"Anything on your end, guys?"

"Nope." "Negatory." "Nothing in Central Park."

April's head bumped against the brick wall. This would be going so much faster if Casey could use his phone. But there was too much cell interference at the stadium, they couldn't get a single call out to him. Out of all of them, he had the best chance of finding Raph undetected. But, cast your nets wide, especially when you're looking for a ninja. If it were just in Manhattan, then Raph would have been fine. But none of them were at all familiar with the underground on the other side of the river. Raph was running blind, and had no guaranteed safe escape back to the sewers. And with a crowd of humans that big…

"Dammit." She grunted into the mouthpiece of the cell phone. "I've been listening to the police scanner all night. No mutant sightings, turtle or otherwise."

"April, this is Splinter. Have you gone to speak with the authorities?"

"Yeah, the taxi just dropped me off at the precinct. I'm going to see if I can use my student press pass to get in and follow some cops around. If I hear anything about Raphael, you'll be the first one I call, Master Splinter."

"April, this is Donnie." Her friend's voice crackled over the line. "Don't wave around your press pass unless you have to, cops don't talk to journalists. Even if they're just for the high school paper. Just stick to the missing car story. If it goes south, call us and we'll do the thing."

"Got it."

Mikey whined over the receiver. "Aww. Why do you get to be the grandma? I wanted to be the grandma this time!"

April chuckled. "It was your turn last time, Mikey. I gotta go before a cop sees me. I'll text you as soon as I turn anything up."

"Good luck, Miss O'Neil." "Ciao for now!" "Contact us as soon as anything happens."

With a click, April folded up her cell phone and slipped it back into her yellow coat's front pocket. She brushed a strand of red hair out of her eyes, and pushed her glasses up her nose. She took in a deep breath, and let it out. She put her hand on the handle of the front door of the police precinct.

"If you're trying to be sneaky, kid, you're not doing a good job of it."

A woman's voice, right behind her! April yelped, whirling around and putting up her fists in a stance that protected her face–and left her entire midriff exposed–as she tried to face her attacker for a fight. She scrunched her face up, ready for a Foot Clan attack.

"Relax kid. Unless you want to punch a detective." The woman laughs. She holds out a hand like sun-browned wheat to her, gently pushing down April's balled up and useless fists.

The detective, a woman as dark and stormy as the clouds overhead with a long and wavy mane of black hair, folded her arms over her jacket and smugly smiled down at the lanky and gangly teenage girl. She had lean legs and a set to her jaw and shoulders that made her seem much taller than she actually was. She had a magnetic feel to her, some charisma that shook the ideas of a grandma with dementia and stolen cars out of April's head and replaced them with meaningless, babbling words.

April stammered over her words. "Grandma. Car. Stolen!" She yelped out.

"Your grandma stole a car, or her car was stolen? Whichever excuse you're going to make for being on the footsteps of a police precinct at eleven o'clock at night had better be a damn good one."

"I… I'm a journalist for the school paper." She forced out. "I-I have my student press pass and everything." April held up her school ID proudly, her yearbook picture smiling above her name and her treasured role in her school. "April O'Neil, Editor in Chief at Rob Paulsen High, Class of '04."

"Cute. Detective Elisa Maza." She slaps April on the back. "Aaaand you're out after curfew."

April stiffened her lip, her voice hard. "Am I under arrest?"

"You're being gently encouraged to go inside and call your folks before you get arrested." Elisa shrugged.

"If I am not being detained, then I am free to leave."

"Oh boy." Elisa sighed, voice soaked with exhausted sarcasm. "Look here, a kid who passed her civics class. Good on you, I studied at Columbia. Great program. Now get inside the precinct and call for a ride home, or I will cuff you and then I'll be your ride home. And trust me, whoever you live with isn't going to be happy about it."

April gnawed at her lip. "Alright, fine, I'll go inside."

"Good girl."

"Don't call me that."

Inside the precinct, April kept her thumb on the dial of her scanner radio in her pocket, her bright yellow Walkman headphones jammed angrily over her thick, frizzy hair. She grumbled as she kept listening to static-choked voices repeat numbered codewords and cross-streets. More traffic stops. Expired license plate. Shooting on Canal Street, that turned out to be a car backfiring. Drunk driver. Sounded like the cops were bored tonight, which meant that April had struck out. She certainly hoped the Turtles were having better luck finding their brother than she was. For her? It seemed like tonight was a wash.

She'd called 'Grannie Donna' and explained that she knew it was eleven at night, and the Big Apple was a dangerous place for young ladies. She was safe at the 23rd Police Precinct, no she hadn't been arrested, yes she was going to take the bus home, and yes she would love some pie.

April and the Turtles had developed their own codes to use when they may be eavesdropped upon. All of them had 'grandma names', or codenames. If she said she knew what time it was, it meant that everything was alright. If she apologized for waking them up, it was an emergency. If she said she'd take a taxi, it meant to meet her there after she'd given the all-clear. Taking the bus meant she'd go to them. If she asked for a ride, it meant to come quickly and stealthily.

The bit about pie meant that she owed them a pizza for this. And that, she wasn't looking forward to forking over.

"A kid loitering around a police station at 11 at night?" Officer Morgan blew over his coffee. "Sounds like a kid in trouble, or a kid looking for trouble."

"Morgan, you know I'm no good with kids." Elisa nibbled on her donut. "I mean, hell, I barely ever was a kid, what with chasing my brother and sister around and minding them. And this one is, what, Twelve? Thirteen? How old is the graduating class of '04?"

"Fifteen to sixteen. My son's in '05."

"See? You have kids her age, you should go talk to her."

"You're also a woman, and this is a young woman. Sorry, Detective, but rules are rules. Ladies talk to ladies unless they say otherwise." Morgan chided her.

"Can I say otherwise?"

"Not on the clock."

"Damn." Elisa paused. "Wait a minute. Clocks." She looked over at the oven timer in the precinct break room. 10:58. There was something that kid had said earlier on the phone to her grandma… "Hey, Morgan, when does the M-90 stop doing its routes past the precinct?"

"About ten. Why?"

Maza set her donut on the counter. "That kid isn't taking the bus home."

April's backpack felt particularly heavy against her back as she started speedwalking away from the police precinct. She bit down every urge she had to mutter under her breath as she peered at the reflective outer edge of her glasses.

April didn't actually need glasses. She had this pair's lenses half-painted with a coat of one-way mirror polish, which she'd borrowed from her school's machine shop. She didn't need them to see ahead of her; she used them to check over her own shoulder.

She ducked into a basement entrance for some neglected office space, and quickly shrugged off her backpack. She squatted there in the dark, nose wrinkling at the vague odor of what she knew was human urine, and pulled out her phone to text her friends.

Struck out here at the precinct. Cop busted

me for curfew, I had to bail.

Yeah, we figured. We've been following

the rooftops and sewers around the Giants

Stadium. There was an upset in the crowd,

and we saw something big fly towards it. We

think it might be something to do with Raph.

The game lasted that long?

Wasn't much of a game to watch. The

other guys got 13 touchgoals in the second

inning.

lol Donnie, u kinda suck at sports.

April snorted out of her nose, a smile creasing her eyes. She'd forgive him, the clueless genius that he was. Whether Casey would forgive this shocking lack of respect for the Sacred Institution of Football would remain to be seen. Besides, she was a casual Giants fan at best. She texted him again.

Map says I'm about 20 minutes out by taxi. U

still wanna meet?

There was a long pause. Then, a reply popped up on her screen. Her phone buzzed in her fingers.

Please, April, let us leave frickin' Jersey. I

need to wash the stink of petty mediocrity out

of my socks. We'll come to you. Be back in

Manhattan in about an hour.

April burst out laughing at that. She closed her phone, and stood up, dusting herself off. She mounted the steps, and turned to keep going down the sidewalk and she nearly walked face-first into the arms of Detective Maza.

"Hi, kid. Did you miss your bus?"

April's brain didn't even process the decision between fight or flight. It picked for her, adrenaline springing into her legs and shoving her in a direction at random! Anywhere, anywhere away from here! The strap of her backpack caught on the handrail and the weight and momentum of her desperate dash caught the flimsy fabric and it ripped itself apart. The contents of April's backpack scattered across the sidewalk, right in front of the Detective's hawk-like glare. Her police codebook, her scanner radio, her rope and tool bag, all of it.

Sewer apples.