Part 8

It almost seemed right, but, "Uh...no."

"Raoul?"

"No." He poked at the frothy head of one of the plants. "What's this stuff?"

"Broccoli. Put some in the basket. Raymond?" She knocked the dirt of carrot she had just drawn from the ground.

"No. What's that?"

"A carrot. For dinner."

"You get your food out of the ground?"

"Of course."

"Radical."

"Rowan?"

"Rowan? No. Hey, is that it? I mean is that all we're having?"

"No, I thought we'd go down and collect a bunch of oysters."

"Oysters? After what you were saying before? Are you sure they're safe?"

"Oh, yeah. They'll be clean. I won't give you food poisoning."

The vegetable patch merged with a garden, a wild collection of flowers that almost seemed wrong for the city. It wove and tangled its way through a vacant lot and across the bones of a derelict building.

"Do you eat the flowers too?"

"Oh, no. That's the unicorn garden."

He couldn't help laughing. "You believe in unicorns?"

"Of course. They visit often."

"Oh sure. And you have mermaids coming up on the high tide. You're the wierdest human I ever met."

Galatea smiled and swung her basket in the air, "I think I've just been praised by faint damnation." She took his arm and they walked along the beach. "Rumplestiltskin."

Raphael stopped in his tracks. "Rumplestiltskin? Do I really look like a Rumplestiltskin to you?"

"Well, no, but it worked in the fairy tale."

"I'm a turtle, not a fairy. Look, why don't we just give this name stuff up? I mean, does it matter?"

"Of course it matters, I can't just call you hey you."

"Well, call me...Red then."

"But you're green."

"Oh, you know, the headband thing you said I was wearing. That's red."

"Ok, Red it is. But that's not really going to help you, is it? Surely you want to find out who you are and where you belong?"

"No."

"Why not?"

"I feel as if...there's something that goes with my name...with my identity...that I don't want. Maybe a responsibility I'm trying to get away from. Maybe I'm just better off being a no one."

"Believe me, Red, you're not a no one, but since you seem to need to have a break from being whoever it is you are, then you can rest here. I'll take care of you." She gave him a hug that seemed to surprise Galatea nearly as much as it surprised Raphael.

***

By the time April and Casey were brought before Shredder, Casey's hands had been bound tightly behind his back. He still managed to deliver several nasty kicks to the Foot warrior who walked beside him. The man glared at Casey and bowed deeply at Shredder. "Master, this man fought with the turtles."

Shredder stared down at Casey. "You have made trouble for me before. And now I will make trouble for you. You chose your own destinies when you joined forces with my enemies. This need not have hapened."

"Oh, right," snapped April, "you mean it's ok for you to kill us because it's all our fault anyway and you can't help yourself."

"I will not kill you. Alive you are useful to me, a bait for the freaks."

"You're the freak!" Casey bawled. In a sudden lunge he brok free of the Foot warrior holding him. Though his arms were still tied behind him, he leaped at Shredder, and tried to deliver a flying kick through the air. Unfortunately for Casey, he undeerestimated his opponent. Shredder slipped past Casye like a shadow and hit him just once. Casey's was caught in mid flight and he dropped to the floor unconscious.

April gave a single horrified yell and tried to break from her captors to go to Casey.

"Be grateful I did not kill him."

April felt sick to her stomach, but when Mr Hideo walked in with Francis Doolittle  a moment later, she felt as though the bottom had fallen out of her world. "Senator Dolittle!" The name caught in her throat. "How can you be involved with him? I thought you had some integrity!"

Dolittle stared at her without comprehension or even any sign of recognition.

Hideo poked at Casey with his foot. "These were the ones with your turtles?"

"Yes," said Shredder.

"And this one knows our politician," he said, peering at April through his milk-bottle glasses. "That is most interesting. Dolittle, what do you know of these people?"

Dolittle moved like an automaton. "April O'Neil is a reporter. She was at the construction site this morning. She was on the beach yesterday."

"So you do remember me. Why did you pretend not to?"

Dolittle ignored her, unable to respond without instruction.

"Who is the man?" Hideo asked her.

"I don't know."

"Why were you on the beach yesterday?"  Shredder demanded.

April suddenly felt the need to protect Galatea. "She was doing an interview with me."

But Dolittle had been programmed to absolute honesty. "To find the bird rescuer, Galatea Gaia."

The name provoked an unexpected reaction from Hideo. For some reason he seemed afraid. "This is not good, Oroku. We must find Gaia's woman and get rid of her."

Shredder shrugged, "simple enough. We will use the machine on her."

"No. Not the machine. It won't work on Gaia."

"Surely your new technology is foolproof, Hideo."

"Gaia is no fool, Oroku, and my machine is but a tenuous link to a source of awesome power. To let an instrument of Gaia even know that such a thing exists would be an act of," he struggled to find words that would accomodate his agitation, "...of the most biggest mistake."

"How can that be? Who is this woman and where does she live?"

"She lives poor," said Dolittle. "Down on the beach. She rescues birds. She is small and helpless and alone."

"Why should you fear someone who is small and helpless and alone? I will have her killed, and you may rest easy, Hideo."

"Having her killed will not help you. No matter how carefully you try to hide your tracks, Oroku, Gaia will find you. She will be revenged."

"If I have her killed, Gaia will be dead."

"You cannot kill Gaia. She is the spirit of the living Earth, a being of cosmic dimensions."

Shredder laughed. "And you mock me for knowing the ways of ninjutsu. You!" He pointed to one of the Foot warriors. "Where are the new labourers hired this morning."

"They are being briefed on which gangs they will be joining Master."

"Bring them in here. I want to give them their site codes personally."

The Foot left and a moment later returned with four young guys. They were strong looking labourers, who looked as if they were capable of handling themselves in any situation. They stared at Shredder in his Hallowe'en costume but said nothing. What did they care, as long as he signed the pay cheques.

Shredder bowed formally to them. "Gentlemen, on our site, we are all individuals. Unfortunately, our technology is unable to cope with that, though, and so we are all reduced to numbers. Please key in your identity codes, in order that you may familiarize yourselves with the keyboard. By doing this you will open your pay accounts."

One by one the labourers keyed in their IDs, and one by one they fell under the influence of Hideo's machine. April watched in horror, putting two and two together as she realised that the
keyboard they are using is identical to the one Dolittle used that morning, and the building site is full of them, all being used by the construction workers...

Suddenly one of the Foot warriors came dashing into the office, "Master! There is trouble on the construction site!"

"What kind of trouble?"

"Rats!"

Shredder smiled. Rats. There was an animal he could really relate to. Perhaps he would also find one particular rat. He followed the Foot warrior, leaving April and the still unconscious Casey with Hideo, Doolittle and the Foot guard. April tried to draw away from Hideo as he loomed down on her. Aside from looking as though he had been put together in the dark using broken parts, the little man smelt bad.

"My machine won't work on your friend on the beach, but it works on reporters. Yes, it works very finely on reporters. Bring her over." One of the Foot warrior began to shove April, easily overpowering her, though she fought against him.

***

The three turtles stood just inside the sewer tunnel staring at the expanse of water in front of them. Leonardo stepped into the open, peering at the sand looking for tracks.

"Well, Sherlock, any clues?" said Michelangelo.

"Look for footprints in the sand," Donatello told him.

Leonardo had spotted more than footprints. "Look for shellprints in the sand, you mean. He was
right here."

Michelangelo stared at the indentation in the sand. It had been partially washed away by the morning's rain, but the imprint that remained was unmistakable. "Yeah. I'd know that shell anywhere."

"So, which way did he go?" said Donatello.

"North!" said Leonardo.

"South!" said Michelangelo.

"North's industrial. It has more cover."

"South is downhill."

Michelangelo took disguises from a pack he was wearing; he had bulky coats and silly looking hats. Donatello pulled one of the hats down over Michelangelo's eyes. "Go north, dude," he said.

Michelangelo pulls the hat off and looked at it in disgust. "Do I have to wear this?"

"Ninjutsu is the art of staying hidden, the Ninjas were masters of disguise," said Donatello in his schoolmaster voice.

Michelangelo wasn't convinced. "But do we have to disguise ourselves as geeks?"

Donatello slapped the hat back on him. "We don't wear this stuff to be cool..."

"That's for sure!"

"We wear them to stay safe!"

"Where's the fun in safe?"

"Hey Mike," said Leonardo, "did I ever explain the difference between fun and dumb to you?"

Michelangelo had no further argument. The three turtles set off looking like a bunch of very scruffy bums.

***

The construction site had been overrun with rats. As Shredder had suspected, one large, well dressed rat had organised the diversion. While Shredder searched for the Ninja master Splinter, the elderly rat had crept into Shredder's office and found April and Casey, there alone.

Casey lay on the floor, conscious but still tied up. His head swam and he tried to sit up. April was perched on a chair, not tied and not moving. "C'mon, April, this isn't funny. Shredder's gonna be
back here in a minute, and I want to be gone."

Splinter materialised from one of the shadows. "What has happened?"

Casey squirmed on the floor. "I don't know. Somebody hit me, and when I came to, April was sitting there acting like I'd forgotten her birthday."

The old rat peered into her eyes. "April. It is Splinter." She didn't even blink. "So. April is away. There is another in control." He sat on the floor before her and immediately composed himself and began to slip into a trance.

"What are you doing?" Casey whispered very loudly. "This is no time for a nap!"

Splinter opened one eye. "Please, silence. I must search for April."

Splinter passed between the worlds as easily as stepping through a door. He followed the astral imprint of April like a tracker dog follows scent, and he found her, trapped in a cage. She wasn't aware of him, she stood uncomprehendingly clutching at the bars of the cage. Splinter touched the bars and they turned from forged metal to live bamboo. He reached for April's hand and she pushed at the bamboo bars and they bowed outwards, allowing her to pass between.

A moment later they were both back in Shredder's office. April roused herself as though she had been asleep. She stared down at Casey on the floor. "Casey! What are you doing down there? Are you OK?"

"Well thank you for asking! Yes. I'm ok."

Splinter deftly snipped the ropes from Casey's arms. "But not if we stay here for much longer. Come."
 

***

Galatea put her basked on the bench in the small house. Raphael looked in the box where the bird sat huddled, its feathers now dry. The bird glared back at him. "He looks pretty good, now," said Galatea. "You want to let him go?"

"You never keep them around in bowls or cages or stuff, do you?"

"The only animal I ever kept was Woody, and he stayed because he wanted to. Everything's got its own place."

"You know, Galatea I like being here. It's different. I mean, I don't know what it's like where I'm from, but I do know it's not like this."

"I kind of gathered that. You sure don't need to carry knives around here...unless you want to get an oyster off a rock. Or I s'pose you could convert them into garden tools."

"Knives?"

"Forks maybe?" Galatea indicated Raphael's sais, crossed above the fireplace. "The fancy garden tools."

Raphael took one down and held it. "Sais," he said. No memory of his past life came to him, but his hands remembered and he flashed through a series of moves almost faster than the eye could follow. The sai whipping through the air in complex arcs, a deadly, frightening speed. Galatea, remembering the previous night, watched with some trepidation.

"You nearly took my hand off with one of those things last night."

"I don't remember doing that. I hope I didn't hurt you."

"No. You just scared me half to death."

"I'm sorry."

"Just put the fork thingy down, will you? It makes me nervous."

He replaced the weapon with its partner. "They're called sais. They're used in...in a martial art." He frowned and rubbed his head as though the act of trying to remember gave him pain. "Injured turtle, an injured turtle," he said quietly, running the words together, because somehow they worked better that way.

"But you don't remember which one, even though you can do it in your sleep, and it would seem you've been trained in it since the day you learned to walk."

"I don't want to talk about it. Let's take the bird outside and let it go. I want to see it fly."

"I think you're used to solving a lot of your problems with fighting, Red. There are some questions that can't be answered with violence. You know, I believe there are no accidents. Things happen to us when we need them to happen. Maybe you were meant to come here, to learn a different way."

Raphael shrugged and bent to pick up the box with the bird in it. They walked down to the water's edge and he reached in to push the cover off the bird. He was so intent on what he was doing, he didn't notice the three figures coming towards him. He dropped the box  and sat down on the sand in sheer surprise when Leonardo yelled his name. The bird took to the air and Raphael stood cautiously as his brothers rushed to meet him. He felt a terrible vertigo for a moment as the other turtles crowded around him, but the lightheadedness was like suddenly being able to breathe again after being held under water for way too long. The memory of who he was reasserted itself in a single dizzying moment and he threw his arms around his brothers.

"Yeah. You look like a Raphael," said Galatea to herself.
 

"What were you doing here, dude?" said Michelangelo, hugging his brother so hard it felt like his shell would crack. "Didn't you miss us?"

"Well, actually, I had this problem. With my head."

"I knew it!" said Donatello rapping his skull. "Solid rock!"

Raphael turned and beckoned to Galatea. "Hey, there's someone I want you to meet, a friend of mine. This is Galatea. Galatea, the guys; Michelangelo, Donatello, and Leonardo, our leader."

"Your leader?"

"We're the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles," said Leonardo proudly.

"Well, forgive me for not realising. I've known literary lions, cool cats, snakes in the grass and lounge lizards, but you're my first Ninja Turtles. Does this mean the sewers of New York are swarming with adolescent reptiles versed in martial arts?"

"No, there's just us," said Leonardo.

"We're the original..." said Donatello strutting.

"...And best!" Michelangelo finished for him.

"Well, you certainly are original, anyway."

"We usually travel incognito," said Leonardo shrugging down in his overcoat.

"The hats are good," Galatea agreed, "but the masks don't hide much."

Leonardo nodded. "Let's go inside before Raphael starts attracting attention."

Galatea's little shack was somewhat crowded with four extra bodies in it. Raphael took his scarf and and fighting gear from where they had been drying by the fire and put them back on, finally tucking his sais into place. "Let's go," he said.

Leonardo frowned at him. "You wouldn't have something Raph could wear to make him a little less noticable, would you?"

Galatea rummaged through a large, broken wicker basket in one corner of the room. "I'm afraid most of my stuff is either what's been washed up or chucked out, but I think this will fit." She held up a scruffy looking old woman's coat and scarf.

"You look like a bag lady," said Donatello, once Raphael had the coat on.

Galatea agreed, and provided him with a bunch of grotty old bags, full of  aluminium cans and broken plastic bottles. "There you go. Now you really look the part. Put 'em in a bin when you get near one."

"It suits you, Raph," said Michelangelo.

Before Raphael could start a fight, Leonardo moved them along. "Come on, let's go."

"Sewer, sweet sewer," sighed Michelangelo.

"Back to Splinter," said Donatello giving Raphael an encouraging pat on the head. "He's missed you."

"Who is Splinter?" said Galatea.

"Our Sensei," Leonardo explained. "Our master."

"He's like our father," Michelanglo told her.

"He worries when we go out in the daytime," Donatello added.

"C'mon, guys let's go home," said Leonardo.

Raphael squirmed uncomfortably under his disguise. Pink just wasn't his colour.

"It's ok, man, bag ladies can be cool too," said Michelangelo. This time Raphael does thump him. They wallop each other out the door. Galatea watched them leave. She stood forlornly by the door, holding Woody. Just as she was about to close the door Raphael turned. "Uh, bye."

When the turtles got back to the sewer entrance they uncovered their stashed skateboards. "I hope it didn't get any sand in the bearings," said Donatello.

Raphael shrugged out of the battered coat. "I don't believe it. He spends all day riding his board around in the sewers, and he's worried about a little sand in the bearings."

"C'mon, bag lady," said Michelangelo happily tagging him.

They raced through the sewer back to their lair.  It was dark and silent when they returned home.

"I forgot about the lights being out," said Raphael.

"No, I fixed them," said Donatello, flicking the switch to bring the lights back on.

"But where's Splinter?" said Michelangelo. They searched for minutes, then, suddenly, Splinter was there, as though he had just materialised from thin air. "I wish I could do that," said Donatello.

"In time you will learn the master's ways. Raphael, I am glad to see you safe. I trust you were enlightened by your experience."

Raphael hugged Splinter. "Master, I have seen a very different way of life."

"I hope you will be able to apply it to the challenge ahead of us. April and Casey were made prisoner by Shredder."

"We've got to go save them," said Leonardo.

"I have rescued them from Shredder."

"Are they all right?" said Raphael.

"They are safe, but I am worried about what Shredder is doing to this city, the people here are being taken over."

"Corporate ventures?" suggested Raphael.

"A form of psychic brainwashing."

Michelangelo performed an elaborate mime of washing his own brain, shaking his head vigorously to finish. The others stared curiously at him. "Spin cycle," he explained. Donatello thumped him.

"So what are we supposed to do about all this?" asked Raphael.

"His brains still aren't working properly," said Donatello. "Hey, Raph, is there life after the Big Bang?" Rapped Raphael on the head a couple of times, "Anyone home?"

"This is Shredder we're talking about<" said Michelangelo.

It was self evident to Leonardo. "We've got to stop him."

"What can we do?"

"Fight him. That's what we're here for."

"But what if we didn't fight Shredder, if we decided not to play his game?"

"You mean reason with him?" said Leonardo sarcastically.

"Is that so strange?"

"Turtle soup," said Donatello.

"C'mon, Raph," said Michelangelo, "this guy tried to hurt April."

"It's just that we've never actually tried to talk to him."

Splinter frowned. "My son, the Ninja way is that of the assassin, we are skilled in the arts of disguise and tactics, the use of weapons, not negotiation."

"Besides," said Leonardo,  "we value our lives."

Donatello grabbed Raphael's head and gave it a bit of a shake, putting his own head up close and listening. "Yep, thought so. Something's come loose. Must have been the explosion. So where are April and Casey?"

They arrived  on cue, bearing pizzas.

"Casey was getting a little stir-crazy down here, so we decided to take a walk," April explained.

"That isn't true!" Casey argued.  "I just knew you guys were gonna roll up looking for food, so I decided to go for pizza."

Michelangelo would probably have eaten all of the pizzas himself, but Leonardo stopped him and they all shared. Except for Raphael who paced about the lair, a concerned expression replacing his usual anger. "But is what Shredder's doing so bad that we can't talk to him?"

"Have you lost your mind?" muttered Donatello between bites of pizza.

Splinter shushed him. "Raphael is taking a new path, Donatello. Insult is not the appropriate way to explore his thoughts. Raphael, the original Ninja were a clan of assassins, murderers for hire. Now they are more subtle, their master has found a new way to wield power. Raphael, Shredder is taking these people and changing them, removing from them the essence of their selves, their unique individuality."

Raphael shrugged. "I lost my personality for a while there. It wasn't such a bad thing."

"Some losses you never even notice," said Donatello.

Splinter hissed angrily at Donatello and Michelangelo boxed his ears, but Raphael ignored him.

"Did the loss of your personality feel like a bad thing, April?" Splinter asked.

"To be honest, Splinter, I don't remember much between going into Shredder's office, and waking up to find you there."

"Well I wasn't too impressed, I can tell you!" said Casey vehemently.

"And you forgot about us, bro," said Michelangelo.

"Well, yeah, I guess there was a down side. But there was no responsibility, no stress..."

"No pizza!" said Michelangelo sadly.

Leonardo finally spoke, "Let me get this straight, Raph, you're trying to compare your little vacation on the beach with miss Earth Mother and her healing potions to what Shredder did to April and those people at the construction site?"

"What's the problem?"

"Get off the grass! You wake up with your head on a feather pillow and miss good karma sitting there holding your hand and peeling grapes for you. When they wake up, it's Shredder."

"Look, maybe he's changed. Maybe he really does care about what's going on here and he genuinely wants to help. Truth can be stranger than fiction."

Leonardo wasn't sure which was making him angrier, Raphael's stupid argument, or his calm, accepting attitude. If he'd yell a little or start throwing furniture it wouldn't be so bad, but it seemed as though parts of his brother's personality were still suffering from the concussion. "Can I believe what I'm hearing? Just how bad did you get hit on the head? Raph this is Shredder. Geeks like him don't change their spots."

"It's leopards that have spots," said Michelangelo. "Geeks wear paisley."

"I just have a different perspective on things now," said Raphael. "I just think maybe it is wrong to use violence to solve our problems."

Casey looked horrified. "Raph! Where's your sense of fun gone?"

Though he had seen the evil of what Shredder had done to April, he was pleased by the change in Raphael. Too often he resorted to the apparently easy answer of violence, but the master knew that Raphael's mind was a much more potent weapon than his fists. He wanted to keep the turtle thinking. "Within each problem lies the seed of its solution, Raphael."

"Am I wrong, Master?"

"My son, within you there is a centre of wisdom..."

"Hey, do I have one, too?" said Michelangelo. Everyone ignored him.

"...it is always there," Splinter continued, "and it has always been there. When you are ready to grow, this centre will unfailingly attract the people and experiences you need into your life."

"But just tell me-am I right or wrong?"

"It is not for me to know what is right for you."

"Then I'm going back to her. I think the experience I need in my life right now is to be with Galatea.

"Galatea Gaia?" said April.

"But why?" said Michelangelo looking positively hurt.

"I like her. She's good. She's not like other humans. She has a special garden just for unicorns."

Leonardo looked exasperated. "Unicorns?"

"What a fruitcake!" groaned Casey.

Raphael took the insults far too well. "Look, we all have our little eccentricities. There's something peaceful about her, she lets wild animals bite her hands, she walks around in the rain and it doesn't bother her. She's strange and a little crazy and she's nice and I want to be with her."

"You can't do that!" Leonardo finally yelled. As if volume would force sense into him.

"Leo, I've got to do what feels right."

"But what about us?" said Donatello.

"You do what feels right for you."

"We need to be together," said Leonardo vehemently.  "The four of us. That's what feels right."

Michelangelo sat in a corner, being strangely silent. He fiddled with his nunchukas, keeping his head down, not meeting anyone in the eye.

"She needs me too," said Raphael. He moved towards the exit. "And I need her. I'm different when I'm there, I feel like...like I don't have to fight. All the anger goes out of me, and I get to feel as if maybe I wasn't meant to be a Ninja.  Maybe the reason I get so mad all the time is because inside I know I'm doing the wrong thing."

Leonardo tried to raise some sort of response to Raphael, to see if sarcasm would work. "I don't believe this! You're walking out on us to go and play happily ever afters with some bimbo that's too dumb to come in out of the rain."

Raphael only smiled as he made his way out. "It's ok, Leo."

***

Galatea Gaia almost never had visitors. Suddenly, in the space of  three days she'd had a politician, a television news crew, four Ninja Turtles, and now a much less welcome group. It was Bill, the brainwashed labourer and several other people. The men loomed over Galatea, their bulk filling her small house. It did not occur to any of them that what they were doing was uncharacteristic, the kind of behaviour that would normally have disgusted them. They didn't even know each other's names. It didn't matter. All that mattered was that they did as they had been instructed.

Bill had forced the door of Galatea's house. It was unneccessary, the door had no lock. Still, it was more of  more of a violation this way, that was why he did it. "You see," he said, "we got this little problem; you're here, and we want to be here. It's a question of simple physics; you can't have two things occupying the same place."

The other two men pushed past Galatea. They pulled at the decorations, crumbling her fragile shore "finds" to dust, tearing her books, dropping breakables, spilling packets of food. She was too afraid to speak or move against them. She was only relieved that Woody the cat had sensed the sinister intent of the men and made himself very scarce before she had even seen them arrive.

Bill pulled a large glass float from the shelf and held it casually in one hand.

Galatea steeled herself. She had to speak. "Look,  would you mind putting that down...?"

Bill ignored her. He picked up a piece of coral in his other hand and stood for a moment, looking at the float and the coral. Both were about the same size. "Like, if this rock, wants to occupy the same place as the float...we have a problem..." Bill demonstrated the problem with shattering consequences for the float.
 
Galatea stepped bock, worried that she was going to cut her feet on the shards of the float. "Mind your hand!" she said. He didn't though. The blood dripped down and he didn't even seem to notice. "You've cut yourself," she said lamely. "Look, surely there's room enough here for everyone."

"No. There isn't. I want it all."