��Come on you two, don’t you two know what it means to get ready on 
time?” Race screamed at the top of his lungs to the other end of the house.
    “No need to scream at me Daddy, I’m already ready,” Jessica pronounced 
as she came up from the basement.
    “What were you doing down there?” Race asked.
    “Getting ready. It seems our blonde headed guest took over my bathroom, 
so I went downstairs.”
    “Well, it’s not as if I didn’t give you fair warning.” Jonny said as he 
walked into the discussion.
    “Finally, now we can leave.” Benton said as he too walked into the 
conversation. “It would be bad if we showed up late to eat out with the 
Sechlers.”
    “You know Dad, I do have homework.” Jessica said.
    “It’s the weekend. Can’t you come up with something better like ‘I have 
a date’?”
    “Because that would be lying.” Jessica said with a smirk on her face 
geared towards Jonny.
    “Well, I’ll let you, Jonny, Brent and Kylee sit together.”
    “Oh goodie, oh yeah Dad, Kylee couldn’t come, she already had 
prearrangements, like I did.”
    “We’ll talk later,” Race said giving his daughter a stern look as he got 
into his SUV.

    Later that night, after everyone was asleep, only one single soul was 
awake. Jessica layed there in her bed for awhile. After laying their for an 
hour and a half, she decided to get up and write
in her journal. 
    She crept quietly to her desk and opened the laptop computer and clicked 
on a file and typed in her password. After glancing at the old entries, she 
discovered that  the last one  she made her first day of her new school. 
    
    “Well, Im finally deciding to write again. It sure has been a while and a 
lot has happened since. I’ve meet a lot of people and now have a ton of 
friends. Some are close, some are just aquentenses and one is super close. I 
smile each time I think of that person. They’re the best! 
    Well, today I had a huge surprise. While Carrey, Haylee, Brad and I were 
filming a stupid Mr. HHS parody of James Bond, at my house, and low and 
behold Jonny appeared. Well we got to talking and I guess we both ended up 
ripping each others heads off. Time and seven hundred
miles can sure do a lot to a person. That night we[Quest, Dad and I] along 
with the Sechlers(minus Kylee) all went out to eat. I had to cancel on Carrey 
and the gang to listen to Brent and Jonny talk about stupid guy stuff. Now I 
know why Carrey complains when he’s over when Kylee’s around. 
    Im starting to wonder if Im never going to want to go back to live with 
the Quest. Im really starting to like living a “normal life”. I feel real 
bad about too. I know Mom is probably boiling in her own juices about me not 
visiting. Oh well, I hope she understands. 
    Yawns, it’s currently 1:35am. Im tired but I can’t sleep. Im listening 
to the FOO Fighters cd, There is nothing left to lose. It’s not exactly the 
best cd to listen to right now but what the heck. Im considering buying 
Jonny, Blink 182 cd just for the song, “Whats my age again?”. I swear they
wrote that song just for him.
    Well, I should probably go before the wee-morning hours fall upon me. 
Tomorrow, my whole goal is to get out of the house without any one noticing 
I’m missing. Good luck to me.”

    With that, Jessica saved her work and closed down the program. Just as 
she was about to close down her laptop, she noticed her QuestWorld icon was 
still on there. She had tried it once before to get into it, but without 
proper satellite hook ups to get into the main part, she had no luck. But 
after careful thinking and noticing that Jonny had his with him and was on, 
she remebered that they must have brought a mini receiver with them and she 
could probably get into the system now.
So she clicked on it.
    Soon seconds turned to minutes, and minutes turned to hours, but noon of 
that stoped her from playing around. It was heading towards 4am when 
something caught Jessica’s attention. She was going through all the additions 
since she left and noticed a file that had started the night that they found 
out they were leaving up to the previous day. It was in text format so she 
clicked on it.After a while of trying to decode it and getting through the 
password, she finally hit paydirt.
    
“Experiment #8557-JAB
Hypothesis: To determine if the environment is the cause for the recent 
number troubles at the Quest Enterprise and locations.
Procedures: We have separated the team, Hadji Singh went back to his native 
Bangalore. Roger “Race” Bannon and Jessica Bannon have been reassigned to 
Springfield Mo and Dr. Benton Quest and Jonathan Quest have been assigned a 
new bodyguard, Christoph Holland.
Results: “

    Jessica read over the documents. It seemed as if her Dad had been keeping 
tabs on her. Everywhere she had gone, everyone she had met, everyone one that 
was at the house, even surveillance tape was available. She read her section 
over and over, she recognised names,
Carrey, Kylee, Haylee, Brad, even her teachers and the people she sat next to 
were on this list.
    She then went over to  Jonny’s section and Hadji’s section, all the 
same.  It was then it all clicked. All she was, Jonny and Hadji, they were 
all lab rats. They had no privacy any more. How could he, she thought. She 
couldn’t believe her father lied to her. It was all a cover. That son of a 
bitch, she thought. She then printed out the whole 20 page document and 
glanced at the time. 5am. She then creped down the hall and entered the guest 
bedroom that Jonny occupied and quietly knocked before entering. She then 
walked over to his bed and jabbed
him in the ribs.
    “Pist, Jonny wake up.” She whispered.
    “Go away!”
    “Keep your voice down, we don’t want to wake everyone in the house. Now 
would you get up I really need to talk to you right now!” 
    “Jess, its 5 am. Can it wait?”
    “No.”
    “Fine. Whats so important?”
    “This,” she said and thrusted the paper into his face. He then grabbed 
the paper and turned on his lamp. He sat up and glanced at the paper. His 
face became puzzled.
    “Were did you get this?”
    “Off of Questworld. I couldn’t sleep so I decided to get into it since 
you brought a mini receiver. And as I was logging out I noticed it. Read on 
it has our daily activities in it.”
    “I can’t believe they did this to us.” Jonny said in disbelieve.
    “Join the club.”


    “Boy, you two are up early,” Race exclaimed as he walked into the 
kitchen to see the two teens sitting at the table next to each other with a 
look of anger.
    “Oh good Jonny, your up, I was getting ready to go to your room and ask 
if you wanted to go with Race and I to Bass Pro to go get some fishing 
stuff?” Benton asked.
    “No Dad, I think I’ll pass.” Jonny said harshly.
    “Okay, whats going on here?” Race asked.
    “We should be asking you this.” Jessica remarked. Race and Benton looked 
at each other with a puzzle face.   
    “Read.” Jonny said as he scooted a  folder across the table. Race then 
grabbed the folder and opened it. It was what he feared.He had been preparing 
himself for this day, but never expected it to happen.
    “Where... where did you get this?” Benton asked in disbelief.
    “Off of Questworld. It was in plain sight.” Jessica said.
    “We can explain.”
    “Good, I was hoping to hear about us being your little “lab-rats”. 
Jessica snapped back at her father.
    “Jessica, you were NEVER lab rats. And it wasn’t as if we had any 
choice.” Race argued back.
    “Sure it was the governments fault. Just like everything else. Just like 
how you and Mom got divorced, just like you never hardly got to see me when I 
was little. Just like you never did nor still now have time for me.” She said 
with tears running down her face. She then quickly exited the
room running to her own room. She then grabbed her keys, some money, her 
laptop, and whatever clothes she could find and stuffed them into her gym bag 
and ran to the garage. Just then her father appeared in the door way.
    “You know Hon, you shouldn’t walk away from some fights.”
    “Funny, thats the same thing Jonny told me yesterday. I guess thats just 
another disappointment I am to add to your list.” Jessica said and stepped 
into her jeep, started it,  raised the garage door, and left.
    It was 7o’clock. Early for a teenager, but she prayed as she pulled in 
Carrey’s driveway that he would be awake. She noticed his parents car was 
gone, she presumed that they went to his little sisters soccer tournament, 
she just hoped that he hadn’t gone with them. She then hit the doorbell 
button and waited. A couple minutes passed as she hit it again just as the 
door opened and a half asleep face peered out.
    “Jess, it’s freaken early what are you doing here?”
    “I really need to talk to you. I’m having a crisis and I need to be with 
someone before I do something stupid.” She said.
    Carrey looked at her as she said this. He may be half asleep but he could 
tell that she had been crying. He also noticed that she was still in her 
sleepers had her laptop in her hands. “Come in.” he said.

    “I see now why your upset.” he said as he read over the documents.
    “Im so sorry for coming so early but Im so happy to be with you.”
    “Don’t worry about it. Here I’ll get ready and lets go somewhere, get 
some breakfast and do something to get your mind off it.” he said.
    “Thanks. Can I ask you a favour?”
    “Sure.”
    “Can I move me jeep into the backyard so its out of sight. I really 
don’t want my Dad finding me. While Im here.”
    “Sure, and we’ll just leave it back there for now.So how does a day at 
Branson sound?” Carrey said. She then hugged him and kissed him on the cheek. 
It was her first time to kiss him,
but he deserved it.
    “Sounds great, Im just going for anywhere but here.”


~week later~

    “Jessica.” Race said as his daughter entered the house. “I was beginning 
wonder if I was going to have to file a missing person file report on you, 
nice of you to come home.” he said. He then put down the box he was packing 
and hugged her, but she didn’t hug back, she just stood there.
    “I see your leaving.” she said.
    “You mean we, were going back home. Jess, Im so sorry about this. I never 
meaned for you to find out about it that way. I had no control over what went 
on. I was forced to do it.” Race said.
    “I understand. I hope you also understand that I’m not going with you. 
This my home. The Sechlers and the Bells are going to take me in until I 
graduate.”
    “Oh no your not.”
    “Yes I am, its ether this or I never speak to you again and go live with 
mom where you’ll never find me again. I’ve already spoken to her and she 
approves it and is going to come and stay with me for a while.”
    “Are you this bitter?”
    “No Dad, Im not bitter, Im just completing my fight. So farewell cowboy. 
Maybe come graduation time, I wont be mad at you any more and send you an 
invitation.” With that she went back out the door she came in, got into the 
passenger side of her jeep with Carrey in the driver and they left. 
Ironicaly, like a cowboy, into the sunset.