Author:  Aspen Shiyan

Date: Wednesday, June 12, 2002

Categories:  Adventure, Angst, Alt, Past

Archivers:  If you want it…

Disclaimer:  I don’t own Jonny Quest, Jessie Bannon, Race Bannon, Benton Quest, or Estella Velasquez.  They all belong to Hanna Barbarra.  I do, however, own Caiden Caldwell, Jeff Sahding, Mark Jameson and all other characters besides the 5 first listed for HB.

Note:  I know I’ve already started this series and have it all up to part 4.  But it needed *a lot* of revising, so I decided to just start all over again.  Even if you’ve already read the previous parts, here’s the newer and better version for you to read.  It… might even… be redone… again, later on.
And my beta-readers are a lil’ too busy at the moment, I think, so I’m just going to post these straight to the ML.  But don’t let that stop you from criticizing and what not.  ^_^

Also, I’m trying something a little different with this part.  Most of it is in present tense rather than past like fics, stories, books, and most other written things are.  I’m not sure how it’ll work out and I’m just doing it to give it a different kind of feel like it’s all happening at once which is what it’s supposed to be like.  This will either give it the feel I want it to have, or be a horrific narration.
 

Anarchy
Chapter 1

Inside of an international Cuban airport, people pushed past each other in a hurry.  It was a busy day and the place was packed with people just arriving or getting ready to depart.  Somewhere among the hustle and bustle, a young red head girl of about eight tried to push her way through the crowd.  Around, behind, and even under some people she made her way from one end to the other.
After she’d gotten out of the main stream of people, it was thankfully, much less crowded and she stood alone, looking around her.  She was in a larger, circular area with gates all around the outer wall.  She looked back down at the tickets she held in her hand and checked the gate number she needed to be at.  She read the number then looked back up to find the matching gate sign.  Finding it she headed over and approached the desk nearest the sign.

The ping of elevator doors echoes through the empty hall way.  The doors slowly open and a young man steps out.  He’s out in the middle of the hall now, it stretches a ways on either side of him, well lit by the overhead florescent lights.  It has the feeling of a hospital with the walls and ceiling painted white and the tiles below him white.  His boots click as he walks slowly one way, reading the numbers on the doors as he walks by them.
Upon reaching the right one, he turns the handle and opens the door a bit.  It’s an enormous room with wide windows over looking the city at the far end and a long table in the middle of the room.  Other men are just gathering around it, finding chairs and pulling them out.  There’s no one at the head of the table yet, but already the room is filled with a sense of urgency.

In the airport, the girl’s eyes can barely reach over the marble top and she has to stand on her tiptoes to see the lady standing behind it.  Seeing her, the lady smiles and comes around to the side to see her better.  She smiles sweetly and asks the girl, “Do you need to find your parents?”
The girl shakes her head and hands the lady her ticket.  “I need to get on this plane,” she says in a quiet voice.
The lady barely glances at the tickets.  “Are you here alone?”
The girl looks around the room, then back at her, “Kinda.  There was supposed to be somebody with me.  I can’t find her, though.”
“Oh?  And who was this?”
The girl shrugs.  “One of the people on my last flight.”
“And where was that from?”
“Columbia.”
“Neither of your parents came with you?”
The girl shakes her head.
The lady sighs and stands up, taking another look at the ticket.  “Well, Sweetie, your flight doesn’t leave for an hour.  What did you say your name was?”
“Jessie.”
“Well, Jessie, why don’t you sit down over here, until we’re ready to board, okay?”  Looking at the ticket again she continues, “you’re seat number 38, the last row.  When I call up your row, make sure you go to the gate over there.  Then when you get on, go straight back and we’ll have somebody help you, and make sure-”
“I know that stuff.  I’ve been on planes lotsa times before,” Jessie says cutting her off.
“Oh.  Well, do you know how to find your seat when you get on?”
“Yeah, my mom showed me before I left.”
“Well, then, um, I guess you’re all set.  Just go sit and I’ll keep an eye on you until you board, okay?”
“Yep.”
Jessie walks over to a nearby seat and sits down, taking off her back pack and setting it on her lap.  She sighs and lays her head in her hands and just stares off into the crowd.

In the big meeting room the man in charge finally arrives.  He sits down at the head of the table and opens several folders out in front of him.  He retrieves some papers from them and begins to pass them down the table.  The papers are passed down either side of the long table and as the men get them, they take a moment to look them over.
About half way down the table is the man from the elevator.  I name tag on his shirt reads: RACE BANNON.  He, too glances at the papers when he gets them.  It has a picture of a machine that somewhat resembles a bomb.  In the side insert was a picture of a tiny microchip blown up so it looked the size of the machine.
Once all the papers have been passed all the way down the row, the man at the head stands up and turns on a projector.  “As some of you know,” he begins, “we’ve been working on a project called ‘Total Wipe Out’ for some time now.  Total Wipe Out basically deals with a new machine we’ve developed that can take out all the power within a ten mile radius.  Before you is a picture of the instrument we’ve developed.  However, the machine is not what matters.  It’s the microchip that makes the device tick.”  He pauses and looks around the room.  All eyes are on him.  “Now, we have never actually put this device to work.  We have several of them stored at a well protected facility.  Or so we thought it was well protected…”

Jessie watches as a young woman her son’s hand in hers, approaches the same desk she’d just been at.  Both mother and son are blonde with big blue eyes.  The woman wears a big smile and talks and laughs with the lady attending the desk while she gets her tickets checked.  The boy looks around, anxious to break away and go explore.  His mother smiles sweetly and thanks the other lady.
As they walk away the boy turns to her, “can I go look around some?”
“No, Jonny.  You need to stay here where I can see you.”
He tightens his lips and looks down at the floor.  They sit in the seats just behind Jessie.  She turns around and looks over the seat at the boy.  He looks back.  Neither say anything but they just look at each other.  Because of the way she leans on the seat all he can see is from her vivid green eyes over the seat.  Bright red strands of hair fall in her face.
Over the intercom the stewardess announces that they will shortly be boarding rows 25-38.

In the conference room, the head man continues.  “…as it turns out, the facility was broken into and someone got a hold of the chip and used it there, inside the building to wipe out all the power, the cameras, the gates, alarms and every other security type we have in there.  It was out for over four hours and took us even longer to get the whole thing booted up again.  Now, we don’t know how exactly, or who exactly took the chip.  In fact, we only found out after when we found one of them to be missing.
“Whoever has the chip has means to take out almost anything they want.  And, since nothing else was found missing, we guessed that the chip was what they were after.  If I’m guessing right, they don’t want it just for kicks.  To get it from one of the top government facilities, they have to know a thing or two to get in and then get out.  They knew what they wanted and now have it.  It’s alarming what they could do with it.  And what’s more, now that they have one…they can probably make others.”

Jessie looks up as a stewardess taps her on the shoulder.  “Are you Jessie?”  She asks leaning down to be eye level with her.  Jessie nods and the stewardess holds out a hand for her to hold, “Diane said you were here alone, I’ll get you into your seat and make sure you’re settled alright, okay?”  Jessie nods, but gets up by herself.  The stewardess stands up and leads Jessie to the gate.
Inside the plane is huge.  On the side to Jessie’s right are rows of three seats next to the windows and on her left are rows of three seats in the center and on the other side of those are rows of three more seats next to the opposite windows.  Jessie follows the stewardess to the back of the plane even though she knows exactly how to find her seat on her own.  “Here you are, Sweetie,” the stewardess steps aside allowing Jessie to get to her seat, 38A, the closest to the window on the right side.  Jessie smiles and puts her backpack under the seat in front of her before sliding in.

The man in the conference room starts walking around the room looking at each individual, drawing their attention specifically.  “Now, gentlemen,” he stops next to an opening between the chairs and puts both hands down on the top, looking deep into the eyes of every man he makes eye contact with, “we need to find it.  We may not be dealing with nuclear weapons, but this tiny little chip is powerful enough to take out an entire power plant, or even make an airplane’s systems fail in mid-air, when used right.”

Jessie sees the blonde boy and his mother from over the seats in front of her.  The woman is looking up at the numbers above and reading each one quietly to herself.  Jonny just looks around the sizeable plane in awe.  The pair stops in front of Jessie’s seat.  The woman is reading the numbers on the left side.  “38,” she says quietly to herself.  She looks down at the ticket and reads again to herself, “B and C…” she looks to the right and smiles, “wouldn’t you know it, Jonny, the last row.”
Jonny looks at Jessie and smiles shyly.  “This is your seat, Jonny, in the middle.  And it looks like you’ll have someone to talk to,” his mother says animatedly and nudges him and he crawls past the first seat, and sits in the one next to her.  As they get settled into their seats his mother says excitedly, “isn’t this so exciting Jonny?  This is your first big plane ride!  Are you nervous, son?”
Jonny looks from Jessie to his mom, smiles mischievously and shakes his head.  He looks around again and inspects all the buttons.  He turns off and on the lights several times and even accidentally rings the stewardess buzzer.  “Jonny,” his mother scolds lightly, “quit playing with all the buttons, you’ll break something.”  She turns the stewardess’s call light off.
Jonny sighs and looks across Jessie out the window.  There’s nothing to see but cement and airport cars going by.  Finally, as they start to taxi out, the captain comes on over the intercom, “We’ll be taking off here shortly.  It’ll be a long 6 hour flight from Havanna to D.C. …” the captain continues on with the usual announcements while Jonny turns to his mom again.
“6 hours??” he complains.
She’s already laying back in her seat trying to fall asleep.  She nods and tells him to find something to do, read one of his comics, talk to the girl, just find *something* to do.
He sighs and looks back over at Jessie.  Jessie looks back and smiles again.  “Bored?” she asks, knowingly.  Jonny nods, chin in the palm of his hand.  It’s quiet for another minute then she holds out a hand, “I’m Jessie, by the way.”
He puts his hand in hers and shakes it, mimicking the way his parents did when meeting someone new, “Jonny.”

The man in the board room continues, “our main obstacle is that we have absolutely no idea where it is.”  He returns to his original seat at the head of the table and opens another one of his folders.  “…and that’s where you come in.  I’m pairing you up to look into anything and everything that could possibly be a result of this chip being used.  That means security failures, air control failures, power outs, anything of the sort.  Find it, track it, find its cause and report it.”
The men sitting around the table stare open mouthed.  “Sir,” one of them starts, “that means dozens of cases around the country every day.”
The man at the front of the table smiles and replies, “I’m sure you’re up to it, I’ve brought in my best trackers on this.  That’s you.  Every man I see in front of me is up to this.  Or so I thought when I called you onto this.”

Jonny watches the map on the screen in front of him as they take off and soar and hundreds of miles an hour through the air.  It displays a map of everything between Havanna and D.C.  There’s a small bit of ocean between where Cuba ends and Florida begins.  It’s a lot closer to Havanna than to D.C. and it won’t take them long to reach it.  Both girls on either side of him are asleep so he sits back in his seat and closes his eyes, trying to will sleep to come.

After they’re paired off, the men are assigned to new desks and new offices which they soon split off into.  Race Bannon lays a small box down on the new, shiny black desk and wipes his hands on his jeans.  His sleeves are rolled up half way revealing over defined muscles on his arms.  He looks across to the opposite desk whose name plate reads Mark Jameson.
Bannon sighs and saunters behind his desk, and starts pulling wooden framed pictures out of the box.  Most the pictures are of a cute bright-eyed red headed girl.  In the pictures she varies in age from a baby, to a toddler, to a five year old, and the oldest ones are of her at about 8.  One of the pictures is of the girl and his ex-wife.  He sets them each carefully on the desk before pulling out the recent files he’d just been given.

Jessie stared out the window.  The land was green and lush below.  They were leaving the city area now and the houses became fewer and farther in between.  Just a head of the plane, hundreds of feet above, were trees as far as the eye could see.  They were incredibly thick making it next to impossible to see anything on the ground below them. In the very far distance, she could just barely see the sparkling blue of the sea.

Bannon sighs and opens a manila folder he was given.  Each team was assigned a certain criteria of cases so they could cover more ground efficiently and there wouldn’t be so many people chasing the same cases.  Because he and Jameson are the youngest and newest members to I-1, on this case, they were given all the loose end cases, the miscellaneous box.  They’re mostly cases outside the U.S.

Jessie had just started to drift off when the plane lurched violently thrusting her forward in her seat.  The seat belt at her waist tightened and wrenched her back against the seat.  She had to catch her breath after the band tightening so much around her waist all at once and the sudden jolt forward had squeezed all the air out of her lungs all at once.  The lights overhead flickered momentarily then went out altogether.
Jessie turned to look around the plane, her eyes big and round with fear.  The plane was momentarily quiet with people just looking around, trying to figure out what had happened.  The plane itself seemed somehow quieter, even with no one talking, planes were usually incredibly loud on their own.  It was  a sound that Jessie had heard so often that she hardly noticed it anymore, but now it was ominously absent.  Then it hit her.  The sound that would normally fill the plane, the sound she just couldn’t put her finger on, was the engines.
 
 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
**bangs head on table**
okay, so maybe the present tense thing didn’t work out so well.  Maybe I’ll go back and change it later.
Anyways…
Please, please, please, tell me what you thought.  Good or bad.

Merci et bonne nuit!  Eh bien, ‘nuit’ pour moi.

Thank you and good night!  Well, ‘night’ for me.
~Aspen