To make up for my lack of updating, here's another update! Thank you very much to everyone who reviewed the last chapter, I'll get back to you personally asap!
The starting line always felt crowded at Frosty Rally. The track was narrow, more like a bobsled chute than a road in some places, but Taffyta loved it. Of the game's three mountain courses, it was the intermediate one, but Frosty Rally was still more advanced than a lot of the game's other tracks. Sure, she'd won today on Sweet Ride, and Cakewalk, and Chocolate Seashell Beach, but she wanted a challenge. Anyway, the gamers had all been controlling her on those races, but this time they'd chosen Gloyd and Minty, and Taffyta was free to employ every trick in her arsenal to win. And this was the last race of the day—the arcade would close in a minute, and these gamers were sneaking one last game in under the wire. She was going to win.
She pulled down her visor to keep the blowing snow out of her face and glanced over at Candlehead, who shivered and revved her engine. The flames from her exhaust pipes melted some of the freshly fallen snow on the track—it would be ice by the time they zoomed back through here for the second lap, and Taffyta made a mental note of that.
A marshmallow holding the traffic signal drifted into position and motioned to his colleagues. The top light on the signal lit up red and Taffyta tapped her foot down on the accelerator, just enough so that the kart's engine hummed, and gripped her fingers around the gearstick. On yellow she gave Pink Lightning a rev, and then—this was always the longest moment in any race, it was like an eternity passed between yellow and green—the bottom light lit up. She shifted a fraction of a second before in anticipation, and then she floored it away from the starting line.
Her kart's acceleration had never been the best in the game, but that was okay. Vanellope, Gloyd, and Snowanna shot out in front of her and she trailed them closely. King Candy had taught her the value of letting the elements, and the other racers, take out the competition. If this was Sno-Cap Peak, she could have relied on giant, chocolate pocked snowballs rolling down the track. Frosty Rally didn't have anything like that. Though it was possible to go sliding off the edge of the mountain in some places. Taffyta hadn't fallen off the road on this course in thirteen years.
Narrowing her eyes and accelerating, she hit a power up. Sprinkle Spikes. Ugh, well, at least she could take care of Candlehead and Rancis, who were right on her tail. "Sorry, guys!" she shouted as she punched the button to use the power-up.
Candlehead screamed as she hit the spikes and Rancis spun out of control and hit the wall. Taffyta giggled. She wasn't sorry. The two of them should be happy that she'd used the power-up in a spot with guardrails.
Taffyta flicked her eyes towards the side mirror. Minty and Jubileena were visible but not posing an imminent threat. Looked like poor Minty had gotten stuck with a gamer who didn't know how to drive in the snow. And Torvald wasn't even in sight.
Time to concentrate on the race's leaders. Hunching down over the steering wheel, Taffyta downshifted on a curving slope. Gloyd, right in front of her, fishtailed and slid to the outside of the track. When Taffyta felt her own kart begin to fishtail, she turned into the motion and felt Pink Lightning right herself, and she passed Gloyd with a spray of snow.
As she approached the finish line for lap two, Vanellope, in first place, hit the icy patch that Taffyta had made a note of and spun out. "Gooey gumdrops!" the president yelled in frustration as Taffyta whizzed by her.
By this point, Rancis and Candlehead were hot on her tail. "Payback, Muttonfudge!" Rancis yelled. An ice cream scoop catapult materialized on his kart, courtesy of an A La Mode power up, and a scoop of ice cream came sailing towards her.
"And that, Taffyta, isth where you got into trouble."
King Candy rewound the video and Taffyta watched herself brake and swerve to avoid the ice cream, screaming as she lost control of her kart. She ricocheted off the blue raspberry ice cliff to one side, which caused her to careen across the track and sail right over the side of the mountain. He stopped the video. "Stho. Firstht lessthon. What did you do wrong?"
Taffyta tried to control her nervousness. When King Candy had agreed to help her be a better racer, part of her maybe hadn't believed it would really happen. But here they were in the video room, black-out licorice curtains drawn over the windows and the room lit only by the glowing screen displaying yesterday's disastrous race. King Candy was sitting in a chair, one leg crossed over the other, tapping a finger absently on his knee while he stared at her.
"Well." Taffyta cleared her throat. "I lost control of my kart."
"Why?"
"You can't brake really hard like that in icy conditions." She watched the video as it replayed. "And…when I didn't get any traction, I turned the wheel too hard. You're not supposed to do that, either."
King Candy smiled. "Very good. But." He leaned forward. "You already know thosthe thingsth. Why did you react like that?"
Fingering the zipper on her jacket, she said, "I didn't want to get hit with the A La Mode."
"And why wasth that?"
She wasn't sure what he was getting at. "Who does?"
He arched an eyebrow. Wrong answer. But he didn't make her feel stupid about it, he made her want to think more. "I guess…" she said, "I guess that I kind of…panicked." His head tilted in a nod, both an acknowledgement of what she'd said and an invitation to go on. She folded her hands in her lap, feeling less fidgety and nervous. "I thought I'd lose for sure if I got hit. And…yeah. I panicked about that."
"Good girl."
Something in her swelled with pride and she couldn't keep the smile off her face.
Leaning forward, King Candy said, "You're a good racther, Taffyta. But a really great racther never panicsth. About anything. Not losthing, not falling off Sthno-Cap Peak, not dying. When you panic, that'sth what takesth over, and everything that you know isth justht gone." He snapped his fingers for emphasis on this last word. "You can come back from anything in a racthe asth long asth you don't let your emotionsth—hoo-hoo—run away with you."
She nodded slowly. "I think I can do that. Except…"
Tilting his head, he asked, "Excthept what?"
With a sheepish smile, she said, "I don't think I can help being happy when I'm racing."
King Candy shot her a bright grin. "You can get away with that one. I'm never happier than when I'm racthing—and you know, hoohoohoo, I win all the time."
Taffyta watched the trajectory of the incoming scoop of ice cream and then nudged her steering wheel. The adjustment was just enough that the ice cream splattered into the road next to her. A glob landed on her visor and she wiped it off.
In her mirror, she saw Candlehead plow right into the scoop, snuffing her candle out in the process. Rancis was still behind Taffyta but couldn't catch up—but coming up fast was Vanellope. And there was still Snowanna, in the lead, to deal with.
Taffyta hit the course's only boost pad and used it to pull off a risky drift on a curve, which increased her lead over Rancis and Vanellope and brought her right up onto Snowanna's tail.
Snowanna disgorged a Cherry Bomb but Taffyta avoided it, hearing it explode behind her and feeling a breath of heat across her back. Rancis and Vanellope were unaffected too, and gaining.
Lap three began and Taffyta got serious. On the same turn that she'd passed Gloyd on, she cut to the inside, trusting herself and her kart to remain in control. Snowanna stayed too far to the outside and suddenly Taffyta was in first place.
She grinned fiercely as she nabbed a power-up, then glanced in her mirror in time to see a flash of blue. Vanellope glitched and was suddenly right beside Taffyta.
"I think this is my race, Pinky!" Vanellope yelled as the finish line approached.
Taffyta smirked. "Not this time, Pres!"
Then she hit the power-up button. She'd been saving it for this moment—Sugar Rush. A boost of super speed that was faster, even, than Vanellope's glitching.
She zoomed across the finish line in first place, hardly hearing the cheering of the crowd over the hammering of her heart and the rush of blood in her ears and joy in her own head.
Pumping a fist in the air, Taffyta braked in a spray of vanilla snow, then hopped out of her kart. Vanellope and Snowanna were looking pleased with themselves for getting second and third. Rancis and Candlehead were just crossing the finish line in fourth and fifth, Gloyd close behind them in sixth. The board, much smaller than the jumbotron at the stadium, showed Minty, Jubileena, and Torvald within thirty seconds of finishing. But since neither of the gamers' avatars had placed, the gamers wouldn't see the trophies get awarded, and the winners didn't have to wait.
Taffyta felt buoyant as she accepted her gold trophy and the congratulations of the others. She hadn't been this happy in a long time, maybe not since before the game had reset. And the funny thing was, not much had changed. That was, until she started thinking about it, and then…well then, everything had kind of changed.
"You should know that you have a fan in the fungeon."
The words echoed so loudly in her head that she looked around, wondering if someone had actually said them out loud. But of course not—Turbo was still locked up.
She stared at her reflection in her shining gold trophy, blinking at herself. Would…would he care about this? And would she care if he did?
Before she could figure out what she was thinking, Jubileena said, "Hey guys, it's freezing up here, let's go to Chocolate Seashell Beach!" She cupped her hands around her face and blew warm air into them. "We can go swimming! We haven't gone swimming for ages!"
Vanellope twirled her goggles once around her finger. "I don't know," she said, chewing at her lip. "Are you guys sure you wanna get in those gummy shark infested waters?" At the horrified looks on all of their faces, she snorted and said, "I'm just kidding, geez, you guys make it too easy."
Amidst the laughter and teasing, Taffyta sidled up to Vanellope and said, "Hey, Pres."
"Hey Taff!" Vanellope said. "Are you gonna swim or just work on your tan?"
"Actually," Taffyta said, "I think I might need to skip the trip to the beach." When Vanellope looked disappointed, Taffyta rushed to say, "I mean, maybe I'll come after—yeah, I will, I just…there's something I have to do. Is it okay if I go to the castle?"
Vanellope's eyebrows shot up, but then said, "Sure thing, that's fine. You know your way around."
She felt transparent but didn't really care. She was starting to realize that being transparent around Vanellope wasn't the worst thing. Vanellope herself was transparent. You never had to wonder about what she was thinking or where you stood with her. There was something pretty nice about that, actually.
"Thanks," she said, hugging her trophy to herself. Without saying anything to anyone else, she ran to her kart and jumped in, waving to the others as she sped off.
With the roads clear, she made it to the castle in no time at all. She left her visor on the seat and, with some regret, her trophy. Then she knocked on the front doors.
"Yes?" Sour Bill asked in a flat tone as he opened the door.
"Oh, hi," Taffyta said. "I just came by to…well, I was wondering, that is, Vanellope said I could stop by. I was going to go down to the fungeon, but—Sour Bill, are the castle gardens still there?"
Sour Bill looked at her, a dour expression on his face, and then motioned with a hand for her to follow.
Taffyta couldn't help grinning in victory as she pulled the doors shut behind her.
Half an hour later, she knocked on the door to Turbo's cell.
"Hi," she said hesitantly, when he looked over at her. "I—um, I brought you this." She held up a basket of watermelon sours. "They're from the castle garden." King Candy had liked them, and the garden they grew in, though he hadn't much cared for the actual gardening. Sour Bill was the one who'd done all of that, and had kept it up since Vanellope's ascension to Sugar Rush's leadership. The gardens were well-pruned and thriving, and Taffyta had commented, as she'd picked watermelon sours off the vine, that it looked really nice. Sour Bill had just shrugged.
Turbo glitched so quickly to King Candy that she barely even saw his red binary. For the first time, she wondered what prompted that. Vanellope's glitching had always gotten worse when she'd been upset or emotional. Did Turbo's, too?
"I didn't do anything to them," she said, lifting them higher.
King Candy got to his feet, bouncy even in his imprisonment. "I never harbored the sthuspicthion," he said. Then, he took a few hesitant steps towards the door. "I didn't exthpect to sthee you again. Sthour Bill sthaysth you're all better."
Taffyta raised her eyebrows. "Sour Bill volunteered that?" Wow, she hadn't thought he cared enough to pay attention.
"I asthked, actually," King Candy said casually.
"You did?"
"Of coursthe I did. I—" He stopped, then flicked a wrist. "Well, of coursthe I did." He took the basket from her, needing to bend it to make it fit through the bars on the window, and set it down on the foot of his bed. Then, he picked up one of the watermelon sours and took a bite out of it. "Stho, to what do I owe the pleasure?" he asked, and with a gesture to the basket, added, "and the generousth presthent?"
Taffyta shrugged, the truth being that she barely knew herself. "Vanellope said she's been feeding you Bits-O-Honey and Ribena. I thought maybe you'd want something else for a change."
King Candy wrinkled his nose, confirming this. "She'sth sthadisthtic. You do know that, don't you?"
"If your sentence is eating gross food, I'd say you're getting off pretty light."
He popped the rest of the watermelon sour into his mouth. "Remind me to thank the glitch later."
She pretended not to hear the epithet, watched him eat another watermelon sour—he seemed hungry, and she couldn't blame him, based on his normal menu—and then, in a casual tone, said, "So, um, I raced today."
"Did you?" His eyes lit up. Actually lit up. Like he cared for real. "Tell me you beat the glitch."
Oh. Her heart plummeted, and Taffyta crossed her arms over her chest, unable to ignore the slur twice. "Vanellope." No matter how many times she corrected him, she had a feeling she wasn't going to get him to call the president by her name. "Is that the only reason you're asking? Because you want to…to like, beat her vicariously? Through me?"
"No!" King Candy looked wounded. "I'm asthking becausthe I know how important racthing isth to you. You're like—you know—me."
The nightmare pounced on her then and she felt her eyes widen and her breathing quicken.
A furrow appeared in King Candy's brow. "Oh. Right. That'sth justht about the lastht thing you want to hear."
Taffyta took a deep breath. She had to get this under control or she might start having full-blown panic attacks. And something in King Candy's tone—even though he couldn't possibly know why she'd reacted that way—was reassuring. He'd always been such a sweet man. Funny that he'd retained just a bit of that part of his act. At least…she thought it was an act.
"Stho…" King Candy asked, watching her carefully, "did you win?"
She thought about the day, and how really great it had been, and suddenly the nightmare was…well, not gone, really, but pushed into the background. Waiting, she guessed. Lurking, maybe. But right now she was happy. "Yeah," she said, unable to stop the broad grin from spreading across her face. "I did win some races. Actually a lot of races." She tilted her helmet up and added, "I got first on Frosty Rally."
"Of coursthe you did, no one can beat you on Frosthty Rally," King Candy said. There was a note of pride in his voice.
"Except you," she pointed out.
"Well, obviousthly. But I don't count." He narrowed his eyes and opened his mouth to speak, but then he met her gaze and swallowed whatever he'd been about to say. Instead, he clasped his hands behind him and rocked back on his heels. "Well done, my dear. I'm happy that virusth of yoursth didn't take you out of the game for long."
She tried to ignore the 'my dear' and the affection she heard in the words. Except, if she wanted to ignore that, then…why was she here? Because she wanted reassurance, that was why. She wanted to know that she'd been his favorite for real, that it hadn't been an act to make her pliable, to turn her into a willing lackey, to help him control Vanellope without him ever even asking.
And…if she got that reassurance, what was she going to do with it? He was Turbo. He was a criminal, a game-stealer, a liar. At best. At worst he was a killer. And a sociopath.
What kind of person wanted to be a sociopath's favorite? His friend? What did that make her?
She felt phantom claws squeezing her and shook the feeling off. But she couldn't stop the wild look in her eyes. And she couldn't stop King Candy from noticing.
His brow furrowed and he took a step closer to the door. "Isth everything all right?"
Taffyta swallowed and remembered how it had felt to be able to go to him when things weren't. And against her better judgment, she said, "I've been having nightmares."
"Nightmaresth?" he asked, sounding confused. "Well, I…wouldn't know, you look well-resthted—"
"Is it because of the virus?" she interrupted.
A glitch rippled through him. "No. No, that wasth one of the few thingsth that wasthn't a sthymptom."
"Oh." She'd been hoping that had been it, because at least it could be fixed then. She sank down on a bittersweet chocolate chair that was sitting outside the door. "Oh." She planted her elbows on her knees and stared at the floor.
There was a noise above her and she glanced up to find King Candy staring through the barred window at her. "What kind of nightmaresth?" he asked.
The crumbling defenses that had made her admit to the dreams went back up. "They're…they're nothing."
He laced his fingers together on the window and rested his chin on his knuckles. "You never usthed to have bad dreamsth."
"I never used to have anything to have bad dreams about," Taffyta mumbled.
For a minute, he stared at her thoughtfully. Then he said, "I'm sthort of a sthufferer mysthelf."
"You have nightmares?" she asked. He looked like he regretted admitting this, but then he nodded. Taffyta folded her legs up and wrapped her arms around her knees. "What do you have nightmares about?"
King Candy hesitated, and then he raised an eyebrow. "Oh, pleasthe, you can't think of anything that I might have bad dreamsth about?"
One of her feet slipped off the chair. "No, but—well, I just would think someone like you…"
"What, Turbo, the terrifying monsthter that'sth haunted the arcade for twenty-five yearsth, doesthn't stheem like the type?" When she didn't say anything, he withdrew his hands, which he'd stuck through the bars, his fingers curled into claws. Replacing them on the window, he said, "Yeah. Don't tell anyone."
She just made a noncommittal noise. Who would she tell?
King Candy hung an arm out the window. "What'sth the nightmare about?"
Funny how even though she'd never said it was the same nightmare, he'd guessed that anyway. Taffyta bit her lip and looked up at him, her throat frozen. Then, she said, "You. You as a Cy-Bug."
His eyebrows shot up. "Oh."
"You did turn into a Cy-Bug, didn't you?" She wasn't sure if she wanted the answer to this to be yes or no. She knew it was true, but…but she hadn't actually seen it, and…and it might be nice to pretend it hadn't happened.
He took his hands off the window. "I wasth eaten by a Cthy-Bug." All traces of his good mood, pretense or not, vanished.
Picking at her shoelaces, she asked, "What's the difference? They turn into whatever they eat. That's why they were all made of candy."
There was a funny look in his eyes. If she didn't know better, she'd have called it haunted. But he didn't answer. Instead, he cleared his throat and said, "Well, that mustht be…troubling for you."
She looked up and met his eyes before he glanced away. Maybe, she thought, he dreamt about it, too. Maybe however much of him had been left in that…that thing, had been just as scared as she was when she dreamt about it. Only a hundred times worse, because it had been real, and now he had those memories, and…
She was beginning to see what he might have nightmares about.
Standing up, she said, "Can I ask you something?"
King Candy looked tired suddenly, but he replied with a smile, "Anything."
Ask, but it doesn't mean I'll answer. His smile could have meant that, or it could have been sincere—she just couldn't tell. Even face to face, looking into his eyes, she couldn't tell sincerity from artifice. "You glitch—or whatever you want to call it—between Turbo and King Candy. So…so why not the Cy-Bug, too?"
"I can't sthay for sure without getting a look at my own code," he said.
A non-answer. Figured.
"But," he went on, surprising her, "I think the sthimple exthplanation isth that the Cthy-Bugsth are justht a virusth outsthide their own game. I coded mysthelf into Sugar Rush with both persthonas, but the bug part, that wasth justht…exthtra."
"So, like, the reset just wiped it away?"
He made a sweeping gesture with his hand. "Clean sthlate. Justht left me with thisth little—hoo-hoo—handicap." He flickered red and she thought again that he had more control over his glitching than he maybe let on.
For a minute, she just stood there in silence, picking at one of the fingers of her racing gloves. Then, she said quietly, "That's a really horrible thing to happen to anyone."
"What, thisth glitching? It'sth really not that bad. Kind of fun, actually, I think I'd be a big hit at partiesth. Not that I wasthn't alwaysth, hoohoohoo."
"No." Taking a breath and looking up at him, she said, "Getting eaten by a Cy-Bug. Getting taken over by something else and—and turning into something that you don't want to be."
He stared at her for a long time and eventually, she looked back down towards her feet. Then he said, "I'm sthorry that you had to exthperiencthe it. Not the Cthy-Bug part, I mean, but, you know, they're a virusth. They're not that different from what that low-life taffy sthwamp sthcum did to you in Exthtreme EZTH Living 2."
With a joyless smile, she said, "They're pretty different. I mean, I didn't grow wings or anything."
King Candy shook his head. "It'sth about making you into a vector. Sthpreading the corrupted code. It—" He stopped and his eyes widened and unfocussed abruptly, as though something had just occurred to him. Then he gave himself a shake, and the look was gone. With a half-smile—just as mirthless as hers had been—he said, "Eat, kill, multiply. That'sth pretty much all any virusth wants to do, whether you sthwallow it at a rave or get yoursthelf sthwallowed by a half-insthect, half-machine monsthtrosthity."
There was a hard edge to his voice, incongruous with his lilting tone, and Taffyta watched him through her bangs. Then, he twirled a hand—not a care in the world, as debonair and flamboyant as always—and said, "You don't want to hear thisth sthtuff, Taffyta. You won today. You should be with your friendsth, not hanging around the fungeon." He tilted his head and giggled. "Desthpite how delightfully fun it isth."
"Well, I did kind of promise I'd go to the beach," she said.
He smiled at her and she realized with a start that she was going to be sad to turn around and go.
He's Turbo.
But maybe he can change.
Taffyta hoped so. When she turned to leave, she only got a few steps before she stopped and faced him again. "Maybe I'll come back some other time."
A glitch garbled him. "That would be…nicthe."
With a nod, she turned and walked down the long corridor. She reached the end of the hall, and as she rounded the corner, she looked over her shoulder.
She didn't know if she was surprised or not that King Candy was still standing at his cell's door. Hesitantly, she lifted her hand to wave. He returned the gesture with a small, crooked smile, and then, her heart feeling fluttery and torn in a million different directions, she was on her way up the stairs and out of the fungeon.