A/N: Hellooooo. I just want to say thanx to everyone who has posted a review so far. Very Very encouraging.
Also, This story, like the others before it, is primarily set in the Movie and 1990 Cartoon universe... although Donnie would look more like the 2012 version... cause he's adorable!
Enjoy!
...
"I'll be right outside so don't try anything funny, Kame. The doctor will be here shortly." Carder says as the door seals shut behind him.
I could have had some coffee.
I look around the lab. At first glance it looks pretty basic; a gen-chem lab you'd find at any company or university studying such things… I'm over loading at the sheer glory of it! In my lab back at the Lair, it was dark and 'just clean enough'. I never did have as much room as I needed but I made it work. I had to be careful not to mix my gadgets with my chem. set. I had to make sure I changed my locks every week or Mikey would break in and wreck shop… At least I would have had the entire basement and the attached garage in the alley as my new lab and workshop, once we moved in completely with Amber. Having the connected building next to her bookstore available to buy was a godsend for our growing family. Still, my new lab would look like a rabbit hole compared to this wonderland.
I walk over to a large screen on the wall. It's in 'sleep' mode. There are white tufts of dandelions wafting in the breeze.
"It's bigger than Andrew." I say.
"Yes, Donnie. Is there something you need?" The bottom quarter of the dandelions fade into the Aquarium display from my suite. It's Andrew. This is too cool. Since every screen in the facility is connected, I suppose my personal interface can follow me where ever I go.
"How are you doing Andrew?"
"All systems are go."
"Andrew, can you connect me to my room?"
"One moment please… No one is picking up. Would you like to leave a message?"
"Yes."
"You may record your message at anytime."
"Hey Don, this is Don. Before you leave this stronghold make sure you that you pack up five of the Screen Time machines as payment. Goodbye."
"Okay. Would like to send this as a video or just audio?"
"I love you."
"You are pretty great yourself."
I laugh. "Video, please. And you can keep that the standard for future messages."
"Ok. Your message has been sent and your request has been received. Would you like to contact a different destination?"
"Can I call for pizza delivery?"
"I am sorry. All outside calls are blocked."
"Connect me to Dr. Gavnikov's room."
"One moment please…Connected."
"Good morning Donatello. Having fun with Screen Time?"
"It is amazing. The AI you've designed is a work of art."
"Oh.. T-thank you." She's breathing hard, as if she's walking. And I'm only getting audio.
"Is there a reason why I can't see you?" I ask.
I'm en route to the lab. I'm sorry for the delay. I had a minor setback. I received a forwarded message to my S-Wrist that you tried to contact me in my room and…"
"Wait wait… your Screen Times gets as small as a watch? How is that possible?"
"As long as one has a Screen, it is capable of a connecting to its sister devices. However one's original Screen is setup, all of the information is saved and dispersed from the Nimbus… that's my private internet storage software.
"Nimbus huh? Doctor, I am impressed. Really."
"Oh, I have no doubt you could have done even more so if you had the privileges I had."
I don't know what to say. It would be rude to say 'that's true'. I'm sure if I were to reverse engineer her Screen Time, I could make some adjustments; doesn't mean it's not already a fantastic machine and decades beyond what's on the market today.
I hear a chime and the doctor groans. "Oh what is it now…? Donatello, I will be delayed a bit longer than expected. I am sending Troy in my place. I'll come to the lab when I can. Goodbye." And the call disconnects.
Wait a minute.
Wait a damn minute.
I need to keep my mind on track. All of this new and amazing technology is stealing my attention. I need to remember my mission. I need to do whatever it takes to get home. I'm angry, I'm going thru caffeine withdraw and I want answers! I straighten up and sit on a stool at an empty white table in the middle of the room. All of the other tables have books and beakers spread about them but I find it strange that the largest table here is left clean. I look closer and notice that the surface is somewhat iridescent. I run my finger across, the lamp overhead brightens and a blue digital screen arises from the surface and sits floating about two inches above. I jump up, nearly knocking the stool over.
So much for my resolve.
I walk around the table, awing at the two-dimensional image of a screen hovering over the now deep, black table top. Inspecting the corners of the table, I see tiny lights, all pointing upward and toward the middle. White words appear on the screen. They are backwards from my viewpoint. I come full circle and read; 'Continue work in progress Diagram 83 or begin new session?'
"Continue." I say. The screen spins then, what I'm guessing, Diagram 83 emerges on the hovering in the air. There are lines and lines of small scribbles, too small for me to read. I step up to the blue and white screen, take my two index fingers and 'touch' the screen. I spread my fingers apart and the script thereon magnifies. There we go… It's a formula of some kind. I read along the portion currently onscreen, waving my hand across to scroll. I try my best to figure out what is attempting to be solved when the lab door whispers open. I turn and see a man in a white coat walk in. As the door closes I can see Carder's gloomy mouth frowning at me.
The man looks… very normal; normal height, normal build, brown eyed, brown haired, thirty-ish, clean-shaven, Caucasian homo sapien. If he was a missing person and I had to describe him… he'd be lost forever.
"Well, uh, good m-morning. You m-must be Donat-tello." He switches the data-pad he carries to his left hand and offers his right to me. We shake hands. He looks down at my obviously different hand and then quickly up at my face… not my eyes, my face. Okay, one thing differential about him, he is not a calm person. Or maybe Dr. Gavnikov never mentioned to him that I was a mutant turtle.
"Yes. You can call me Donnie." I say as I step back. "You must be Troy." I look at his name tag. "Troy Albright… wait, are you? You are! Troy Albright, author of the book 'Genetic Thumbprint.'"
Oh, no. I should have kept my mouth shut!
"You've, you've read m-my book?" He lights up.
"Oh… yeah, the electronic version."
"Ah, a f-fellow lover of 'historic theory', are you?"
"I think you coined the term 'histheory' in your book?" I internally roll my eyes.
"Yes yes! Wow. So, tell me y-your thoughts. Have I c-convinced you to be a h-hist-theorist as well?"
How should I answer him? His book was basically him attempting to prove that based on the thumbprint design of a child and the child's parents, using his 'astounding' formula, he can reimage exact replicas of the grand parents… all four of them. The problem is that his findings are inconclusive, especially when all four grandparents aren't even alive to test. And in the cases where all four grandparents were present, somehow his formula came up with five sets of prints instead of the sufficient four. Where do the fifth sets of thumbprints come from? Nobody knows because I was the only one who 'proofread' his formula and found the error. He probably thinks he's big stuff since he was a guest speaker on one of the specials on the Science channel. His spiel was more far-fetch than that 'ancient aliens' guy… and I happen to know real aliens.
"I… really enjoyed it." I say.
Enjoyed taking it apart.
"W-what did you like?" he asks.
Ugh.
"I thought your argument was very detailed." I say.
It was a bag of hot air.
"And w-what did you think of the formula itself? N-not too pedantic?"
You're killing me!
"I think your approach was very… enthusiastic; a real page-turner." I deleted the copy as soon as I got to the last page. I usually care to read the references but in his case I did not.
"Enthusiastic… I've r-read an online critic use that t-term before."
Oh no.
"Online critic you say? I'm sure just a petty novice." I try to brush it off.
"I h-had hoped s-so, but this g-guy was a real hard-ass, if y-you'll excuse the term. Normally I would h-have not given him the t-time of day, but m-my PR person had mentioned him to m-me before I g-got p-published… huh, ran me and my b-book through the wringer."
"Well, you can't let one random person string you up like that."
"String m-me up?" He asks suspiciously.
Oh no!
"W-what that critic said was so elaborately d-damning I was w-warned not to do a re-printing or rebuttal until my whole f-formula was r-reworked."
"But he's just a critic." I say, too defensively.
"His article on me and a few un-f-fortunate other authors were p-published in 'Technology' magazine in their r-roast section."
I had hoped he wouldn't have read that.
"And I quote: Lite-brite w-would have been more s-successful had he t-tried to fit an invisible strand of string theory in the eye of a b-black hole. Go b-back to the drawing board. Hopefully I can give you 'two th-thumbs up' next go round, you enthusiastic chunk of gray m-matter. End quote." He stares at me.
I should be impressed with his memory but my stomach is more upset with the fact that I wrote that article a year ago and he's still wigging out over it. But he can't be too sure that it was me. He probably doesn't even remember my penname.
I swallow. "He does sound like a hard-ass."
"M-more like a hard shell, eh NostraDonnie?"
Fudge…
Just then the lab door lifts and I swear I see a fading halo and pair of wings as Dr. Gavnikov walks in.
"Good morning! Hello Doctor!" I practically yell.
She stops and smiles. "Good morning, Donatello, Dr. Albright."
"Good m-morning." He says and walks to the back of the lab, probably to cool off.
She looks past me. "I see you've started without me. You have the lasted attempt of Protagen on screen."
We walk over to the…
"I call it the Laboratable." She says. "Just like it sounds, it is a complete laboratory in a table. It has taken five years to design and another three years to complete. This device saves billions of dollars in actual materials by having each element digitally stored. All are accurately and mathematically programmed, even to the weight so they interact with each other as they would in the natural world."
I wipe the drool from my hanging mouth. She actually giggles.
"Let me give you an example." She says. "Vixen, close Diagram 83, open new session." The Laboratable disintegrates down and then emerges into a blank, blue screen. "Give me two ounces of hydrogen atoms and one ounce of oxygen atoms, separate." Two distinct clouds of mist appear onscreen, one with a tab marked with an 'O', the other with an 'H'. She whispers to me. "You can tell Vixen to 'mix all' or you can do it yourself with your hands."
I nod. "Vixen, mix all." The two clouds join together in a silent vortex in the middle of the screen. A round orb is the result. A new tab appears. "H2O… water." I walk up to the screen and 'poke' it. It's fluid like. I take my two hands and spread them apart to zoom in as close as I can. "Oh my God… you programmed this to magnify down to the atoms!"
"Well, of course." She's not bragging, she's actually blushing. "It's just a tool. With it I am sure you will be able to find Protagen. Diagram 83 is a failure. I'm sure if you were to read through that formula, you'd cringe at the errors… Vixen, close current session without saving."
My head is spinning. I couldn't have been kidnapped by a more amazing woman. "There's only one problem I see with your machine." I say way too slyly.
"And what is that?" She responds very coyly and darkly and I think I feel like someone just teleported a rabble of butterflies into my stomach.
"Wheels." I say.
She blinks. "Wheels?"
"Yes. If you add wheels to the legs you could call it a Portable Laboratable."
"Portlaboratable for short?" She teases.
What am I doing? If I didn't know any better, I'd guess she likes this goofy flirting as much as I shouldn't be right now. She is the enemy! Don't forget it. Get back on track and stop making googly-eyes at her… geez turtle!
"Ahem, so… you showed me a drop of water. What's next?" I say as normally as possible.
"Right…" She says. "Vixen, open Diagram 10… Donatello, this is an atomic portion of a brain with the CJD disease. I hope you can use this and find what we need for the Protagen vaccine. The…Laboratable… has three different views, formulative, illustrative, and atomic. Work in any one of the three views and it will be recorded respectively in the other two. Once you have a formula you can test it on the digital model of the affected brain tissue to see if it works. Once you have one that does we can make physical doses."
"You make it sound so easy." I say. "What if I can't do what you think I can?"
"Finding you was the hardest part of my endeavor. I believe in my father and he believed in you. Now that you're here, I know you can find Protagen in no time."
"Speaking of time, how long do I have to be here?"
"How ever long it takes you to make Protagen. I'm sure it is not as long as you think it."
"How long do you think it should take someone to find a cure for a terminal disease?" I say solemnly.
"But you are not just 'someone'. Let us revisit the timeline if we are not ready for testing in a month."
"A month? Are we both from the same planet?" I yell and the doctor looks a bit hurt. Troy comes from the other end of the lab at her side. "You do realize, doctors, that humans have been trying to cure less aggressive things, like cancer, for generations. I am a mutant turtle; I have a regular turtle's mind that was mutated. I'm not some 'savant savior'."
"L-like it or not, Donnie, you are the c-closest thing w-we have." Troy says bluntly.
"I don't like it and I am angry! I'm a prisoner here, but I'm starting to be a little relieved, and ashamed, that I might have been captured by a bunch of irrational rainbow chasers. What happens after a month, can I go home? What about six months? A year? How long will you keep me here until I prove your benevolence of me wrong?"
Carder must have heard me yelling. He walks in while I'm spitting my distress. I calm a bit after a few seconds of no one saying anything. They all look grim, Carder even more so. What is going on? I know I'm not the one in the wrong. Troy places a hand on Dr. Gavnikov's shoulder. She looks at him and then steps toward me. It looks like she tries to smile but can't. "Donnie. I like that. Can I call you Donnie?"
"Sure." I say, completely confused.
"I'm sorry again about your brother."
I gasp and step back, stumbling into the Laboratable. Half of my head is phasing through the floating screen. How could she assume my wanting to go home so much is because of my brother; not because they don't know where I am, but because they don't yet know what has happened to him? She is right, however.
She comes close to me again and places a hand on my forearm. She rubs it slightly and rests her cool palm on my wrist. "I won't keep you here that long, Donnie. Give me three months of your time. Get as much done as you can. After that, I release you of your untimely imprisonment. You can contact your family. You can go home if you want to."
Why wouldn't I wan to?
I nod and stand up straight. "Three months." I say.
"Ninety days, starting today." She says.
"I help you for ninety days, and then I can go home and you promise not to 'cure' me and my family."
"I promise. Neither I nor any of my comrades will use Antigen or take any adverse actions against you or your family. Ever."
I look to Troy and Carder. They both nod, Troy looking more earnest than Carder. "Even if I don't find the cure?"
She licks her lips and looks down at where her hand rests on me. "Even if you choose to leave without finding the cure."
"You don't think I will." I say.
She her lips curl into that knowing grin again. "No. I think you will stick with me until you do."
Stick with you?
"To be truthful, doctor, with all of these new toys you keep throwing at me, I'm definitely going to give it my best try."
"Very good. Let's get started."
And we get right into it. For the next three hours Gavnikov gives me a quick tutorial as to how her machines work, how they are all connected. Everything is recorded during lab time so we can refer back to all the steps taken. This saves time and energy. The doctor maybe shooting high but at least she's efficient.
Troy explains the specifics of CJD and what anomalies to look for. Although the disease may cause discomfort in other areas of the body, the primary destruction happens in the frontal lobe, causing laps in memory and hallucinations. Once CJD is active it can take as little as a month before its victims surrender. Troy also says he will be taking the notes and put into order each day's progress and combine them. He will also assist me wherever needed. He tells me that he will be the one writing the book of our findings. I am confident in his ability to write. His horrible book was written very well.
Dr. Gavnikov's role will just be an observer. She promises to stay out of the way as she is eager to see a breakthrough as soon as possible.
In the back of my mind I hear a small angry voice yelling at me. It's tell me that no matter how long you try to delay, eventually you will have to go home and tell your family what happened to Leonardo. I ignore the pang of dread the thought does to my stomach and continue my tutorials.
"It's eleven, gentlemen. Let's meet back here at one after lunch." Dr. G. says. She rubs her eyes from underneath her glasses. "Dr. Albright, could you set the board before you go, let's make it as easy as possible for Donnie to navigate when we come back."
"Of course, Doctor. Would you like meet me for lunch?" Troy says. I look up suspiciously between the two doctors.
"Sorry, not today. Donnie, you're coming with me." She turns and the lab door opens. Carder and Gleiv are outside. Gleiv waves a 'hello' to me. Carder… has not changed.
I follow her down the corridor; her heels click along with a bit of excitement.
"Where are we off to Dr. G.? About to show me the starship you've been working on?"
She giggles. "I want you to me my daughter."
…
A/N: So, the doctor thinks it's time for her kid to meet a mutant turtle… what do you think? Any comments?