat's direction again, and found the woman already staring at him. "I should call Marc and April," he said.
As they stepped inside the elevator, he pressed his phone to his ear and waited for his friend and colleague to pick up. Marcus answered groggily on the fourth ring.
"Marc, are you awake? I need you to listen to me!" Luke said forcefully to get his attention.
"Yeah, I'm up. What's wrong Luke?"
"Something's happened to Donny. He went missing for several hours tonight, and now he's displaying symptoms of Cushing's Triad."
The sleep disappeared from Marc's voice in a flash. "Where is he, Luke? What the heck is going on?"
"We don't know anything yet, Marc, except for what the machine is telling me! The guys are on their way to get him, and Tim, Kat, and I are going to meet them. What I need is for you and Caleb to get underground, and set up the Lab. We may be operating tonight. Try and really prepare Caleb, because we're going to need all hands on this."
"All right, Luke, we're moving. Call us when you know anything else!"
As he hung up with Marcus, Luke took another breath to steady himself. He felt Kat watching him, but he didn't acknowledge her gaze this time. Luke said nothing as the elevator carried them the rest of the way down to the underground parking garage. He sensed a heaviness descending on his shoulders, like a giant weight that was threatening to drive him into the ground.
"Luke, what's going on here?" Kat reached for his arm. "You're kind of scaring me right now. What's Cushing's Triad?"
"It's a trio of symptoms, that when they occur together, signify a dire situation," Luke replied without looking at her. "It's indicative of a traumatic rise in intracranial pressure."
"That's related to a head injury, isn't it?" Kat asked.
"Yes, Kat. Cushing's Triad is a late presenting symptom of the condition. It means that his intracranial pressure has already been too high, for too long."
"But we're catching up with him," Tim interjected. "It's reversible, isn't it?"
"It's not always that simple…" Luke trailed off, swiping sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand.
"Luke, be real with us," Kat insisted. "You're afraid. I can see it, and I never have in a situation like this."
"We missed golden hour," he murmured so softly, he was sure they probably hadn't heard him.
"We missed what?" Tim asked.
"In medicine, there's something called the golden hour. It doesn't refer to 60 minutes exactly. It's simply a time frame ranging from a few minutes to several hours that follows a traumatic injury, where the greatest chance for rescuing a patient lies. We missed it, and I don't know what's going to happen to Donny. There's a possibility that he already has brain damage. There's a chance that…" Luke couldn't bring himself to finish.
"He could die?" Tim filled in quietly.
Luke nodded with difficulty. "We just have to keep going. I'm doing my best to stay calm, guys."
Katherine gripped his arm tighter. "We're with you, Luke. If there's anything else I can be doing—"
"There is, actually. Is the computer still set up in your car, Tim?"
"It only needs to be turned on," the man replied.
"Good. Kat, I need you to look up this address for the guys, so we can give them a clue about the structure they're approaching…and we have to step on it to get there too."