Chapter 3

I found a wire stripper and ran into my room before my mom could ask me what I was planning to do with those.

I stripped an old iPhone charger and twisted the copper wires into a point. Plugging the stripped end into the phone's access point, I put the other end, which I left alone, into the computer.

I cracked my knuckles and I set to work.

###

I broke the phone's lock in a short five minutes. It was a simple binary code, and didn't take long to crack.

Feeling the slightest bit guilty, but still curious, I stared at the menu page full of apps. It resembled an iPhone layout with a few differences. I clicked on the pictures. Maybe it belonged to someone in my school. I could find them and give it back.

But this was invading their privacy. I didn't need to find out who it belonged to.

But the mysterious shape that dropped the device was taunting me, and it was driving me crazy that I didn't know what it was.

I grimaced and opened an album.

"Whoa," I breathed.

Picture after picture of giant man sized turtles taking selfies together or looking annoyed at each other scrolled past my screen.

Whoever this phone belonged to had some mad Photoshop skills. And possibly a mild obsession with turtles. At least now I understood the shell-like phone case.

I stared at a picture, very intrigued. Each turtle had a bandana around their eyes, each a different color.

One was blue, and he had what looked like swords strapped to his back. A shorter, olive green skinned turtle held a forked weapon, a sai, in the air. Another, taller than the others, sported a purple bandana with a large staff next to him smiled at the camera shyly - perhaps because he had a missing front tooth. In front, an orange clad turtle leaned in, grinning widely and waving at the camera. He was smaller than all the others and had a neon skin tone.

I stared into his light blue eyes, wondering how long it took this person to edit the picture to look like this.

"Ren!" My mom called. "Dinner! Come on!"

I unplugged the phone and stashed it in between some old comic books. I shut my computer and left the room.

^*^