Dark Sewers Part 1

Baxter Stockman stepped up to the podium in front of the gathered media. He adjusted his white lab coat, a stark contrast from his dark skin. The gathered reporters from a myriad of tv and paper news organizations quieted down. Baxter cleared his throat, “Thank you for all attending my unveiling of what will bring about a new day in New York City. No longer will we have to worry about disease or destruction from rats and mice for I, Doctor Baxter Stockman, CEO and head developer at Stocktech Industries bring you the Mechanized autonomous underground Search and Eradicate Robot or more simply, ‘The Mouser.’”

“Seems a little forced,” muttered a reporter.

Baxter shot a glance over at his lab assistant, a red-headed NYU student by the name of April O’Neil. She removed a white cloth revealing a chicken-legged robot. It had a smooth, curved head with a serrated jaw. A single red eye sat atop its head. The whole thing was about the size of a small terrier. Slight applause came from the audience. Baxter beamed with adulation.

“I will send 100 of them into the sewers where I have released 100 rats with radio collars. Their progress will be displayed on this monitor.”

“Carlos Chang, Six to Midnight News Channel 3,” a reporter spoke up, “assuming they work, won’t this eliminate not just rodents, but thousands of pest control jobs?”

“The exterminators will thank me! They will no longer have to handle poisons and pick up corpses. This is what we call progress. The future waits for no one, and neither do I.” Baxter flipped some switches and pressed some buttons. Yellow and red lights covered the monitor. Soon the red dots began to overtake the yellow ones, then suddenly the red dots began to disappear one by one until only a few yellow dots remained and an alert “All Units Offline” appeared on the screen. The crowd began to chuckle.

“Vernon Fenwick, Channel 6 News, how much did you cost your company this time with yet another failed robotics display, and how much longer will your father and Stockgen support you and Stocktech?” a reporter in a pink shirt asked. The rest of the reporters laughed.

Baxter fumed. “April, go collect the mousers and we will see what you did wrong in programming them back at the lab.”

“Yes, sir,” she replied dishearteningly. April would have to wait on finishing the newest Chet Bossanova romance novel. She knew that the error with the mousers was nothing on her end. Dr. Stockman was too much of a narcissist to admit he could ever be at fault. She’d have quit this job long ago if it weren’t that she needed it to graduate.

Once the reporters returned to their vans and left, April donned a yellow Stocktech jumpsuit and ventured into the sewers beneath the streets of New York City. The smell was almost overwhelming. Luckily for her, she had brought along a respirator. Robot parts littered the ground. It looked like something had smashed apart the mousers with a blunt object. Their metal shells were dented and cracked open. She picked up the bodies that held the main CPU and could give data on what had happened down there. An odd sound, almost like voices caught her ear and she followed the sound down the maze of tunnels beneath the streets until she came to the edge of a door in the side of the sewers. It must have led to a basement for one of the buildings in the area.

“Look, all I wanted was for you to not smash one up so badly. Was that too much to ask?” A slightly nasally voice asked.

April crept forward and peeked around the propped open door. There stood two green humanoid figures with large shells wearing baggy pants next to a third creature of the same sort, hunched over one of Baxter’s mousers. “Are those...turtles?” She asked herself.

“Chill out, dude. We brought one back for you,” one of the standing turtles said with a mellow voice.

“Yeah, but it is all busted up, Michelangelo” the nasally voiced turtle replied.

“They didn’t give us much of a choice, Don, they were getting closer to our home,” the gruff third turtle said, “we were defending ourselves.”

“That may be true, Raphael, but I don’t get to find technology like this every day and you busted it up pretty badly.”

“Dude, there’s like a bajillion more in the tunnels. Take your pick, Donnie,” said Michelangelo.

The turtle stood up and turned to face the opening April was hiding behind. She could see two large red marks on the skin on either side of the eyes, almost like a mask or face paint.

“Alright, Michelangelo, show me.”

They began to make their way to the doorway. April picked up the bag and made a hasty retreat. She was in such a hurry that she didn’t notice that a fourth turtle had been watching her from the shadows. The bag of mouser CPUs rattled as she hustled back through the tunnels to the exit. When April returned to the Stocktech lab Baxter was at work building an upgraded, larger mouser. She set the bag of CPUs down and Baxter looked up, a manic look in his eyes.

“Finally,” he blurted, “now let’s look at what the video log reveals.”

He inserted one of the CPUs into a data retrieval unit and a monitor began to come to life. The mouser was outside of the designated sewer entrance, a dozen other mousers in view. They began to walk, the picture jerking around as they did so. The iris adjusted to the sudden drop in light as they entered the subterranean tunnels and a rat could be seen, its form highlighted in red wireframe. The mouser sped up and chomped down on the helpless rodent. A humanoid form leaped into the frame. April recognized it as one of the turtle creatures she had seen earlier in the day. It swung an ‘L’ shaped wooden club at the mouser, ripping its head from its body.

“Tortoises! Turtles?” Asked Baxter, “Humanoid terrapins? What are those things?”

April shifted uncomfortably.

“These creatures humiliated me, destroyed my masterpiece,” Baxter muttered, “they must be eliminated before we present the mouser 2.0!”

“The turtles were just protecting their home,” April stammered, “perhaps if we tried somewhere else-"

“You knew about these turtles and didn’t tell me? You are in league with these mutants, these freaks! You are trying to discredit me! Trying to take all the glory for yourself!”

“No, that’s not it.”

“You won’t get away with this deception,” he threw open a drawer and pulled out a gun. He squeezed the trigger. Bang! April instinctively closed her eyes but instead of feeling an impact, she heard a ricochet. Had he missed? No, he was too close to miss, and the ricochet was in front of her. She opened her eyes to see a shelled figure standing before her brandishing two pieces of blunt steel, roughly in the shape of swords. Baxter yelled, “proof that you and these monsters are out to get me!”

“Not quite,” the turtle said.

Baxter fired off two more rounds and the turtle deflected the bullets with his swords, they smashed into the overhead lights showering sparks down on the trio. As the lights flickered the turtle jumped from spot to spot, closing in on Baxter. With a swift kick, the turtle knocked the gun from his hands. A follow-up kick sent Baxter to the ground where he remained, out cold.

The turtle turned to face April and leveled one of his swords at her. “You are coming with me.”