Turbo hadn't shown up the night before. Or anytime this morning. Now it was almost time for the arcade to open, and Jet was getting just slightly worried. Nobody knew what would happen if Turbo wasn't in his game when the arcade opened. Would the game cabinet create a duplicate of him? Would the game just not work? What would happen?

"Jet, we should go find him," Flash worried, squeezing his partner's hand. "What if it's a bad thing if he doesn't return here?"

"It's his own stupid fault," Jet snorted. "He sleeps over at Felix's every night. It's not my fault if we're too loud." Flash's cheeks blazed scarlet and Jet kissed the blazing spots of colour.

A few more minutes passed with the two racers sitting on the bleachers holding hands, but as soon as Litwak arrived, the two moved from the bleachers and into the garages where they kept their cars. Now Flash was getting more agitated.

"We have to go find him," he pleaded to his boyfriend, looking at him with his doe-like golden eyes.

"Yeah, you're right, let's go find the bastard," Jet decided, shrugging into his blue racing jacket before once more taking Flash's hand and leading him out of the game. The two of them barely left the game, that was more Turbo's thing, but they left it often enough to know where the few other game ports were. They walked into Fix-it Felix Jr a few minutes later, shuddering from the jolt of electricity that passed through them.

"I can fix it!" Felix called from his spot on the half-wrecked building. He was obviously performing the demo screen, like Jet and Flash would have been doing with Turbo if he could be found.

"Hey, Felix, have you seen Turbo?" Jet called to him, standing at the bottom of the apartment building. Felix quickly climbed down the building and joined them on the ground.

"Sorry but I can't say I have," he shrugged sheepishly. "Why, is he not in your game?"

"No, he didn't come back last night or this morning either. Usually he at least comes back to boast of his sexual exploits with you the night before," Jet informed him, noting that Felix blushed too at the mention of sex.

"Well, he certainly came here last night but he was gone before I woke up. The strange thing, though, was that he was acting like he was trying to prove himself," Felix elaborated.

"He's been acting like that on the track too," Flash piped up quietly. "Ever since that new racing game got plugged in, he's been acting strange."

"I'll ask him about it after game day," Felix decided. "You two just get back to your game before Litwak puts you out of order for not having characters there."

"Will do. Thanks, Felix," Jet nodded, and returned to his game with Flash.

As soon as Litwak entered the arcade, he noticed that Turbotime was missing one of its characters- its main one, in fact. Sighing sadly, he took out the orange 'out of order' notice and taped it onto the screen.

Flash whimpered as the game was bathed in orange, while beside him Jet seethed with rage.

"Damn that Turbo!" he snapped, marching out of the game. Flash followed after him with the speed of his namesake and quickly caught up to him, grabbing his hand.

"Jet, no! The arcade's open so we can't go into any other games right now," Flash pleaded with him. "Can't we just enjoy the day off?"

"No," Jet growled, but Flash's gentle countenance was calming him considerably.

"Please," Flash added, headbutting his shoulder gently. "How often do we get the chance to explore our game during the day?"

"I suppose we can practice today," Jet figured. Flash smiled and leaned up on his toes to kiss him.

Around their third practice lap, Jet heard a commotion coming from outside the game cabinet. Glancing up towards the window in the sky, he swore and spun out at what he saw. What the hell was Turbo doing in Roadblasters?

"So what you're saying is that you'll have to remove the cabinet and then delete everything? Okay, I see... yeah, okay, I'll have it ready for you in the morning. Bye," Litwak said into his phone.

"What's he saying?" Flash hissed from where he was holding up Jet.

"They're going to delete the game," Jet reported in disbelief when Flash finally put him back down on the top bleacher that they'd been standing on.

"When?" Flash asked, worry causing his grey face to pale and yellow eyes to widen.

"In the morning," Jet answered, running a shaking hand through his black hair.

"Then I guess we've got one last night in our home," Flash sighed. "We should make the most of it." Jet obviously agreed, taking Flash into his arms and kissing him with a ferocity that the shyer racer hadn't known he possessed.

Morning dawned in the arcade, sending golden sunlight spilling onto the still-new carpet. It reached the building that Flash and Jet usually lived in with Turbo. Flash woke first, blinking in the sunlight and moving slightly to figure out what, if any, damage had been done the night before. He winced, hissing in pain. Jet really hadn't held back, but Flash liked it rough anyway.

"Just this one over here." At that, Flash felt a chill of fear and quickly sat up despite the pain.

"Jet, we have to go," he informed his boyfriend, somehow getting into his pants and white t-shirt. Somewhere deep inside, he knew that time was running out and that they had to leave their game.

Flash was always the faster one. In fact, he was faster than Turbo, which was why he'd always been beaten into his place. Now, he stood silently willing Jet to hurry it up with getting dressed. And then Flash took his hand and they ran all the way to the game port on the other side of the track.

"Yeah, it looks like a ghost town in there. This game's dead for sure." By now, they'd reached the far edge of the bleachers.

"I'll take it back to the shop but I've gotta say, I don't have much hope for it getting better." Flash stumbled from the returning pain but regained his footing before too long. Had it cost him, though?

A large human hand closed around the plug joining the game to the double-adapter. Flash found another burst of speed, seeing that the port was just in sight. The plug began to come out and the port began to close, or maybe it was just getting further away. A void was opening in the ground, exposing extremely large threads of carpet and the odd dust bunny or lost quarter.

The prongs came free. Flash jumped, gripping as tight as he could to Jet's hand. A spark passed between the plug and the adapter, and the screen of Turbotime went dark forever.