Chapter 14

"Snake's not coming," Tami said as she came into the team room. "He's been put on a different assignment."

"What?" Ren was indignant. "How's that? Everyone's assigned to one team around here."

"This is different. I'll explain later." She turned to Mike. "But we're sticking to the mission plan, so let's get going."

Michelangelo nodded. Snake's absence made him curious, he was also more than a little grateful. His suspicion that there was more going on with Snake than he let on was as strong as ever, but it would no longer concern him after tonight. After tonight, he would have fulfilled his side of the bargain with Saito Doshida. Raphael was healthy again, no one had tried to kill him or hurt his family, and he was even, he dared admit, pleased with the work he'd done. After tonight, he could feel relief. He just needed everything to go smoothly.

They left the building on foot, Michelangelo leading the way for about a quarter mile before stopping at a sewer grate behind a couple of quietly hulking shipping buildings. No one in sight. He lifted the grate and said, "Okay, who's first?"

Ren, Tami and Simon looked at each other nervously. "I'll go," Ren said. He crouched down and lowered himself gingerly over the side of the opening.

"Don't worry," Mike told him. "The drop is only a few feet, and it's flat at the bottom. Might be a little wet, though. Just step out of the way and wait for me."

Ren nodded, though he clung to the pavement with his forearms for several more seconds before taking a breath and letting himself fall.

They heard a splash at the bottom. "You okay?" Tami called.

"Yeah," Ren voice echoed up to them. "You can come down."

Tami went next, sitting on the edge and jumping in right away, as if to get it over with before she could think better of the idea. Simon looked a little terrified; Mike made a face when he felt the sweatiness of the man's armpits as he lowered him to Ren and Tami. When all three of them were down, Mike leapt into the hole in one smooth, practiced motion, pulling the grate into place behind him and landing in a crouch at the bottom. He straightened up, grinning at the pale human faces around him. "See, not so bad, right?"

"Right," Ren echoed, unconvinced.

"Have I mentioned that I'm mildly claustrophobic?" Simon whispered.

"Onward then," Mike said cheerfully. He led the way down the tunnel, toward endless darkness. His eyes had already adjusted. Even without light from the street grate he could find his way. "Stay close together. It'll take about thirty minutes to get there." He looked over his shoulder at the three humans, their hands held out in front of them, shuffling tentatively after him. "Well, maybe forty," he amended. "Plenty of time for me to tell you some of my stories of sewer monsters."

"That's not funny," Tami said.

"I'll tell you what's not funny... the flesh-eating rats that grow to be-"

"Quit it!"

Mike chuckled, though he didn't like this situation any more than the others did, for different reasons. Assignment G102 made him decidedly uneasy, though he wasn't about to refuse it and draw out his engagement any longer. On first consideration, it had seemed like such a straightforward espionage task that Mike wondered why Doshida would assign Roku Squad to it. Surely he didn't need a ninja turtle to steal some files. Until he realized that clearly the best way to get into their target building tonight was through the sewer system.

"You sure you know your way around this maze?" Ren asked.

"Trust me," Mike assured him. "I spend a lot of time down here."

"Do you really live down here, like they say?" He shuddered. "I don't see how. I mean, there's no light, no heat, nothing. Where do you sleep? What do you eat? Wouldn't you just go insane?"

No doubt they were just innocent questions from someone completely unused to being underground. Still, Mike's guard went up and he felt a rising defensiveness. He wished, impossibly, that he could show them the lair so they could see that it was, if not as luxurious as a proper house, at least a habitable and comfortable place to live. He had a few things to say about how Splinter had always made sure they lived like people, not animals. He wanted to tell them that Don worked his tail off to maintain their home, that they all had chores, that he enjoyed cooking family meals.

Instead he said, "We have our ways. If this was all there was down here, don't you think I'd just be a grunting, drooling, starving monster, like this? Bhhhwwaarrghh..." he made a ghoulish face and flicked a pen light on underneath his chin.

Ren stumbled backwards. Simon screamed and jumped into Tami. They lost a full two minutes during which he promised them he wouldn't do anything like that again.

Finally, they stopped. Mike said, "We're here."

Simon looked up at the sewer grate skeptically. "How do you know? It looks the same as the other one."

Mike shook his head. "So little faith." He took two running paces and leapt up to the grate, grabbing onto it and hanging like a gymnast from one of its two sections. Swinging his legs up and slamming his heels into the opposite corner, he loosened the other section and slid it aside. He waited several seconds before lifting himself up slowly, holding a chin-up position as he turned his head, surveying. Satisfied, he tucked his legs and hauled himself up through the opening, rolling aside when he felt the ground.

He reached down and helped the others up, one at a time. They were standing in an underground parking lot. It was empty, except for one old dust-covered car that appeared to be parked there permanently. Dim florescent lights cast a yellowish glow on the grey concrete walls, floor and support pillars.

"Wow," Ren said. "We're actually in."

They took the stairwell up to the main floor. The door at the top was locked but not alarmed. It only took a few minutes to pick it open. Once they were through, they walked past a set of elevators into the unlit lobby of the building. In the gloom, they could make out waiting room chairs, tables with magazines, a directory board, and a long receptionist's desk, behind which lay the doorway to an office with computers and tall file cabinets.

"Okay," Tami said to Simon. "Get to work."

Simon went around to the office and they followed him. He turned on one of the desktop computers and pulled his own laptop out of his backpack. "Give me some time," he said. "Once I get into their network, it'll take a while to copy everything over."

Tami sent Ren to stand guard on the other side of the floor. She and Michelangelo took position behind the receptionist's desk, keeping an eye on the front entrance and the elevators.

After a couple of minutes, Michelangelo couldn't hold in his discomfort. "Doesn't this bother you?"

"What?"

"Stealing information from a healthcare company. Who would want to do that?"

"Most likely a rival company."

"But... you don't know what they're going to use the information for."

"No. That's their business."

"But it doesn't bother you."

She looked at him, expressionless in the dark. "If you sell someone a butcher knife, do you know what they're going to do with it? For someone that's not even human, you have a lot of moral qualms."

Mike hadn't thought of it that way. "I suppose so," he said.

"This is a living for us," she said tersely. "One that pays well. Maybe you can't appreciate that because you're not a part of society."

"Hey, where'd that come from?" he asked, stung. "What did I say? I didn't mean-"

"You didn't have to say anything. You're leaving, aren't you? After tonight."

"That was the plan from the beginning. Only three months." He sighed and added, "'Cause you're right, I'm not a part of society. But I can appreciate what you're saying. I needed the pay too. To help a family member."

She was silent for a minute. "Must be nice," she said.

"What?"

"Having family." She made a face. "Society isn't all it's cracked up to be."

Simon came out of the office, zipping up his bag. "Got it," he said.

"Get Ren back over here," Tami said. "Let's wipe down everything we've touched and go." Michelangelo led them on a different return route. Bringing the squad underground felt like inviting them a little too close to home. They weren't anywhere near the lair, but just to be safe, he'd make sure they couldn't recreate their journey if they tried.

Watching them stumble along in the dark, he felt a bit guilty about it. Tami, Ren, Simon- he couldn't help but admit that he liked working with them. They were hard-working, good at what they did, and they had even, despite being skeptical, accepted him and been willing to learn from him. They were all right. He'd known so few people in his life...despite everything, he just couldn't bring himself to regret having met these ones.

"Thank God," Simon muttered, to Ren and Tami's whole-hearted agreement when they finally emerged into the open air, right where they'd begun.

"That was a cinch," Ren declared as they walked back to Agete's headquarters. "Thanks to you," he added to Mike.

"So this is it, huh?" Simon said. "You're really done?"

"Yeah. This is it." Mike turned to face them as they entered the building. "Hey, look, I know it wasn't long, but...well, good luck." He held his hand out to Ren and then Simon. Neither of them hesitated in taking it, as they had three months ago. He smiled at Tami. She returned it faintly, nodded at him once, then led the other two down the hall and out of sight.

Michelangelo stood in the empty hallway, feeling strangely high and let down at the same time. He walked down the corridor and turned into Saito Doshida's office. The man was the same as he'd been when Mike had walked in the first time, sitting at his desk, this time looking at something on his computer screen.

"Has it been three months already?" he asked, glancing up. There it was- that small, sly, calculating smile. "I don't suppose I could persuade you to stay on."

Mike shook his head. "No, thanks."

"A shame. Your work with Roku Squad has been very valuable. I intend to apply much of it to the rest of Agete." He swiveled his computer monitor around so that Mike could see the screen. There was a video playing, the sound muted. It took him a second to realize what it was. A scene from the training area. Tami and Ren making their way through the urban mock-up, Snake following behind. And there he was, on camera, moving across the frame, gesturing, speaking with the squad.

Michelangelo stared at the screen in horror. "You recorded all of it."

"The other squads won't have quite the same experience, but at least they'll benefit."

Mike considered grabbing the computer and smashing it against the wall. But he was certain that Doshida would have backup copies.

"Don't worry," Doshida said, reading his face. "Do you think that it would be in my interest for these videos to become public? They are completely safe with me." He stopped the video and swiveled the monitor back. "After all, we're on good terms now."

"Your terms," Mike amended for him. Of course, he thought. Of course the man would find some way to ensure he had the upper hand, now and in the unforeseeable future.

"I haven't forgotten the other half of your payment. It'll be delivered tonight." He stood up and came around his desk, stopping in front of Michelangelo. "I hope this arrangement has worked out for you as well as it has for me." He smiled. "I'm sure you must have had to deal with some... disagreement... from certain family members."

Michelangelo found it in himself to smile back- not his typical smile, but one that Raphael might understand, one that accompanied the wishful thought of punching the man in the face. "Enjoy the videos." He walked out of Saito Doshida's office.

Though he felt ready to bolt from the building, on a final whim, he climbed the stairs to the team room. He'd spent enough hours there that he figured he'd have one last look. Maybe he'd find Snake. He thought he ought to at least say a word of parting to the man, even though they'd only ever managed to maintain a mutual tolerance.

But the team room was empty. He took a soda out of the mini-fridge and drank it as he walked slowly around the room, so familiar to him now, but a place he expected never to return to. He wasn't sure what to make of his conflicted feelings. Saito Doshida was a hair shy of an enemy, but Roku Squad had been his squad, for a while.

Something caught his eye: a file folder on the desk. The corner of a photograph was poking out of it. Curious, he opened the folder. Inside were three eight-by-ten inch color photographs. Each photo was the face of a person; there were two men and one woman. The images were slightly grainy, as if enlarged and cropped from shots taken from a distance, and the subjects were not smiling or looking into the camera; they didn't know they were being photographed. Each sheet had two small lines of text printed in the white margin of the top right hand corner: the subject's name and a code. K075, K076 and K077.

He looked more closely at the photograph of the woman. She was young, early twenties he guessed. The wind had whipped a few strands of her wavy, reddish-brown hair across her face. Large, serious blue eyes with long lashes were looking at something in the distance- perhaps someone she recognized, or maybe a taxi or street sign. He flipped the photo over. On the back was a street address written in a ballpoint pen.

Michelangelo suddenly felt sick.

The team room door opened. He dropped the photograph on the desk as Tami walked in. "You're still here?" she asked, surprised, but with a pleased undertone. She saw the photographs on the desk and frowned, walking over and shoving them back into the file folder. "He should know not to leave these lying around, even if it is our team room."

"Who?"

"Snake, of course."

"These are his...assignments?"

"That's why he wasn't with us tonight. Finally got his big break. It's what he wanted to do, you know, before he was kicked out of the military. You could tell he didn't ever really want to be on our squad, he was just biding time, hoping to become a K man." She snorted in annoyance. "Suits him better, though. K missions are the only ones handled solo." She slipped the folder into a drawer and turned to Mike with raised eyebrows. "So? Have you decided to stay, then?"

"What?" Michelangelo tore his eyes from the drawer that the file folder had disappeared into. "Uh, no...no, I just came up here to have a last look and make sure I didn't leave anything..." He realized how ridiculous that sounded. "...And to say good-bye."

He saw the trace of hopefulness in her face harden into understanding. "I see," she said.

Mike shifted from foot to foot, wanting to say more, but instead blurting, "I have to go. I'm sorry."

He hurried to the door, aware of the resentful glare boring into his shell as he left the room. He could still feel it as he rushed out of the building, into the night and began to run.