Brandon cut across the darkest patch of the property that he could find, carefully leading the way toward the building that housed one of the two operational reactors. He could tell that Jazz was scared. Her fear was more pronounced now than when they'd arrived. If he wasn't concerned that he would need her technical assistance, he would have dropped the young woman off at the car.

If she would have let me, he added. Jazz probably wouldn't have stayed behind willingly, not at this point.

Everything had been silent since they had begun their trek, but Brandon had seen beams of light show up from several points across the Plant. His heart pounded harder as he imagined what the others were doing, but he and Jazz already had their own task to carry out. Unless I receive a distress signal, I can't even consider interfering. I can't leave Jazz alone in any case, and I'm sure not going to drag her straight into a fight with me. Of course, I might already be doing that right now, he thought ironically.

He found himself wishing he had one of the turtles with him, more than anything else. It wouldn't even matter who it was. Just someone to keep my feet on the ground and not let me screw this up. Please don't let me screw this up.

Brandon felt Jazz catch his sleeve from behind, and he looked back at her. "You all right?"

"Yeah, sure," she replied, though her eyes looked larger in the moonlight than they ever had. "Do you think that the others caught up with anyone?"

"I couldn't say," he replied. And part of me doesn't want to call them, because I can't do anything. "Are you really okay?"

"Why wouldn't I be okay? We're just two unarmed people running around a Nuclear Power Plant that's been commandeered by terrorists who want to blow everything up. No big deal."

"If it makes you feel any better, I'm not going down without a fight," he assured her.

"What will I be doing during said fight besides screaming my head off?"

"You never know, Jazz," he said impishly. "Some defensive instincts might kick in."

"I'll be sure to include that line when I'm writing my speech to deliver for winning the Nobel Peace Prize."

He grinned. "If you're going to aim high, that's the way—" Brandon cut himself off suddenly when he heard footsteps running too close to them for comfort. He yanked Jazz by the arm and dropped flat on the ground in between two circulating units.

The young woman covered her mouth with both hands as she trembled. Brandon extended an arm around her as the footsteps suddenly got louder, and hesitated. He didn't breathe in the silence that followed, until it was broken by the blast of a radio. He couldn't understand the Japanese, but the tone of the speech sounded emphatic and irritated. He raised his head a couple of inches as the feet started moving again, and their sound retreated.

Brandon let out the air he'd been holding, and rose onto his knees to have a look around. "C'mon, Jazz. We're clear." He offered her a hand to help her gain her feet, and set his face toward the goal. Okay. No more messing around. We've got to get down to business.

He could see a cooling tower, and only hoped that they were approaching the correct building. We won't know for sure until we see some kind of identifying marker. Brandon glared at the offending card strip entry panel, and thought about all the times that Donatello had finagled his way past just such a device.

"Can I have a little light?" Jazz requested.

"Can you get the door open?"

"Well, they all have some type of safety function in the case of—Wait a minute," she interrupted herself, looking at the keypad more closely.

Brandon was surprised to hear her snort, and was even more so when Jazz punched a single button that opened the door. "How'd you do that?" He gasped.

"It's already been overridden," she explained. "I didn't 'do' anything."

"Then I'm guessing we probably have the right building," Brandon theorized. "Stay close, okay?"

She nodded.

The man fingered his staffs for the first time that evening as they slowly entered the containment building. He wanted to ask Jazz about the effects that a nuclear weapon could have involving Indian Point, but he wasn't sure she knew the answer, and he wasn't positive he wanted to either. The possibilities don't matter. We can't allow them to trigger anything.

Brandon hesitated close to the doorway so that he and Jazz could study the layout that was posted on the wall, and his eyes traveled to a metal cat-walk that they would need to cross to get to the stairs. He felt exposed under the full lights of the building after running around in the dark outside, but it couldn't be helped.

"So we need to head down a floor," Jazz suggested.

"Yeah. Let's go."

The man discovered that he had to step deliberately to avoid making much noise on the metal walkway. As they traveled slowly down, he couldn't help gazing up at the immense domed ceiling. "It's supposed to be strong enough to survive a plane crash," he told Jazz.

"The kind of explosive power they're harnessing is probably a lot stronger," she answered.

"Like, end of the world bigger?"

"For a whole lot of people, and not just New York City," Jazz clarified. "But we need to see the weapon before we jump to any conclusions." She stopped suddenly on a landing, pointing to a door a couple of yards from the bottom of the staircase. "Hopefully that will connect us to the unit I saw on the feed."

"That's where they're building the bomb?"

"The thing looked like it was already built for the most part; there were just a couple of stray components on the table."

Brandon had to focus to steady himself on the stairs. He was eager to track down whatever was being set up, before there wouldn't be a chance to stop it.

"It just occurred to me that someone watching the feed could probably see us right now," Jazz commented suddenly.

"Hopefully they're too distracted by what the others are doing to notice," Brandon said tightly.

"So does that make them Team Distraction and us Team Prevention?"

He almost laughed. "It makes us Team 'find the bomb quickly before they find us.'"

"That doesn't have the same ring to it."

Brandon shook his head at her as they approached the second door. He saw the keypad and grinned hopefully. "Can you work your magic button?"

"You could even do this, Brandon."

"Nah. Me and technology are like Leo and the microwave."

"Why isn't he allowed to use it?"

"We can talk about that later, Jazz."

She punched the appropriate key, and Brandon led the way into the darkness of the connecting hall. He quickly realized that the lights weren't on, and fumbled for his flashlight as the door closed behind Jazz. The light slipped from his fingers in his haste, and he heard it hit the floor.

Brandon cursed as he searched for the flashlight in complete darkness. "C'mon, it has to be here," he muttered. "Where? Where is it?"

The seemingly insignificant detail of losing the only light left him feeling trapped in the dark, which had the effect of speeding up his heart rate and triggering his panic in a flash. Brandon struggled to slow down and breathe normally as the tiny backlight of Jazz's phone flickered on, and she felt her way across the floor to find the flashlight.

"Here it is," she said softly. "It's okay; I've got it, Brandon."

"It's not okay; I'm not okay! I shouldn't be here," he exclaimed. "I can't control it, I can't stop the fear from—" Brandon was shocked when the woman gave him a light push against the wall and covered his mouth with her finger.

"You're okay, Brandon. You are. Take a minute to catch your breath. We're already here. It's too late to turn back. I'm counting on you to look after me," she finished lightly.

He was so shaken by the personal space barrier she'd broken, he'd almost forgotten how close to losing it he'd just been. Brandon breathed in and out slowly and then heaved a sigh.

"Are you feeling any better?" she asked, lingering mere inches away.

"Yeah, I…I think."

"Good. Then you'd better lead on."

She handed him the flashlight, and he felt his face flushing in the darkness. I'm almost glad it's dark now. His mind was reeling from the roller coaster of emotions, yet his body suddenly felt energized enough to take on an army. But I hope that's not on the agenda, he thought ruefully.

He kept his eyes forward, though his tingling spine made him want to turn around and stop Jazz in her tracks. No, I can't be distracted right now.

Brandon heard a door echoing from the other end of the hall, and hissed a warning to Jazz. He edged against the wall as a flashlight beam traveled down the corridor, and drew his staffs instantly. Then he waited. Unless the light fell on him, he would stay still until the men were within better range.

Two men were talking to each other casually in their foreign tongue, without any of the concern that the last man who'd run by them outside had displayed. Brandon's grip tightened on his weapons as their voices and the light came closer, and he prepared to launch. I've got to catch them both off guard. Wait for it...wait.

When the men were in striking distance, he lunged silently toward them. One staff struck the head of the closest man, but the other only landed a glancing blow to the second man's shoulder. The one still on his feet tried to draw a gun, but Brandon's staff struck the man's wrist so hard that he knew he'd probably fractured it. Brandon swung his second staff in an arc and finished the man before he had a chance to do anything else.

"I knew I was keeping you around for a reason," Jazz remarked. "Um…can I do anything to help here?"

Brandon was already moving on to the task of dragging the two warriors back down the hall. He grunted through the effort of it before responding to her. "Just keep the light on where we're going, and get that next door open."

"What are you going to do with them?"

"Tie them up and leave them somewhere." Brandon cautiously emerged into the next building, and then bent down to restrain the men with zip ties.

"Where did you get those?" she asked.

"When you travel in a pack with the turtles, you learn to carry them." Brandon straightened up from the floor. "We need to keep moving."

Jazz hung closer behind him than before, and he felt protectiveness rising that gave him greater boldness. Brandon followed the light that was coming from an open doorway, and stopped short of standing in front of it.

As he lingered around the corner, he heard men speaking to each other, and took the chance of peeking into the room. Brandon laid eyes on two figures in white lab coats and took an inward breath as he backed off.

"Okay. Two scientist-looking guys."

"Are they armed?"

"I can't tell. We have to get into that room."

"If we can get them to come to us, you could catch them by surprise and clobber them," she offered.

"I've heard you're pretty dangerous with a flashlight," he retorted.

She snorted softly. "But a terrible judge of character."

Her eyes fell on the wall, and Brandon followed her gaze to a fire extinguisher.

"What are you thinking?" he asked.

Jazz grinned and reached to pull the extinguisher off of the wall. "Doesn't martial arts have something to do with being a master of your environment?"

"I think that's how it goes."

"Let's attract some attention."

Jazz bit her lip nervously while she waited for Brandon to activate the fire extinguisher, staying against the wall per his instructions. Both her arms came up protectively as Brandon released the extinguisher's load and darted out of the way too.

Seconds passed before the two men came rushing out of the next room. Jazz smirked as she watched Brandon head-butt one of them across the hall, but she didn't have the chance to see how it ended. She was distracted by the third scientist who was dashing toward them from another direction of the hall.

Jazz was frozen, even as she told herself to do something. The young woman stepped back to block the entrance into the room, but cringed as the man's fists came up threateningly. She fell back a couple of feet into the room as he pressed in so close that she felt the wind of his approach. The man wasn't able to carry the blow out as Brandon yanked him around by the collar, and literally threw him.

"Thanks, Punk," she said with a nervous laugh. "I was starting to wonder about you."

He shook his head again. "We need to hurry. Will you help me tie them up?"

"Uh…sure."

Jazz assisted him in getting the men out of the way this time, feeling her own urgency increase. She felt an intense wave of goose bumps as she entered the room again and took a slower look around. When the table on which the men had been working came into view, she drew her phone to call Donatello.

Her breath quickened as she mutely stared at the device and the unfamiliar components surrounding it. "This can't be good." She dialed the purple-masked turtle and swallowed deeply. "Donny, I don't know what you expect me to do with this thing," Jazz said shakily.

"I've been looking up underground military information on North Korean weapons over the last few minutes, but I need to see it, Jazz. Can you switch to Brandon's phone? It has a video feature."

"Yeah, okay." Jazz hung up and looked at Brandon. "I need your phone."

"My phone?"

"I have to use the video."

"I don't know how to work it."

"I'll figure it out," she reassured him.

Brandon handed the phone over. "I'm going to watch the door, all right? I'm only a few steps away."

Jazz took a few moments to study the settings on the video feature, and called Donatello back. "You there, Donny?"

"I'm here. Let me see it, Jazz."

She lowered the phone over the table and held it steady so the picture wouldn't distort. "I don't know about this, Don."

"Jazz, don't be afraid to touch it. It doesn't appear to be armed, does it?"

"No, I don't…I don't think so."

"This type of weapon usually requires a special chemical reaction to detonate, Jazz. It's not going to explode spontaneously. I need you to get the panel open so we can figure out what we're dealing with."

"Donny, this is crazy."

"I know it is. But you're there, and I'm not. You have to do this."

Jazz heaved a giant breath as she laid a hand on the panel and carefully lifted it. "Okay, Genius. You're going to have to walk me through this."