Fireworks: by Vanessa S. Quest
Dedicated to Meach.
On a small island off the Floridan coast, the privately owned Palm Key Compound was flooded with an array of firework like explosions over the main lab. Jonny Quest, a young 10 year old blond boy with blue eyes, son to the famous Dr. Quest, and Hadji, his adopted brother, and Race stood under a tent nearby some electrical equipment and a redheaded scientific genius, Dr. Quest. Dr. Quest used the machine to make those firework-like explosives, he began typing codes into the terminal, the explosions began changing color, and causing a slight reflection, showing it was really a glass orb.
"Dad, this is your electro-magne...netic..." Jonny stammered on the long name.
"My electro-magnetic field disrupter?" He chuckled, "Why yes Jonny it is do you like it?"
"Dr. Quest, it is astounding!" the 11 year old Indian boy said with a smile plastered on his wide-eyed excited face.
"Yeah, but dad, what is it really for...?" Jonny asked puzzled, "...it doesn't look like your other inventions."
"Well, Jonny, that's because this isn't a Military Weapon, in fact, this is a prototype for much more than military purposes, in fact, it embodies the concept of using magnetics to produce electricity, the explosions were actually electrons with a different charge producing many colors, like testing a neon light in a hydraulic dam." He said in a charismatic way.
"Oh... so it makes power and that was a test to see if it worked?" Jonny asked, he wasn't sure if that's what his dad meant.
"Exactly son. Now, it's late boys, so why don't you go back to bed." He began to turn off the machine.
"Ok, goodnight dad." Jonny said, then Hadji spoke right after.
"Goodnight sir."
" 'Night Race." then in sync, the boys added. And went to their room.
"So Dr. Quest, it really is just a generator?" Race said with a light smile edging his lips.
"Yes, it's our new generator, the bulb on the other hand though is for the contract."
"What's so special about it?"
"Well, Race, it uses a particular band of radiation, nothing harmful, I would never expose the boys to anything dangerous like that... but this radiation is able to disrupt some radio frequencies, and certain pitched sound waves, it may be possible to create a sonic weapon out of this power source, or so is our hope. Especially because it's not harmful to people, it only damages structures, metalic ones at that. Think, a weapon that kills no one, truly a beautiful idea, so long as it doesn't fall into the wrong hands, although it is no where near that stage of completion." Dr. Quest said, the machine powered down completely and he and Race wheeled it back into the laboratory.
The next day, on the sandy beach, Race and the boys had some lemonade, the boys thirsty after running away from two sea monsters... aka Race and Bandit. Dr. Quest sat back in a lounging lawn chair, with a pair of burgandy swimming trunks on, working dilligently on his notes while soaking up the sunlight.
After the fourtieth page of written notes, literally, Dr. Quest stood up, stretching, and walked over to the boys who were now building a sand castle. "Boys, amazing job on the sand castle, it's supposed to be the Maharaja's palace, right?"
"Yeah, told you he'd see it Hadji!" Jonny smiled. He worked on the ark in a window.
"It's very nice, although all the arks appear to be off by about 3 degrees..." he said studying the windows. Hadji laughed running his hands through the sand so it sprayed Jonny.
"Ha ha ha, I told you Jonny, I told you it had to be thinner at that part!" Hadji said with a slight hint of testosterone.
Jonny spat out the sand in his mouth, "Hey! That's it Hadji, you're asking for it!" Jonny ran towards a stash of water balloons.
"Oh no you don't Jonny... Sim-Sim-Salabim!" the balloon Jonny held in his right hand burst, dowsing him.
"Hey, no fair. Play fair!" Jonny said throwing one quickly at Hadji, soaking him and Dr. Quest's feet to his knees in water. The boys began running around having a balloon fight.
Dr. Quest touched his hand lightly over his eyebrows inner edges and laughed softly at the moment.
As the tide came in, the cause of the argument, the castle, had been destroyed by waves, Dr. Quest monitored the skies, the clouds seemed to lighten up a bit.
Around 3 O'Clock, Dr. Quest was back in his lab working on an idea for the sonic device. After hours of fiddling with it, he had come up with a complete solution to making the sonic wave work. "If I ionize the wave so it creates the complement to the metallic charges... then it will be drawn to the metal with the most charges... which hypothetically would be the warring equiptment, and then the ray would completely dissolve the weapon, and render it useless." He began sketching out the prints. All he needed was time to build it and a way to test it, which would be easy with the military facilities stationed there.
When he finally left the lab, locking it up completely, he checked his watch, "Midnight?! I forgot to say goodnight to the boys!" He said, kicking himself in the bum for missing out on one of his favorite fatherly duties. He went to check on the boys anyways, one of his more worrisome tasks, he always feared finding them missing.
He walked to the door and cracked it open, Hadji laid still in his covers his sheets lifting up and falling lightly down each time he inhaled and exhaled respectively.
Jonny on the other hand was having a nightmare, Dr. Quest could tell, he was tossing in his bed, sweat forming on his brow and on the small peach-fuzz hair on the edge of his lips leaving a salty resedue to dry them, he breathed heavily and his REM sleep seemed frantic as he kicked and punched his arms in response to each horror of his dream. Jonny then shot up and called out. Dr. Quest broke his facinated gaze to comfort his child.
"Jonny, Jonny, hey, I'm here, it was only a dream... sh." He said in a quiet whisper holding Jonny to his chest, Jonny leaned into his father's shoulder and made his way into a kneeling position so he was closer to his father's warm friendly face.
"Dad... is something wrong?" he mumbled, after the initial jolt of waking up from the nightmare faded.
"No, everything's fine. I was just checking up on you." Dr. Quest said, he ran his fingers over Jonny's hair a few times, making it stand on it's edges.
"Oh, ok..."
"Now, why don't I get you a glass of water and then you go back to bed, alright?" his face seemed lightened and caring.
"Ok." Jonny stood up out of his bed with his dad. They made their way to the kitchen to get the glass of water.
"Jonny, if you don't mind telling me, what was it about?" he said looking into his son's distracted eyes.
"Oh... my nightmare? About mom... and the fire..." Jonny sighed. "Why does it still hurt, thinking about it?" Jonny asked with the innocence only a little boy can have. A boy who's seen the world and all it's wonders, yet still sees through innocent children's eyes. "Then, when I woke up, this weird lady, named Meach, or so her name tag read... she ran up to me and kept asking me where you were."
Dr. Quest quarked a brow. The clock chimed 2 times, it was 2 AM, he snapped back into the relization that his 10 year old son was up for 2 hours at this time of the night. "Jonny, goodness, you have to go back to bed..." but Jonny seemed to have him beaten to it, he was laying asleep at the table with a glass half filled with water in his hand. So, Dr. Quest lifted the boy and carried him gently to his bedroom.
That morning, at 7, Jonny still laid sleeping in his bed, Hadji was up and looking at Jonny scratching his head, Jonny was usually up first, but this time, even as he slept he seemed tired. So Hadji and Race went over to the beach.
Dr. Quest was at work in his lab by 6 that morning, when Jonny finally woke up at 9 he wandered the empty house, slightly startled, he ran through it as if in trance remembering the fire that once burned in the house when he was much younger, the one his mother had saved him from. Jonny was a scared 4 year old, rushing through the house looking for his parents and a way out. Rachel had grabbed him and dragged him outside, then his dad had used a weird machine that shot out white foam ending the fire.
Jonny began breathing heavily again, as if he could smell the fire again, he rushed room to room to see if he was hallucinating, he saw no fire, he ran to the lab, and opened the door, a layer of thick smoke poured into the house in a puff. Jonny began coughing insanely at the face full of smoke. Dr. Quest rushed over to him. "Jonny! Are you okay?" he said as the fans in the room began filtering out the smoke. "Jonny, son, are you alright?" he said rubbing his hands over Jonny's face checking vitals and trying to have Jonny look straight into his eyes. "The sonic wave, what I was testing it on caused some smoke... are you alright?"
"I... am, dad..." Jonny said after analyzing his situation. "Dad, where are the others? the house was empty, I thought something was wrong..."
"Oh, they're on the beach... Jonny, this is going to take an hour to air out, at least, do you want to go into town with me while we wait?" he said putting a gentle hand on his son's shoulder.
"Okay, dad. What do you need in town?" Jonny asked in a slightly curious voice, doubting it was something minor, after all to go to town from there was at least an hour boat ride, for both ways.
"Oh, I thought we could just stop by some local stores and get some..." he thought to himself on how to entice Jonny, "...icecream, and rent some movies."
Jonny smiled. He shouted out a "Yippie!" in joy.
A faint smile of the joys of parenting came over Benton. He hooked his arm around Jonny's shoulder and brought him close into his side. Jonny smiled brightly and they walked over to the harbor.
Dr. Quest kept thinking how foolish he was to test the sonic wave with smoke and how insensitive that was, but after seeing Jonny, and that he seemed fine, they got onto the hydrofoiler.
Jonny, still at his dad's side as Dr. Quest turned on the boat watched the controls contently. "Jonny, how would you like to steer once we're on the open water, just for a few minutes though." Jonny's smile widened.
After they had left the dock, about twelve minutes or so, they headed on to the local town on the Floridan coastline. Jonny had gotten to steer as they had passed a small group of bottle nosed dolphins, Dr. Quest had taken a few pictures for the collection. Other than that, the boat ride was uneventful, but pleasant.
Dedicated to Meach.
On a small island off the Floridan coast, the privately owned Palm Key Compound was flooded with an array of firework like explosions over the main lab. Jonny Quest, a young 10 year old blond boy with blue eyes, son to the famous Dr. Quest, and Hadji, his adopted brother, and Race stood under a tent nearby some electrical equipment and a redheaded scientific genius, Dr. Quest. Dr. Quest used the machine to make those firework-like explosives, he began typing codes into the terminal, the explosions began changing color, and causing a slight reflection, showing it was really a glass orb.
"Dad, this is your electro-magne...netic..." Jonny stammered on the long name.
"My electro-magnetic field disrupter?" He chuckled, "Why yes Jonny it is do you like it?"
"Dr. Quest, it is astounding!" the 11 year old Indian boy said with a smile plastered on his wide-eyed excited face.
"Yeah, but dad, what is it really for...?" Jonny asked puzzled, "...it doesn't look like your other inventions."
"Well, Jonny, that's because this isn't a Military Weapon, in fact, this is a prototype for much more than military purposes, in fact, it embodies the concept of using magnetics to produce electricity, the explosions were actually electrons with a different charge producing many colors, like testing a neon light in a hydraulic dam." He said in a charismatic way.
"Oh... so it makes power and that was a test to see if it worked?" Jonny asked, he wasn't sure if that's what his dad meant.
"Exactly son. Now, it's late boys, so why don't you go back to bed." He began to turn off the machine.
"Ok, goodnight dad." Jonny said, then Hadji spoke right after.
"Goodnight sir."
" 'Night Race." then in sync, the boys added. And went to their room.
"So Dr. Quest, it really is just a generator?" Race said with a light smile edging his lips.
"Yes, it's our new generator, the bulb on the other hand though is for the contract."
"What's so special about it?"
"Well, Race, it uses a particular band of radiation, nothing harmful, I would never expose the boys to anything dangerous like that... but this radiation is able to disrupt some radio frequencies, and certain pitched sound waves, it may be possible to create a sonic weapon out of this power source, or so is our hope. Especially because it's not harmful to people, it only damages structures, metalic ones at that. Think, a weapon that kills no one, truly a beautiful idea, so long as it doesn't fall into the wrong hands, although it is no where near that stage of completion." Dr. Quest said, the machine powered down completely and he and Race wheeled it back into the laboratory.
The next day, on the sandy beach, Race and the boys had some lemonade, the boys thirsty after running away from two sea monsters... aka Race and Bandit. Dr. Quest sat back in a lounging lawn chair, with a pair of burgandy swimming trunks on, working dilligently on his notes while soaking up the sunlight.
After the fourtieth page of written notes, literally, Dr. Quest stood up, stretching, and walked over to the boys who were now building a sand castle. "Boys, amazing job on the sand castle, it's supposed to be the Maharaja's palace, right?"
"Yeah, told you he'd see it Hadji!" Jonny smiled. He worked on the ark in a window.
"It's very nice, although all the arks appear to be off by about 3 degrees..." he said studying the windows. Hadji laughed running his hands through the sand so it sprayed Jonny.
"Ha ha ha, I told you Jonny, I told you it had to be thinner at that part!" Hadji said with a slight hint of testosterone.
Jonny spat out the sand in his mouth, "Hey! That's it Hadji, you're asking for it!" Jonny ran towards a stash of water balloons.
"Oh no you don't Jonny... Sim-Sim-Salabim!" the balloon Jonny held in his right hand burst, dowsing him.
"Hey, no fair. Play fair!" Jonny said throwing one quickly at Hadji, soaking him and Dr. Quest's feet to his knees in water. The boys began running around having a balloon fight.
Dr. Quest touched his hand lightly over his eyebrows inner edges and laughed softly at the moment.
As the tide came in, the cause of the argument, the castle, had been destroyed by waves, Dr. Quest monitored the skies, the clouds seemed to lighten up a bit.
Around 3 O'Clock, Dr. Quest was back in his lab working on an idea for the sonic device. After hours of fiddling with it, he had come up with a complete solution to making the sonic wave work. "If I ionize the wave so it creates the complement to the metallic charges... then it will be drawn to the metal with the most charges... which hypothetically would be the warring equiptment, and then the ray would completely dissolve the weapon, and render it useless." He began sketching out the prints. All he needed was time to build it and a way to test it, which would be easy with the military facilities stationed there.
When he finally left the lab, locking it up completely, he checked his watch, "Midnight?! I forgot to say goodnight to the boys!" He said, kicking himself in the bum for missing out on one of his favorite fatherly duties. He went to check on the boys anyways, one of his more worrisome tasks, he always feared finding them missing.
He walked to the door and cracked it open, Hadji laid still in his covers his sheets lifting up and falling lightly down each time he inhaled and exhaled respectively.
Jonny on the other hand was having a nightmare, Dr. Quest could tell, he was tossing in his bed, sweat forming on his brow and on the small peach-fuzz hair on the edge of his lips leaving a salty resedue to dry them, he breathed heavily and his REM sleep seemed frantic as he kicked and punched his arms in response to each horror of his dream. Jonny then shot up and called out. Dr. Quest broke his facinated gaze to comfort his child.
"Jonny, Jonny, hey, I'm here, it was only a dream... sh." He said in a quiet whisper holding Jonny to his chest, Jonny leaned into his father's shoulder and made his way into a kneeling position so he was closer to his father's warm friendly face.
"Dad... is something wrong?" he mumbled, after the initial jolt of waking up from the nightmare faded.
"No, everything's fine. I was just checking up on you." Dr. Quest said, he ran his fingers over Jonny's hair a few times, making it stand on it's edges.
"Oh, ok..."
"Now, why don't I get you a glass of water and then you go back to bed, alright?" his face seemed lightened and caring.
"Ok." Jonny stood up out of his bed with his dad. They made their way to the kitchen to get the glass of water.
"Jonny, if you don't mind telling me, what was it about?" he said looking into his son's distracted eyes.
"Oh... my nightmare? About mom... and the fire..." Jonny sighed. "Why does it still hurt, thinking about it?" Jonny asked with the innocence only a little boy can have. A boy who's seen the world and all it's wonders, yet still sees through innocent children's eyes. "Then, when I woke up, this weird lady, named Meach, or so her name tag read... she ran up to me and kept asking me where you were."
Dr. Quest quarked a brow. The clock chimed 2 times, it was 2 AM, he snapped back into the relization that his 10 year old son was up for 2 hours at this time of the night. "Jonny, goodness, you have to go back to bed..." but Jonny seemed to have him beaten to it, he was laying asleep at the table with a glass half filled with water in his hand. So, Dr. Quest lifted the boy and carried him gently to his bedroom.
That morning, at 7, Jonny still laid sleeping in his bed, Hadji was up and looking at Jonny scratching his head, Jonny was usually up first, but this time, even as he slept he seemed tired. So Hadji and Race went over to the beach.
Dr. Quest was at work in his lab by 6 that morning, when Jonny finally woke up at 9 he wandered the empty house, slightly startled, he ran through it as if in trance remembering the fire that once burned in the house when he was much younger, the one his mother had saved him from. Jonny was a scared 4 year old, rushing through the house looking for his parents and a way out. Rachel had grabbed him and dragged him outside, then his dad had used a weird machine that shot out white foam ending the fire.
Jonny began breathing heavily again, as if he could smell the fire again, he rushed room to room to see if he was hallucinating, he saw no fire, he ran to the lab, and opened the door, a layer of thick smoke poured into the house in a puff. Jonny began coughing insanely at the face full of smoke. Dr. Quest rushed over to him. "Jonny! Are you okay?" he said as the fans in the room began filtering out the smoke. "Jonny, son, are you alright?" he said rubbing his hands over Jonny's face checking vitals and trying to have Jonny look straight into his eyes. "The sonic wave, what I was testing it on caused some smoke... are you alright?"
"I... am, dad..." Jonny said after analyzing his situation. "Dad, where are the others? the house was empty, I thought something was wrong..."
"Oh, they're on the beach... Jonny, this is going to take an hour to air out, at least, do you want to go into town with me while we wait?" he said putting a gentle hand on his son's shoulder.
"Okay, dad. What do you need in town?" Jonny asked in a slightly curious voice, doubting it was something minor, after all to go to town from there was at least an hour boat ride, for both ways.
"Oh, I thought we could just stop by some local stores and get some..." he thought to himself on how to entice Jonny, "...icecream, and rent some movies."
Jonny smiled. He shouted out a "Yippie!" in joy.
A faint smile of the joys of parenting came over Benton. He hooked his arm around Jonny's shoulder and brought him close into his side. Jonny smiled brightly and they walked over to the harbor.
Dr. Quest kept thinking how foolish he was to test the sonic wave with smoke and how insensitive that was, but after seeing Jonny, and that he seemed fine, they got onto the hydrofoiler.
Jonny, still at his dad's side as Dr. Quest turned on the boat watched the controls contently. "Jonny, how would you like to steer once we're on the open water, just for a few minutes though." Jonny's smile widened.
After they had left the dock, about twelve minutes or so, they headed on to the local town on the Floridan coastline. Jonny had gotten to steer as they had passed a small group of bottle nosed dolphins, Dr. Quest had taken a few pictures for the collection. Other than that, the boat ride was uneventful, but pleasant.