HISTORY REPEATS ITSELF
By Mela N.

The bustle of the airport seemed to center on the luggage carousels.
The red light on Carousel 4 began to flash and drone out a low-pitched
yet loud alarm every ten seconds.  The milling arrivals gravitated to
the carousel and fought to the front, eager to retrieve their baggage
before anyone else.  After half an hour, most of the luggage was
claimed, and the crowd cleared out; one lone leather suitcase, however,
continued to whirl around on the conveyor belt.  The light ceased
flashing, and the alarm died.  A new crowd began to form at Carousel 7.
Yet the brown leather suitcase kept on its circular path.

"Can I go get it now, Dad?" Jonny Quest asked, watching the suitcase's
cycle.

"I guess, son," Dr. Benton Quest tiredly responded.  He forced his
weary eyes open to watch his young son retrieve the case.  "Need any
help?"

"Nah, I got it."  Jonny pulled the case from the conveyor belt and
dropped it to its plastic wheels with a heavy thunk.  He started to
pull it by its nylon lead to the waiting area.

Dr. Quest stiffly came to his feet and walked towards Jonny, stifling a
yawn.  "I'll take it."  He took the lead in his loose grip and led both
the suitcase and Jonny to the loading walk, navigating the waning
crowds.

"Dad, why'd you wait to get our stuff?" Jonny asked, raising his voice
as he hurried to keep up.  "There isn't anything special in it, is
there?"

"No, just our clothes," Dr. Quest called back.  "I didn't feel like
navigating another crowd."  The auto-matic doors parted, and the two
left the airport's ceaseless hustle.  Dr. Quest scanned the rows of
idling cars and wearily sighed.  He sat down on his case.  "Why don't
you find our ride, Jonny?  I need to sit for a minute?"

"You feel okay, Dad?"

"Yes.  I suppose it's exhaustion...or airline food."

"Oh.  Okay," Jonny meekly concurred, not quite sure what airline food
had to do with anything.  He dropped his backpack down beside his
father's feet and took off to the right, vanishing into the crowd.

Dr. Quest closed his eyes and tried to relax.  He was unaccustomed to
public flights and even more so to public airports.  Yet, he had no
choice; Race's annual debriefing was scheduled the same week as the
London conference, and neither could be missed.  To further complicate
matters, Hadji was woefully sick and couldn't make the trip; this kept
his pilot home to tend to the boy's health.  The conference had yielded
nothing of value, and the trip had been entirely trying.  He opened his
eyes despite their heavy weight and checked his watch.  Nearly ten
minutes had passed.  The sky had started to dull into dusk, and the
crowds had dispersed.  He checked the street quickly and lept to his
feet.  Out of the dozen or so people still on the street, not one was
Jonny.

"Jonny?" Dr. Quest called out, his voice starting to tremble.
"Jonny?!"  He hastily took off to the right, leaving his luggage
behind.  "Jonny!"  His stomach soured; his heart pounded uncontrollably
in his chest.  He kept calling his son, growing louder and more
frantic.  A myriad of thoughts overwhelmed him, all negative.  All
these people, all these cars coming and going without notice...  In
those ten wasted minutes, his son could be out of the state, out of the
country; he could be scared or hurt or..--  He froze.  No answers.  He
had let him vanish.  He had let his only son disappear.  Jonny was go--

"Excuse me," a man in the rear seat of a long gray Buick called out.
Dr. Quest turned to face him.  He was sallow in color, a paleness
offset by his copious stubble and slick of dark hair; cold, gunmetal
eyes peered out at him from behind silver glasses that rested just
above a lit cigarette.  "Are you Benton Quest?"

"Y-yes," Dr. Quest stammered, somewhat put off by the man's calm
demeanor.

"Good," the man said.  He leveled a handgun at him and audibly released
the safety.  "Get in."

Dr. Quest stared at the gun and grew silent.  After a long,
immeasurable pause of stone quiet, he calmly replied, "Not without my
son."

"Oh, your son!  He's about ten years old, looks like his mom, right?"  The
man turned his head slightly, but the gun stayed unflinchingly pointed at Benton. 
"Hey, kid, your dad's here. "  Dr. Quest caught his breath.  "Say something."
Silence. "Now, you wouldn't want your father to get hurt, would you, boy?" 

"Sorry, dad," came the quiet familiar voice.  Relief coursed through Benton's
tired frame; his son was all right.

The man returned his full attention to Dr. Quest, and cocked the handgun.  "Now, 
get in the car, Doctor."


* * *


A dull ache grew in Jonny's head, and he moaned as he opened his eyes.
Nothing was visible except for a few slits of light above his legs.  He
tried to sit up but struck his head against a metal ceiling; every
effort to move his arms met with resistance from tight, coarse ropes
anchored around his waist.  There was a throb in his right shoulder
that was familiar as the by-product of a hypodermic shot.  He was
stiff, and his mouth felt disgustingly dry, more indications that he
was drugged at some point.  He leaned back and sighed, listening for
some hint as to his whereabouts.  He didn't have a long wait.

"What do you want?" Dr. Quest shouted in the seeming distance.  "I
don't even know you!"

"Thought you had a photographic memory," a voice rough from heavy
smoking snarled in response.  "Do you remember this?"  Jonny tried to
angle himself to see exactly what "this" was but failed.

"That mistake?"

"That mistake of yours isn't working.  Ya gotta fix it."

"I don't have to do anything!"  There was another pause.  "Where's
Jonny?  What have you done to him?"

Jonny listened for footsteps, hoping they were his father's; nothing
but cold silence.  "Dad!" he yelled, his voice slightly raspy.  He
kicked against the walls.  "Dad!"  He struggled in his bonds, hoping to
loosen them.  "Dad!  Can you hear me?"

"Jonny?  Where are y---"  There was an audible struggle, and the slits
of light were pulled away, along with the majority of the ceiling.  He
was abruptly jerked up and held by the back of his collar.  His father
was roughly restrained by two large men, one he recognized as their
abductor.  Every attempt Dr. Quest made to speak was squelshed.

"Let 'im go!" Jonny shouted in futile protest.  He was promptly jerked
as a discipline.

"Alright, Quest, if you don't do exactly as we say, you'll be short a
son.  Is that clear?"  The man dropped Jonny back into the tiny room
and slammed the ventilated ceiling down.  Jonny had no choice but to
listen, hoping his father would be able to speak; he was not.  "Now get
to work."

Jonny heard very little for a long stretch of time outside of the
occassional footsteps over the vent.  He had no idea whether he had
spent days or mere minutes locked away.  His watch had been lifted; if
it was there, he couldn't move his arms to see it.  He managed to while
away his imprisonment with slumber, eating untold amounts of time.  He
spent his waking moments trying to writhe free on the ropes but
proceeded to give himself a fairly nasty case of ropeburn before they
were loose enough to squirm off.  Jonny quickly discovered that he had
next to no room to move once he was free, however; he barely fit into
the room stretched out on his back, yet he could nearly sit up.  He
also learned that the ceiling was loose--a little pushing just might
jar it off.  His first experiment with the ceiling was thwarted by an
argument, a loud eruption of vocal protest.

"I've done two days' work!" Dr. Quest shouted, noticeably exasperated.
"I need to rest."

"You know you've only got a week," one of the men yelled in response;
Jonny was never sure exactly which one was yelling.  "Five days now.
The quicker you finish, the better the boy's chances of survival.  You
want one of ya t'get out alive, right?"  There was a long, tense pause.
 "Ya got three hours.  This way."

The silence returned, and Jonny waited.  Footsteps stomped over his
ceiling and faded away; the slit of light dimmed into shadow.  A mute
air choked the building, broken only by Jonny's quickening heart beat.
He then broke the air with a metallic bang, kicking the ceiling away.
He poked his head up, underscored by the echo of the bang and the
rolling of one screw.  The lights had been turned off, and the
building, a hangar by Jonny's estimation, was practically abandoned.
There was a closed door to an office with a rippled glass window that
glowed with a miniscule light.  Jonny climbed out and carefully tiptoed
towards the door; he peered into the glass and strained to see exactly
who was inside.  As he leaned against the door, it slid open.

"Who's there?"

"Dad?" Jonny asked as he entered.  Dr. Quest sat up on a cot and stared
at him, exhausted but relieved.  His left eye was blackened, which drew
a concerned gasp and a tight hug from his son.

Dr. Quest gently returned Jonny's hug, noticeably weaker.  "It's okay,
son.  I'm okay."  He glanced at the boy's arms, eying the ropeburns.
"How'd you get out?"

"I just kicked the roof off," Jonny whispered; he knew someone would
hear them.  He sat down on the cot and sighed.  "Dad, who are these
guys?"

"I honestly have no idea," Dr. Quest answered.  "I just know they're
dangerous.  They haven't hurt you?"

"Not really.  I'm sorta hungry."  Dr. Quest reached over and handed his
son one of his two stale crackers.  Jonny shook his head.  "Dad, it's
okay."  He wordlessly insisted until Jonny reluctantly took the
cracker.  He stared at it, his stomach too tight to eat.  "Dad?"  Dr.
Quest stared straight into his son and tried his best to appear strong.
 "Why are we here?"

"I'm here to fix that."  Dr. Quest stood up and led his son to the
door.  He gestured to a massive structure just visible in the
moonlight, revealing exactly what "that" was:  about twently feet of
controls decorated by eight generators feeding into a master cannon,
barely held within the building.  Dr. Quest glared at it coldly.  "It's
a mistake I made.  It creates enough seering heat to incinerate the
surface of an entire metropolis in seconds.  It should never have been
conceived."  He sighed and rubbed the back of his stiff neck.

"Gosh, Dad, why didn't you just scrap it?  Why'd you give it away?"

Dr. Quest closed his eyes and desperately sought a proper explanation;
an actual physical pain was felt in his chest.  "I....  I had no
choice."  He sighed sadly.  "Only five more days...." he muttered to
himself.

"What?"

He forced a smile.  "Five more days, and I'll get you out, I promise."
He gave Jonny a quick hug.  "There's a phone down there.  Just call
Race and tell him you're safe."

"What about you?"

Dr. Quest's smile melted away into stoicism.  "I have work to do.  You
should just go make that call."  As Jonny walked out, he put his hand
on the boy's shoulder and squeezed gently.  "Son, be careful."


* * *


The telephone in the master bedroom of Palm Key's residential home cut
the midnight silence and managed to stir one person from their sleep.
As the ringing continued, he turned on a recording and tracing device;
then he lifted the receiver.

"Hello?" Hadji meekly asked, still stuffed up from his influenza.

"Hadji, is Race there?" was the hastily whispered reply.

"Jonny?  Where are you?"

"I don't really know.  Just tell Race I'm okay."  There was a pause.
"Dad's okay, too, but he's acting sorta strange.  I think he's scared."
There was a longer pause; Jonny returned, his voice quieter.
"Someone's here.  I gott--Mmph!!"  A muffled struggle was heard; the
phone abruptly cut off.

Hadji stood there for a second, numb.  What had happened?  He couldn't
imagine, no matter how much he felt he should.  He glanced over at the
device; a small red light quickly flashed off as a neighboring green
light blinked on.  He forced a relieved smile.  They would be okay,
eventually.


* * *


The first guards in the office were heavily armed, each cradling a
stolen M-15 as if it were priceless.  The cool nature of their stares
only added to the sudden apprehension that gripped Dr. Quest, not to
mention the vice grip one held his struggling son in.  The man who had
consistently dogged him, who had the audacity to hold his only son at
gunpoint, walked in, holding a common gift box worn from time.  The
guard that held Jonny let the boy squirm free and watched as he ran to
his father.  The man approached the two and sat the box down on the
bed.  He stared straight into Jonny, his eyes almost black.  Jonny held
his breath, trying to stay calm.  He failed; even his father's presense
didn't help.

"We caught him using the phone, Hullen," one of the guards said.  "It
was traced."

"You're sure?" Hullen asked, still focused on Jonny.

"Positive.  We've been getting calls most of the night from his nanny. 
Wants to negotiate."

"His nanny, eh?"  Hullen smiled a little, and Jonny backed away.

"Yeah.  His nanny the CIA operative."

"Oh.  I'll talk to 'im.  Make sure they don't try anything.  Shoot the
kid if anyone does."  Hullen left the room, followed by the guards. 
The office door slammed shut; the M-15 barrels were visible through the
glass window.

"Nice try, son," Dr. Quest whispered, trying to ease Jonny's fear.

Jonny ignored his father and let his attention drift to the box on the
cot.  "Dad, what's in that?" he meekly asked.

"I don't know.  Maybe a bomb.  Stand back."  Jonny stood against the
far wall and watched as his father slowly raised the lid.  Both winced
their eyes shut, waiting for a bang and debris to rip into them. 
Instead, there was silence.  Dr. Quest saw only tissue paper, which was
quickly pulled away.  Underneath was a light yellow ladies' nightgown,
folded carefully yet still obviously bloodstained and torn.  He
tenderly picked it up and studied it; it smelled faintly of roses. 
"Rachel...."

Jonny walked back towards his father and stared at the nightgown,
utterly confused.  "Dad?"

Dr. Quest closed his eyes and turned towards his son.  "This was your
mother's.  She was wearing it when they, ah..."  His words started to
break.  "..took her."  Jonny just stared in quiet shock, still
processing what he had just heard.  "Jonny, these men,..."  Dr. Quest
let a few errant tears roll down his face.  "They killed your mother. 
I-I gave them that cannon as a ransom, but she died anyway.  They knew
when I'd be out, and they never really intended to return her....  I'm
sorry, son....  I won't let them take you, too."

Jonny found himself crying.  This rag had belonged to the person who
taught him to water ski and to read?  He sat down next to his father
and tried to touch the nightgown, but he couldn't muster the nerve. 
"How..?" he asked, barely audible.

"I don't know.  She was dead when we found her."  Dr. Quest refolded
the nightgown and placed it in the box.  He took off his blazer, draped
it over his son, and hugged the weeping boy.  "I promise I won't let
them take you away, Jonny."

Hullen barged in abruptly, looking noticeably ruffled.  "He's goin'
home, you're stayin'," he sighed angrily.  "You've gotta finish that
cannon, Quest.  You can stay.  But your son's nanny's coming in two
days and taking the kid home.  That clear?"  Dr. Quest barely nodded. 
"Good.  Really don't wanna find myself on the business end of a SWAT
team.  Get back to work."  

Dr. Quest stood up and patted his son on the shoulder.  "Stay here and
relax," he calmly stated as he left.  The door slammed again.

Jonny let the next two days pass in a haze.  He found himself fixated
with his mother's nightgown.  He could still see her in it, coming to
his room at night to tuck him in under his blankets.  She was always
smiling around him, always happy.  Had she known she was going to die? 
Did it hurt?  Jonny put the thought out of his mind and tried
unsuccessfully to sleep.  He woke up and pulled the sleeves of his
father's blazer over his arms, the cuffs ending at the tips of his
fingers.  For the first time, he could really smell his aftershave; it
reminded him of wood.  He heard nothing from his father or their
captors, which didn't help to assuage any anxieties.  He just had to
wait two days for Race, two days that moved surprisingly fast.

"Where's Jonny?" Race Bannon's familiar voice loudly demanded as he
made his entrance.  

"Are you the kid's nanny?" Hullen mockingly asked.

"Yeah, his nanny."

"Nice.  We've got those, too."

"Where is he?  Anything wrong with him, and there'll be a small army
swarming on here."

The office door opened.  Jonny lept from the cot and bolted out,
colliding into Race with a tight, relieved hug.  Race stepped back and
carefully repositioned his M-15.  He laughed anxiously and patted the
boy on the shoulder.  Then he looked up and saw Dr. Quest slowly
approaching him, sickly and tired in manner.  

"You going to be okay, Doctor?" Race asked.

"I'll be fine.  Just keep an eye on the boys for me."  He knelt down
and gave his son a tight hug.  "Bye, Jonny."

"You'll be home soon, right, Dad?" Jonny asked.

"Maybe."  He stood up and shook Race's hand.  "You've been a good
friend, Race.  Thanks."

Race swallowed hard and smiled sadly.  "You're welcome.  We'll wait for
you."  He looked at Jonny and led him away carefully.  "Ready to go?"

"Uh-huh," Jonny answered, waving a last good-bye to his father.  "How's
Hadji?"

"Still sick.  It's worse now."

"Oh.  Race, why did Dad say that stuff back there?  Kind o' strange."

"He's...he's just tired."


* * *


When the plane touched down at Palm Key, the right wing had nearly been
melted off.  The entire right side was charred black, and the interior
was blackened from the steady stream of chemical smoke.  Race
considered himself and his passenger lucky to be alive.  They, however,
were apparently the only ones out of all involved in the whole ordeal. 
The island where the cannon had been held was little more than floating
ash.  Anything on the surface was gone, including the kidnappers, the
cannon, and Dr. Benton Quest.

"Why can't you give me confirmation?!" Race shouted into the phone. 
"He's got two sons waiting for him!  You wanna tell them he's dead?!" 
A click was heard on another phone.  "Was that you?  Just a second. 
I'll call you back, and we'll clear this up then."  Race hung up and
sprinted to the upstairs.  "Jonny?  Hadji?"  Inside the master bedroom
both boys sat by the phone, both now in tears.  "Guys, it's okay.  We
don't know for sure.  He--"

"He said good-bye, Race," Jonny argued, visibly more upset.  "He was
sayin' good-bye and thanks and he knew.."  Race tried to approach him,
but Jonny bolted from the room and entered his bedroom with a slam of
the door.

"Hadji, you okay?"

"Do you think it hurt?" Hadji asked, just starting to cry.

"I don't really know.  Just get some rest.  We'll talk about this
later."

"Okay."  Hadji plodded off to his room, not even bothering with the
door.

Race walked down the hallway and knocked on Jonny's closed bedroom
door.  "Jonny?  Wanna talk?"  There was no response other than sobbing.
"We'll talk tomorrow, okay?"  He walked away to his own room, trying
to hold back his tears.

The next morning was the hardest.  Jonny was the first up, as he had
not slept the night before.  He was still wearing the blazer, now using
the oversized cuffs to wipe his tears.  He walked first to the kitchen
and found it too quiet.  By now, the coffee should be brewing, and his
father should be setting the table.  The dark blue mug he kept aside
for coffee still sat on the counter.  Jonny reached up and tried to
hold it; he changed his mind, fearing it would break in his hands. 
Then he heard a bang from the pantry.  Hadji walked out, still in his
pajamas, holding the can of coffee.

"Why're you up?" Jonny asked almost hostily.

"Someone needs to make the coffee," Hadji quietly explained.  

"Why?  We don't drink it."

"Race does."

"Race can make it himself."  Jonny plopped down at the table and
started to cry again.  "I miss Dad already."

"Race misses him.  He was crying last night in my room."

"If he misses him so much, why didn't he bother to do anything?"  The
doorbell rang.  "I'll get it."  Jonny dragged himself from the table
and through the living room to the front door.  He threw the door open
and just stared.  "Dad..?"

Before Jonny could react, Dr. Quest picked him up and held him in the
air despite the bandages on his arms.  He held the boy in a tight
embrace and started to cry a little himself.  "Jonny..."

"How'd you get out?  We saw the fire.  Nothing lived."

"I hid.  The cannon only incinerates the surface, so I found a
below-ground crawlspace.  Unfortunately, I was the only one."

"But you're okay, right?  You aren't sick or anything?"  

"Just a little burnt."  He looked up and saw Hadji running from the
kitchen at full speed.  The boy ran straight into him and hugged him
around the waist.  "Thought I'd never see you again!"  

Jonny closed his eyes and leaned against his father.  He was back,
alive, and staying as such.  That was all he wanted.  This time he
wasn't going to let anyone just take him away.  This time history would
definitely not repeat itself.

END