Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Day of the Rat (A 90s Movies Story)

Chapter 5: Tunnel Vision

Back to the city... Back to work... April sighed. Back to Irma Langinstein, her new assistant. Well - time would tell...

Retrieving her gloves and holding them temporarily in her mouth, she climbed onto the bike. That had gone fairly well, was her assessment, but even so April wondered what kind of crazy adventure her strange new friends would be dragging her into this time... Funny to think that they had actually only been in her life a few weeks, more off than on, and funnier still to reflect that however much they had turned that life upside down, she really wouldn't want it any other way. Smiling wistfully, she pulled on the gloves and then donned the helmet.

The police car approached slowly from behind her, unnoticed till it was only a few yards away. Twisting round to look at it curiously, April lifted the helmet's visor, but the windows reflected the weak sunlight so that she couldn't see inside the vehicle. It slowed to a crawl as it passed, granting her a glimpse of two uniformed police officers in the front seats, and came to a halt a few meters away.

The front passenger door opened. Something didn't feel quite right here...

"Uh, hi, officers! Was I speeding back there? Sorry, new bike. I'm kinda rusty. Haven't ridden one of these since college..." April was rambling, deliberately, giving herself time to think. "I suppose you wanna see my license, huh?"

She pulled out the choke as casually as she could and then gripped the bike's handlebars tightly, leather-gloved hands squeaking against the grip - The feeling of security it gave her was as comforting as it was illusory.

The silence from the car was unnerving now. Had they seen the Turtles? How was she ever going to explain that?

Finally, the passenger got out and she recognized one of the young cops who had escorted her from the cordoned-off area the day before. The kinda cute one. Actually, they had both been... Anyway. About to make a flippant remark about jurisdictional rights, she stopped - Every instinct she had told her she was in trouble...

Releasing her grip on the handlebars for a moment, she shifted the gear to neutral.

One of the car's rear doors opened and a wiry figure dressed in black got out - April's blood chilled at the sight of a Foot ninja. He must have concealed himself lying down on the seats, she realized numbly, as her stomach experienced the arrival of a whole colony of butterflies. OK, now she really was in trouble...

"Hi...!" she gasped breezily. "I think it's my friends you want... Lemme get them for 'ya!"

The ninja approached her slowly, masked face unreadable, and April thought fast, knowing how quickly they could move. Was there any way she could start up the bike and ride away before he got to her...?

She didn't see the other ninja, the one who had moved up behind her silently, till it was too late.

***

The Manhattan Municipal building stood 580 feet tall and by anyone's standards was a magnificent architectural achievement. Anyone working there day to day might well be disposed to boast about it. Bryan Bryant worked in the basement.

Bryan was the sewer guy. As nicknames go, if he had been given a choice he would have preferred something like Skip.

New York's public infrastructure badly needed work. Bryan let that be known to whoever would listen. That's probably why his invite to the office parties above often got lost on the way down here.

Special Advisor to the Water Board. Sounded impressive, but Bryan knew it was a job with, in practice, less power than the janitor who changed his light bulb. They probably assumed he had done something terrible to end up in this job, but none of them guessed that Bryan had in fact worked hard to end up just where he was. Ever since his uncle had been badly hurt working in the sewers, and shortly afterward disappeared, Bryan had wanted to be here.