Brandon looked Jazz's direction, marveling at the death grip she had on the duffle bag they'd taken from the same "lab" where they'd found the weapon. "I really could carry that for you," he offered again.
"Are you out of your mind? No. I need your hands free to protect me in case those Asians find us."
"They're pretty well occupied at the moment, so—" Brandon's sentence was interrupted by the brilliance of an explosion in the distance. "And we have a missile! Man, I wish I'd seen it up close."
Jazz shook her head. "Why would you wanna see it? It was bad enough hearing it last time."
"It'd be bad if they had the bigger guns," Brandon returned. "Donny's gotta be disappointed all over again."
"All of you have a screw loose, do you know that? But I'm out here with you, so what does that say about me?"
Brandon started to speak, `but then changed his mind. He took a deep breath and hesitated, questioning the impulse. It's not the time or place, but in all honesty, I might not get another chance, he managed to reason with himself
He reached for the strap of the bag she was holding, and pried it out of her fingers. Confusion registered in her eyes as he braced an arm behind her back.
"What are you doing?" she asked.
Without a word he bent to the young woman's level and kissed her. Whatever shock he'd induced didn't last long, as she reciprocated with more fervor than he could have anticipated. The chilly night air around them became non-existent as Jazz laced her hands around his neck.
It took the report of another missile blast to bring Brandon back to his senses, and to the realization that they were still in terrible danger. It looked like Jazz wanted to say something, but she simply stared at him instead, as though caught under a spell of sudden silence.
"You didn't have to come with me," he said breathlessly. "You never had to stay underground. The fact that you did proves what an amazing person you are."
Something snapped in her expression and Jazz's familiar smirk returned. "I think it proves I'm just as crazy as the rest of you."
"You are the one who was playing inside of a thermonuclear weapon."
"There's that too, huh? I guess the sky is the limit on insanity tonight." Her smiled faded as she cocked her head to one side. "Do you hear something?"
Brandon listened and was sure that he did; a sound like a rumble of thunder that was gradually growing louder. His breath caught in his chest as he grabbed Jazz by the arm and darted backward around the opposite side of the kiosk they'd been taking refuge beside.
"What is it?" she demanded.
"I don't know," he returned. "But it sounds like it's coming our way! I didn't see anything."
Brandon pushed her protectively against the wall of the small booth and craned his neck around the side for another look. He wished that he still couldn't see anything. What appeared to be dozens of men were running, nearly tripping over each other in their haste. They know we're here, was his first thought. We're finished!
Brandon swore under his breath as he jammed his back up against the hidden side of the booth. "I'm sorry I got you into this, Jazz. I'm sorry I was so stubborn."
Her head leaned against his shoulder and he extended an arm to draw her close.
"Well…at least we saved a bunch of people, right?" she replied tightly. "If that's not worth being nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize, I don't know what is."
He snorted, though part of him felt like crying.
"I'd do it again, Brandon," she said more seriously. "All of it."
He held her eye contact for a couple of meaningful seconds. "I wouldn't change it either."
Jazz buried herself against his chest as the sound of running overtook them, and Brandon almost closed his eyes so that he wouldn't have to see the small army bearing down on them. He resisted the brief temptation, and was rewarded by the sight of men dashing past the kiosk. What the…
He stared aghast while the warriors fought for the lead position, traveling on a path that seemed to align with the Hudson river.
"What are they doing?" Jazz asked, standing up straight. "Brandon, where are they going?"
"They're retreating," he said in disbelief. "I think the bigger guns won!"
"Retreating where?"
"They must have had a plan to escape by way of the river. I haven't seen any other vehicles around here."
"Do we want them to get away?"
"No," Brandon said quickly. "C'mon, we have to get out of here, fast!"
"But those men—"
"We'll contact the authorities to hunt them down the minute we get off the property."
The answer appeared to satisfy Jazz, and she drew the duffle bag back over her shoulder. "Then let's go before I have a nervous breakdown."
Brandon hovered close behind her as they sprinted toward the main gate, not bothering to wait for Donny's phone call despite instructions. He was comforted in not hearing more gunfire, and kept his eyes out for any sign of headlights.
Before they'd crossed half the distance to reach the gate, Brandon saw rapidly approaching high beams and pulled Jazz up short with him. He waved his arms to flag the van down, and the Battleshell came to a screeching halt at the same time that the driver's side window came down.
"Get in!" Marcus commanded fiercely, jerking his hand to indicate behind him.
The back door flew open as Brandon and Jazz approached, and Greg's head immediately ducked out.
"Oh, thank God." The sandy-haired man breathed heavily as if he hadn't had any air in ages. "In, in!" he urged.
Brandon yanked his way up into the van and reached his arm to assist the young woman. "They're escaping using the Hudson!" he barked. "We have to get out of here and call it in before they get away completely!"
Kelley nodded shakily. "We have to pick up my car too. With the noise of that 'distraction', I'd be surprised if the authorities weren't already alerted."
"Are you guys okay?" Timothy pressed as the van backed up and made a clear U-turn.
Brandon glanced at Jazz, who was still clutching the duffle bag. "Yeah, we're fine," he returned a beat later.
"Good," Greg said pointedly. "I wouldn't want you to be in bad health before I kill you! What were you doing out there?"
The bronze-haired man exchanged another look with Jazz.
The young woman shrugged nonchalantly. "We discovered and disarmed the thermonuclear weapon."
The statement was so calm that no one appeared to believe it at first.
"Y…You what?" Kelley sputtered.
"You're the one who disarmed it," Brandon told Jazz.
"With Donny's help," she clarified further. "I didn't even wanna touch the thing at first."
"Hold the phone!" Greg raised his voice. "Are you being for real?"
"This was never about the spent fuel pools, not really," Jazz explained. "Donny thinks the gang highlighted their vulnerability in order to get the Plant shut down. They had much bigger fish to fry. We found schematics in the same lab where the weapon had been worked on, and figured out a little bit from the models.
"Don believes they planned to take advantage of the plutonium source in the reactor. They wanted to force a melt down of sorts to um….enhance the effects of the thermonuclear device. He could only find a single reference in his research to technology that ties the two reactions together that way.
"He said that the resulting energy would probably have been 100 times greater than the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima, even though the weapon itself couldn't have been more than fifty pounds."
Brandon couldn't help being amused by the stunned expressions of the others.
"You…disabled a nuclear weapon?" Sayuri said uncertainly, as though she still couldn't accept it.
"It wasn't technically armed yet," Jazz said. "I got inside, and Donatello walked me through the process on video chat. He had me remove the fuse components, because they're responsible for delivering the precise electrical signals to the detonators. The chemical explosives won't be triggered without them.
"He had me take the reflectors too, just in case someone had extra fuses. Apparently they have something to do with setting off the second stage of the chemical reaction. I also cut some important looking wires, but I did that on my own." Jazz dropped the duffle bag on the floor in the middle of the van. "All the proof you need is right there."
Kelley leaned over so far in his seat that Brandon was sure he was going to topple over. "Oh my God."
"If it's any consolation, you were right," Brandon told him. "About everything. If you hadn't turned us on to this place, we never would have been able to avert any of it."
"How are we supposed to explain any of it?" Kelley wanted to know.
His question garnered a laugh from the entire back end.
"That's easy, boss, you don't," Greg answered. "We'll use the same 911 call hang up method that the guys have perfected through the years. You'd better believe that there's no way to come clean about what happened here without implicating ourselves."
Kelley shook his head, swiping a hand across his temples. "This is going to take days to sink in."
Brandon rested his head against the sidewall of the van, and felt a hand creep over his. He stared at Jazz next to him and saw the smile in her eyes, though her expression remained unchanged. He squeezed her hand firmly in return, not caring if anyone did notice. Something about her grey irises in that moment made him never want to break their gaze.
Consciousness was slow to return, but it didn't seem to matter. Leonardo was perfectly content to remain on the outskirts of reality, resting in the soothing shadow that covered his mind. There were different types of darkness. The kind that had filled his nightmares for the better part of a year had been a veil to hide the insidious creatures that wanted to do his entire family harm.
The darkness that settled over his spirit now was unique, in that it didn't leave a void where the light should have been. It seemed to be creating a comfortable, peaceful environment that mimicked the safety of his sewer home.
A familiar sound resounded in his ears quietly, as though it was echoing from a far distance. He didn't honestly feel like waking up, and if he hadn't recognized the accent so clearly, he wouldn't have even bothered.
Leonardo rolled his neck in the direction of his red-masked brother and opened leaden eyes with effort.
"Hey…" Raphael said softly, with obvious restraint. "You trying to test my patience or something, Fearless?"
He managed a half smile as the rest of the Lab slowly came into view.
"Thanks for keeping your word," his brother said.
Leonardo honestly didn't know what he was talking about, but he nodded anyway. "Sure, Raph," he croaked. "Is everyone all right?"
"Yeah, they're safe, Leo. Takashi wasn't lying completely. His goons caught Greg and Kelley, but the others got them out. The Akiudo had bad plans for using the Plant, Bro. New York City ain't the only thing that's been saved tonight."
Leonardo wasn't positive he wanted to know what that meant right then. He saw Raphael climb to his feet. "Where are you going?"
"Grabbing you some water. Calley asked to talk to ya if you came around in your right mind. Are you sane enough to satisfy your wife?"
"Yeah," he said with as much eagerness as he could muster. "Can you get her on the phone?"
Leonardo groaned softly as Raphael helped adjust the back of the bed so he could sit up a little, and drew his arm slowly out of the covers to take the water bottle from his brother. Raphael didn't release it to him completely.
"Just drink, Bro. I'll call up Calley in a second."
The room-temperature water could have been from a pure mountain spring as far as Leonardo was concerned. He sucked down as much as he could handle before nodding at Raphael to take the bottle away.
The red-masked turtle selected the appropriate speed-dial, and set the phone in Leonardo's hand. As he listened to it ring he watched Raphael step out of the room, and then remembered that Donatello had to sleeping a few feet away.
Gotta keep it down.
"Hello?" Calley didn't sound as if he'd woken her up.
"Hi," he said quietly. "It's me."
The young woman exhaled deeply. "Leo. I didn't really expect to hear from you for a few more hours."
"Then why weren't you asleep?"
"You have to ask?" She released another breath. "Are you okay?"
"Uh…well, it seems like it," he allowed. "I appear to be in one piece. Sorry to keep you waiting."
"You should still be resting," she chided lightly.
"Does that mean you don't want to talk to me?"
"I've been dying to hear your voice…but I don't want you to push yourself."
"Its okay, Calley. If I was still in real danger, Doc would be in here looking over my shoulder."
"I guess that's true. How are you doing with…other things?"
"You mean Takashi?" Leonardo asked. "I'm all right. There was no joy in killing in him, but he honestly didn't give me a choice." He grunted with sudden irritation. "The only reason I'm hurt is because I gave in to anger. It got the best of me a little bit, but I overcame it. It sounds like we all managed to make it somehow."
"I have one more question, and then you need to go back to sleep."
"What's that, Calley?"
"When are you coming down here?"