There'd been a time when every game in the arcade had been fitted with an alarm containing a piece of King Candy's code, so that if he tried to game-jump, everyone would know immediately. Many of the games in Litwak's had turned theirs off over the years. King Candy called it complacency and Taffyta usually reminded him that 'trust' was the nicer word. In the first few years of his—probation? Reformation?—it had been hard to get other games to allow him to visit, but gradually, as people saw him visit Fix-It Felix, Jr., or Tapper, or BurgerTime, and leave without taking over, there was a grudging acknowledgement that maybe it was okay to let him in once in awhile.

But there had been a few times that no one had remembered to turn the alarms off, and that had resulted in several tense stand-offs with what he'd mockingly dubbed the Anti-Turbo Brigade (the group of characters that had been specially trained to deal with him in the event that he game-jumped). Every time it happened, he looked like a cornered animal, glitching uncontrollably, back against the wall and surrounded by the most heavily armed people in the arcade. Taffyta invariably sobbed and eventually someone from the game would come out and explain that everything was fine, they'd given him permission to come in, though when they said it they always looked like they regretted that decision. There they'd been, hoping Turbo wouldn't cause trouble for them, and that was exactly what he'd ended up doing.

So there was always a hesitation on his part when they crossed the threshold from Game Central Station into another game's outlet, always that moment of caution and dread. It was funny, because she'd never thought of him as cautious before Sugar Rush had reset. As an adult, she'd gained a deeper appreciation for the fact that he was more cautious than she'd ever known—until he wasn't. He had no in-between. Everything was all or nothing with him. Hero or villain. King or nobody. Loved or reviled.

When he paused at the entrance to Pac-Man, she gave him an encouraging smile, and he snorted at himself. "Hoohoohoo, you'd think I'd get over that."

"Get over what?" she said, figuring that it wouldn't hurt to let him have his pride on this one.

The look he gave her said very clearly that he knew what she was doing, but he dropped it as they boarded the Pac-Manorail. The other characters on the train refused to ride in the same car as them, as usual. The muttering and whispering was pretty typical, too, though Taffyta felt her heart sink at how much of it was directed at her. Did everyone already know what Malcolm had said? Had they all heard that everything was her fault?

The featureless blue walls of Pac-Mac creeped her out more than usual. She would have liked to blame her nightmare, but the closer they got to the meeting room, the more terrified she became that something horrible was going to happen. When they arrived, Surge looked surprised for a second, then recovered and held out a hand to stop them from entering. "I thought I said you didn't need to come," he said to King Candy.

"Well, you did, technically," King Candy replied, hooking a thumb into one of the lapels of his jacket. "But you didn't say I couldn't come."

There was a frustrated expression on Surge's face. "Look, I know you love causing trouble, but this isn't the time. People are scared. The last thing they need is you stirring the pot even more."

Holding up his hands, King Candy said, "I'm not here to cause trouble. Listen, Surge, if we're going to talk about Malcolm, who here knowsth more about him than me? You know, you all love to call me a virus—I'm not, by the way, well, I mean, except for that unfortunate incident with the Cy-Bug—" He shuddered and glitched a little. 'That unfortunate incident' had left him with his glitch, mostly controllable now, but a constant reminder of the permanent damage his code had taken when the Cy-Bug had eaten him. "—Anyway, game-jumper I may be, but virus I'm not. But still, no one knows more about them than I do."

Surge gave him a dubious look and Taffyta realized her hands were clenched so tightly that she couldn't feel her fingers. With effort, she relaxed them and said, "C'mon, Surge. It's not like he had anything to do with—with the games getting unplugged." That was me she almost added, feeling a crazy urge to laugh.

Princess Peach and Ms. Pac-Man arrived and Surge made two check marks on his clipboard. Then, he looked back up. Disappointment flashed across his face, like he'd been hoping King Candy would disappear while he was checking off names. Finally, with a sigh through his nose, Surge said, "Fine. But if you start causing problems, I'm throwing you straight out, mister."

A glint of wicked amusement flickered in King Candy's eyes, but he just held up two fingers and said, "Scout's honor."

Surge made a defeated motion with his hand and said, "Go sit with Vanellope."

To his credit, King Candy didn't respond to this. As the two of them took a seat at the front of the room, Taffyta between him and Vanellope, their MIA president managed to limit her reaction to a faint look of distaste. Taffyta's chair squeaked as she sat back. Was it her imagination, or were people glaring at her as they walked in?

"Hey," Vanellope said, her tone unusually quiet. Taffyta looked at her, feeling herself preparing to lash out. But Vanellope punched her shoulder lightly and said, "Don't worry, okay? I've got your back."

So she obviously knew why Taffyta was there. Still, hearing Vanellope say this was a nice surprise. Taffyta swallowed hard, then choked as she tried to speak. Clearing her throat, she finally managed, "Thanks."

With a shrug, Vanellope said, "That's what friends are for, right?"

Were they still friends, though? For a long time, Taffyta hadn't felt like they were.

Before she was able to dwell too much on it, Surge walked to the front of the room, looking expectantly over the gathered crowd. Slowly, everyone grew quiet. Taffyta hadn't realized how loud it was until the noise was gone, and when the last mutter died down, she risked a glance over her shoulder. Big mistake. The room was packed full of characters from every game in the arcade and none of them looked happy. Well, duh. How stupid. Why would they look happy? Two games had been unplugged in twenty-four hours, and everyone was afraid theirs was going to be next.

Surge looked almost pleased to be the focus of so much undivided attention. "Thanks for coming, everyone," he said. "I know it was short notice."

"I don't think any of us mind that," Tapper said. "This is an emergency."

There were murmurs of agreement and Surge said, "I think we can come to order, then. So, we all know the reason for this meeting: Hoop Jamz and Altered Beast were both unplugged with minimal warning. They both apparently experienced the same phenomena prior to being unplugged: a pit appearing in the ground that was green in color and got larger and larger."

"Don't forget those weird lightning bolts!" the centurion from Altered Beast yelled from the back of the room.

"Oh, right." Surge squinted at his clipboard. "Yes, and according to witnesses, some sort of energy was being discharged from the pit."

He made it sound so clinical. That may have been what technically happened when this particular virus infected your game, but it wasn't really what happened. Taffyta remembered the unsettling, code-deep hum that had pervaded Sugar Rush, bringing all the ambient noise in the game to an unnatural halt. The sky had turned red and binary had crackled at its edges as the game had ripped itself open, and she'd felt the answering echo of wrongness in herself, in her own code. Could she feel it twinging now, or was she imagining things?

"We're here to discuss what action should be taken to prevent any other games from being unplugged," Surge went on.

From the row behind the Sugar Rush contingent, someone said in a testy voice, "How can we do anything to prevent it when we don't know what caused it in the first place?"

Taffyta didn't need to turn around to know it was Gene. The two of them weren't friends, to put it lightly. Gene hadn't liked any of the Sugar Rush racers anyway, had never liked Turbo, and hadn't approved of Felix and Calhoun taking the racers in when their game had been unplugged. All of them had kind of hoped that with him and Sour Bill becoming such good friends, Gene would mellow out. No such luck. He was as big of a jerk as ever.

Then, Surge looked straight at her. She felt her stomach shrivel. "As it happens, we have someone here who has some experience with this particular virus," he said.

The knot in her stomach loosened. Was that all he was going go say—?

"And," Surge went on, "her name has come up in conjunction with what's currently happening in the arcade."

If possible, her insides contracted even more. Was she going to throw up or faint? Both King Candy and Vanellope were looking at her encouragingly, which was…really weird, actually, and for just a second she was seized again with the urge to laugh. The two of them caught sight of each other but Vanellope only wrinkled her nose, and King Candy confined his reaction to a twist around his mouth. Wow, she was really like, building bridges.

"Taffyta," Surge said, "Do you mind telling us what you know about this?"

Was she supposed to stand up? Surge was looking at her expectantly. Could she stand up? Putting her hands on either side of the chair, she pushed herself into a standing position. Her legs felt like jelly. She'd never been afraid of being in front of a crowd ever, in her whole life. But this was the most terrifying thing she'd ever done. Everyone was staring at her and there was accusation in many of their eyes.

"Um," she said. What was she supposed to say? She looked at Surge for help, but he just stared back at her, his face looking like he was in power-saving mode. Glancing down, she caught Vanellope's eye. Vanellope gave her a slight nod, and with a deep breath, Taffyta turned to face the rest of the room and said, "I think…I think that the virus that was in Hoop Jamz and Altered Beast was the same one that I brought back from Extreme EZ Living 2 nine years ago."

Athena Asamiya, from SNK Heroines, gasped. "You infected your game?"

"It was an accident!" Taffyta said, hearing the note of desperation in her voice. Calm down. "I met this guy. Malcolm. He lied to me and gave me this green powder to swallow. He told me it would—" She faltered. Suddenly it occurred to her that she'd never actually told King Candy why she'd gone Turbo all those years ago and ended up in Extreme EZ Living. Sure, it had been because Vanellope's roster randomizer hadn't been choosing her, but she never would have been so upset without everything else that had happened. Finding out that King Candy was actually Turbo, that he'd taken over their game, locked up their memories. Lied to all of them for fifteen years. Taffyta had been convinced that their friendship had been nothing but a sham, another layer of manipulation and lies to add to his cover.

There was muttering in the room as her silence stretched too long. "He told you what?" Peter Pepper said. Taffyta made a mental note not to visit BurgerTime again if he was going to be rude.

She didn't look at King Candy. "He told it would make me forget my problems," she said.

Someone scoffed, and while she was trying to spot who it was, she heard someone else say, "She was the one causing problems, wasn't she?"

Okay, now they were just being jerks. She was here to try to help. Tilting her chin up imperiously, she said, "Hey, do you want to hear this or not? Because last time I checked, I was the last one here to get infected by Malcolm and actually survive it. So you might wanna think about listening to me."

The room fell silent again. Taffyta drew a breath and went on, "I got the virus, but I wasn't the target. I was just a carrier. He was trying to take Sugar Rush out."

Tapper put a hand up and asked, "Why?"

With a shrug, Taffyta said, "Because I was there. I was an easy mark. He goes after games with vulnerabilities."

Suddenly, her blood ran cold. Games with vulnerabilities. All this time she'd been thinking it was her, that she was the one that made Sugar Rush open to attack. But she'd just remembered that their game had one obvious weakness, and even worse, Malcolm knew exactly what it was.

"Miss Muttonfudge," Surge said, making her start. "Like I said to you, Malcolm implied that you have something to do with the unpluggings."

There was a collective gasp in the room and King Candy demanded, "What's wrong with you? You know she doesn't and you didn't need to say that in front of the rest of them."

"Yeah, seriously, Surge," Vanellope muttered. That actually stunned Taffyta into speechlessness. Had she ever heard the two of them agree on anything in her entire life?

When she turned around to look at Surge, he looked surprised at everyone's response. "Obviously she doesn't have anything to do with it," he said, like they were all the idiots for thinking he'd meant otherwise. "But Malcolm said it to me, and I want to know why."

Oh god. She could say that she didn't know and it wouldn't necessarily be a lie. Except the thing was, she was pretty sure she knew exactly what Malcolm would have been referring to, and it was the same reason that he knew Sugar Rush had a vulnerability.

When the game had been upgraded two years earlier and King Candy's code had been nearly wiped out of it, Taffyta had needed a part from Malcolm. She'd managed to repair the damage done to her friend by the upgrade, but the company that owned Sugar Rush planned on releasing updates, which would have destroyed King Candy's code all over again. In fact, there had been a timer counting down to the next update the entire time she'd been fixing his code. So she'd made a deal with Malcolm—he'd give her the part in exchange for five thousand coins and a date.

She'd agreed to it. What else could she have done? Without the part, King Candy would have died. Malcolm had wanted to go to the internet with her, but as soon as she had the part, she'd shoved him into the Wi-Fi portal and bolted. Hey, at least she'd paid him the money. But she could see how, maybe, possibly, it would look like she'd double-crossed him. In her defense, he was super gross, she'd been half-convinced he was going to assault her, considering he'd already shown a willingness to violate her bodily autonomy by drugging her, and she hadn't had time to go with him, anyway.

The part had worked, blocking off King Candy's code from being damaged by any further updates. The problem was that it also blocked his code from being protected by any security patches. And because Malcolm had given her the part and known exactly why she needed it, he knew that too.

Licking her lips, she said, "I made a deal with him and I guess I kinda…went back on it?"

She steeled herself for the outraged yelling and accusations, but instead there was just some low murmuring. One of the basketball players from Hoop Jamz looked thunderstruck. "We got unplugged because of a grudge that some guy has against her?" he demanded.

Like the thought didn't make her sick to her stomach? After she'd reneged on her deal with Malcolm, she'd expected him to show up and get some kind of revenge. But he hadn't, and as time had passed, she'd kind of…well, not forgotten about what had happened, exactly, but stopped thinking about it. It turned out Malcolm hadn't forgotten. He'd just been biding his time.

Surge glanced at her and a flicker of pity flashed through his eyes. "That's what he wants all of us to think, at least," he said. Then, briskly, he went on, "Okay, fine, thank you, Miss Muttonfudge. You're free to leave if you don't want to stay for this whole meeting."

For a second, she just stood there, staring at him. What? Really? That was it? He'd made her go through all of that just to be summarily dismissed? "Yeah, I think I'll stay, actually," she said.

Surge shrugged and looked out over the room. "We need to figure out what to do about this situation," he said. "I—" He looked at Taffyta. "You can sit down."

"Oh." Duh. Abruptly, she plopped back down in her chair, only realizing once she was safely out of the limelight how fast her heart was pounding. As it slowed, she glanced at King Candy, who smiled at her. It was amazing how much better his smile made her feel.

"I want to open up the floor to suggestions," Surge was saying. "I can try to figure out a way to stop any viruses from getting into games, but it seems to me like the best thing to do is deal with Malcolm himself. Anything less is just kicking the can down the road." He picked up his clipboard and clicked his pen open. "Anyone have any ideas?"

There was a long silence. Someone in the back of the room coughed and a chair creaked. Surge's eyes scanned the room and there was a clatter from somewhere as someone dropped something.

Finally, Sonic cleared his throat. Everyone looked at him. He crossed one leg over the other and jiggled his foot. "Can we lock him up somewhere?"

There was a murmur of discussion at this suggestion, and then Ken said from the back row, "We should just kill him."

Tapper shook his head. "Isn't that kind of overboard?"

Crossing her arms over her chest, Peach said, "I like Sonic's idea."

Biting her lip, Yuni from DDR said, "We shouldn't kill anybody."

"That wasn't my idea," Sonic said.

Michael Hardy, one of the detectives from Virtua Cop who Taffyta had once gone on an embarrassing date with, stood up. "We should have a full investigation first."

His mustache twitching, Gene said, "Why don't we just ban him?"

At this, King Candy snorted and rolled his eyes. Surge rounded on him and said coldly, "Do you have something you want to add?"

King Candy raised his eyebrows and folded his hands in his lap. "You should hear yourselvesth. Lock him up? Ban him? Who exactly do you think you're dealing with, here?" He twisted in his seat and flicked a dismissive wrist, saying, "Shockingly, Ken came closest, I don't normally associate his type of muscle-bound physique with great intellect but you know, appearances can be deceiving and everything."

"Come back here and say that to my face, you little—"

Ignoring this, King Candy added, "Anyway, what was I saying?"

Meeting his eyes, Taffyta murmured, "Their suggestions were all bad?"

"Oh, hoo-hoo, right." He touched her shoulder in thanks, a quick brush with his fingers, and went on, "Listen, you're not going to get rid of Malcolm by serving him with a restraining order, and you don't kill him like you would one of us. He's malware. A virus." When he paused to look around at the assembled characters, there was complete silence. Every eye was on him. He could definitely command a room's attention. Was that programmed into him? She had a feeling it had always been this way, even when he'd just been an 8-bit racer driving around an oval track all day, every day. When your game was that, well, boring, you had to have something else to draw them in, and he had the magnetism to do it.

Leaning back in his chair, he said, "You want to get rid of Malcolm, then you need to eradicate him. Delete him. Rip out his code. That'sth the only way."

In the seat next to Taffyta, Vanellope made a disgusted noise. "Big surprise, Turbutt's talking about deleting people."

He glared at her. "Well, you're all going to vote on it, right? That's how these things work? Democracy in action? If you don't like my suggestion, feel free to come up with something better, glitch." Chairs scraped on the floor as multiple characters got to their feet, looking like they maybe wanted to delete him. Taffyta caught the expression on Calhoun's face and the way her hand was on the holster of her pistol. It made something sharp twist in her. While Felix and Ralph were, well, probably the closest thing to friends that King Candy had outside Sugar Rush, Calhoun had never warmed to him.

Vanellope just rolled her eyes and ignored him. "Sugar Rush is getting regular security patches since it's hooked up to the internet now, so at least we don't have to worry about getting infected. We'll do whatever we can to help."

Taffyta wrinkled her nose. We'll do anything we can to help. Like she wasn't going to go running back to Slaughter Race the first chance she got. More like the rest of them would do anything they could to help.

Jiggling his foot, King Candy said, "That'sth not true. Sugar Rush is vulnerable."

Vanellope snapped her head around to look at him. Taffyta tried not to react to this but couldn't help the sinking feeling in her stomach. Part of her had hoped that somehow, she was wrong about that. But if he was admitting it here, she couldn't pretend otherwise. He was a vulnerability. Being locked off from updates and security patches meant a virus could use him to infect the rest of the game.

Surge held up a hand and, with some grumbling, everyone sat back down. His pen was poised over his clipboard as his eyes scanned the room, then settled on King Candy. He noted something and then said, "Okay, then. Does anyone else have any suggestions?" Silence met this question.

Then, Gene spoke up. "I have a question for Turbo," he said, not sounding happy about it.

King Candy turned in his seat and rested his arms on the back of his chair. "Do tell."

Dislike twisted Gene's face. His mustache twitched before he said, "How do we destroy Malcolm? He's not part of a game and Game Central Station doesn't have code. So I don't see any way to do what you're suggesting."

There was a glint in King Candy's eyes as he smiled slightly. "Just because you've never seen it doesn't mean it isn't there."

Looking irritated, Gene said, "Don't be ridiculous. What are you talking about? Surge—what is he talking about?"

But Surge was giving King Candy a penetrating look, and when King Candy turned back around to face the front of the room, there was a smug look on his face. Taffyta recognized it. He knew something that the rest of them wanted to know and he wasn't just going to hand the information over. If he couldn't make people like him, at least he'd make them pay attention to him.

"I'm not sure," Surge finally said slowly. "But I have a feeling it has something to do with the fact that nobody saw Turbo for ten years after he got RoadBlasters and TurboTime unplugged."

Scowling, King Candy said, "You love to bring that up."

"It's what happened."

"You wanna debrief the rest of us on what the two of you are talking about?" Calhoun said.

Surge pointed his pen at King Candy. "You're implying that there's an area of Game Central Station that holds code."

Raising an eyebrow, King Candy replied, "Why yes, I believe I am. I had to learn somewhere, you know?"

"And what? That's where Malcolm lives?"

With a shrug, King Candy said, "I would think so. Who can say, really?"

Gene made a sound of frustration and said, "If he isn't going to tell us anything, why is he even here? Surge, you know Game Central Station better than anyone. You can kill Malcolm, or delete his code, or whatever Turbo wants to call it."

King Candy crossed one leg over the other and leaned back in his chair, watching Surge with one arched eyebrow. From behind them, Taffyta heard Calhoun's body armor creak. Sonic coughed, and on Vanellope's other side, Peach leaned forward expectantly.

"Actually," Surge said, "I can't."

A quarter of the room demanded, "What?!" at the same time, while there were scattered sighs of exasperation and mutters of, "Of course, it's Surge, after all." King Candy snapped and then cocked a finger at Surge, and Gene snapped, "Oh, for god's sake, why not?"

Surge looked both resigned and defensive at the same time. "I'm a surge protector," he said. "I can't kill anyone. That's not how I'm built."

"I still don't think we should kill him at all!" Peach said.

"Pretty naïve for someone who spends every day getting kidnapped," Calhoun said, prompting Peach to turn around and glare at her.

His voice getting louder, Gene said, "Well, if Surge isn't going to go kill him, then who is?"

Rolling her eyes, Yuni said, "Why don't you go, Gene?"

With a sputtery sound, he replied, "I can't possibly leave Fix-It Felix Jr.—"

"Someone has to do it!" yelled a voice from the back of the room, but Taffyta couldn't identify it as everyone started talking at once, arguing about who should go or whether or not anyone should go at all. "—said he can figure out a way to stop it, can't we just wait?"

"—And how do we keep viruses out in the meantime, post guards at every game—?"

"—can't just abandon my game and go hunting for some creep—"

"—go to the internet, if we're all going to get unplugged we can jump ship now—"

Something settled in Taffyta's chest, a steady, cold, gray certainty. She got to her feet slowly. Nobody noticed, because they were too busy arguing with each other. Or maybe nobody cared. After all, who was she? She wasn't the prettiest racer, she wasn't the smartest, but she might have been the meanest. She was a bully, a troublemaker—the girl who idolized Turbo. Why would anyone pay attention to her?

"I'll do it," she said.