Soli Deo gloria
DISCLAIMER: I do NOT own Big Hero 6.
So what I've gathered from the scene in which Gogo takes a hold on the wheel and goes crazy on the streets of San Fransokyo to get away from Callaghan is that Gogo is a thrill-seeker. From that, I have sprung this story. :)
"Fred, come here," Honey said. Her voice was a whisper, and the way she leaned against the outside of the doorway made Fred tiptoe over to her, interested.
"What's going on, Honey?" he wondered.
"Shhh. I'm eavesdropping," Honey told him.
"Whoa. That's hardcore for you, Honey," Fred informed her.
Honey nodded. She indeed felt a pit of worry and guilt and regret in her stomach, but the risk was worth it for the information she gathered. "I know. But listen, Fred." She rolled her green eyes to the outside of the doorway; her entire body language suggested she wanted to be as close to the conversation as she could while remaining undetected.
As she was as close as physically possible to the edge of the doorway and Fred couldn't get past her, he squatted next to her and cocked his big ear to listen. Both slowed their breathing, so his voice, though a whisper, seemed like a yell, amplified in the silence, when he said, "Wait, is that Gogo and Wasabi?"
"Freddie, shhh! We can't miss a word!" Honey hissed (not unkindly, though. It was almost scientifically proven by the students that Honey couldn't be unkind).
Fred heeded, saying, "Oh, okay," and looking seriously, listened just as intently as Honey to the conversation transpiring in the project room of the research building.
Amongst the white lights glowing from individual work stations and the orange lights overheading the large testing spaces, Gogo stood next to Wasabi. He wore a protective clear mask over his eyes; he leaned over a blueprint, on which he drew exact lines using a minute ruler and a sharp pencil. He obviously was in a position of vehemently, voluntarily, obviously, ignoring Gogo, who stood at his right shoulder. But she was persistent.
Gogo, in her usual leather jacket, had spat out her gum, and was holding a moped helmet under her arm. It had dark purple and smooth yellow endless circles on it. "Wasabi, please; I need to borrow your car just once. Is that too much to ask for?"
"My car . . . it needs major fixing. I was planning to take it into the shop this week, actually," Wasabi said. His arms and hands whipped around, making quick, neat strokes. (He wasn't measuring the dimensions of any invention at all. He was simply trying to deter Gogo, to make her bored and go away, leaving him, to his relief, alone.)
So far his plan wasn't working. "Wasabi, I can fix your car. Let me tinker with it; I'm great with speed. I'll make sure the thing can pick up speed. I'll fix the brakes so they don't squeak, and doesn't your engine have this weird rumbling?"
Wasabi stopped and sighed. Apparently his friends, when they hopped off of the streetcars or walked onto campus, could hear the obvious noisy health problems of his mom's old minivan. "What are you going to be doing with it?" Wasabi asked. He turned to Gogo and raised his goggles so they rested on his springy brown hair. He sounded suspicious, but Gogo thought this a good step in the right direction.
"I'll be driving it. Sorry, I thought that went without mentioning?"
Her sarcasm didn't win her any points, but it didn't put him off, either. He knew it too much of her nature to be affected by it.
"Fine, let me rephrase that: where are you going to be driving?"
"Around San Fransokyo. My streetcar pass expired and I have to go downtown to the stupid campus office down there to renew it."
"Andddddd you can't just buy a streetcar ticket to get down there?"
"Round-trip, I'd have to transfer six times. I've done the research into it, Sabi, and believe me," Gogo put her hand on her hip and cocked it, saying lowly, "I'd rather not."
Wasabi cleared his throat and tried to not be intimidated by her stance, which gave off the impression of 'I'm not letting this go; say yes, or pay, okay?' "When did you say you needed it, again?" he squeaked.
"I was thinking tomorrow," Gogo said, "you know, as soon as possible. I can drive you home from school, then I'll go to the office. Then I have the evening for fixing it up in my appa's garage and doing homework. Then I'll bring it back day after, m'kay?
Wasabi's mouth opened and closed, like a confused, speechless guppy.
Gogo smiled and punched his shoulder, to his visible discomfort. He stiffened and shuddered, blinking. He hadn't expected that. "Thanks. Don't forget to hand your keys off to me tomorrow." She walked away with a last acknowledging nod of her head.
Honey breathed. "Wow."
"A secret deal just went down," Fred exclaimed, excited.
Their faces turned downward and upward, respectively, and both of them sputtered questions, so there was an unintelligible cloud of words between them.
"Okay, one of us has to stop—"
"You go first," Fred offered chivalrously.
"She has a moped. Why doesn't she take that?" Honey wondered.
"Maybe the hills." Fred jumped to his full height and said, gesturing excitedly with his hands, said, "Okay, my turn? Why the secrecy?"
"I have a feeling her pass didn't expire. We renew them at the beginning of the school year. It's only September," Honey pointed out.
"So she needs Sabi's car for something other than what she just said she was using it for," Fred said, squinting. He leaned back and said, "That was logical, right?"
Honey nodded, and frowned, biting her lip thoughtfully. "What is she going to use it for?"
"Okay, so I actually totally know what to do in these kind of situations," Fred said, slinging an arm around Honey's thin shoulders. "I didn't read eight-hundred-and-sixty-seven issues of one-hundred-and-nineteen different comic books over the course of my twenty years for nothing. I'm an expert on this kind of stuff."
"So . . . what do we do, then?" Honey wondered curiously.
Fred smiled at her. "We follow Gogo tomorrow."
The next day the transaction went down as planned. Gogo, Tadashi, Wasabi, Fred, and Honey gathered in front of the lab after their day of classes, chatted, goofed off, and impersonated their teachers. Departures were started with Tadashi waving a hand goodbye, saying his aunt needed him to pick up Hiro from his lame last year of high school.
Once he departed, Gogo turned to Wasabi and, her outstretched palm open, wiggled her fingers. "Give 'em over, No-Ginger," she smirked.
"That's actually not my last name. I'm pretty sure you know that," Wasabi said. But his key was deposited into her hand. Honey and Fred exchanged a curious look between them.
"Borrowing Wasabi's van today, Gogo?" Honey asked innocently.
"Yep. I gotta go downtown." Gogo hiked up her knapsack and said, "See ya, guys."
"Bye, see you guys tomorrow. Love you guys!" Honey said quickly, and before Fred could react, she grabbed his arm and dragged him out of sight.
It was Gogo and Wasabi's turn to exchange a look. "What's her problem?" Gogo wondered. She had to tilt her head to look at Wasabi's face.
Wasabi shrugged. "Maybe she and Fred are in a secret relationship they don't want us to know about."
"No. Wait, really?" Gogo asked. Both students turned and walked down the concrete towards the parking lot, chatting about this.
Meanwhile, Fred asked, "What are we doing, Honey?" as they snuck around to the parking lot. They hid behind the hedge that was in front of Wasabi's parked car.
"I have no time to explain. Just do as I do, okay, Freddie?" Honey looked excitedly from Fred to Wasabi and Gogo taking a door to either side of Wasabi's van.
"Okay. But just for my reassurance, you have a plan and therefore you know what you're doing, right? We're not diving into this thing headfirst without any, like, master plan, right? But hey, if it's the latter, and we're just winging it, I'm totally down for that—"
While Fred was casually talking on and on, Honey's green eyes caught every minute movement from behind the shrubbery. She saw Gogo press the UNLOCK DOORS buttons on Wasabi's almost empty keychain. She saw Gogo and Wasabi open their doors, and that was when Honey made her move. Grabbing Freddie's hand, she dove, zooming on squatted legs, to the van.
Gogo and Wasabi, she knew from previous observance, had the habit of getting into particular debates about any and all experiments, methods, and results concerning speed and precision. Just as she'd secretly hoped, they'd stopped, doors open, to look at each other over the top of the car, and argue. Good. This caused distraction enough to pull Fred, who said "WHOOAAAA, WAIT", to a side door of the van. A quick look at the two arguing proved that they were so engrossed in making their point of the argument the victor that neither was deterred from not dropping eye-contact from their opponent.
It was next to nothing to simply open the back passenger seat door and throw themselves onto the backseat.
Wasabi was borderline prepared for any natural and man-made disaster that could happen at any time. His backseat was full of blankets, tents, first-aid kits, and coolers. Honey settled for ruffling up a few of these blankets and covering both herself and Fred up in the backseat.
"Wait, this was your plan? Hiding in the backseat until Gogo gets where she wants to go-go?" Fred wondered.
Honey shhhed him with a finger to her lips, and Fred grinned. "Because I think that it is a totally awesome plan, by the way."
Honey nodded, not daring to speak, as Gogo and Wasabi apparently came to an agreeable mutual break in their conversation. But she secretly smiled to herself, pleased, as the two in front swung into their seats. She and Fred took care to hide their long hair as the engine was started. Honey's heartbeat went double-time when Gogo, blowing a habitual gum bubble, turned one-hundred-eighty-degrees to check out the back and pull the car in REVERSE out of the parking lot.
But by the way that Gogo drove them out of the parking lot and resumed some tangent of her argument with Wasabi, Honey knew that knowledge was unknown of her and Fred convening and sneaking in the backseat. And they both breathed a sigh of relief.
"Do you think she'll come out soon?" Fred wanted to know.
"I hope so." Honey took a peek through his binoculars and yawned.
They'd been sharing the same window looking out of the back of Wasabi's car for four hours. Gogo had dropped off Wasabi and then, sighing to herself, as she thought herself alone, drove 15 miles over the speed limit on the way to her father's apartment. She'd set the parking brake and whistled into her dad's apartment building. There she'd remained as the San Fransokyo sunset arched across the sky, providing a pretty light show for the two friends lodged in the back.
They'd been optimistic that she'd simply gone in to fetch something, would be back in a few minutes. Those few minutes stretched into an hour, and then two, and then three. By now they'd been glad that Gogo detested a warm car, and had left the front windows halfway down. They were also glad for the forethought of Honey to bring along various snacks, which consisted mostly of day-old pastries that Tadashi always brought communally for his class. They were not-sold, stale items of his aunt's. Perfectly unfit for picky, foodie, hipster customers, but perfect as delicious, sugary, agreeable carbs for growing college students.
Fred was on his fifth doughnut when he said, around the glaze and crumbs in and out of his mouth, "You know, I really don't think she's going to go get another cable car pass."
Honey had come to that conclusion some time ago, but didn't said anything, lest she hurt Fred's feelings. Instead, squinting through her glasses and his binoculars, she gasped. "There she is!" she exclaimed. She immediately moved away to let Fred have a chance at the binoculars. "Oh, wait, we should hide," Honey gasped. She took a deep breath and dove.
"But we are hiding—" Fred pointed out.
Honey pushed him down. "Hide more."
It was hard at first not to speak or make the slightest of noises, mostly because they were heavily breathing. However, they were nicely masked over by Gogo's humming a familiar pop song ("Top Forty," Honey thought, surprised), turning over the engine, and then opening a window to let her hand dangle out, inviting all the delight, invasive sounds of city life into the car.
From their compromised position, they couldn't tell where they were going. Gogo, a naturally fast driver, used the mirrors, front rear view and side, to her advantage. Both her friends knew this, and dared not raise their heads for a second's peek out the window, lest that second had her eyes cast over them. If that happened, game over, busted. All they could summarize from their uncomfortably squished, down position, was that at one point she'd reached alarming speeds, so she was maybe on a highway. Or just speeding illegally. Who knew? The car rose up at one point, so they rose up a hill. Sharp turns caused them to lurch, so maybe she was navigating a particularly difficult alley?
They could hear nothing different until she stopped. Talked to someone outside a window. Honey dared to lift her head, and gasped before ducking her head down quickly.
"What is it, Hon?" Fred said, concerned.
"Gogo just handed off some money to a guy. Oohhhh, and now we're pulling away. Oh, this is more than a little worrisome, Fred."
The car pulled forward; more sounds became discernible through the open window; they were cruising now. Gogo answered the greetings and shouts of many loud, colorful characters. High-fives, peace signs, and authoritative head nods were passed back and forth, like a silent conversation to many different people.
Honey and Fred listened attentively, then froze, their hearts thumping abnormally in their chests, when Gogo turned to the backseat and grunted to herself, her free hand looking for something that it couldn't find to grasp. "Where is the darn thing?" she muttered to herself.
Honey peeked a big eye out from under a blanket and saw that Gogo's hand was three inches away from her moped helmet. Honey's own hand pretty much shoved the helmet into Gogo's grabby hand. Honey breathed easy and Gogo secured the helmet atop her head. She breathed deep, put her window down, flexed her fingers along the grooves of the steering wheel, and said, "Girl, you can do this."
Next heard, besides the general rush and thrill and cheers of a crowd, was the sound of a blaring horn, sounding off at second-intervals.
"What's that noise?" Fred wondered aloud. He didn't even have to whisper, the noise was so loud.
Honey recognized it from several sporting events she'd been a wild audience participator of: "That's a countdown, Fred," she said hastily.
"I don't know what that means, but I can take it that now's the time to wear a seatbelt," Fred observed calmly. They looked at each other for a split second before they scrambled up from their awkward positions and threw themselves into the back seats, just as the horn sounded off the start.
Gogo put heavy foot to the pedal, and the metal screeched as the tires caught at the ground and pulled them forward at zero to sixty in less than ten seconds.
Honey shrieked in response. Fred grasped the headrest of the front seat and whooped. "WHOA! THIS IS AMAZING!" he said.
Gogo gasped, but instead of looking back, channeled all her sudden surprise and anger into whipping that steering wheel around expertly and getting them around a tight turn. She almost lost her side mirror to a close-passing car, but she managed to skid along the right side of the alley just enough to allow him to pass with damage to either car. She spoke to Honey and Fred, while she looked straight ahead. "WHAT ARE YOU TWO DOING BACK THERE?!"
"We were following you and this is where we ended up," Fred summarized nonchalantly.
"WHY were you following me!?" was Gogo's next line of inquiry.
"Because you were having a super-secret talk with Wasabi and it sounded like you were lying about what you were going to use his car for and now we know that that's true," Honey said bluntly, but kindly.
"You were EAVESDROPPING?!" Gogo said next, before biting her lip and whipping the car into a quick succession of curvy turns, all narrow, allowing only one car at a time. Honey and Fred bent back and forth, their seatbelts not being much help.
"You're illegally street-racing in Wasabi's car; I think it made sense that we were eavesdropping!" Fred said.
Gogo allowed a second to look in her mirror and growl at them. Then she geared up, braced herself up for speed, and said, "Save the lecture for after I win this thing. In the meantime, hold on!" And it was good that Fred and Honey swallowed their questioning, as she added an additional twenty miles to their MPH and did some wicked changing of lanes that it made Honey physically worried to watch it outside the window.
"Is she done?" she whispered, from behind her hands, her head bent.
"Yep. Wow, this is pretty cool, Gogo," Fred said. (He was a more of an adrenaline-junkie than the geeky, soft Honey was.) "Do you do this often?"
Gogo shifted the car into three different positions within a five-second time-frame and said, "Save it, Lee."
Fred settled back into his seat and said, "Hmm. I think she's mad at us."
Honey held onto the bar above her head and said, "I think we should just wait until we're not in danger of dying a bad car-crash-death."
"Totally cool plan, so down with it." Fred was imperturbable, which served both girls well. Gogo put a mental block on the unwelcome passengers in her backseat and focused on winning this race; and Fred's calm demeanor reassured Honey's rapidly palpitating heart.
The race course was marked by, well, some markers, each at the quarter-mile point. Spots were roped off, and the two passengers saw a split-second of the masses cheering, waving their arms and yelling, behind these ropes. However illegal this was—cordoning off public streets to engage in betting and breaking speed limit laws with unlawful, dangerous driving—it garnered quite the crowd.
Gogo was doing well, but her focus became somewhat unhinged when she heard Fred from the back commentating about what was happening every second, in the voice and irritating manner of a sports broadcaster: "And that orange car rounds around the Sabi-mobile and shoots off at an excess of ninety miles an hour. The stretch is—how long is this track, Gogo?"
"Three laps, one-point-one miles each." Gogo's voice was tight as she used all her force to turn the car a severe right.
"Which lap are we on?" Fred wondered, sounding confused.
"Three!" Gogo shouted, and Honey and Fred shrieked and shouted, respectively, as they made a 270-degree turn.
"Mile-marker: point-five miles. Only point-six miles to go!" Fred continued announcing obvious facts to all who knew them already.
"Yeah, I know, Fred!" Gogo went tongue-in-cheek, her voice contorted with full body-commitment.
"How many cars are in front of us?" Fred wanted to know next.
"Freddie, maybe we should just let her focus on driving—," Honey said urgingly.
"Yeah, maybe, Freddie!" Gogo said. Once she made it through a particularly narrow stretch, she said, "Three cars."
"Okay, you can beat them. Honey, help me cheer her on," Fred said, looking excitedly at Honey, even as Gogo managed to squeeze past a thin little slip of a silver car. "Go Gogo, go Gogo—!"
"It would be a LOT more helpful if you SHUT UP!" Gogo shouted.
Fred wisely snapped his lips shut.
And they wound up whizzing past another car into second place, across the white painted line. The crowd roared and Gogo breathed heavy, laughing a little as she brought the car to a gradual stop. She sank against her seat, pulled her helmet off her head, and said, "Wow."
"That was AMAZING!" Fred said. He reached over and shook Gogo excitedly by her shoulders, "Your driving was better than any driving instructor."
Gogo smirked but it disappeared when she looked into the front mirror and saw the bleeding crowds of people running to surround her car. "Okay; now, keep quiet and your heads down, guys. I promise you can interrogate me when it's over, okay?"
Honey and Fred looked at each other and then at Gogo's pleading face in the mirror. "Sure, Gogo," Honey affirmed.
Gogo breathed deep, closing her eyes for a second. Then she took the keys out, rolled the front windows halfway down, and then locked the doors behind her. She walked away with dozens of people whooping around her. The car was abandoned by the crowds, allowing Fred and Honey ample views of the award stage. A small microphone was being used, so all could hear the announcer as he called forward the winner, a guy by the name of Cheetah, and then Gogo, and the third-placer, a girl named Surprise-Attack.
"If her name wasn't Gogo, she should totally go by 'Zip'," Fred said, even as the announcer handed Gogo a check and a silver trophy, which she lifted high into the air, a proud smile on her face.
"That sounds like a good superhero name," Honey observed.
"Good idea. If she ever becomes a superhero, she should go by Zip," Fred conceded.
The award ceremony ended within a few minutes, with plenty of lapse moments for the audience to cheer and shout themselves hoarse. Fred and Honey watched as the crowds began to disperse and a couple of guys and gals crowded around Gogo. They were obviously talking to her, and by her body language and steps back, she was telling them that Nah, she wasn't up for joining them. They shrugged, congratulated her, and walked away in a group. And Gogo walked back to her car. She had to stop a couple of times to autograph a few eager fans' papers, but she managed to get in the car, close the windows up, and lock the doors. She met eyes in the front mirror and said quickly, almost sullenly, "Not here."
"You're stalling," Fred accused.
"I'm being wise, dumbie," Gogo retorted.
Gogo drove them away from the site a few miles. Fred and Honey didn't say anything; Fred merely scrambled over into the front seat, Honey opened a window (lots of fresh air would never be taken for granted ever again!), and both admired themselves in and gushed over Gogo's pretty silver cup.
Gogo parked them by the harbor, with its moon over the calm sea. She made sure she locked the doors, and sighed as she took the keys out and said, "OK, guys—"
"Why'd you do it, Gogo? We're not angry; we're just disappointed," Fred said.
"Cut it, Fred," Gogo said, nonplussed. She sighed as she positioned herself into a different angle, so she could address them both. "So, did you hear all my conversation with Wasabi about his car?"
"Not all, but enough to get it," Honey said, nodding.
"I don't have a car. I want a car; these hills are killers, my moped only has a few miles left on it, and let's face it: cable cars are public and not exactly spacious; not to mention you always have to walk like a quarter of a mile from its nearest stop to get where you want to actually go. In other words, I need to buy a car. But appa—Dad," she said, when Honey opened her mouth to eagerly ask for a translation, "said between us we don't have the money. So this is the way I can make money. I found a poster advertising it outside a campus bus stop."
"How much money did you win?" Honey wondered.
"Entry fee was seventy-five dollars—"
"You must've had to place just to break even!" Honey said.
Gogo's hand opened with a flourish, holding the check out proudly. "Five-hundred smackers. More than a five-hundred-percent payback. Not a bad profit, huh?"
"Not bad at all," Fred complimented.
"Was that your first race?" Honey asked.
Gogo nodded.
"And your last," Fred said.
Gogo's body language read as aggressive: "What? No, neither of you get to dictate what I can and cannot do," she retorted.
"The law can, though," Fred said.
"He has a point, Gogo. Street-racing is illegal in San Fransokyo," Honey agreed.
"Did you see me getting caught by the police?" Gogo wondered, angry.
"We caught you lying to Wasabi." Fred shrugged nonchalantly, making Gogo's eyes darken.
"Just because you didn't get caught doesn't mean you should be doing something bad, Gogo," Honey said pleadingly.
"Nobody got hurt. People had fun. If you guys will keep quiet, I can make money and then stop once I can afford a car. You guys want me to have a car, right?"
"We're trying to help you, Gogo. We're not trying to be mean," Honey begged.
"I just need to make enough to get a car. That's all." Gogo was the one begging now.
"You need to stop now," Honey said emphatically.
"No. You can't stop me." Gogo shook her head.
"We'll tell Wasabi you're using his car illegally," Honey countered.
Gogo shook her head, visibly unmoved.
"We'll tell Tadashi." Fred's voice was startlingly serious.
Gogo looked visibly moved. Tadashi was the one with high standards for good morals in their immediate circle of friends; they didn't do things sometimes because Tadashi wouldn't approve. He was better than a parent, because he was a peer.
They all knew that he wouldn't approve of her breaking so many laws.
"Well, okay. Fine. I'll stop breaking laws. I . . . I guess Hiro might hear of what I'm doing. It'd be a bad influence on him. Make him do bot-fighting or something." Gogo shrugged, having found a reason to stop, (besides the reason of her doing illegal deeds), and turned over the engine. "Tadashi wouldn't like that," she said.
"So you'll stop?" Honey asked, amazed.
"Yeah. So Hiro's life doesn't get screwed up," Gogo said.
Fred and Honey knew that that was the biggest, assumptive grasp at straws Gogo had ever made in her life. She just really didn't want a hard-hitting, disappointed lecture from Tadashi. But both accepted her answer. Fred said, though, "Obviously."
"So you'll stop illegally street-racing?" Honey needed absolute clarification.
Gogo held up a hand and looked at them both. "Solemnly swear."
"No crossies?" Fred said, determined to make sure there were no tricks involved. "And you'll fix Sabi's car?"
"Yes. Of course I'm going to fix this car. I would've won if I had beforehand." Gogo held up her other hand. "No crossies. No more illegal street-racing. On one condition," she said.
"What?" Fred and Honey asked in unison.
Gogo looked a little guilty. "Don't tell Wasabi what I'm really using his car for."
Fred and Honey tripped over themselves reassuring Gogo they wouldn't tell Wasabi. "Um, of course we're not telling him. Do you think we want to be responsible for inducing a freaked-out panic attack that would then induce his inevitable life-ending heart attack? No thanks."
Honey patted Gogo on the shoulder. "I think tutoring pays well."
Gogo sighed, but smirked in the mirror to herself. "I guess it can."
And she drove them off at the speed of a law-abiding thirty miles an hour.
Moral of the story: friends don't let friends continue doing illegal stuff.
Thanks for reading!