U N O F F I C I A L
H O M E P A G E
Disclaimer
I do not own the Quest Team, nor am I making any money off of
this
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Jonny Quest: The Real Adventures
Phoenix
by
Rochelle Daniels
Agent X slammed his black-gloved fist into the table. His
one dark eye gleamed with satisfaction. He was a threatening
figure, a six-foot-tall man with muscles big enough to squash a
stove. *Death Incarnate*, people called him. And they weren't
exaggerating in the least.
Whoever was on the receiving end of this man's wrath had only one
hope:
divine intervention.
"It has been a long time, Bannon," he said aloud to himself.
His voice was raspy, like dry twigs brushing against the side of
a house. The warehouse fire had burned his vocal chords beyond
healing long ago. "A very long time."
* * * *
Jonny Quest scribbled down the last few answers to his
history test.
The Revolutionary War in America was a cinch for him. Yes, he
thought, the Revolutionaries lost the Battles of Lexington and
Concord, and Washington's first victory was the Battle of
Trenton. He finished the word "Trenton" and dropped his test
sheet in the receptacle on Mr. Baxter's desk when the
end-of-the-day bell rang. He grinned as he saw his other
classmates rushing to finish, wondering why most of them were
even in American History Honors, especially Baxter's class.
Jonny was a self-admitted history buff, and it was the only class
that he wasn't struggling to maintain an "A" average in. Not to
say that his other grades were horrible. Jonny Quest managed to
stick to a solid 3.45 GPA. Chuckling quietly, he slung his
backpack over his shoulder and started out the door and down the
stairs.
Jessie Bannon was waiting for him. Her pale arms were loaded
with the textbooks her denim backpack couldn't handle. A thick
section of her fiery hair lay on her shoulder, while the rest of
it tumbled down her back in a bloodred river. Her green blouse
and black cotton skirt showed off her flawless figure. Jonny's
heart skipped its usual two beats.
"You want some help with your books?" he asked, offering to
carry a few. He tried not to sound nervous, and prayed he was
doing a good job. Jessie handed him the two at the top of the
pile she held.
"How'd the history test go?" she asked. Jonny flashed his
signature
lopsided grin.
"Piece o' cake, as usual," he replied, looking around as if
something were missing. "Where's Hadji?"
"He said he had to help Mrs. Alma with something. He'll be
home late," Jessie answered.
They made their way across Rockport High's huge football
field to the front gate. Both of them had a passion for sports.
He lost count of the times she had made touchdowns literally
under his nose, of the times he would send a fastball straight
past her ear, and the look on her face when she struck out, but
also the look on his face when she would send a sure strikeout
into the outfield and dash through all three bases before he
could say "shortstop". Wiping the sweat from his eyes, he turned
left down their usual street, but Jessie made a right, going away
from him.
"Hey Jess, you find a shortcut or something?" he asked,
curious. Jessie stopped and looked at him. Her crystal green
eyes were downcast.
"I just need some time alone," she replied. "I'll meet you
at home." Jonny knew better than to pester Jessie about personal
things. He certainly wouldn't want her prodding him if he'd been
having a bad day.
"Sure," he said, not bothering to hide the uneasiness in his
voice.
* * * *
Race Bannon and James Munroh drew their pistols as they
entered the
silent warehouse. The concrete walls were lined with foam
rubber, as was the ceiling. The sheets of material were piled
everywhere, creating a crude maze. Race went ahead as a strange
smell pushed into his
nostrils. It was bitter, sickening. Whatever was causing it was
definitely on the floor, and Race's boots, along with James',
made wet sticking sounds as they stepped in it.
"You smell that?" he asked his partner. James nodded.
"Smells like kerosene to me." Race followed his friend into
the rank, shadowy depths of the main storage area. Dust covered
the floor along with the kerosene, and the stench of mildew
combined with the fuel made his head swim. An hour's worth of
searching brought them nothing,
and they were about to call the whole thing off when a scream
sounded from the back of the warehouse. James broke into a run,
heading through the dark storage area and into a narrow corridor,
splashing kerosene on his black boots and the hem of his jumpsuit
legs. Race screamed at him to wait, but James seemed not to
hear. Race suddenly sprinted after him, following him down the
corridor, spying a room with the door open at the other end of
the storage area. Five TNT barrels were stacked against the far
wall of the room. Race didn't think much of it at first,
skidding to a halt behind James at the large door at the end of
the hallway from which the screaming emanated. As James yanked
open the heavy wooden door and pointed his pistol into the room,
and the two agents stepped in cautiously, it hit him. He
knew they had walked into a trap. The kerosene. The TNT. It
all made sense.
When they found no one in the room.
A tape recorder sat on the floor, playing a soundtrack of
screams.
James turned to run out the door again, but the wooden thing
slammed in his face and locked,
and no sooner had it done so then it erupted into glowing orange
flames, which spread quickly
over the kerosene-soaked floor. Race clambered up onto the desk
against the far wall, a eight-
foot tall steel menace that the fire wouldn't touch. He pulled a
coughing James up with him, then
leaned on the wall to reach the small window above the desk. He
threw a hard punch at it, and
cringed at the sound of shattering glass. His fist was bleeding
heavily as he swung his legs out
the window and grabbed the branches of a nearby tree with his
feet. James reached up to take
Race's hands when a mind-blowing explosion sounded from the other
side of the warehouse.
The TNT!, Race screamed silently at himself.
James, startled, let go of Race and toppled backward off the
desk and into the inferno. Race
let out a yell as his feet slipped from the branch. He landed
with a sickening crunch of breaking
bones. Gasping for air and shivering from the rivulets of sweat
that ran down his body, he
looked up in time to see the warehouse collapse from the
explosion, and James Munroh
cremated beneath the night sky.......
Race bolted upright on the library couch. He had dreamed
about that night before, and each
time, it became more frightening, though a man like Race Bannon
would never admit he was
scared. First, Jonny would never let him live it down, and
second, how was he supposed to be a
bodyguard if he was afraid of his own nightmares? He looked at
the book he'd been trying to
read before he had dozed off in the boiling May heat, slightly
amused: *Dante's Inferno*. He
wondered if Dante had him in mind when he wrote that story.
Slipping off the couch as the
afternoon sun streamed through the window, Race asked himself the
same question he had for
twelve years: had Munrho actually died? He had the feeling he
didn't want to know.
* * * *
Jessie Bannon decided to take the long way home. She needed
time to continue the mental
debate that had been raging in her tortured brain like a fever
since school began that morning.
She didn't need Hadji to tell her that Jonny had a crush on her.
He'd been dropping subtle hints--
---and not-so-subtle hints-----about it himself. The
million-dollar question was what should she do
about it? It wasn't like she could ask herself this and come up
with a suitable answer while Jonny
was around, which is why she had taken a different route home.
But now that she was alone,
she still felt as if Jonny read her thoughts. It was hardly the
best sensation in the world.
"You know, Jessie," she said aloud to herself in a
professional-sounding tone. "You are really
in over your head with this one. Jonny's crazy about you, plain
and simple. What in the world
did you do to make yourself so crushworthy? Whatever it is,
you'd better stop it before you start
dating him.
"On the other hand," she continued in her own voice. "He's
smart, good-looking, and can be
really sweet when he wants to, which is a considerable part of
the time. And my dad would have
no problem with him at all. Certainly seems like boyfriend
criteria to me. I don't see where the
objection is coming from.
"Whoa, wait a sec," she responded in the professional tone.
"You're not starting to like him, are you? I mean, this is just
your best guy bud who's saved your tail a few times. That
doesn't mean he's got to be your boyfriend, for goodnessakes!
This is the practical side of your brain speaking.
"Take it how you want to, *Dear Abby*," she concluded, using
her own voice. "As usual, I
don't listen to my practical side." She suddenly shouted at the
sky, "Am I completely *nuts*?"
Her answer was a rough rustling in the bushes behind her.
She stopped on a pinhead. Frozen. Listening.
Another rustle. She pretended to drop her books, and then
bent down to
pick them up, going for the heaviest one. The moment arrived.
She heard footfall on the
asphalt sidewalk behind her, and the unmistakeable sound of a
rifle being cocked. Taking the
four-inch-thick book in both hands, she sprang to her feet and
lashed out with her makeshift cudgel.
She caught the barrel of her black-clad attacker's weapon,
dashing it against the side of his
face with a crunch of shattered bone, knocking off his dark
glasses. He lost his grip on the
Winchester as he reeled backward with a yowl of pain and
surprise. The rifle smacked hard on
the roots of the bushes lining the street at the wrong angle, and
a loud explosion erupted from
the smooth black barrel as the weapon fired off into the
distance. Another explosion sounded as
the ammunition hit a solitary tree ten feet away, splintering a
small portion of the trunk.
Jessie ignored the sound and swung her backpack, knocking her
assailant to the ground where
she bludgeoned his body repeatedly with the textbook, feeling the
adrenaline pump through her
like a burst of pure lightning. Yet, for all of her
blackjacking, she yelped in surprise as a pair of
heavily muscled arms closed tightly around her from behind, and a
meaty hand slapped a cloth
over her nose and mouth. The chloroform took effect immediately,
and the darkness swallowed
her.
* * * *
"Where could she be?" Race asked. "Something must've
happened. This isn't like her." The
clock told him it was 6:30 p.m., and Jessie was supposed to be
home three hours ago.
"She said she needed some time alone. I should've gone with
her," Jonny said nervously from
his place at the window. He had been standing there since four
o'clock, watching for any sign of
her. He and Race had missed dinner entirely, and hadn't even
noticed, being too nervous to eat.
There was a stillness in the air, a coiled spring of tension
buzzing with an electric charge of fear.
If something *had* happened to Jessie.........
Jonny knew he would never forgive himself.
"It's not your fault," Race replied. "I'm going to look for
her."
Jonny whipped his head from the window so fast he could have
snapped a few vertebrae. "I'm
going with you."
"Jonny, I said this isn't your fault. You don't have to
come," Race said. "But if it'll ease your
conscience, maybe you should. Besides, you know better than I do
which way she went." Jonny
wondered why that made him all the more nervous.
* * * *
Race drove slowly away from Rockport High, taking the street
Jessie had turned onto according to Jonny's memory. It was one
of those roads where there were no houses. Just
empty lots waiting to be built on. And it was completely
deserted. Race's
mind whirled with all the horrid things that could've happened to
his daughter in a place like
this, and his hands went rigid on the steering wheel.
"This is a perfect spot for a struggle," he said, more to
himself than to Jonny, who was
strapped beside him in the front captain's chair of Race's Nissan
Quest (Author's Note: Pun
intended here). "The only thing that can hear you scream for
seven miles is the pavement. I'd
hate to think......." His voice trailed off. He suddenly hit
the brakes, jolting Jonny forward, and
slammed the gearshift into park.
"What did you stop for?" Jonny asked as he undid his
seatbelt. He clambered awkwardly out
of the van, following Race.
"I want to know what a book is doing in the middle of the
road," Race replied, bending down to
pick up a four-inch-thick hardbound monster. The book was
covered in brown paper, with
"Physics" printed across the front, and under that a teacher's
name and room number. Jonny's
expression turned to one of poorly-hidden suspicion.
"It's just a Physics textbook. Anyone could've dropped it,"
he said, without any conviction.
Race flipped it open, and his eyes widened at the name of the
current owner scrawled on the
inside cover.
Jessie Bannon.
"Anyone didn't," he said.
* * * *
"We've found something, that's for sure," Race said, holding
out the book. "Jessie was
definitely on 35th Avenue at some point. We found her Physics
book in the middle of the road.
But that's not what worries me."
Jonny took his cue, holding out a black Winchester.
"We decided to look around for more clues where we found the
book, and I practically tripped
over this thing in the bushes. There's a cartridge missing from
the magazine," Jonny said, and
Benton Quest knew from the expression on his face exactly what
his son was thinking.
He replied after a long, agonizing pause. "35th Avenue is a
deserted street. Something could
have easily happened to her, and no one would hear her cries for
help."
"I thought of that already, Benton. 35th is the only
plausible lead we've got so far," Race
groaned, the energy draining visibly from his body as he sank
into the living room sofa. "I just
want my daughter back!"
"We'll find her, Race, we'll find her," Benton said, trying
to sound reassuring. Jonny leaned
against the wall, too nervous to sit down. He stared at the
photograph of Jessie in its white
picture frame on the coffeetable. He couldn't stop imagining a
gunshot in her chest and a huge
bloodstain on her white shirt. He had actually felt sick when he
had found the rifle, but managed
to keep his stomach under control by pure iron will. The
thoughts whirling through his head now
brought a cold knot of dread to his gut. Jessie was missing.
The only sign of her was her
textbook, the Winchester barely concealed in the bushes. A shot
had definitely been fired from
that horrid thing..........
He couldn't let himself think about what had been done to
her. The guilt of not being there for
her weighed heavily on him like a black shadow that even the
sun's pure light was afraid to wash
away.
A hand on his shoulder snapped him out of his thoughts. He
turned to see Race with a tired
look in his eye. Suddenly, the man seemed much older to him, as
if time and trial had aged him
unfairly.
"You alright, Jonny?" he asked, already knowing the answer.
"Yeah. Fine," Jonny lied. Race picked it up instantly.
"I don't want you to feel guilty over this. There was
nothing you could've done. You didn't
know something like this was going to happen. None of us
suspected it. The best thing you can
do now is hope," he said.
Both of them jumped four feet when the phone rang.
The sound was a cold dagger in Race's mind, and he debated
whether he should answer it. If
the call was about Jessie, he had to know, even if it was news he
did not want to hear. He
realized he was shaking. Violent tremors racked his body as he
took a deep breath and picked
up the phone.
"Hello?" he said uncertainly, trying to keep his voice and
his hand from quivering. There was
a long pause where suspense and dread wove around each other in a
horrifying tapestry.
A strange but familiar voice broke into raspy, derisive
laughter on the other end. The tone
sent icicles through Race's spine and beads of cold sweat broke
out on his forehead and the
nape of his neck. That voice. There was something under the
cold, raspy quality that he *did*
recognize, but vaguely, like a fuzzy photograph from his high
school yearbook.
"Hello Race," it hissed. *Missing* something?"
Race listened nervously as the voice on the other end broke into
more raspy, mirthless
laughter. A sudden anger stabbed into his heart as a flash of
recoginition brought the speaker's
name before his eyes.
Race hissed through clenched teeth. "You slime-covered,
filth-spewing snake in the grass!"
More laughter.
"Now, that's no way to treat an old friend, is it?" the voice
continued. Race could picture that
cruel grin on the other end of the line. "You haven't changed
much, Race. But I have. Yes,
Agent X is all that remains now."
"Where's Jessie?" Race replied. There was a sound somewhere
between a snort and a cough
on the other end.
"Don't worry about her. She's with me, and perfectly
safe......for now," the voice said
cryptically.
"She'd better be, or you're a dead man. For good this time,"
Race growled. Another spray of
chuckling. Race was starting to get sick of that laugh.
"Oh, I don't think so, Race," the voice replied. "Happy
hunting." Click. Dialtone. Race
slammed the phone back onto the hook with a yell of frustration.
He couldn't believe it. After all
these years......
"What is it, Race?" Benton asked. "Or more appropriately,
who?" Race grimaced.
"Munrho. James Munrho. He's calling himself Agent X now."
"But I thought he was dead," Benton said, confused.
"So did I," Race growled. "Happy hunting's right! I'll
never know where the scumbag's
keeping her!" Jonny's face broke into a wide smile as he
continued tapping the keyboard of the
laptop in front of him.
"Oh yes you will. At least you'll know where he's calling
from. I traced it," he said. Race
suddenly brightened.
"Man after my own heart. Where's he at?" he said, flashing a
lopsided grin. Jonny scrolled
down the blue screen of information, looking for a specific line.
"Looks like InPro. It's a chemical processing plant about
three hours from here." he replied.
Race nodded, his grin widening.
"We'll get there in two hours." Benton shook his head.
"We can't take the helicopter," he said.
"If we want to surprise this guy, it's best not to make a
grand entrance," Hadji voiced his
agreement. Race flashed one of his
Don't-Worry-I've-Got-a-Foolproof-Plan grins.
"I was talking about the cars."
* * * *
The first thing Jessie felt as she recovered slowly from the
chloroform was the frozen metal
floor on which she lay.. She cautiously opened one eye, but it
was just as dark. She heard the
echo of a door clanking into place and locking, and as she came
fully awake, she felt the cold,
dry air against her. She realized with a horrible shock that she
was trapped in a walk-in freezer.
With a shriek she sprang to her feet and slid to where she
thought the door was and began to
pound on the solid steel barrier, screaming for someone to help.
She guessed the temperature
must be something like five below zero, and she was wearing a
skirt with black thigh socks and a
thin, long-sleeved blouse. She figured she could survive for
maybe three hours at the most. At
least they hadn't tied her up. She still didn't know why she had
chosen to wear long sleeves in a
May heat wave, and she didn't care. She shivered violently, her
teeth threatening to shatter, as
she continued to scream and pound, hoping someone out there would
hear. She doubted it.
The steel door was almost two feet thick.
Quickly she began prodding around the door for a lock that
she could possibly pick. Her
fingertips brushed the seam where the door met the wall. She
shivered with cold and tension as
she felt nothing but the smooth metal. Frantic, she searched the
center of the door, reaching as
far upward as her height would allow. The situation finally hit
her.
There was no lock.
The door was computer controlled, and the panel was on the
outside.
* * * *
Race floored the gas pedal, trying to get as much speed out
of the Nissan Quest as he
possibly could. He risked a look in the rearview mirror,
relieved to see that Hadji and Jonny were
keeping up in the Saturn SL2. They had left the highway where
they had spent the last hour and
ten minutes abiding by the speed limit a half hour ago and were
now heading east through a
wide, grassy field. Hadji's voice sounded over the CB radio
speakers Race had personally
installed.
"How much longer? I can only do a hundred and twenty miles
per hour on this thing without
burning the engine." Race smiled as he heard Bandit's yapping in
the background. He picked up
his transmitter.
"I'd say about another hour. Your speed's fine, Hadji. Keep
it up."
"InPro seems somewhat abandoned. It was specifically an acid
processing plant that was later
found to be a drug trafficking checkpoint. The only thing of
interest is the old warehouse. Why
would Munrho be keeping a base there?" Benton asked from the back
of the van where he was
fiddling with some sort of gadgetry.
"Because it's the perfect place," Race replied pushing his
black boot harder against the
accelerator. "He's got a warehouse full of Heaven-knows-what and
the processing equipment at
his disposal, not to mention the old dealers who have probably
turned into mercenaries. Since
the place was shut down, no one would think to look for him
there. He's got camouflage and
weapons. What more could a psychopath want?
"Trying to understand Munrho is like trying to nail shaving
cream to a sandy beach. He's not
your run-of-the-mill ex-CIA agent. He's a violent megalomaniac
who's got nothing on his mind
but getting revenge on me for the warehouse accident."
Race glanced at the road map taped to the sun visor. Another
forty miles, and they should
make it. He only hoped there would be enough gasoline to get
them to a hospital should the
need arise.
* * * *
Twenty minutes later found them outside the skyscraper of
InPro, dressed in black jumpsuits,
boots, and skintight black gloves to hide their images against
the night sky. Most of the plant
was taken up by the huge warehouse, with smaller buildings that
housed the processing labs
clustered around its base. Race distributed the earbud CB radio
units and handed Jonny and
Hadji two coils of heavy rope. Benton spoke quickly to the two
boys.
"You guys'll keep radio transmissions coming every ten
minutes. You're in charge of finding
Jessie. Race and I are going after Munrho."
"But isn't this whole thing about getting Jessie out of
there? Why are you going after that
guy?," Jonny asked, bending down to scoop Bandit into his arms.
"Because," Race replied. "If we don't take care of him this
time, he'll come after us again.
He's like a leech. You've got to pick him off your leg and
squash him flat, or he'll suck you dry."
He noted the expression on Jonny's face. "I'm not having you two
put in that situation. You
have no idea how dangerous he is. Just rescue Jessie, wherever
she is, and get yourselves out
of there. You hear?" Jonny nodded solemnly.
All four of them shook hands, and scampered quickly to
opposing sides of the building.
Jonny looped the end of the rope, then brought the longer side
through the loop's center and
tugged, making a simple lasso. Hadji took it from him, swished
it three times, then flung it into
the air, where it caught the end of a jutting beam and tightened,
creating a lifeline. Hadji tugged
on it to make sure the hold was secure, then began to climb.
They reached the beam, Jonny
carrying Bandit in the crook of his arm as he shimmied up the
rope, and he was surprised they
hadn't become street pizzas twenty feet ago. Their anchor was a
rotting wooden thing that
looked as if it might fall apart should they look at it the wrong
way. Jonny held his breath like
Hadji taught him, moving carefully on the weak wood to bring up
the rope. He froze behind his
friend at every little creak, though Hadji seemed unheeding, and
Bandit didn't make so much as
a yip. Jonny looked on in wonder as his friend moved fluidly
through the moonlight shining on
them. He began to copy Hadji's movements, and found it easier
than he expected. Within
another few minutes they had reached the end of the beam, and
Hadji caught another hold with
the lasso.
At the top, Jonny undid the latch of the small window and
vaulted in, legs first, landing on the
crates stacked against the wall. Hadji lowered himself in beside
Jonny, trembling with
excitement, and Bandit scuttled in and cowered at Jonny's heels.
"Barbecue," Jonny whispered, pressing the earbud unit. "Come
in."
"I read you, Jinx," Benton's voice crackled into his ear.
"Team Beta has entered the fortress," Jonny replied. "We're
ready."
* * * *
Race made a cross-your-heart sign over his chest as he and
Benton prowled through the
corridor, looking for anything that might tell them Munrho's
whereabouts. He felt good about one
thing. Jonny and Hadji had successfully infiltrated the
warehouse, and had been keeping up with
the ten minute transmissions. About a half hour had passed since
they had split into teams, and
Race was getting a little too impatient. He rounded the corner
at a brisk pace.
And found exactly what he'd been looking for.
In the gloom, he could see a blurry outline of a human
figure, roughly his own height, maybe
an inch or two shorter, but with a stockier build and larger
hands, with his back to Race. The ex-
government agent could recognize opportunity with a battering ram
at his front door. He
signaled Benton to cover his back, then flattened himself against
the wall and slid towards the
unsuspecting guard. The man remained a statue. Race paused
about three feet away.
The he made his move.
He let go with a flying kick, catching the man at the base of
the neck. A groan escaped the
guard's lips as he turned around in time to receive the left hook
Race had waiting for him. The
guard recovered quickly, throwing Race a right, left, and another
right hook consecutively, each
blow landing somewhere on his face. Race recovered and took
another pot shot, lashing out
with his foot at the guard's midsection. The man doubled over in
pain, clutching his abdomen.
Race performed a sweep, knocking his opponent to the ground. He
seized the collar of the
guard's shirt with both hands, heaving him off the cold floor and
slamming his head against an
even colder wall.
"You tell me where Munrho is, and I just might let you walk
out of here with your brain still
inside your skull," he hissed as he held the muzzle of his gun to
the man's temple. "Most of it,
anyway." The man nodded vigorously.
"He's in his meditation room. Corridor eight, second left,
third door on the right. I'll take you
there," the guard replied. Race knew by his voice that he could
be no more than seventeen.
Child labor, he thought bitterly. Munrho had stooped to a new
low this time.
"You're not taking us there. You are going to get in the
closet that's on your right, and stay
there while I lock the door. You won't make any noise, lest I
come back here and blow your head
off. Got it? Good. Now move," Race commanded, not moving the
barrel of the gun. The guard
stepped nervously into the closet after handing his captor the
keys, obediently sitting on the floor
while Race locked the door and slammed it shut.
"I'm glad you're on our side," Benton chuckled.
* * * *
The meditation room wasn't difficult to find, nothing more
than an old storeroom. Race
hesitated at the door, wondering if confronting Munrho was the
best thing. Jonny might be right
about simply going after Jessie and leaving it at that. Race
wondered if he might be letting his
own anger get in the way of proper judgement. Sure, Munrho's
supposed death had been a long
thorn in his brain for twelve years, and he had been friends with
guy. But maybe leaving this go
and concentrating on his daughter was the wiser choice.
No, Race told himself. I'm doing this for everyone. I can't
have this psychopath as a constant
threat to me and my family. Family? Race had considered Hadji,
Jonny, and Benton his family
for what seemed like ages. He'd been hired to protect them, and
now took it as an oath. He
couldn't name a knight offhand who had broken his oath and lived
to regret it.
With a new resolve, he flung the door open.
Race wondered if the kid had been wrong.
He barely recognized the man standing against the back wall
of the cleared storage area. He
had gained a monstrous height in those twelve years, and it took
a moment for Race to realize
why. Munrho's legs were prosthetic, attached to the stumps the
fire had left behind, and they
were made too tall for him. Half of his face was human, the
other half charred like inside of a
burnt frying pan. His single dark eye gleamed in the dim light
as he brought his hands in front of
him, one human, the other a gnarled mess as black as the jumpsuit
he wore.
"I was wondering what took you so long," he said, his
cackling voice filling the room. "It's rude
to be late, you know."
"I didn't come here to talk," Race said with deadly calm.
"Of course not. You came here to finish off the job you
failed at twelve years ago," Munrho
said bitterly.
"I tried to save you, James. As usual, you twist every gift
you get," Race shot back. "I can't
believe we were ever friends."
"You were never cut out for the government business," Munrho
sighed.
"You're right. They didn't have enough disinfectant for your
kind," Race growled. Munrho
grinned wickedly, obviously pleased that Race was getting angry.
"If that's the way you treat friends, no wonder you're stuck
with him and those three brats,"
Munrho replied, obviously talking about Benton, Hadji, Jonny, and
Jess. Benton started forward,
but Race held him back.
"Attack me if you want, but leave my family out of this,"
Race hissed.
"But they're part of the plan, Race. You see, I've been
planning this ever since that night.
You know what they say. Revenge is a dish that is best eaten
cold," Munrho said, his grin
broadening.
"You're gonna choke on this one." Race spat the words at his
old partner, drawing the Colt .45
from his belt and leveling the barrel at Munrho's chest. Munrho
removed a black .44 Magnum
revolver from its holster at his side, holding the muzzle even
with Race's forehead.
"I don't think so, Race. I really don't think so," he said.
Race tackled Benton to the ground,
losing his grip on the pistol, as Munrho fired, the air from the
flying bullet singing above their
heads. Race slid across the room toward Munrho's heels,
performing a sweep. Munrho fell to
the floor in surprise, dropping the pistol, and Race took the
opportunity to dive for his own
weapon. As he reached for it, Munrho's black boot sent it
flying. Race lunged at him, his eyes
aflame, his adrenaline flowing like a firehose. Munrho prepared
to fire, but never got the chance.
Race pinned him to the floor, wrestling for the gun. A billion
images of Munrho's body with a
hole in the heart flashed through Race's mind, driving him on,
seeming to control his
movements. His hand clamped around Munrho's wrist in a death
grip, trying to force him to drop
the weapon. Munrho, at the same time, attempted to club race
over the head with it. Race took
a break for a deep breath, long enough to doom himself. As
Benton watched in horror, a shot
split the air in two, like the roar of the devil himself, and
Race Bannon slumped to the floor in a
lifeless heap.
"If you were a psychopath who's after Race, where would you keep
Jessie?" Jonny wondered
aloud as he and Hadji ducked behind another stack of crates.
Bandit tagged along silently in
front of them, sniffing the ground.
"I don't know, Jonny. I'm not a psychopath," Hadji replied.
Jonny shook his head in disgust.
"You're not helping," he whispered. Hadji shrugged. Bandit
took another whiff of Jessie's
scarf that Jonny had brought for him, then turned back to the
ground, making sure he had the
right scent. Five seconds later, the little bull terrier was
scampering across the main storage
area of the warehouse at top speed, barking excitedly the whole
way. The two boys streaked off
after him, fighting to keep up with the dog's limitless energy.
"Jinx to Jeep, do you copy?" Jonny said as he pressed his
earpiece, hoping Race would
answer. Static crackled onto the line. "Jeep!" He turned to
Hadji. "No one's there." Bandit
skidded to a halt in front of a large metal door on the wall
opposite the way they had entered.
Jonny shuddered at the identification on the door.
Freezer Unit.
Bandit's frantic clawing at the metal told him Jessie was in
there. Of all places, this wacko
had to pick a walk-in freezer. Jonny cursed a rainbow in his
mind, wondering how he was
supposed to get her out of this one. There were no visible
locks, and the steel door was easily
over a foot thick.
Something on the wall caught his eye.
A closed metal panel about the size of a circuitbreaker, the
door held by a simple latch.
Jonny flung the thing open, strangely relieved. The panel had
the words "Door Release" printed
in chipping black paint on the inside of the metal cover. On the
other side of the door was a
small multicolored keypad, obviously used to enter an access
code. A wide grin spread on
Jonny's face as he stared at the multicolored wires in the door
release that crossed each other
like a pair of shoelaces, obviously not where they were supposed
to go. Already he pictured
where the right connections would be to get the freezer door
open. He removed two wire clamps
from his belt, reminding himself to thank Race for teaching him
how to hotwire a Corvette. After
giving Bandit an affectionate pat on the head, he set to work.
Hadji caught on, pulling his own
set of wire clamps from his belt, and began his own tinkering.
* * * *
Race cautiously opened one eye, and, after a five second
pause, decided he wasn't dead. He
rolled to the side as another gunshot rent the air, the bullet
boring a hole in the floor where his
head had been a moment ago. Shouts filled his ears, of anger and
pain, and he turned to see
Benton wrestling with Munrho for the gun. *He couldn't have
jumped in five minutes earlier.
Nooooooo, he had to wait until I got whacked upside the head with
a pistol first!*, Race thought
as the throbbing in his skull worsened. He dove for his own
weapon on the far side of the
storeroom, and in a swift motion, aimed for Munrho's exposed
shoulder and pulled the trigger.
Nothing.
The gun had jammed.
Race dropped the weapon, moving to attack Munrho from the
side. The vengeful agent finally
gained leeway to sit up, and Race locked his hands around his
former friend's neck, squeezing
with every ounce of strength he had in him. Munrho began to
choke on his air, and with a mighty
heave, he tossed Race forward, where he plunged into Benton, the
two of them sprawling on the
floor. Munrho aimed his weapon.
"Idiots! Revenge is unstoppable!" he yelled, then fired.
Race and Benton slid across the floor as the explosion ripped
the air around them, and
another shell imbedded itself in the floor. Munrho swore under
his breath as he prepared for
another shot. Benton suddenly lashed out with his right foot,
knocking the gun from Munrho's
hand. Mildly surprised, Race rolled across the floor, reaching
for the weapon.
"Jinx to Jeep, do you copy?" Jonny's voice buzzed over his
earpiece. He had no time to
answer. As Benton wrestled Munrho to the ground, Race trained
the pistol. His hands shook in
anger, and the flames in his eyes burned white. Munrho stared at
him, his eyes glowing like
coals left too long in the furnace.
"Go for it, Race. You know this is how it must be. Fate
created this irony," the man hissed.
Race stood there, frozen. This psycho on the floor before him
had been his friend since high
school. There was no way he could willingly shoot him like this.
But wasn't that what he had
come to do? Hadn't he come to stop him from striking again? So
many questions. The pistol
felt suddenly heavy in his hand, his fingers held in place by
some invisible force. He had never
killed anyone in cold blood before. Surely he couldn't murder an
old friend with the man's own
weapon. This was irony, alright.
But then again, this "old friend" had kidnapped his daughter,
possibly killed her already. What
else could he do? Munrho was beyond help. The minute he let him
go, he'd be on his tail again.
Race would never be able to forgive himself if something happened
to the people he now called
family.
*This guy's got to go*, he thought, training the gun on
Munrho.
* * * *
Jonny pulled another wire into a green terminal, at the same
time connecting the wire above it
to the red terminal at the top. It wasn't exactly like hotwiring
a Corvette, and Jonny began to
wish he could strangle the electrician who designed this system.
He made a few more
connections, and a small spark appeared in the blue terminal in
the center. Jonny flipped the
lever on the side of the door and stepped back.
"Why didn't it work?" Hadji asked as he finished disabling
the access code panel. Jonny
thoughtfully toyed with the wire clamp, and Hadji could see the
gears in his friend's head turning
at a feverish pace. Jonny suddenly slapped himself.
"Jonny Quest," he said aloud, "you are a complete idiot! Why
didn't you see it before? The
east terminal should be connecting the three motor wires to the
manual override, not the access
code pathway!" Hadji suppressed a chuckle, and Bandit cocked his
head as Jonny quickly made
the adjustment, and a larger spark appeared in the center
terminal. Satisfied at last, he put the
lever back into position. The door shuddered reluctantly, then
began to slide along the track.
Both boys began to shiver as a blast of frozen air spilled from
the doorway.
"Jessie!" Jonny shouted.
Jessie was curled in a ball on the floor, unconscious, not
even shivering. Jonny was on his
knees beside her, with Hadji standing over him and Bandit yipping
excitedly next to him. He
quickly gathered Jessie off the freezing floor, his arms closing
tightly around her, his breath
fogging up in front of him like dragon's smoke. He cursed the
guy who did this a million times
over in his head as he carried Jessie out of the death trap,
creeping along the wall, following
Bandit and Hadji. There was no way they could climb up the
crates again. He knew they would
have to find a way out through the main corridors. More than
likely, those would be crawling with
armed guards. *Perfect, Quest, perfect!*, Jonny told himself,
shifting Jessie's weight so that she
rested on his chest. *Out of the frying pan, into the fire, out
of the fire, into Hiroshima!*
* * * *
"I'm not like you," Race said with deadly calm, training the
pistol on his former friend to keep
him still. "You're going straight to a mental hospital." Munrho
smiled wickedly.
"If you think you'll ever get me there, maybe it's you who
needs the hospital. Or, more
appropriately, the morgue." Race yanked the disfigured creature
off the ground by his collar,
slammed him against the wall.
"You know what disgusts me about diseases like you?" he
yelled. "You twist everything to
make it your own meaning! I tried to save your life, and now
you're trying to kill me! Talk about
treating old friends! You had this planned the whole time!"
"Yes, I planned this very confrontation, right up to this
moment, even. But why are you kicking
me around when you have a daughter to save? Or is this little
grudge more important?" the
charred monster rasped. Race clenched his teeth.
"I've taken care of that already," he replied.
Munrho smiled cruelly. "I'm sure you have."
A loud klaxon suddenly roared to life, and the lights of the
storage room washed everything in
a bloody light. Munrho's grin broadened at Race's and Benton's
confusion. The noise became
louder, the lights brighter, and a faint, bitter smell seeped
into the air.
Munrho suddenly shoved Race across the room and lashed out
with a kick toward Benton.
Both men fell dazed to the floor likeb a couple of matchsticks.
Munrho's strength was far greater
than either of them had realized, and Race cursed at himself for
being so blind.
"Wish I could stay and chat," Munrho cackled, "but this
entire building will blow in five
minutes. Ta-ta for now, suckers!" In a blink of the red lights,
he was gone, leaving the
emergency klaxons blaring in Race's and Benton's ears.
* * * *
The sirens continued their funeral chorale as Jonny and Hadji
streaked through the pulsing
curtains of bloodred light, following Bandit. Jonny tightened
his arms around Jessie as they
rounded a corner, and Hadji pressed his earpiece.
"Magician to Jeep! Magician to Barbecue! Do you copy?" he
shouted over the blaring
emergency klaxons. Static buzzed over the line, and then Race's
voice broke in.
"I read you, Magician. Have you found Cyber?" he asked.
"We've got her. What's going on? What's all the noise for?"
"Munrho's rigged the place to blow in about five minutes!
You three get out of here!" he said,
and the line went dead. Hadji grabbed Jonny by the shoulder,
dragging him along the corridor.
The lights steadily brightened and the din grew louder as their
time dwindled, while Jonny's panic
level continued to rise. He was only fifteen, after all. He
wasn't ready to be blown sky high along
with Race, his dad, Hadji, Jessie, and Bandit. He looked down at
the human ice statue in his
arms, glad that she wasn't consciously going through the end of
her life.
*At least, we'll all be in Heaven together*, he thought,
trying to console himself. It wasn't working.
All the years he had ahead of him were vanishing in a firestorm
in his mind. Hot tears of anger
and despair traced down his face as his legs pumped mechanically,
carrying him through the
barrier of lights and noise. If he ever got out of here alive,
he vowed to himself that he would
help Race waste this psycho any way he could.
These thoughts rolled over each other in a tossing sea of
emotion, and just as suddenly
stopped as the cold night air pressed against Jonny's skin. He
was covered in sweat, and his
legs were numb from running. The night swam past him in a blur,
and seconds later he found
himself flinging open the door of the Saturn and leaping into the
backseat after his insane bull
terrier. No sooner had he slammed the door shut again then the
car raged forward as Hadji
slammed the accelerator to the floor.
Jonny set Jessie on the seat beside him, then opened the
forty side of the split in the backseat
that gave way to the trunk. He rummaged in there a few minutes
until his fingers caught the
edge of a wool blanket that had been left in there since January.
He whipped it out and closed
the small hatch, allowing himself a sigh of relief as he wrapped
it around Jessie. He gathered
her in his arms again, holding her tight against him.
"Turn on the heater Hadji. The warmer she is by the time we
reach the hospital, the better,"
he said.
"Don't have to tell me twice," Hadji replied as he flicked on
the heater to full. Jonny tucked
Jessie's head under his chin, smoothing her tangled mass of red
hair.
"You're going to be fine, Jess," he whispered, more to
himself than to her. The nearest
hospital was a two hour drive. He remembered passing it on the
highway. As the car streaked
on through the night, he suddenly realized he hadn't slept since
half past six that morning. He
glanced at the clock. Quarter past two. He leaned his head back
against the seat and closed his
eyes, glad that it was Friday. Or Saturday now, since midnight
had passed. Alas, he remained
restless.
* * * *
Race and Benton scrambled through the corridor, the klaxons
growing louder at each step.
Race counted three minutes until blastoff, and he still had no
idea where they were headed. The
corridors twisted like the bowels of some underground city,
successfully blowing away any sense
of direction they might have had left. Race was swearing like a
truck driver as they scampered
through the bloodsoaked light. *Do something right for a change!
Show me the way outta
here!*, he prayed, wondering if he had said too many curse words
in one breath for God's taste.
It appeared he could curse all he wanted.
The huge entrance doors stood before them like the closed
mouth of some medieval beast.
Race gave a yell somewhere between the Lone Ranger and Pecos Bill
as he dashed against the
doors, knocking them open. *If only I could have sprinted like
this in high school*, he mused as
he found himself slicing through the night air at breakneck
speed. Ten more seconds, and InPro
would be toast. He forced his legs to pump harder as he dragged
Benton into position ahead of
him. They were about fifty feet from the place now, heading for
the Quest.
With a sudden roar, their world exploded.
Red flames engulfed the sky as the shock wave slammed into
them, forcing sizzling hot air
into their lungs. Race gasped and choked as he smacked the
pavement of the abandoned
parking lot with the sickening crunch of shattered bone. Pain
shot through the entire left side of
his body, and he felt as if his skin was being seared away by the
superheated air. The smoke
entered his lungs as Benton landed beside him with a loud crack,
gasping for breath. *Been nice
knowing you, Benton. Just hope the kids got the hell out of
here.* A sudden noise overhead
caused him to look up at the black night sky, a formidable task
in his condition.
A red helicopter, which was actually white, but Race couldn't
tell because of the blood in his
eyes, was quickly leaving the area. A large purple and gold bird
surrounded by flames was
emblazoned on the side. This was the last thing Race saw before
he and Benton were buried
under the remnants of InPro.
"Thank God," Jessie heard her father's voice somewhere in the
dense fog above. She knew
for sure that she wasn't in the freezer. She was tucked in a
warm bed, with the sheets pulled up
to her neck. She now wore a short gown that came to her waist,
and it smelled faintly of alcohol.
In fact, the whole place reeked of the stuff. After a two minute
struggle, she opened her eyes.
Race sat on the edge of her bed, smiling down at her through
the harsh lights. The top of his
head was wrapped in a bloodstained white bandage, and his left
arm rested in a sling. His left
leg was bulky under his jeans, she guessed because it was in a
cast up to the thigh, and she
could see the tape on his ribs through the thin shirt he wore.
The only thing he was missing was
a neck brace.
"Hey, Ponchita. Nice nap?" he asked, still wearing that
lopsided grin.
"I guess.........what in the world happened to *you*?" she
replied.
"Long story," he sighed, "but to make it short, a warehouse
exploded in my face." Seeing
Jessie's bewildered expression, he continued. "Jonny and Hadji
managed to rescue you from
the freezer while Dr. Quest and I went after the guy who captured
you. You're in the hospital,
and you're going to be fine."
"How long have I been here?" she asked. None of this made
sense.
"A couple of days," he replied. Jessie heard the creaking of
a door at the far end of the room,
and a minute later Estella's face appeared above her.
"How're you feeling?" she asked.
"Cold," Jessie answered, still confused. Estella chuckled
lightly.
"You're lucky you weren't killed. The doctors said that your
friends got you out of there just in
time. Another fifteen minutes would've been the end of you," she
said, then turned nervously to
Race. "Good thing that crazy cyclist heard the explosion, or you
and Benton would've died as
well." After another two hours of listening to her parents tell
the story of her rescue and how
worried they were about her, Jessie heard the door open again.
"Sorry we can't fit three in here," Jonny's voice floated
from the doorway. Race and Estella
took the hint and exited the room, leaving her and Jonny in
peace.
"Hey, Jess. Close call," he said, grinning as he sat on the
edge of her bed. Jessie smiled in
agreement.
"How did you find me?" she asked.
"Bandit did, actually. That freezer was airtight, but he
picked up your trail from when those
goons dragged you across the warehouse," he replied. His grin
suddenly vanished. "I'm sorry I
wasn't there for you. Race and I found the rifle in the bushes.
We thought......" Jessie's hand
closed around his.
"It's alright. They would've gotten you too. Then who would
have rescued me from that
freezer?" she said, trying to sound reassuring. Jonny sighed.
"I guess you have a point," he said, then quickly decided to
change the subject. Even though
Jessie didn't blame him, he still couldn't stop blaming himself.
He didn't think he ever would.
"The fire department found your books in one of the heavy-duty
storage crates that was thrown
clear of the blast. Wouldn't you know? The alarms were still
going after half the place had
blown sky high."
"I couldn't care less about the books," she laughed. "I'm
lucky to be alive. I really owe you
one this time." she sighed.
"After you get out of here, what do you say we all go out for
*ice cream*?" he said, grinning.
"Very funny," she replied.
They both began to laugh.
* * * *
Epilogue: Two Days Later
Jonny quietly entered the Quest Compound library, pleased to
find Jessie curled up on the
loveseat reading *Romeo and Juliet*, her face half-veiled in
shadow from the endtable light. She
looked up at him and smiled.
"What's up?" she asked. He took a spot next to her.
"Bad news. Munrho got away," he replied. Jessie marked her
page in the book and put it
aside.
"Can't the police go after him?" she asked. Jonny shook his
head.
"That's the *really* bad news. Race tried to put out a
search for him. That's when he
discovered a death certificate and autopsy report for the guy.
From twelve years ago. The
police can't do anything. In the eyes of the court, he's been
dead since 1984." Jessie sank back
against the couch.
"I'm really beginning to hate this," she said. Jonny would
have laughed if her tone hadn't been
so venemous.
"Join the club," he sighed. There was a low hum as the
compressor kicked on. She began to
shiver, and Jonny drew a protective arm around her. "What's
wrong?"
"I'm freezing! Who put the air up?" she asked, her teeth
threatening to tear her tongue in two.
She looked up at him, catching the gleam in his dark blue eyes as
he pulled her closer. *I've got
to get out of here before this turns dangerous*, she thought.
*What am I talking about? It
already has!*
Jonny knew that Race hadn't boosted the thermostat. As far
as he could tell, his dad's friend
had no idea that he had a crush on Jessie. And if Race didn't
know, then his dad was *definitely*
clueless. That only left.......
"I'll have to kill Hadji for this one," he muttered. He
could almost see his friend watching
through a secret peephole in the bookcase. He should've known
the little devil was trying to play
matchmaker. *Well, it's been working so far*, he mused.
"Or thank him," Jessie said as she twisted away from him.
She gave him a quick peck on the
cheek before exiting the room. Jonny sank back against the
couch, a smile plastered across his
face.
*I take that back. Thanks a million, Hadji.*
THE END.....OF THE BEGINNING!
Please direct all comments about the story to the author at Rochelle Daniels <makeitso@icanect.net>.
The Real Adventures of Jonny Quest and all characters, logos, and likenesses therein, are trademarks of and copyrighted by Hanna-Barbera Productions, Inc., and Hanna-Barbera Cartoons, Inc., a Turner company. No copyright infringement is intended by their use on this page. I and this page are in no way affiliated with, approved of or endorsed by Hanna Barbera or Turner Productions. This page is created by a fan for other fans out of love and respect for the show, and is strictly a non-profit endeavor.
