"Questworld log on…subject: Race Bannon. Countdown."

Race saw back in the virtua seat and activated the headgear.

"5, 4, 3, 2, 1…Going hot!"

Race opened his eyes and found himself on the green and black grid that was Questworld.

"So where do I go now, Benton?"

Outside the lit dome that now surrounded Race, Benton manned the computer terminal. He watched the other man's figure on the grid.

"Hadji and I found a trace, a kind of electronic imprint, on one of the letters that could lead us back. You need to follow that trace through the Internet. Our little letter writer was smart enough to cover up the more obvious tracks we could follow, but he got slightly sloppy on this one," he explained.

"You got it, Benton," Race replied. "Just show me where to start."

A red glow appeared before Race and he touched it. It pulled him in and at the other end he found himself in a wasteland. It was a mixture of the Arizona deserts and the Martian surface. Floating boxes and assorted shapes littered the reddish hued sky.

"What's all this mess, Doc?"

"That's what you're here for."

Race sighed and got to work.

Eiko checked Jonny's temperature. Jessie stood in one corner of the room silently as Jonny got his daily check up from the nurse. She crossed her arms and watched her friend carefully. She had just noticed that whenever Eiko came in, Jonny became ill tempered and he tended to snap at her. As she watched him she could almost see the black cloud begin to form over his head. His usually pleasant countenance began to darken.

"Normal," Eiko said after taking a look at the thermometer. "That is good. The antipyretics are working. How is the pain?"

Jonny winced as he shifted his position. "Not getting any better. Did you get me more pills?" he asked, almost curt.

Eiko handed him a new bottle of morphine. "Take two whenever the pain gets bad."

"Isn't that too much?" he said, looking at her as if she was stupid.

She shook her head. "Just don't exceed 8 in twenty-four hours and you'll be fine."

"Somehow," Jonny said bitterly, his eyes narrowed as he looked at her, "I don't think that's going to happen."

Eiko gave a little bow and left the room. Jessie came forward and sat on the edge of his bed. Jonny chucked back the pills and rested against the headboard.

"Did Eiko say anything to you?" Jessie asked. "I get the impression you don't like her very much."

He shrugged. "I don't know, Jess. It's probably because she's been clucking over me since I got here and I don't like it."

She chuckled. "If there was ever a time when you needed someone clucking over you, it's now."

"I suppose. But I can't help it."

Jonny sighed deeply and as he did so his breath caught in his throat. He coughed hard and long. Jessie put a hand on his back, concerned. He finally stopped and laid back against his pillows, looking a lot younger than his twenty-six years. His hand flapped around blindly, searching for something, and Jessie took it. She felt like weeping again, but held the tears at bay. Jonny needed her to be his strength for a little while.

"I'm dying little by little," he whispered for his throat hurt. "I would give anything to die completely just once. After all those chances I had, death finally comes for me and plays games for all the times I've cheated him."

He turned his head to look at her and she saw his eyes bright with tears. Her lips quivered.

"I haven't even gotten to love my own true love, Jess. I haven't done lots of things. I just wish I had the time to do that now."

Jessie slid her arms gently around him. Jonny pulled her to him until they were both lying on his bed and wrapped his arms tightly around her. She felt his shoulders quiver underneath her hands.

"Let it out, Jonny. Let it out. You need to," she murmured.

He let out a shaky breath and Jessie knew he was crying. Her own tears spilled over. She buried her face in his chest and cried her heart out. Finally, their tears and energy spent, they fell asleep.

Three hours after he started, Race reached out an exhausted hand and uncovered the last box. A screen appeared, the scroll bar on the right showing him how much information there was to read. His eyes flew over the words, finally stilling.

"Did you read this, Doc?" he inquired excitedly.

"Finally," Benton breathed. "We've found the satellite he bounced his signal off of. I'm opening a porthole for you, Race. Go in and find this…this…"

"I'm on it."

The screen became transparent and Race entered. He was now in a vast starfield, the same shapes floating around him. There seemed to be double the number this time.

"Is there any way you can reduce the number of choices?" he asked, warily eyeing the shapes.

"I think so. One moment."

He began mumbling technical mumbo-jumbo that went beyond Race's knowledge. Shapes began to disappear and finally there were about twenty or so left. Race raced through the shapes, finding what they needed on the fifth try.

"Here it is!" he cried. "Tokyo, Japan. The signal came from Japan!"

Benton opened a new program on the computer. He typed in two names and two pictures appeared on the screen and in front of Race.

"They were the only two people who are in contact with each other and were present during the times Jonny could have been poisoned; the plane and the restaurant," he said to them. "But why? Why would they do this to an innocent man?"

"Finally, we can follow our suspicions up with something."

Race logged out and faced Benton. "I'm going to call my old buddies Stokes and Akane Natsumi. I didn't bother calling them yet since they're in Asia, but it looks like we're going to need them now. And send our team what we've got here."

As Benton's mind wrapped his mind around the facts, Race was at the mansion, his ear glued to the phone. He had recounted all the information they had to Stokes and e-mailed the bulk of their findings. Stokes was cross-referencing all the information with his own database. Race waited, a knot forming in his stomach with each passing second.

"Stokes," he prompted.

Stokes told him what he found. Race's eyes rounded, then narrowed with anger. He gave Stokes some instructions and hung up the phone. Race turned around and found Benton starting at him.

"Race?" he said, in shock. "Are you sure about that?"

"Yes. Stokes found out. I know the good Dr. Bernard is your friend, but his fiancée is pretty liable suspect. I assume you heard what I was saying to Ryan Stokes."

"I did. It made sense. I just can't believe James would be so blind."

Race sat down on one of the leather armchairs. "I'm not too sure about that either, Benton."

"I think I'm going to have to sit down for this one," Benton said.

"Bernard isn't a stupid man. We can't be sure that he isn't in on this."

"What makes you say that?"

"Instincts. It is possible that Jill and Joan are using him to get to you, but that doesn't sit well with me. Bernard came out of nowhere to invite you to go to Japan. There's always the possibility that he has no part in this, but we have to consider it."

"Are you having them all followed?"

"Yes."

Meanwhile, in the library, Hadji's eyes flew open. He had seen something in his trance that he couldn't understand. Pills. White ones. He puzzled over it. Jonny's morphine.

This is not good, he thought.

Jonny woke with Jessie in the crook of his arm. She was curled up against him, her warmth against his side. Jonny wondered how many times in the past month, the past ten years, he had wished that he could wake up with her next to him. He smiled to himself and ran a finger down her cheek.

 He knew a long while that he had feelings for Jessie that ran beyond friendship. He wanted to be able to hold her hand, to put his arms around her, to kiss her. His breath rattled in his chest and a tear fell down his cheek.

He wouldn't be able to now because he was slowly getting eaten away inside. He had lost nearly ten pounds since he had come home. His head started to pound. He reached for the morphine and popped two in his mouth.

Just like candy, he reflected dryly.

Jessie stirred and her eyes opened. They focused on Jonny's profile and she realized she was lying in bed with him, her head pillowed on his shoulder. She didn't move and just watched him stare at the walls.

So this is what its like waking up beside you, Jonny, she thought.

She wondered where that thought came from. It seemed so petty considering he was dying.

Dying.

Her Jonny was dying.

Jessie tightened her hold around his waist. He was her Jonny. She knew that now. Hadji was her past, Jonny was her future. It took him dying for her to realize that, but he was. She whimpered. In a few days, he might end up being her past. His hand rubbed her shoulder. There was no strength in his touch. He was turning into a shadow.

"Are you awake, Jessie?" he asked, his mouth to her ear.

"Yes."

"We better get up before somebody finds us like this."

Jessie rolled to her back and stared at the ceiling. She didn't look at him, but she knew he was doing the same thing. They laid shoulder to shoulder. Her hand crept into his.

"Penny for your thoughts," she said.

"Sorry, Jess. Not this time. Have we gotten that last letter, yet?"

Jessie shot up and out of bed. "I'll go check."

Jonny got up and followed her to the library at a slower pace. Hadji, Race, Benton, and Eiko were spread out on the armchairs and the couches. They greeted him with tired smiles.

"We got the letter," Jessie said. She loaded the letter onto the larger screen above the fireplace for everyone to see.

Rubix cube. Jonny's mind wrapped itself around those words. They were so familiar. If he hadn't taken that last dose of morphine, he probably would have been able to put two and two together.

"Jessie, that line," he managed to say through parched lips. "The mind of a Rubix cube. Where is it from?"

Jessie's brows knit together. Her eyes widened and practically popped of her head when the words clicked.

"Dr. Bernard said that about Jill. That she had a mind of a Rubix cube."

Race jumped out of his seat and was on the phone with his agents in Japan. He barked out orders to hold Dr. James Bernard on suspicion. He and Benton rushed out of the house, yelling behind them that they were going to go interrogate the man. But not before Benton embraced his son.

"I love you, Jonny."

"I love you too, Pop. Now go get that guy for me."

Benton smiled and ran after Race. They heard the firefly start up and finally lift off towards the airport where the Quest Jet was kept.

Jonny sat on the couch, exhausted just from standing up for so long. Eiko handed him another pill and he took it. His head ached. Hadji looked at the pill worriedly.