Resonance (Preamble to Frequency) by Vanessa S. Quest
Portland, ME…
The August heat was stifling outside, but Jonny hadn't really experienced much of it at all. He laid atop of his full-sized bed, turned to his side as he played fetch with Bandit and a rolled up sock. With a smooth flick of his wrist, the light projectile would whiz to a corner and Bandit's chase instincts sent him scrambling after it, jumping to catch it when it zipped over his head and more often than not missing it, the chunker was losing some of his spry from puppyhood.
Upon Bandit's collection of the object, he'd turn to look at his silent human who'd smile and wave toward his chest and thus cue the 'retrieval' bit to the operation. Once he'd get back to the bedside, Jonny'd extend his palm, face up, and Bandit would obediently 'give' the object. Every few iterations, he'd get an ear scratch for the trouble, and Jonny'd change it up and toss the soggy sock in a different direction as they entertained themselves.
When the knock came to the door, the game paused, Jonny mid throw kept hold of the sock and then gave Bandit a non-verbal look of pause then tossed the sock to the bulldog for him to gnaw on.
Jonny sat up from the bed and headed to the door, he opened it to see Race standing there waiting for that very action.
Glumly, Jonny pushed the door open further and gave a hand-signal Bandit recognized as 'go in'. The dog's ears perked as he happily gnawed the soaked, deliciously foul sock.
"Good morning, kiddo." Race smiled to the teen. "Find your voice yet?"
The teen shrugged, truth be told, he hadn't even felt the need to check. The events from a week ago still too fresh in his mind, he simply had no desire to go through the motion. The way Race was looking at him expectantly explained that he was to, in fact, go through it anyway. He sighed to himself and found a bottle of water and took a sip.
"…Hh…zn…tyet." He croaked. "Buzz…bitter…tuhday."
Race frowned at that, both he and Dr. Quest were hopeful that it would have turned a corner by now. "I'm sure it'll come back soon, I tell you what, let me make up a batch of honey-water for you?"
"Nuhthings." Jonny replied indifferently.
"…" Race's frown deepened as he contemplated what had Jonny sulking so much. The boy was usually far more happy-go-lucky, and while he knew the nightmares had been pretty awful he was getting worried that he wasn't bouncing back yet. "…Then how about we go for a run today? You've been squirreled away in here for a week now."
The frigid look Jonny shot him was out of place with the kid he knew, he wondered if he was still holding a grudge about them not mentioning the note sooner. Not that he'd argue holding his feet over the coals for it either, both he and the doc had thoroughly beat themselves up for it. Hell, the doc was still brooding, himself. Though, whether Jonny was mad or brooding, Race wasn't 100% sure. That would require the kid to actually open up to him and of late, he'd been a tough nut to crack.
When the note had been dropped off, thirty minutes before Jessie and Hadji had gotten back, and another fifteen minutes from when Jonny had, it had set him into a panic—and when Jonny had come back, completely unfazed by it, he'd reacted—badly. He recognized it, but it didn't change the fact that he'd lashed out at Jonny for his perceived carelessness instead of taking a moment to evaluate it. In his defense, there had been some uncanny similarities to how Rachel had been murdered, and it had easily blown a breaker for Benton to be confronted with it. Hell, Race was sure Jonny had also lost it on the comparison. It didn't make it any easier to know he had personally failed the kid. That was probably the worst part—that the boy had been poisoned while practically standing right next to his dad. It certainly hadn't helped Benton's mood either.
"I take your silence as a yes, can you be ready in fifteen minutes?"
The teen's shoulders dropped in annoyance, he nodded once then looked at the door as if telling Race to get out.
"Alright, I'll meet you at the front door." He could swear the teen rolled his eyes at him, he smiled despite it. He had to start laying in-roads with him, and Jonny typically responded well to that over exercise. The door clicked shut to the teen's inner sanctum. With a glance down the hall he could see the teen's father observing the interaction silently. With a quick step, Race headed toward the redhead.
"I'm beginning to wonder if he's giving up the silent treatment on purpose." The bearded man jested.
"Now doc, don't say that…" Race reneged, "…because as stubborn as the both of you are, I don't think we'd ever hear him speak again if that were true."
Benton cocked his head as if in consideration. "You've convinced him to go outside, that's something."
Race nodded, "It is." And it was, it was more than Hadji or Jessie had pulled off, which was another mystery Race felt compelled to get to the bottom of. Jonny didn't have a cool disposition, he was naturally a very sociable, likeable kid—and that he was avoiding his two best friends was adding to his own concern about just how bad that trip, the delirium, had to have been for him to shut down so thoroughly.
"The guidance counselor called earlier, the registrar is open for scheduling their classes. They have AP Chemistry available."
Race nodded along, "Jess wants to take that one, too."
"Oh wonderful, if they're both in the same period it should encourage him to give it his all."
Brown eyes shot wide at that, "Doc, he's never had chemistry, you want to just throw him into collegiate level?"
"Oh nonsense, he's smart enough to handle it—and if he's motivated he'll occasionally rise to the challenge and prove just how proficient he can be."
"True, Jonny's a really bright kid, and if he and Jessie are in class together they could help each other study…" Race considered that possibility, thinking the kid might well enjoy the challenge, though with the way Benton was talking it was already decided. "Don't you think he should have a hand in picking out his classes, too, doc?"
"As long as he's taking it seriously, of course he can. I'll talk with him about it tonight."
Race nodded along. "Alright, I'll let you know how the run goes."
-Resonance JQ-
Rounding the lighthouse, Jonny paced Race as the pair moved along the cliff-trail and toward the beach at a steady run.
The course was a 7 mile loop, one that slung into a wood trail that Jonny frequented on his bike usually once a week. It certainly was a long run, but Jonny had kept his endurance training going since the triathlon from this spring.
Race pushed his speed up a little at the half-way point to gauge Jonny, the teen increased his pace to match, wordlessly. "You think you could beat me on a race back?" He asked, knowing how competitive the teen could get, especially with his own daughter.
The teen narrowed his eyes, as he measured Race, he was sure the kid was running the numbers.
"…Tell you what, if you win, I'll let you practice your parallel parking with my car."
That really earned him a scowl.
"…f'fye lose?"
"Hmm, if you lose, you tell me what's bothering you. Deal?"
The teen nodded once.
"Alright, first to reach the lighthouse takes it."
The teen shot forward in a sprint Race was surprised he still had in the tank, but let him get a head start before he started his own.
Every time he was starting to catch up, the teen seemed to dig deeper and pull a little more, keeping a good ten meter lead, but as they got to the cliff-trail, Race pulled out the stops to cut that down to a five meter lead, then four meters, then three, then two—by the top, he was neck and neck, and pulled ahead with a fifty meter leg to the finish line.
Jonny dug his feet into earth and shot forward once they were on level ground and sprinted at the fastest he'd done the whole race.
"You were holding out on me…" Race laughed as he dug out his own final push, just edging out the teen by a two foot lead.
At the steps to the lighthouse, Jonny leaned over to catch his air. Race was impressed that the kid had handled himself so well. He almost had got him with that feign.
Stretching his own back, he looked at the teenager expectantly.
Jonny frowned but knew better than to renege on a lost wager. "E'erythin'. Noon lis'ns noon taks… mh'a thir' weedle… e'erythin' ay lieck noon cayrnes boud."
Race blinked as he tried to make out what Jonny was saying, "Kiddo, I don't understand, what're you trying to say?"
Jonny shrugged, "mh' bak m'ruhm."
"Now hold on a minute, a deal's a deal."
"En ay set ihd." The teen crossed his arms, "ne'er set ayd say ihd clear err to eyes. Mh goen in."
He felt like he'd been had as he watched Jonny head back inside. What he had gleaned was a riddle in and of itself; the kid felt like no one listens or talks to him? Since when? He couldn't figure out that last bit of what he'd said either- he felt they lied and didn't care? Was that what he'd said? So he was still hung up about the note after all. He decided to give Jonny a few minutes to settle back in, and then he'd go try for a second round, but first he needed to converse with Benton, strategize.
-Resonance JQ-
Back in his room, and an invigorating game of fetch the sock, Jonny dutifully ignored the knock at his door. When the door opened anyway, he rolled his eyes and turned away from the door.
The sound of a throat clearing made him turn toward the door, internally knowing the fatal error in snubbing his dad and debating just what that was about to cost him.
The transparently indifferent, petulant look he levied against his dad didn't seem to translate though, because he strode into his son's bedroom anyway. In fact, his dad seemed to double down. "There you are, son. How was your run?"
He threw an even harder side-eye, he turned back to his side and went back to playing fetch the sock with Bandit, though much less eagerly.
"Jonathon, turn around." His dad said crossly, not keen on being disrespected by his youngest.
Begrudgingly, and almost theatrically, the teen did so, sending his dad an utterly exasperated expression. He really wasn't up for being talked at. Damn it, Race had done more than enough of that and he wasn't even doing it heavy-handed.
"Well then, now that I have your attention…" His dad started, trying to correct the trajectory of the conversation, "We need to work on your class selection for school."
Jonny looked at him in a way that could only come across as indignant. He pushed himself off the bed and went to his desk to dig out a pad of paper and a pen. In Morse code he tapped a scathing, "WE – HUH."
"What was that, young man?" His father chided sternly.
The teen shook his head, still rolling his eyes. It figured his dad decided to brush up on his Morse code after the fact.
"This attitude of yours has overstayed its welcome."
He narrowed his eyes, what was he really going to do, ground him? He was probably planning on it anyway, and would have done it by now if he hadn't gotten so sick. He crossed his arms, his dad was going to do what he was going to do anyway, and he was getting tired of always being the one to compromise everything. That wasn't even compromising at that point, it was surrendering.
No, he'd die on this hill. His mood would be his own, and if his dad wanted to ground him for being in a bad mood as a consequence of the downright phoned-in parenting style he'd employed on that damn trip to Paris, so be it. He uncrossed his arms and rapped out a fast, "THEN – LEAVE." It was the smug satisfaction that he realized his dad didn't study Morse enough to pick up the fast signaling, because like everything else about Jonny of late, his dad put in half-effort if any at all.
He smirked and shook his head, it was laughable how bleak he felt.
He pulled the pen and scrawled a quick note, 'Military school then?'
"Curb the sarcasm. You're skirting the line of what I'm willing to tolerate." His father said in a much harsher tone.
Jonny ran his tongue over the backs of his teeth, mad. He wrote another note, thinking better of it though, he scribbled out the line. No, his dad wouldn't care that Jonny felt he'd already well exceeded what he thought his father was willing to tolerate. Honestly, military school seemed like a happy middle-ground. 'What did you want then?' He flipped the pad to where his dad could read it.
"Are you deaf along with dumb? I've already said this was for your class schedule." He'd thought the razz would lighten the mood, but it seemed to only curdle the already strained atmosphere.
The teen tossed the pad back to his desk and flopped back onto the bed.
"Now cut that out, I know you're a teenager but this insolence is a bit excessive." He tossed the course catalog to his son, the book clapping onto his chest. "Select the courses you want to schedule in, and then we'll discuss them and their availability… I swear, it's like pulling teeth with you sometimes…" He groused.
Jonny plucked up his pen and scanned through the catalog and circled 6 classes, certain courses were inevitable, he was going to be in gym, he was going to be in shop, those were pre-populated, but as a High Honor Roll student, he had flexibility in a few classes, such as honors or AP, or ICC classes to choose from.
He'd circled English Lit (Honors), European History (Honors), AP Art History, Math (Honors), and AP Biology, he handed it back to his dad.
Making quick work to look over it, his dad scowled, "Only 2 AP courses, and one of them is art? No, you need to challenge yourself more than that."
Jonny rolled his eyes and extended his hand, his dad flipped the book back into the hand, Jonny changed the History and Biology to AP.
"…That's a little more like it." He admonished, "You'll also go into AP Chemistry, you're long overdue."
Jonny gawked, he retrieved his pad and began to scrawl a seething rejection, 'I don't want to take AP Chemistry! I haven't even taken Honors Chemistry!'
"Well too bad! You slacked off all spring in school and coasted, you shouldn't be coasting, you should be striving to be a better student."
'I got one B plus in AP Physics.' Jonny heatedly scrawled.
"And 3 A-minuses out of 7 classes, that's hardly a strong showing."
'My overalls were still A's.' He wrote to remind him, 'And one A-minus, but the AP Physics exam was an A.'
His father's eyebrow arched to inform him he was not making a strong case for himself. "It was that silly triathlon of yours, you wasted so much time on it that you let your grades slip."
Jonny seethed, no, it was because his best friends were ditching him and he felt like shit, but he wasn't about to say that to his dad or have to explain why they were ditching him. 'Fine, I'll take your stupid AP Chemistry class, but when I fail don't say I didn't tell you so.'
"You will not get less than an A-minus in it or any of your other classes or you will have no access to Questworld, or trips, or any of the other luxuries I provide you."
'Oh no and miss your lectures? Get out.' He wrote on the pad and then threw it at his dad, he didn't care. He was already threatening him anyway.
Benton read the note, his blood was boiling, "…You're officially grounded for the rest of summer."
Jonny crossed his arms defiantly, "Ay doan' cayrne."
The urge to shake his son was pronounced, he clenched and unclenched his fists. What had happened to his dutiful, eager son? The apple of his eye had always been precocious albeit cheeky, but this was beyond the pale, he was being a pernicious little brat.
"We'll see about that once you realize just how spoiled you've been. IRIS, suspend all electronic access to Jonny Quest until my release authorization, additionally suspend his access to the Light House, Gym, Media and Living Room, and notify me of all his movements outside besides those to and from his room that are not to the restroom, dining room, or outside that are under 10 minutes in duration. You're under house arrest, enjoy that."
"Uhlrehee wuz." He said grimly, "Now geh oud."
His dad blew an enraged breath, "Oh I will, if only so I don't put you over my knee. You're not too old for that, you know!"
The scathing look his son shot him almost made him opt to demonstrate it but instead, he took a calming breath. "Breakfast, lunch, dinner. No snacks, no junk food, no sugar—no video games, no phone, no laptop, and no comic books. If you get bored enough to bother to read, it will have to be vetted by me, am I understood?"
Jonny fumed, he tapped, "YES – SIR." out of spite, though he thought he could've said it aloud.
"That's more like it." Benton left the room, shutting the door with more force than absolutely necessary, he heard his son's footfalls as the boy walked to the door and then the click of the lock. That little shit.
-Resonance JQ-
Race leaned into the wall inside the study, Benton was incensed. As he paced a short circuit debating all the ways he'd clearly failed in giving his son a sense of discipline and gratitude to come out with such a spoiled ingrate, particularly when Hadji'd received the same upbringing and clearly hadn't become so self-important.
"Now Doc, he's a teenager… they gotta push buttons sometimes."
"Like he hasn't done that his entire childhood? That's practically the working title of his autobiography: Jonny Quest and the Buttons He's Pushed."
Race scratched the back of his head, "He's a sensitive kid, what the hell happened to trying to see what's been getting under his skin? You just went on the war-path."
"I'm tempted to go back up there and paddle him." He ranted. "And if he were feeling better, I might have."
That got Race to push off the wall, with a wagging finger he chastised. "You'd regret that as soon as you'd do it, and you know that."
Benton let out a long breath, trying to drop the tension in his shoulders, "…Quite possibly, but check-testing a hypothesis is perfectly rational."
"I know he got under your skin, but he's hiding something that's bugging him, and now our hands will be tied to try to figure that out."
"Oh if he's really concerned about something, he'd tell Hadji, and Hadji has always had better judgment. He'd tell us if he thought it was something we had to help him address." He finally conceded. "You said he thinks we don't talk to him? Or listen to him? Like he ever closes his mouth long enough to not…"
Benton froze before he could finish that piece of vitriol. He'd called his son dumb. The connotation hit him like a sack of bricks as he recalled the heated exchange. His son who'd been rendered mute a week ago, and almost regularly self-conscious about how he ranked to his father or brother in intellectual prowess. Wind thoroughly knocked from his sail, he leaned back against his desk.
"…It's sinking in now, huh?" Race asked cautiously.
He frowned as he considered what he'd said and the layers that could be extrapolated. "It's just that he never seems to listen, until you say something you don't want him to hear."
"Yeah, kids are sneaky that way."
-Resonance JQ-
The family dining room table felt awkwardly quiet as Jessie and Hadji took their seats, Jessie sat across from Jonny, with Hadji to her left and Dr. Quest at the head of the table at her right, Race across from Hadji and next to Jonny had him sandwiched between the adults.
She raised her eyebrows to give the blond a look, he seemed really short today, like he was looking through her and the room as a whole… "What have you been up to all day, Jonny? You never came to the lighthouse."
He diverted his gaze to look at the pre-served portion of dinner. He was impressed at how thorough his dad was being in this, going so far as to make sure dinner was as unenjoyable as possible with such favorites like cream of spinach, corned beef, and too-soft carrots. With a quick scan of the table, he saw everyone else had a roll. Right, the sugar manifesto, apparently carbs were too good for him. He took up his glass of water and drank it down disinterested.
Race gave Dr. Quest a look then nudged Jonny, "Want one?" He offered the bread basket to the teen. Jonny took the basket and kept it passing along.
Rubbing it in was just petty.
He finished his meal rapidly with nothing pleasant to savor he had not real reason to stretch it.
"Hey dad, Hadji showed me where the observatory is, did you know there's going to be a meteor shower this week?"
"Oh, Perseid is visible already? That's a wonderful one." Dr. Quest chimed, "I remember watching that from Acadia National Park as a boy, myself."
Jonny pushed back from the table.
"Where do you think you're going? We're in the middle of dinner, sit down." He responded neutrally to his youngest.
"Are you still hungry, kiddo? Here, let me load you up…"
Jonny pulled his plate from the man's reach and shook his head. "Mh be scused."
"No, you may not be." Dr. Quest retorted smoothly.
The teen glared, Hadji looked between his feuding family members unsure of what had happened. "Jonny, this is unlike you. What is wrong?"
"Your brother is sulking, he's grounded for having an attitude problem." Dr. Quest answered for him.
Indifferently, he turned up his nose to look out the dining room, no longer willing to even look in his father's general vicinity.
"He seems to think if he broods enough and takes one advanced art class it'll liken him to that Banshee fellow."
Jonny clucked his tongue, "S'at it huh?" He shook his head as he crossed his arms, he was tempted to show his dad just what a bad mood really looked like, but that would only make his position even worse.
"Oh? Then correct me if I'm wrong." Benton baited.
"Why bahfer?" Jonny shot back.
Hadji looked between the two, "Will you not tell me why you are in such low spirits?"
"I was discussing the matter with Race, if you want to prove you can manage your school-work and a triathlon, he's magnanimously agreed to train with you, even while you're grounded." Benton interjected. "Let's see if you can do a better showing than last place."
Jessie raised a hand to her mouth to hide her own laugh, that was harsh, but it was a pretty good dig from Dr. Quest, though she hadn't thought he'd egg Jonny on that way. It was almost like he was trying to goad him to do it. And knowing Jonny, he'd bite hook, line, and sinker!
"Nod lieck youd seeid. Buhd yehr awn."
TBC in Frequency.