Cybernetics – Chapter 1
Disclaimer: I do not own Jimmy Neutron or any of the characters that are owned by Nickelodeon, but I do maintain the rights to the plot of this story and the characters I create therein.
Author's Note: Alright, so to clear up any misconceptions, this story IS about Jimmy Neutron, but Chase plays a very significant role in the entire story, just consider this Chapter an introduction to who Chase is.
Just so it's clear, Italics signify that the dialogue is being thought and not said. I've also decided to use non-standard markings for dialogue just to make the story easier to read.
Remember to enjoy the story, and please, I appreciate feedback whether it be positive, negative and perhaps even constructive.
Chase Johnson lived a wonderful life in Los Angeles, California; a life that couldn't possibly be any more perfect. He happened to be a fairly popular senior student at Los Angeles Senior High School.
For Chase, Stephanie was arguably the reason that he was so happy all of the time and the reason he did so incredibly well in school. Despite being in the popular group of people at school, he refused to associate too much with anyone who was stuck up and pretentious due to their social ranking on the so-called school popularity list.
Chase's friends were also an incredible group of people. They cared for him greatly, and he cared for them greatly as well; if there was a situation where they needed to back each other up, they did it without question, as they had made a pact when they were kids. John, one of his two best friends was considered his right hand man at school, helping him manage all of the club activities, particularly since Chase was the president of the extracurricular activity committee. His other best friend, Tony, was considered his left-hand man. Tony also helped him in managing the after school activities, seeing as he could balance the budgets of the schools various clubs with ease, as his major was in accounting.
The three sat in the vacant homeroom class, making posters and discussing the budgets for different clubs when Chase decided to break the monotonous conversation.
'So guys, summer break is right around the corner, you guys excited?!' Chase exclaimed.
'I suppose I'm pretty excited, how about you Tony?' John murmured indifferently, surprising Tony, since he knew that John was usually pretty outgoing.
'Hmm? Oh right, summer break is about 2 weeks away, we should probably go to the beach, and Chase could bring Stephanie, and I could bring Karla!' Tony said, a grin spreading across his face.
Karla was the girl Tony had crushed on since they were kids, they shared the same obsession with numbers and they always had good chemistry; for Tony, it was a match made in heaven.
It had taken Chase a bit longer to get together with Stephanie, but it was worth it for all the glorious and wonderful moments they had together. Chase didn't really know what he would do without her. If something ever happened to her, he would be furious, he would possibly fall into a state of manic depression, but Chase decided to dispel the thoughts from memory, since the odds of something like that happening were slim to none.
'So what about you John, aren't you going to bring a special lady to the beach with us? Maybe a special lady by the name of...Diana?' Chase teased, smirking all the while.
'Oh come on guys, I thought the teasing about me and Diana would have stopped by now.' John whined.
'You know we're just teasing you John, just ask her to come along, I mean the worst thing she can do is say no, right?' Chase reasoned with his friend.
John had a crush on a girl named Diana in his homeroom. Chase and Tony teased him because Diana was a bit younger than them and also because she was a junior in a senior class, which meant she was pretty smart. John enjoyed having her around, her personality was very warm, but secretly he was a bit shy when it came to asking girls anything, especially a girl as intelligent as Diana.
'But guys, she's a year younger than me, don't you think it would seem just a little bit creepy if I asked her to go anywhere with me?' John asked, trying to make his friends drop the subject.
Tony butted into the conversation. 'Oh please John, come back to reality, I'm pretty sure there are seniors in our homeroom who date freshmen, now something like that is pretty creepy, but what's a one year age gap? Just ask her tomorrow and it'll be fine, trust me.'
'Fine, but if she embarrasses me in homeroom, I'm going to be irritated with you Chase.' John said, pointing a finger at him half-threateningly.
'Oh come on John, you wouldn't hurt a fly,' Chase grinned, 'Much less one of your best friends.'
'You're right, but anyways, all of this talk about Diana is getting to my head, you guys want to go get some coffee?' John offered and added 'I'll even pay since you guys gave me the courage to try to ask Diana out.'
'Now we're talking, let's pack this stuff up and head out!' Both Tony and Chase exclaimed simultaneously. They both loved coffee.
The trio picked up all the loose papers and the posters that they were designing for the clubs, swept the floor and fed the classroom pet before putting their backpacks on and locking the classroom door behind them. They walked through the main corridor to head outside and Chase couldn't help but feel a slight tingling as if something was amiss in his otherwise perfect world. They all piled into Tony's car and started driving towards the nearest coffee shop which happened to be a couple of miles away. Chase looked at his watch and decided that it was fairly early still, four in the afternoon, but he realized that he still had to be home for dinner at nine. As they were driving, Tony decided to ask him something.
'Hey Chase, are we going to use your parent's car to get to the beach in a few weeks? I don't think this old rust bucket of mine can handle the trek!' Tony exclaimed jokingly, laughing at his own joke.
'Don't worry man, I'm almost one hundred percent sure that my folks will lend us the SUV, seeing as I have a perfect driving record unlike someone in this car.' Chase said, looking in the general direction of John.
'Hey man, to be fair, that tree totally popped out of nowhere, that's not my fault.' John justified, raising his arms in defeat.
'Sure, whatever you say man.' Tony snickered. 'Oh and by the way, we're here.' Tony added as he pulled into the parking lot expertly.
The trio of friends exited the car and headed indoors into the quite busy cafe. They were seated by a waiter and they ordered coffee and some sweets to go with it as well. They discussed which beach they would go to over the summer and other details about the trip.
'So how in the world are we going to get the money to pay for the hotel rooms or a cabin on the beach?' Tony inquired, nervously.
'Don't worry about a thing, I have a friend up near the beach that can do me a favor and get us free hotel rooms for the week, he owes me after I kept him from doing jail time.' Chase said confidently.
'You kept him from doing jail time? Damn man, that sounds like something you should probably tell us, go on and tell the story!' Tony exclaimed, encouraging his friend.
'It's really nothing too big man, just that he got caught fooling around with the manager's seventeen year old daughter and the manager just happened to owe me a favor, let's just say that in the kitchen, there were more than a few health code violations.' Chase said with disgust.
'Ugh, remind me not to eat there then!' John exclaimed in disgust, his face scrunching up.
'I second that notion!' Tony exclaimed, snickering at John's reaction.
'That's pretty cool man, so how are things going with Stephanie?' Tony asked, trying to ease a response out of Chase, he never did talk about his "Girl" in much detail.
'Personally, I think things between us couldn't be going any better, she's slowly warming up to the idea of being my girlfriend, and I'm insanely happy. Also while we're on the subject of girls, how are you and Karla doing?' Chase asked in rebuttal.
'Can't really complain about the progress I'm making with her, I'm hoping to ask her to the summer dance, I hope that she'll say yes, I can't bear to think that she might say no.' Tony stated, a frown starting to appear on his face.
' Oh and by the way, how are your grades guys? Remember, you need every grade to be above a B to even think about going to the summer dance.' Chase said, staring at Tony.
'Ah, damn it, I just remembered that I have a C in that stupid science class! I'll have to talk to the teacher next week about making up some work I suppose.' Tony murmured dejectedly.
Hours flew by as they made small talk and gossiped a little about the couples at school and talked a bit about the newest upcoming video games. As the hours went by, people began to leave the café in what seemed to be huge droves.
'So Tony, you thinking about which college you're going to after this year's over?' Chase pitched him the question, out of curiosity.
'To be honest with you, I have no idea where I'm going; I suppose I'll go to yours if it's an Ivy League College.' Tony responded with a shrug.
John butted into the conversation 'Do you guys want to get out of here? It's getting a bit late, and the café is starting to die down in terms of people.' All the talk of girlfriends and college was starting to make him a bit uncomfortable.
'Yeah, I suppose we can get out of here, just drop me off at home Tony.' Chase said, looking down at his watch, realizing he only had about an hour until dinner was ready.
As the trio was driving home, Chase thought that he had seen a mysterious figure exit the café right after them, but he chalked this up to nerves. Chase had never noticed this until recently, but looking out of the passenger seat window he noticed that most of the roads near his neighborhood were fixed and repaved, and the sidewalk had a portion designated for bikers and joggers. What a nice addition by the City Council, Chase thought absentmindedly.
Pretty soon Tony drove up to the front of his house, and Chase exited the vehicle and headed into the house. He then said 'I'll see you guys tomorrow, have a good one!"
Chase entered his home and was greeted by his parents and his little sister, Rose. His parents looked slightly irritated that he arrived at this time of night, but were happy that he was home nonetheless, so they decided not to bring it up. His sister Rose ran up to him and gave him a big, suffocating hug; she happened to really love her big brother.
'Hey Rose, how was school today?' Chase asked, patting and rubbing her head while smiling.
'It was really good, how about you Chase? Why were you late?' Rose asked innocently, with a big old smile.
'Oh that, well after the meetings I have after school, me and my friends went to go get some coffee.' Chase explained to her with a smile.
'Also, what's for dinner Mom? I'm pretty hungry after having nothing to eat since lunch.'
'For dinner you'll be having meatloaf and vegetables!' Joanne said excitedly, happy to have dinner with her family.
'Sounds delicious Mom, I'm glad you're such a good cook!' Chase said, smiling.
Chase went to go wash up upstairs, change into his shorts and sandals, they were more comfortable for when he was walking around the house, Chase reasoned. He went downstairs as soon as he heard his Mom and Dad call for him. The table was beautifully set, the food looked amazing and he dug into it, rapidly eating all of the food as if he had been starving for weeks.
'Son, I think you should slow down a bit before you begin eating the plate!' Jack said as he laughed heartily at his son.
'Sorry about that, guess I really had a huge appetite being worked up in my stomach.' Chase said apologetically.
Soon enough everyone was done eating their dinner and excused themselves to go to different areas of the house. Chase went upstairs to take a shower and then go to sleep. He showered, got dressed in his sleeping attire and then got into bed.
'Ah, my life could never go wrong.' Chase mumbled as he drifted off to sleep.
Oh how truly wrong one statement could be…
Overhead above his house, a military stealth aircraft was running surveillance on one particular Chase Johnson. This particular aircraft contained a couple of pilots, a fully fledged flight crew, combat ready military personnel and a General to oversee the operation, this General in particular was named Minor S. Jackson, one of the highest ranking U.S Military personnel. Chase had been tracked for multiple days, through the help of microscopic bugs that would track his every movement and every word he spoke.
This particular operation had to do with the Cybernetics Lab back at home base. The mission description said that the lab needed a new test subject. This operations objective was to acquire a test subject with highly specific characteristics, such as a strong connection to his family and loved ones, hidden internal anger and turmoil, high strength and intelligence and the ability to make good social interactions. General Jackson absentmindedly noticed that this particular aircraft was designed by James Isaac Neutron, judging from the faded atom logo on some of the equipment, this bothered him greatly since James Isaac Neutron was one of the lead designers of most modern military hardware, and some of the higher ups in the U.S military thought that he may pose a threat to them if he ever went… for a lack of a better word, rogue.
'Why did I have to get sent to another one of these operations, they always fail miserably back in the Cybernetics lab and then we have to find a new lab rat to test with.' Jackson growled, irritated at the situation.
'Well sir, even though I know nothing about the specific objective of the tests are, I suspect that it's fairly important if even after thirty failures, they're still sending us out here to find more test subjects. Jilly, one of the pilots noted.
'I do suppose you are right.' Jackson conceded.
So if she's right, why do they need a cyborg so badly? Are they planning on starting that whole covert assassinations thing again? It can't possibly be that because that project was shut down years ago, most likely they need a Cyborg to take out a specific, very powerful target; otherwise, what was the point of having specifics like these for the test subject?
Jackson looked over at the faded logo again and remembered that the U.S Government had always had an inherent fear of James Neutron, but to what extent would they go keep him at bay? Oh well, orders were orders Jackson reasoned as he began to bark orders through his headset.
"Assault Team ready?"
"Capture Crew ready?"
"Snipers in position?"
The response that Jackson received was a resounding 'Yes Sir!' from all three teams.
'Alright, go ahead and commence the acquisition of the package!'
The assault team lowered themselves from the hovering aircraft, sliding down the ropes in their black clad uniforms, they hit the ground and the moonlight made the M4 Assault Rifles Gleam. The nine men split into 3 man squads and secured the perimeter of the house, one group in the front, one in the back and the last group was covering the street from passerby. The snipers got into position on a wooded hill quite a distance away, so they could be aware of any possible witnesses to the operation. The snipers signaled back to the general that the capture team could commence acquisition.
'Alright, snatch the target and let's get out of here.' Jackson said to the Capture Crew radio channel.
The capture team lowered themselves onto the ground and used hooks to hold themselves to the siding of the house, they came in through the second floor window and saw Chase sleeping, perfect.
'Steady now, grab him by the legs and I'll restrain his arms.' One of the men whispered.
Chase woke up to two strange men attempting to what he assume was kidnap him, so as a natural response he tried to yell for help, but as soon as the men realized he was awake, Chase was met with a swift blow to the head.
His vision started fading to black as he quietly made out two words… 'Help me' and then unconsciousness kicked in and he passed out.
Author's Note: Oh man, what a chapter! Just so you guys know, Chase and his friends are supposed to be the opposite of what Jimmy Neutron and his band of friends are, a role reversal of sorts if you will.