Chapter Text
It's garbage noise.
Donnie looked pretty frustrated. The Communication Orb seemed to have received a message, yet everything in it sounded like radio static and other unintelligible noises like something was messing with the connection? He wasn't sure how or why, or if that was even the reason, but something was surely off with it and it's been like this ever since he woke up.
The Orb was connected to his computer through some cables and wires, showing a bunch of gibberish text like the one that shows up in a corrupted file, but it just kept going, writing more and more text by itself. It couldn't even be a code of some kind with how messy it was.
Donnie hummed to himself in frustration, resting his head in his palm as he stared at all the gibberish displaying on his computer screen.
Mikey walked in the lab, standing in front of Donnie, who was too busy to actually look at him.
"Hey, Donnie? Can you fix this?" He asked, showing his older brother the broken TV remote. Again.
"Not right now, Mikey. I'm trying to decipher this message the Orb got. Though it's probably pointless..." He sighed, mildly annoyed. Mikey looked at the Orb, which was glowing a magenta color without end, then peeked over to the computer to see all the gibberish text, as well as windows full of weird codes that he didn't understand.
"Let me try!" He chimed in enthusiastically, quickly beginning to press buttons on the keyboard or write random words with whatever he knew was used in codes, which was mostly just parentheses and out of place equals. It probably wouldn't do anything but mess with the Orb.
"Stop that!" Donnie yelled, trying to shove Mikey off before he does anything bad, but the orange-cladded turtle was not backing down despite not being sure what he was doing at all. That didn't stop him from trying.
Suddenly, the Orb emitted some loud radio static noises, then a few words at normal volume accompanied by a glitchy hologram of two faces. It sounded just slightly distorted, but it wasnt hard to understand what it was saying.
What Mikey just did... worked?
"Did you get it to work?" A robotic voice asked, and it was... a computer? with a face drawn in an art program... okay?? "Are we meant to leave a message, or...?" They asked, looking at the one next to them, which looked like a humanoid anglerfish mutant man
"I can't tell if it's recording or just turned on." Sebastian said thoughtfully, looking at it as he responded. "it might not still be connected to the other end, or ends, if there's more, considering the fact that it hasn't been used in probably years and left in ruins."
"Either way... If it is recording and connected to another end, the message will either make it to somewhere outside the Blacksite and it would be useless unless a rival company of Urbanshade hears it, or it just makes it to Urbanshade themselves and it would be... useless." He sighed as he narrowed his eyes. He said something else after that, but it was no longer intelligible and the hologram was gone.
Donnie and Mikey just looked at each other silently for a moment, then Leo and Raph rushed in due to hearing those loud noises prior to those two voices finally being audible.
"What was that?" Leo asked, looking at Donnie with a surprised gaze.
"The Orb. Mikey messed with it but somehow got whatever it's been trying to say since this morning to finally be intelligible... Sort of." Donnie explained, giving Mikey a quick glare as to tell him to stop doing that. Not like he'd listen anyway.
"And? What did it say?" Raph asked impatiently, crossing his arms over his plastron.
"Well, the hologram displayed what I assume was a mutated fish human and an old computer, a robot. We Didn't get to hear the actual message, though. They just didn't know if the Orb worked anymore and they said something about a company named Urbanshade and a place called 'Blacksite'" Donnie hummed in thought for a short moment. Urbanshade... he could swear he's heard about that.
"Mikey, what did you exactly do to make it work?" He asked expectantly, putting his hands on Mikey's shoulders to lightly shake him.
"I don't know" Mikey answered simply with a slightly zoned out face. Yeah, that made sense.
"Okay..." Leo sighed, rubbing the bridge between his eyes.
"So where did you find this orb thing?" Painter asked curiously as he watched Sebastian, who was right next to him, look for an on/off button on it.
"It was near the crystal room at the ridge, hidden under some ruins. I'm surprised it hardly has any scratches on it. All I could find about it in the documents was that it's a communication device, and that it isn't made by Urbanshade."
"You mean... we can use it to contact someone outside the Blacksite?" Painter asked curiously.
"If it works, it's possible. It might not, though..." Sebastian stated, fiddling with the orb, trying to turn it on somehow but to no avail.
"...or maybe it does." He contradicted his own statement with a shrug. "Who knows. I just have to figure it out." He stated.
"Why would they make it a plain sphere? It kinda looks like an alien device, and boring for that matter." Painter pointed out, and honestly? in Sebastian's opinion it wouldn't even be surprising if it was. They've both seen things weirder than some silly communication device in the shape of a sphere down here in this hellhole.
"I mean it's not made by Urbanshade, so it might as well be made by a bunch of aliens trying to take over the world or something like that." Sebastian spoke sarcastically, chuckling softly.
Painter laughed with him as he kept watching the other try and find a way to turn the communication device on.
Sebastian noticed a square shape on the orb, which he guessed was maybe a control panel or something like that. Either way, it had to be even the slightest important.
He gently tapped it with a finger a few times and it lit up.
"Did you get it to work?" Painter asked with hope in his voice. That was a pretty shade of magenta that the orb emitted. "Are we meant to leave a message, or...?"
"I can't tell if it's recording or just turned on." Sebastian said thoughtfully, looking at it as he responded. "it might not still be connected to the other end, or ends, if there's more, considering the fact that it hasn't been used in probably years and left in ruins." He added.
"Either way... If it is recording and connected to another end, the message will either make it to somewhere outside the Blacksite and it would be useless unless a rival company of Urbanshade hears it, or it just makes it to Urbanshade themselves and it would be... useless." He sighed as he narrowed his eyes.
Sebastian looked at the communication device with a hint of doubt, but you know what? Why not give it a shot at this point.
"...Whoever is hearing this message, and I'm hoping it's a rival of Urbanshade, we are... 'experiments' of theirs trapped in the Hadal Blacksite in the Let-Vand Zone. We could make a deal, and I could give you the data about all the illegal things Urbanshade have done that I have collected from my scavenging in exchange for your help to escape this place and bring them down. Please leave a message back if you are able to help us and if you accept my offer."
Painter had his hopes up, but Sebastian didn't want to do the same and end up disappointed. He expects nothing to happen, just like with every single one of his other attempts to contact anyone outside.
He doesn't and won't expect a response.