Breaking Boredom part 1

Breaking Boredom
part 1

Mikey stood in the doorway to the kitchen and watched Don walk out of his lab, cross over to the tide pool, and then kneel next to it.

Leaning against the doorframe, Mikey took a bite from his banana and observed his brother with some curiosity. Raph and Leo were out on a patrol because they had wanted to stretch their legs and Master Splinter had gone to bed.

Michelangelo was pretty bored and had just started thinking that he probably should have joined his brothers, even though his main reason for not going with them was that he didn't feel like playing referee for one of their arguments.

Don bent down and dipped something into the pool, bringing it up to the light so that he could look at it. From his position, Mikey could see that it was a glass test tube.

When his genius brother got up and headed back to the lab, Mikey tossed the banana peel into the garbage can and proceeded to follow him.

Don hadn't bothered to close the door and Mikey trailed into the lab, unbeknownst to the purple banded Turtle. Placing the test tube into a tray, Don grabbed a syringe and suctioned out a small quantity of the liquid, which he then deposited on a glass slide.

Situating the slide under a microscope, Don leaned over to examine the water. The corners of his mouth drew down and he removed the slide, replacing it with another from a labeled container.

Thoroughly interested now, Mikey moved closer and blurted out, "Is there something wrong with our pool?"

"Gahh!" Don jumped, nearly overturning the microscope. Clutching at it quickly, Don steadied the piece of equipment before turning a harsh look onto his brother.

"You know better than to sneak up on me like that," Don scolded him.

Mikey shrugged. "Is there some other way to sneak up on you?"

"How about you don't do it period," Don told him, turning back to continue his perusal of the slide.

Sidling closer, Mikey asked, "You didn't answer my question; did you find something in the water?"

Don frowned, his eyes still firmly pressed to the microscope's eyepieces. "This slide is from a water sample I took a month ago; I draw samples monthly to monitor the clarity of the water in the tide pool. The water in that pool never changes, Mikey. It doesn't matter if we've had more rain than usual, or if there's been an oil leak from a tanker, or any number of other things; the water never changes."

Mikey propped his hip against Don's desk and crossed his arms over his plastron. "'Cause of the crystals, right?" he asked.

Straightening, Don glanced at his brother and nodded. "Crystals embedded in the walls forming the containment ring for our pool keep the water clean. Up until a month ago I've never seen the slightest difference in the purity of the water."

"But a month ago you did?" Mikey prompted.

Don pointed at the container his slide had come from and said, "I've been pulling a sample each day since then. There was a very mild cloudiness to the water from this sample, so I pulled another the next day. That one was perfectly clear, and so was the sample from the day after that. But on the third day, I drew another cloudy sample and it was just a little worse than the first one. It took thirty-six hours for the crystals to clean the water.

"Two days later, the murkiness reappeared and the original clarity hasn't returned since then. Tonight's sample is the worst by far. Something is contaminating our water."

"Something like what?" Mikey wanted to know. "I bet you know what it is."

Don sighed. "If I could get my hands on more modern test equipment I could give you a more definitive answer on that. The testing I was capable of doing show me high levels of toxic chemicals and a couple of the samples test positive for radioactivity."

The last word had Mikey straightening up. "Uh, radioactivity isn't a good thing, Donny."

His brother reached into a drawer and brought out the hand held Geiger counter he'd purchased with April's assistance. Holding it near the test tube containing the sample he'd just extracted, Don watched as the digital readout displayed a number.

Frowning, he walked past Mikey and back out to the tide pool, with his younger brother on his heels. Kneeling once more, Don held the Geiger counter over the pool and an audible beep greeted both of them, along with a new set of numbers on the readout.

Standing slowly, Don gave Mikey a perplexed look. "I shouldn't have gotten a reading from that small sample I took," he said by way of explanation. "The radioactive levels haven't been all that high. For some reason tonight the levels have spiked. This is bad, bro'."

"So let's find out what's contaminating our water," Mikey said. "We know where the water flows in from, couldn't we like, backtrack it?"

Don stared at him for a moment as though debating the wisdom of such a foray. The beeping sound of his Geiger counter suddenly reminded Don that he couldn't simply study the phenomenon any longer; it had gotten to a point where an investigation needed to be made.

"Let me grab my bag," Don said, turning back towards his lab.

Mikey waited for Don at the door into the sewers. His boredom was gone, replaced by the excitement of an adventure, although he wasn't thrilled by the radioactive part of their newest mystery.

When Don joined him, the genius had his large duffel bag slung over his shoulder and the Geiger counter in his hand.

Don saw Mikey glance at it. "Don't worry, the levels are too low to do us any harm unless you decide to ingest a couple of gallons of the tainted water. I'll let you know if it gets high enough for us to get the shell away from it."

Running for a couple of miles through the tunnels, Don and Mikey reached the point where the two branches of water from the river that fed their pool intersected.

"Which one do we follow?" Mikey asked.

Don's Geiger counter was already in his hand. Choosing one of the branches, Don walked alongside it for ten feet and then checked for radioactivity. When he received no readout, he backtracked and then proceeded alongside the second stream of water until he was again at the ten foot mark.

This time the beep was loud and clear. Pointing upstream, Don answered, "This one."

He was moving as he spoke and Mikey had to jump to catch up to him.

They had run for nearly two miles and were approaching the inlet pipe that brought river water into the city's water treatment plant and by Y'Lyntian engineering into their tide pool as well. Don's eyes were fixed on his Geiger counter, but Mikey was looking ahead of them and therefore saw the flashing lights first.

Reaching out quickly, he grabbed his brother's arm and pulled Don to a stop.

"What?" Don asked before following Mikey's pointing finger.

As soon as he saw the light bounce off the concrete containment walls of the pipe, he dropped into a crouch, turning the Geiger counter off so the beep wouldn't give them away. Mikey was down as well and after a quick glance at Don, he began to inch forward slowly.

When they were nearly at the opening, they both began to hear the low rumble of voices; intermittent speech that told of terse instruction rather than conversation. Don hugged the concrete wall on one side of the pipe and Mikey the other, the stream of water flowing between them.

Peering out, the first thing they saw were men wearing full body hazardous material suits, their faces hidden by breathing masks. Some stood and held high powered flashlights to illuminate the river's edge, while others rolled fat metal barrels down the embankment.

As each barrel came to a stop, it was lifted on its end so that the seal could be removed and the top pulled off. Once completely open, the barrel was tipped over into the water and the contents seeped out; a dark viscous liquid that took several long minutes to drain.

The emptied barrels were recapped and taken back up the embankment to a pair of waiting trucks. The men moved with quick efficiency, obviously aware that time was pressing and their task was imminently dangerous and extremely illegal.

"They're dumping toxic chemicals into the river," Don whispered in a tone that indicated his amazement.

Mikey glanced at him and almost laughed. His brother was a genius, but sometimes he could be a little naïve. It was an endearing quality of Don's that he preferred to see the good in humanity rather than the evil, but it was also the reason that they sometimes had to give Don a jump start to get him fighting.

"Yeah, Donny, toxic radioactive chemicals," Mikey reminded him.

"We have to stop them," Don said, his voice indicating his determination.

Mikey grinned. One thing about Don, when he finally did decide that something had to be done he was like a heavy boulder rolling downhill. There was no stopping him.

"I would have suggested we go out there and knock 'em out then call the police," Mikey said, "but they're packing up to leave."

The last of the barrels was being placed into a truck and the men had all walked up the embankment to climb in with them. The engine on the first truck started and it pulled away, headlights off.

One last man stood next to the second truck and played his light over the ground near the water, no doubt checking that they'd left nothing behind that would give them away. Apparently satisfied, he snapped off his flashlight and turned to open the driver's side door.

Before he got in he began to remove his hazmat suit and that's when Donatello shot out of the pipe, running silently for the back of the truck. The hiss he had given Mikey was his younger brother's only warning that Don had a plan and Mike had no choice but to dart after him.

Just as the truck started, Don leaped onto the back bumper followed a second later by Mikey.

"What are we doing, Don?" Mikey asked, a little surprised by his brother's action.

"We're going straight to the source," Don said grimly. "Those barrels have river mud on them and that's proof enough that they dumped the contents into the water. We aren't going to let them clean up the evidence and we're going to shut down their operations."

"I really, really like that idea," Mikey said conversationally, "but are we gonna do it alone? 'Cause this might turn out to be a team sized chore and you know how cranky Raph and Leo get when we leave them out of the fun."

Don smiled. "Let's get up top first so we aren't so conspicuous, then you can give them a call."

Grabbing the top edge of the truck, the brothers easily pulled themselves onto the roof of the moving vehicle. Lying flat, they held on as the truck turned off the bumpy gravel road and onto a paved access street, heading towards the highway.

Mikey dug out his shell cell, but when he opened it loud static bounced back at him.

"What the shell?" he grumbled, pressing several buttons before looking over at Don in puzzlement.

"Hang on," Don grabbed his cell phone and tried to place a call, but was met by the same loud static.

"Why do I get the feeling you're gonna tell me 'Mikey, we're on our own'?" Mikey asked.

"It must be the residual radioactivity that's scrambling our signals," Don said.

"I like the sound of that even less," Mikey told him.

Don got the Geiger counter out and checked the display. "We're all right; the readings are still within an acceptable range."

"Acceptable to who?" Mikey asked. "I don't wanna end up as a glowing mutant ninja turtle, Donny. That kinda thing sorta screws up your ability to follow the way of invisibility."

"Don't worry, I'll let you know when it gets to the point where you're about to turn into a glow stick," Don said with a laugh.

"In the meantime we're headed to parts unknown with no way to tell our bro's where we've gone," Mikey said.

"Once we move away from these trucks we should be able to phone them," Don said. "Until then, we should pay attention to where we're going."

Mikey looked up at the street signs flashing by and said, "With our luck, we're gonna end up in Jersey."

"You're the one who's always fussing that we never go anywhere," Don said.

"Jersey doesn't count," Mikey retorted.

"Don't be such a pessimist," Don told him.

"Oh, okay Donatello. It's not like we just jumped on top of a truck full of radioactive goop and very unfriendly people," Mikey said sarcastically.

"Just exactly who was it that said 'let's find out what's contaminating our water'?" Don asked.

"That was boredom talking," Mikey said darkly.

"Well for once your boredom was right," Don said. "We had to investigate and now we have to stop the contamination, not just for our safety but for a whole lot of other people as well."

Mikey perked up. "Hero time? Aw man, I left my Turtle Titan uniform at the lair."

"Thank goodness for small favors," Don muttered. "I think this is a job for something a little more low key, Mikey."

"Cool. I'm gonna go ninja on them," Mikey said, his eyes half shut as he daydreamed.

"I can hardly wait," Don said dryly.

"It's okay Donny, I'll leave some for you," Mikey told him magnanimously.

"You're a real sport bro'." Don was grinning. "You don't mind if I still go ahead and call for backup?"

"Whatever flips your switch," Mikey said.

Don shook his head and then made a note of the highway they were on. Despite Mikey's new optimism, Don had a feeling that they had just walked into a very bad situation.

Amend that; they were riding into a very bad situation and they were doing it alone and far from home.

Jumping on the back of this truck was beginning to look like a fairly rash decision and Don made a mental note to start leaving that kind of thing to Raph. It was more his cup of tea.

TBC……….