When Childhood Ends

by Debbie Kluge

An act of violence within the Quest household changes life forever. A stand-alone short novel that is NOT part of the Jealousy Universe.

1. Shattered

THE ALTERNATE UNIVERSE ADVENTURES OF JONNY QUEST

"When Childhood Ends"

by

Debbie Kluge

Chapter 1

Shattered

"You're what!???"  Jonny Quest stood staring at his girlfriend incredulously.  Jessie Bannon sat huddled in the middle of her bed hugging a pillow and crying.  "What do you mean, you're pregnant?  We've never even slept together.  How could you be pregnant?"  He stopped dead and stared at her in growing anger.  "At least, you've never slept with me . . . "

She sat there sobbing uncontrollably, flinching at every word.  How could she possibly tell him what had happened?  He would never believe her.  He would think she was simply trying to hold him responsible for her own trouble and would hate her forever.

"I am NOT going to take the blame for this, you hear me!  Race will kill me . . . and I didn't even do anything."  He stared at her, the pain clear on his face.  "I thought you cared for me more than this . . . " The noise of the door slamming was like a physical blow.

Oh, God.  What am I going to do, she cried to herself.

Benton Quest looked up as he heard the door slam somewhere in the back of the house.  He was just in time to see his son go running by the family room door.  An instant later he heard the front door slam as he left the house.  Benton was alarmed.  From what little he saw the boy had looked shaken and upset.  What was going on?

"JESSIE!"  Race Bannon's voice echoed through the house.  He sounded furious.  A series of loud blows could be heard from the back of the house.  "Jessie, open this door!  This instant!  Damn it, Jessie, do you hear me . . . "  The sound of a fist on the door came again.  Benton rose from his chair to see what was going on, but before he could even reach the entryway Race appeared.  His face was red, one hand was clenched into a fist and he was breathing heavily.  He held a box in the other hand.

"Where's Jonny?"  His voice was cold and deadly, the fury plain.

Benton went cold.  "He just left.  What's going on?"  Race thrust the box at him and turned toward the door.  Benton took it and looked at the box.  EPT . . . an early pregnancy test.  Oh, God, Jonny.  What have you done? thought his father in despair.

Race Bannon stood in the middle of the yard at the Quest Compound staring at the surrounding countryside.  Nothing moved.  There was no sign of young Jonny Quest.  When he got his hands on him, he was going to beat him within an inch of his life.  He had trusted that boy!  He never dreamed that Jonny would betray him like this.  To get his daughter into this kind of trouble . . .

He turned toward the lighthouse.  Well, if he wasn't in sight he could always track him.  The equipment to trace the watch he was wearing was in the lighthouse.  He'd find that boy if it was the last thing he did.

Benton Quest felt physically ill.  How could the two of them have done this?  They weren't even 17 yet.  He had talked with his son at length about this when the two young people first started showing an interest in each other.  And that conversation had been repeated several times after that as the attachment between the two had deepened.  Both he and Race had had misgivings about the two of them living under the same roof with this type of relationship developing, and had even tried to send Jessie to her mother for a while.  But both young people had assured their parents that they had better sense than that.  They were in no hurry to consummate their relationship.  They both knew where it could lead.  They had all the time in the world.

Their betrayal of the trust their parents had put in them was going to tear this family apart.

Jonny sat down in the boathouse in the dark.  He had locked himself inside while he tried to decide what to do.  Whose child was it?  It certainly wasn't his . . . he had promised both his Dad and Race.  They both had.  Jessie's betrayal cut like a knife.  She'd been involved with someone else all along and he hadn't even known it.  She must have been using him as a smoke screen so her father wouldn't know about the other guy.  The very idea nauseated him.  And now she was going to try and make him take the blame.  She probably wanted to have the kid and saddle him with it.  Anger and pain warred inside him.  Well, he would have no part of it!  She'd gotten herself into this mess . . . she was going to have to find her own way out.  Let the real father take the blame.  He washed his hands of it . . . and her.

Jessie sat huddled on the floor of her closet the way she used to do when she was small and she could hear her parents fighting.  The screaming going on in the family room now was so reminiscent of what used to happen she could hardly stand it.  She curled up in a ball with her knees under her chin and wrapped her arms around her head in an effort to shut out the sound.  She wished she were dead.

Hadji Singh stood and watched in horror as his adopted family fell apart.  The tension and fury in the family room of the Quest home was thick enough to drown in.  Jonny faced Race as they screamed at each other.  Benton sat in a chair on the edge of the room in utter shock unable to do or say anything at all.

"I didn't . . . I swear I didn't . . . "

"She would never let anyone else . . . "

"Well, she obviously did, because it wasn't me!  And where is she?  Why isn't she here answering the questions, too?  Why am I the only one on trial here?"

"You leave her out of it."

"LEAVE HER OUT OF IT?!?  This is her fault.  I didn't do anything . . . "

"No more lies, Jonny.  I don't want to hear it . . . "

"I'm NOT lying.  How do you think I feel . . . "

"Are you proud of yourself?!  And you don't even have the guts to own up . . . " Pushed further than he could tolerate, Jonny lashed out with a fist, catching Race in the jaw.  He staggered back, falling over a chair and landing, dazed, on the floor.

At that, Benton seemed to come out of his stupor.  He jumped up and grabbed his son, shoving him in Hadji's direction.  He said urgently to the other boy, "Get him out of here!  Now."  Hadji saw his adopted father bending over Race Bannon as he dragged Jonny out of the room.  He had to get him well away from here before Race became aware again or things were going to get very bad.  Hadji shoved him out the back door.  A boat.  They had to get away from the Compound for a while and let things cool off.  Maybe even overnight. I can't believe this is happening, Hadji thought as he shoved Jonny on board the Questor II and started the engine.  As he backed the boat out of the boathouse he looked up and saw Race descending the long stair to the dock at breakneck speed.  Benton was chasing him, yelling something Race didn't want to hear.  Hadji revved the boat hard and shot out toward open ocean.  Maybe a couple of days would be a good idea.

In a ramshackle farmhouse several miles away, Jeremiah Surd laughed to himself.  The plan had been flawless.  The girl would never say anything.  She would protect Jonny Quest to her dying breath.  And Bannon was liable to kill him; would kill him if he actually found out what happened.  And even if he didn't, Quest and Bannon would never be able to work together again.  Things were going perfectly.

Hadji knocked at Jessie's door.  As usual, he received no answer.  Three days had passed since the fight where Jonny had hit Race.  They had stayed away for two of those three days.  Hadji had finally called and talked with his adopted father.  Things were still tense but Benton assured him it was safe to come home.  When they arrived, Benton took both of them aside and asked that they give Race a wide berth.  He was talking with Estella and as soon as arrangements could be made, Jessie would be moving in with her mother permanently.  Race was packing and would be gone by the end of the week.  The government wanted to send another "bodyguard" in, but Benton would have no part of it.  He didn't want any strangers in the house just now.

After two days of insisting that he was not to blame for the situation, Jonny had fallen silent.  He listened to his father's instructions, stonefaced, without saying a word.  The only comment that elicited any reaction at all was his father's admonition to stay away from Jessie.

"Why would I want to go anywhere near that whore?  The sooner she's gone the better."  With that he walked away.  An instant later they heard his door close and lock.  That was the last time Hadji had seen his friend.

None of this makes any sense, Hadji thought as he knocked at the door to Jessie's room again.  Jonny had been known to do a lot of stupid things in his life, but this simply did not seem like something he would have done.  And if he had done it, it was not like him to deny it.  Say what you will, Jonny was usually prepared to acknowledge his mistakes and take responsibility for them.  Getting no answer to his knock, he tried the door.  For once it was unlocked.  He opened the door cautiously.

"Jessie?"  No answer.  He stuck his head in the door and looked around.  Empty.  He moved in and closed it behind him.  Under normal circumstances he would never dream of doing this, but things were falling apart at the seams and he had to do something.  He moved to Jessie's desk and sat down at her computer.  She had refused to talk with anyone.  He didn't think she had said ten words in the last four days.  When you saw her at all, she was usually curled up in an almost fetal position, withdrawn and somehow broken.  Her silence was terrifying.  He didn't think she would ever consider taking her own life, but so many things had changed recently . . .  And if something wasn't done soon, something very bad was going to happen and things would be in so many pieces there would be no way to ever put it back together again.

He logged on to her computer.  He had managed to hack her password late last night but found that what he wanted was not on the QuestWorld mainframe.  That could only mean it had to be housed on protected space on her hard drive.  He knew she kept a journal.  She always had.  And somehow he didn't think that she would have, or could have, stopped now.  He simply had to find it.  He searched frantically through her directories.  There!  That had to be it.  And judging by the file specifications it had been recently updated.  Rapidly, he linked her computer to the mainframe, copied the file out to his private directory file and shut her computer down.  Now to get out of here before he got caught!

Several hours later he finally hacked her final password.  She had that file so protected for a while he thought he was never going to get into it.  He didn't want to read anything more than he had to.  This violation of her privacy had his stomach churning.  He thought he would start about three months back.  Not knowing for sure how far along the pregnancy was, he didn't know for certain where to start.  He would try that far back and work his way forward or back depending on what the entry said.  He started scanning.  Routine day-to-day stuff.  School, work with Dr. Quest, dates with Jonny.  He noticed a complete absence of anyone male in her journal other than her family and Jonny.  If there was someone else she was involved with it wasn't showing up here.  Oh, Jonny, how can you do this to her? he thought, convinced now that Race was right.

Suddenly he stopped.  What was this?  When was this?  About two months ago.  He didn't remember them going into QuestWorld to play any computer games recently.  And he was always the monitor for that kind of stuff.  Race and Dr. Quest got too bored.  And the program had glitched.  They had trouble getting out again.  That was very strange.  But everything seemed to be okay later.  Maybe the system just hiccupped.  He continued to scan the entries.

Suddenly, he froze, staring at the words in horror.  Oh, God.  Oh, God.  What was he going to do?  This would destroy them all.  He didn't want to read any more.  He thought he was going to be sick.  But he knew he couldn't stop.  Having gone this far, he had to know.

Hadji worked feverishly in the computer lab at the lighthouse.  There had to be another answer.  He searched through all of the games programs in QuestWorld.  It had to be here.  Nothing else made any sense.  Nothing!  Well, if not in the games programming, then where?  The utilities?  The communication modules?  No!  In the VR programming!  It had to be.  It was the only other programming sure to be accessed when the games programming ran.  Could it be implanted directly into IRIS's programming?  He continued running diagnostics frantically.   Not there . . . or there . . . or there.  His despair was growing.  He wasn't going to find it.  He was wrong.  And then what would he do . . . THERE!  There it was.  Oh God, he had found it.  Suddenly, rage overcame him.  There was only one man who could have done this.  Surd.  The name was like a curse.  He isolated the virus, dupped it to a disk and shoved it in his pocket.  No way Surd was going to get rid of the thing before they had a chance to analyze it and see how far reaching it was.

He stopped as a sudden thought occurred to him.  Surd would have reveled in the chaos and pain he was causing.  And he wouldn't have missed it.  Somehow, he was monitoring everything that went on in the Quest home.  Hadji was certain of it.  He attacked the computer again.  It was a good bet Surd was using the Compound's own systems against them.  The thread had to be there somewhere.  And there it was.  Tied into the house video surveillance system.  He had a single feed tied in so that anything that happened in any of the common rooms of the house was monitored and fed back to him.  It even had an audio line on it.  Which meant he saw and heard all the results of his mayhem.  Hadji smiled bitterly.  Well, two could play that game.  He found recent surveillance footage of the house with no activity, set it to loop so it would play over and over, checked to be sure that the auditory feed matched and set it to run.  Now Surd would get nothing but the impression that the house was empty.

He took a deep breath, using his meditation techniques to settle his shattered nerves.  Now came the hard part.  He had to explain this to the others.  It still wasn't pretty, but at least there was a reason.  And he was going to need help making them believe it.  And that meant he had to convince Dr. Quest first.

"You did what?!"  Benton Quest stared at his adopted son in disbelief.

"I hacked Jessie's computer and stole her journal." 

Benton Quest turned alternately white then red.  "If what Jonny has done isn't bad enough, now YOU go and do something like this!"

"But . . . "

"There's no excuse for it!"

"But . . . "

"NO!  I don't want to hear it.  Everything we ever held sacred in this family is falling apart . . . "

"Listen to me!  This is all Surd's doing!"

Benton Quest stopped dead.  "What?"

Hadji breathed deeply, trying desperately trying to calm himself.  "Jeremiah Surd implanted a virus into QuestWorld.  It was targeted at Jonny and made him susceptible to the same kind of brainwashing Surd used on Jessie when he got her to try and kill her father.  The program was housed in IRIS's programming.  Once it ran, the brainwashing program kicked in.  It was housed in the communication modules.  Other than the appearance of a slight glitch in QuestWorld there was no indication it was there."

"When did this happen?"

"About two months ago."

"That still doesn't explain . . . "

"Two weeks later Surd deliberately triggered the implanted brainwash program and let it do its work."  Hadji's smile was bitter.  "He has monitored it all.  I do not believe Jonny has any memory of what he did any more than Jessie remembers trying to blow up her father.  Her journal says that he seemed like a zombie."  He faltered, "I will not tell you what else it says.  I wish I had not had to read it."

Benton Quest collapsed into a chair and put his head in his hands.  "Oh my God.  You mean he . . . "  He swallowed convulsively.  "And Jessie's said nothing about this?"

"I do not believe she completely believes he did it.  She is shell-shocked.  What was done to her was sudden, violent and totally without warning from someone she trusted completely.  And now her support net has fallen apart.  She is withdrawing . . . everyone is.  And Surd is getting what he wants."

Benton raised his head slowly.  "This was deliberate."

"Oh, yes, I believe it was.  Planned and orchestrated."

"Go get Race, now.  This stops here."

"Are you trying to tell me . . ."

"Yes.  That is exactly what I'm trying to tell you.  This is another attempt to use our kids to get at us.  And this time he has hit us at our most vulnerable.  He knew he could set us up to go after each other if he used the kids as a wedge.  We already know what it's done to Jessie.  What this will do to Jonny when he realizes what he did . . . "

"He actually . . . "

"Yes.  While brainwashed by Surd, but he did it . . . "

Race sat staring at his friend in horror.  "The things I said to that boy . . . "

" . . . are going to be minor compared to his own demons once the full impact of this situation hits him."

"And Jessie never said a word."

"She's protected him through it all . . . not fully understanding what happened . . . only knowing that if she told what she thought to be the truth that you probably would have killed him."  Benton Quest smiled in a way that made Race Bannon's blood run cold.  "I'm not a vindictive man, Race.  But Jeremiah Surd is going to die for this one.  I swear it."

Benton Quest supported his son as he lost his lunch.  They knelt in the back yard on the grass as he heaved repeatedly until there was nothing left in him to throw up.  Then Benton gathered the boy against him and held him as he shook.

His voice was hoarse and choked as he said, "But I couldn't have done that to her!   I . . . I just couldn't have!  I would never . . . ever . . . "  He started to cry.  . . . "Oh, God . . . oh, God . . . ohgodohgodohgodohgod . . . " Benton rocked him gently as he had right after his mother had died.  A shadow fell across them both as Race knelt beside them.   The tears streamed down Benton's face as he held his son and let the realization of what had happened sink in.  Race reached out and gathered Jonny in from his father and held him.

"It's all right, Jonny.  She will know it wasn't you.  She did know.  That's why she wouldn't tell anyone.  If she had believed it was actually you, she wouldn't have kept silent about it.  I know that now.  I'm sorry I ever believed you could have deliberately caused this.   It's okay.  Please, son, it will be all right . . . "

"I have to see it, Hadji.  I have to know what I did.  No matter how bad it is.  I can't face her not knowing . . . " The pain in Jonny face cut his friend like a knife.

Hadji shook his head again.  "No, my friend, you do not want to see this.  Believe me . . ."

"Hadj, I have to!  I can't try and make amends if I don't know exactly what I did.  I can't relate to her . . . You have to give it to me.  I've got to try and make this right . . . somehow . . . if I can . . . "

Slowly Hadji held out a disk.  "Please try and remember, my friend, that this was not your doing.  This was Surd.  You never would have done this if it had not been for him . . . "

He stared blindly at the final words on the screen.  Oh Lord, he thought he was going to be sick again.  Hadji had been right . . . he never should have read this.  How could he possibly have done this to her?  And yet he knew he had.  He didn't doubt it . . . not after reading this . . .  How could he face her now?  But he had to.  He had done this to her . . . and the child she carried was his.  And he needed to do it now before he could think up ten good reasons not to and he talked himself out of it.

She had refused to answer the door, but when he tried it he found it unlocked.  He opened it cautiously and looked in.  She lay on her side on the bed curled up in a ball.  She was absolutely motionless and he had a sudden, irrational fear that she was dead.  He stepped in, and leaving the door open (he would never, ever close and lock it again, not after what he had done) he moved softly to the side of the bed.

"Jessie . . . " His voice was barely a whisper but she had heard it.  He knew because she flinched. Oh, God, a voice in him cried, look what I've done.

 "Jessie, I'm sorry.  I don't remember . . . I didn't mean . . . I would never . . . Oh please, God, don't let any of this be true . . . " And he was on his knees by her bed, crying.  It was all in pieces and nothing would ever be right again.

Suddenly, he felt a hand on his shoulder.  He opened his eyes and through his tears he saw her.  Tears streamed down her cheeks, her eyes were huge and dark and full of pain, her face was white.  But she reached out to him all the same.  He didn't know how it happened but one minute he was on his knees by her and the next he held her as tightly as he could, rocking her back and forth and whispering to her over and over, "I'm sorry.  I'm so sorry . . . " as they both cried.

An hour later their fathers found them, still clinging to each other like a lifeline.  Benton and Race moved to sit beside them both on the bed.  They put their arms around them and the four of them sat there together for a long time trying to come to grips with all that had happened.