Chapter 11
It was like waking up from a deep, deep sleep in which I was trapped in an ever repeating nightmare. The transition of what once was, to my reality now was so unreal that it felt as if not only did I physically slip in between worlds, but that my mind had gone from there and back again. A stepping stone had been crossed, a mountain had been scaled and now here I was, feeling rain pat on my face for the first time in forever, with chilled wind encasing my body as a sense of freedom. That monster, that beast that had me imprisoned had been defeated, and now here, lying before me was the man he truly was.
For a long time I stared at Turbo. My perception of the world around me continued to encase me in a tunnel vision as I focused on the little man, who's royally and elegantly dressed violet attire and gold crown seemed to completely clash with the dark and chaotic creature he once was moments before. I was so used to looking up at him, being afraid of his touch and how delicate I must have been in comparison to his strength that now, seeing Turbo in his King Candy persona, we were pretty much on the same playing field.
How else do I describe a feeling like that? Relief was a feeling a lot of us take for granted. I was not only relieved that I was out of that castle and no longer a prisoner to Turbo, but I also was able to remove that virus that had consumed him.
I heard mumbling around me and felt the continued awe struck stares join me in seeing Turbo right before us. I was so stunned, even after minutes of this silence, that I slowly began to come back to reality from my shock, like rising above the waves of the ocean. The feeling of freedom, that I tasted momentarily, would have to wait.
"Steven!" I gasped, as if taking in a breath of air for the first time, "Remove the flash drive from the Shiva gun!"
"What?" Steven was a little taken back, "Why?"
"Just do it!" I hollered again, though this time instead of receiving another act of questioning he removed the flash drive from the Shiva gun quickly and smoothly. I couldn't help but let loose a sigh of relief. At least we wouldn't have to worry about the Cy-bug inside right now.
"Listen up, ladies, we need to stop fiddling around and get some ground separated between us and the city." Calhoun stepped in sternly, shaking us all awake, "The only reason those Cy-bugs were in some sort of organized order was because Turbo was acting as a King Cy-bug. Now that he's no longer assuming control, those creatures are bound to resume to their chaotic state."
"Are you sure?" Felix asked, pulling his stare onto me and Turbo and up towards his wife.
"Of course I'm flippin' sure, what are you thick?" Calhoun was being short even with Felix at this point, "Cy-bugs that once were being ruled over are going to return to the way they were always programmed to be. Monsters that kill, eat and multiply. We might have taken out their leader but that just means we've stirred up the nest!"
Immediately after Calhoun's blast of concern did the sound of hums from the distance and explosions become more harsh against the tranquility of the falling rain, "Whatever Kailey saw in there will have to wait. We need to move, now." The armored woman turned from us and started down the street and through a cluster of trees, triggering us all to follow after her. Vanellope, Felix and Ralph seemed to stay glued to her procession, leaving Steven, Dannen, Turbo and I to come stumbling behind.
After grabbing the Light Cycle that lay on the ground and sticking it my boot again, I tried heaving Turbo into my arms, but despite his short stature he proved to be heavier than I thought. Dannen, despite looking to be more tired than I was walked over towards me and extended his arms around my shoulder and under my grip, providing his hands to encase my arms that held the unconscious racer. With his help and Steven's constant surveillance, we followed Calhoun and the others to a large military sized truck.
"All right you pussy-willows, get in the vehicle and make it quick!" Calhoun waved her arm harshly as we came towards the truck. While Ralph took the bed of the truck again, Vanellope and Felix squeezed into the front seating beside Calhoun at the wheel, while Steven, Dannen and I heaved Turbo with us into the back seat, though pushing the racer towards my side of the truck and over my lap.
The engine started up with a roar and Calhoun quickly took us from our parked area and down the road again. As we drove the treeline we had been under separated from our line of sight and allowed us to have glimpses of the city over its canvas. A wad of black smoke rose into the grey skies, originating from the slowly but surely crumbling castle. Embers and flames sat among the top of the once only glorious structure of the city, causing the mass of Cy-bugs to swirl around it aggressively and mindlessly. The fire seemed to be keeping the Cy-bugs occupied for the time being, but with the rain fall that fire was sure to go out as soon as the city was soaked enough and there was nothing left to burn.
Although what we saw would have frightened most people, we all were very quiet. It was only the hum of the engine, the tires rolling fast against the concrete roads and the rain continuously pelting the windshield did we barely escape this voiceless void.
"Where are we going to go?" I meekly asked. It seemed this silence was harder to break than I had anticipated.
"Since we started exploring the information the Omni-Tool downloaded from that Cy-bug that ate your brothers computer, we were able to dive in and extract more information from those files." Felix was the first to speak as to not leave me talking to a bunch of walls. "There was an address in the blueprints written by that man named Flynn. You know, the one from the video."
"And what would you know, that address points to another arcade." Calhoun said, "We have reason to believe this other arcade houses another Shiva laser. The original one Flynn created."
"Wait, so you're telling me there is another Shiva laser in existence?" I asked then, as my head perked up, "But, those videos and files were created more than twenty, maybe thirty years ago!"
"We have no other leads." Calhoun was stern with her next statement and she almost sounded annoyed, "This is all we have to shoot for. Either we head to California and use the original Shiva laser as a way to stop the Cy-bugs or we go all the way there for nothing. What choice do we have at this point? We can't just sit here, that's for certain."
California? That drive, as far as I remembered took at most three days with stops for a family vacation one time. With Cy-bugs on the loose and inevitably going to be after us soon, that amount of time would be lengthened considerably. But Calhoun was right. We didn't have much of a choice and by all means this was as lucky as we were going to get.
"How will we use the original Shiva laser to stop the Cy-bugs?" My curiosity was getting the best of me.
"I wanted to reverse engineer the Shiva gun but due to its small size and limited power I was unable to do that." Steven responded to me quickly, "With the power of the Shiva laser, however, power shouldn't be as much of a problem due to the complexity of the larger scale machine. I should be able to turn the portal inside out, if you will, and bring the exit portal to the outside, and vice versa. I can essentially create a beacon that will trap Cy-bugs back in virtual space."
"Wait, wait wait!" I lifted my hands briefly to showcase the shock I had just received, "You can create a beacon?"
"It will probably destroy the Shiva laser in the process, so nobody will be able to exit the digital grid from that point again, not to mention I have absolutely no idea how long the portal, in this case the beacon, will stay open. But it's worth a shot. Even if I can see how to work it and recreate it I can send this information to the military so they can start creating their own beacons all over the globe."
I was confused again. To be quite honest I was always confused. My brother made fun of me often because of my daftness, but then again I wasn't some scientific genius who knew how to make giant portals and beacons, so normally I'd tell everyone off who made fun of me, but this was an exception. If Steven could do this though; to be able to create it to where the exit portal was actually an entrance portal onto another digital platform, Cy-bugs could be trapped inside and destroyed. It was a giant bug net, and we were so close to making that possible. All it would take now is traveling a thousand something miles in hopes of another Shiva laser actually existing.
Those odds were about fifty-fifty. Flynn, this so-called programming genius from the eighties whose skills were far too early and special for his time, should have been able to create his Shiva laser. And if he did, why didn't he come out to tell the world when he was on the brink of discovering this? Instead, twenty-five something plus years went by and a group of extreme geeks decided to pull and expand on his blueprints and make one of their own, resulting in a catastrophe of gigantic proportions. And I happened to be the guinea pig of the testing phase.
"Wouldn't that make this Flynn guy the First User then? I mean, he technically created it way before you Stinkfarts did." Vanellope spoke up among one of her own sarcastic chuckles.
"That's only if he actually entered the digital grid." Steven answered, "But nobody knows what happened to him, and according to a lot of his history files we found he's considered dead, so for now Kailey has the title."
"Great." I responded sarcastically, "The First User is such a terrific name, you might as well rename me that." I was getting pretty tired of it, honestly. Turbo would call me that in public when he was trying to put me on the spot and that caused literally every single person in the city to do the same, only they were completely rude about it.
"Nah, if we were gonna rename you, it would be Princess Dramatic." Vanellope laughed again to herself.
"I thought you wanted to call me Princess Hesitate?" My response was quick, though I ended up smiling anyway.
"Well, normally I would agree with ya, but after you un-hesitated to actually do that to King Candy, I think you're off the hook when it comes to hesitation."
When Vanellope brought that up and turned around to lightly glare at the unconscious racer everyone in the entire truck's attention was brought back to what had happened. There was this heavy returning silence again before Dannen managed to get out the first question.
"So, tell us..." He was extremely calm, "How did you return Turbo back into... well, normal?"
"Normal?" Vanellope let a long exaggerated hiss come out her nostrils, "King Candy has never been normal. When he wasn't acting like a complete goofball he sent all the Sugar Rush racers to bully me. It was all apart his entire cover to take my rightful place as ruler of the game. I think the next question you should tell us is why you did what you did, Princess Dramatic."
I let my eyes fall to Turbo who continued to remain unconscious in my lap. I thought long and hard about what I was going to say. Calhoun had put me on the spot before this incident happened, and just like then I was still struggling to find an answer.
Looking upwards again to my brother next to me, who proved to be the only serenity I had to lean on, I began to speak.
"Turbo finally lost control while we were in the flash drive. When he went on a rampage he started hitting the ground and that somehow shattered the grid platform and sent us into this... I don't know, coding space. I say this because, I saw his coding and was able to tear the Cy-bug apart from his. That's why I wanted Steven to remove the flash drive from the Shiva laser so the Cy-bug wouldn't come out."
"You mean a Cy-bug is trapped in here?!" Steven gasped. His hand dived into his pocket and took out the flash drive and he started closely examining the tiny object like a kid intensely eyeing a goldfish in a tank, "Bloody hell! And what was that, you separated the code from Turbo's? I- I don't believe this, this is amazin'! That explains why Programs are able to survive after their games are destroyed!"
"What do you mean?" Ralph poked his face in through the back again, becoming more interested in the conversation as we all talked.
"You can take the character out of the game, but you can't take the game out of the character." Steven's eyes widened again as he started shaking from excitement. It was like he just had a revelation or something.
"Say what?" Ralph's eyebrows twisted in confusion, "Talk English, not weird smarty pants English-English."
"Programs are self-sustaining beings. Their code isn't bound to their world. Their code goes where they go, it follows them. The code is them, it's who they are. Just like DNA is my human code, or Dannen's or Kailey's. It is self-sustaining, it is the structure of our life. Don't you understand how brilliant this is?!"
Steven's teeth gritted together as he continued to stare at the flash drive and then back towards the Shiva gun in his hands, "Somehow being on a digital platform reveals to us code. It expresses the blueprint of whatever is copied onto it and from that it can be messed with and changed. Kailey, did you see anything else other than Turbo's code?"
"Well..." My eyes shifted to him, crawling slowly from my collapsing brain from absorbing all this information Steven was explaining, "I saw mine."
"You're what?"
"My code! My DNA!" I couldn't help but heighten my voice, it felt strange knowing I somehow discovered something like this, "Only mine was transparent. It couldn't be tampered with."
"That makes a lot sense, yes." Steven bit his lip as he thought, "Programs can be changed, because we created them. They match the digital platform because that's where they are from. Humans can't because we are on a higher level of existence... higher level... it's like..." Steven drifted off and began to mumble to himself. Slowly his excitement relaxed, as the muscles in his face smoothed out. Briefly he fell into a mental void, staring off into space before he returned to us. "I would imagine this is how God could see's us." His once utterly exaggerated tone was calming now, "It just... goes to show you how much we have yet to discover. Since hanging out with you Programs I always knew you were alive, in a sense, but only now do I realize how much a like we are... how we all have-"
"A soul." This escaped my lips softly and without warning. "That's why I couldn't do it. That's why I saved Turbo."
Again silence returned. It seemed that impacted all of us, but in different ways. Even when Calhoun and Vanellope were facing away from me, I could tell they were questioning me quite a bit. Calhoun, for one, because it was her programming to be intense but also Vanellope because of what Turbo did to her personally. They were reluctant to respond to me, I could tell, and by all means I understood why they may have been angry.
"I wasn't there to see what happened to you because of Turbo." I stated, "I don't know the pain it caused you, Vanellope. But I don't see him as just another... well, Program. I see him as something that he did was my fault because evil is a fault of humanity. I couldn't kill him because... when I looked into his eyes, I saw myself. If I would have left him in the flash drive and gone about your idea of destroying it, what would have that made me? I would have been no better than a Cy-bug myself. Maybe now that I've removed the virus from his code, he can have a second chance. It's my job as a human, part of the race that programmed Turbo, to make things right." I paused momentarily to look back at Dannen, "After all, this entire journey was given to us so we can change the world."
"It's how it was meant to be." Dannen admitted then, "Right now things may be grim in our decision to have triggered this, but Flynn was right. This is going to change the world. If Programs like Felix can heal, and Portal guns phase through reality, we've created a leap in humanity that exceeds that of centuries. That's why I know we can finish this. That's why I'm sure we'll come out in the end. This struggle won't be for nothing."
As we drove the rain started to lighten up a bit, though sprinkles would momentarily hit the windshield regardless and flashes would fill the clouds with lightning. Through this rather tranquil lullaby of thunder in the high grey clouds, however, that relief we were absorbed in was soon accompanied by a waking moan, and immediately after I could feel Turbo begin to move on my lap.
The entire truck, yet again, grew utterly quiet, but this time grew stiff with anticipation as well. I was the only one brave enough to look down directly at Turbo, whose awakening was slow and exaggerated.
"Hoo-hoo!" He cooed softly as his arms stretched and his eyes fluttered open, but as soon as his half awakened eyes met my own stare down at him he laughed again. "Hoo! Did-did I die and go to heaven because I'm th'seeing an angel."
Vanellope's little hand immediately raised to her face as she quickly face palmed herself.
"Did he just hit on my sister?" Dannen mumbled with intensity, as his expression showed pure confusion. I'm pretty sure everyone was making the same face as he was.
"Turbo?" I asked downward to him, attempting to ignore the reactions of the gang around me, "Are you okay? Tell me, how many fingers am I holding up?" I raised my right hand then and gave him three fingers, hoping that he hadn't received any weird drawbacks from what I had done to him.
"I feel great...errr" He completely ignored the finger question, "But why does everything th'seem bigger? Wait..." His eyes slipped from me and started looking around him. I could tell he was finally waking up fully. It wasn't until his pupils dilated inwardly with such exaggeration that his calm domineer, right after, shattered upon the realization me and him were not alone. "WHAT IS THAT GLITCH AND THAT HALITOSIS-RIDDLED WARTHOG DOING HERE?!" His yelling drew me away as I pressed my back harshly against the seat of the truck, attempting, if at all, to put some distance between myself and his hollering.
"Turbo it's okay!" Even when I wanted to reassure him I found my hands had risen against the seat as well as if I was giving into a gun point.
Turbo sat up immediately then and took in more of his surroundings, not only noticing Ralph and Vanellope then but literally everyone else. I could tell he was starting to panic then, but this panic was accompanied by sheer defiance and irritability, "Stop the truck! Get me off of this... ARGHHAAAA!" His eyes fell onto his body at that point and I suppose the realization that he was no longer a Cy-brid came as the most shocking to him. His breath heaved as he attempted to regain himself, but this rather unavoidable at this point. "Stop the truck!" He slammed his hand on the back of Calhoun's seat aggressively, "Do it now!"
From his punch Calhoun immediately slammed on the breaks, causing everyone to flail forward momentarily before we started to slow down enough. The truck was still coasting a couple MPH when Turbo opened the door, leaping out with such dramatic emphasis that I thought he must have been faking it at first. However, once he hit the soaking ground he sat up and turned around to look at us, backing up slowly as he retained an intensely compacted furrow upon his forehead. Every crevice and every wrinkle in his skin was showing now, even though his smooth bubbly King Candy persona. "Stay back you buffoons!" He call out, raising his hands forward and pushing at the air toward the direction of the group.
"We don't wanna come anywhere close to you, ya cheat!" Vanellope responded as she crawled over Calhoun's lap and hung out the truck, "Why don't you go running back off and get eaten by a Cy-bug so we don't have to hear your yappin' anymore!"
"Vanellope, please!" Felix, although likewise very much nervous around Turbo like everybody else was didn't want a conflict to emerge.
"Stand off, Fix-It!" Vanellope was loud and blunt, "If King Candy wants to run off, let em! I don't want to have anything to do with him just as much as he doesn't want to have anything to do with me!"
"I already feel your glitch germs all over me!" Turbo swiped his hands over his violet tail coat and let his tongue hang out the side of his teeth like a kid would do if you were to serve them brussel sprouts, "I'm going to need to take a th'showa to get them off me!"
"Well why don't you just stand right here in the rain and watch us drive off, Turbo!" Ralph finally started to intervene. I could tell the more insults Turbo threw at Vanellope the angrier he got.
"You're hilariouth's, Wreck-It Ralph." Turbo laughed lightly and sarcastically before his expression returned irritable, "But I advise you check yourth'self before you wreck yourth'self!"
"Stop, enough of this!" Calhoun finally yelled over the fighting, seeming to even dissipate the rain for an instant, "Listen up, King Candy, Turbo, or whatever the heck you call yourself now! We all know good and well you don't want that Cy-bug, or any other one eating your sorry carcass again. I don't personally understand still why Kailey decided to fix you but she did. So you're either going to come with us quietly or stay back!"
Turbo paused. His glare, once settled on Calhoun, melted from his face like butter on a pan and shifted over towards me. His mouth hung lightly through his stare, "She what?" He asked with a cracked voice, this ever steadily becoming smoothed as seconds went on, "But..."
"Yeah, you heard me!" Calhoun fussed despite Turbo had seemed to back down, "She saved your sorry ass so what are you going to do about it? Go running off like some sort of cry baby because he can't get over how pathetic he is and has to hide it from people he tried to take advantage of? Please, save me those sob stories until cats start shooting rainbows from their butt cheeks!"
"Tamora!" Felix gasped, "I'm appalled at your language, keep in the ratings!"
"We're not in a game anymore, Short Stack, so zip it!" She seemed to hiss a little bit that time, "So what's it gonna be, Candy Freak, are you coming or not?"
Even though Turbo heard everything she had just said he continued to look in my direction with an awe-struck stare. With just a simple look back into his brown eyes I would tell he was thinking. I could only imagine what kinds of things were going through his head. He had been a Cy-brid for a long, long time and had finally broken from an impending demise being trapped inside that virus until his death. But now, things had changed. In the blink of an eye he was himself again, or at least King Candy again.
Despite the obvious tug he had received from being told the news he tried with all his might to shrug it off, once he realized Calhoun had stopped talking. He was trying to balance the odds, and from his quick mindset he was drawn back from his thoughts of what I had done and to the opinions of the others.
"Ah, I don't need your help, Sergeant!" Turbo sneered as he waved his hand at her as if swiping a fly from in front of him, "And I certainly don't need hat little brat and her smelly friend around me either!" Turbo turned around swiftly, his left ankle likewise making a sudden 180 degree rotation that shocked me, though this seemed to be part of his programming to be able to do so.
"Wait- Turbo!" I couldn't help but want to stop him. Of course I didn't want him to leave. If he got eaten by a Cy-bug again this entire ordeal would start all over, not to mention I highly doubt he'd make it alone, considering he had no kart to drive or anything to defend himself with. Being honest with myself, I was afraid for him too.
Upon hearing his named being called he stopped in his tracks, still turned from the truck. His hands that were clutched together in tight fists let loose then, but after a couple seconds went by they balled up again and he continued walking.
"Good riddance!" Vanellope sneered, "We don't need him anyway. We can handle ourselves."
"No wait, Vanellope let's think this through first." Steven said, "We have no idea what will happen to him. Besides, he's still responsible for letting the Cy-bugs out so we can't just let him run free."
"Ya know, I don't care what happens to him!" Vanellope crawled back to her seat and threw her arms in the air, "He never cared what happened to me!"
"Maybe he'll come around." Dannen stated, "We should wait here for a while and see if he comes back."
"You're kidding." Ralph rolled his eyes, "Even if we did stay to pep talk Turbo we'd be wasting time."
"Not quite." Dannen shrugged, "I want to check out this flash drive and the code my sister saw. We've put some distance from the city so we should take this time to get into the grid platform and see what we can learn from this technology. Maybe there is a way to use this coding mechanism to our advantage against the Cy-bugs in the meantime."
"As much as I want to keep moving you're right." Calhoun said, "I'll go in with whoever decides to head in first. With that Cy-bug in there you're going need some help."
"I'll go in." Steven volunteered quite instantly, "I'm excited to see how this all works!"
"You're the lead programmer, Steven." I spoke up while keeping my eyes out the open truck door to watch Turbo walk further and further away until he started to disappear into some brush, "Let me go in instead. I know how the coding works in there and what to prepare for. If we lost you we'd never get the Shiva laser to work when we reached it."
"Kailey, please..." Dannen was concerned for me, I could tell by the way he pleaded and how frightened his body language was, "I don't want to lose you again. You just got out of hell minutes ago, you need to rest."
"I don't care." I felt my eyebrows come together in a determination as my fingers lightly clawed the seat, "I can't rest, not yet. I didn't come this far, work this hard and make so many sacrifices to just sit here. I've sat in a class room or an office my entire life and I'm tired of it. I have something bigger than myself to be a part of and I'm not going to be a spectator."
Without another word I jumped out of the truck and walked outward onto the opening, "Come on Steven, get ready to shoot me."
"Good God, Kailey are you serious?" Steven was baffled, "Are you sure you want to go back in there?"
"She said she wanted to go so let her do it!" Calhoun would exit the vehicle and follow me out into the opening. Once we were side by side she reached behind her and removed the large gun at her back and prepped it for the venture into the flash drive, "Remember, though, there's no turning back, Kailey. One rule every soldier needs to know is there is never turning back."
"I know." This slipped from my lips like water falling in between two stones. I felt my heart begin to race and my chest grew warm, this soon accompanied by an overwhelming force from within me it sent my body into a blunt stiffness that for a second I thought I couldn't move enough to take in a deep breath. Saying that I wasn't scared would have been a lie. I had to hide my fear and conceal my feelings, not just for the sake for the others who worried about me but for myself. I had to be the dove on the branch, no matter what was to come.
"Here, take this." Calhoun reached to her side and took out a Hero's Duty hand gun and handed it to me. Although rather reluctant at first I took it anyway, though only to be handed a Hero's Duty grenade immediately afterwards, "It's not safe to go without a weapon." Calhoun managed to let out a soft grin upon noticing my ever growing alertness, despite how I was doing my best to hide my feelings, "Just pull the trigger, User, it isn't that hard to shoot a Cy-bug."
"All right, I'm starting up the Shiva gun." Steven had stepped out and came around the truck to meet us on the other side, "But once I plug in the flash drive you need to act fast. The portal exit inside will immediately generate and attract the Cy-bug. Before you even think about going in to mess with the code you need to take care of it first. I won't unplug the flash drive from the gun, but I'll need to shut off the portal after a couple seconds. We can't risk the Cy-bug escaping."
"Duh," Calhoun spat out, "Of course I know that. Top priority is to kill all Cy-bugs first and foremost."
"And this one is going to pay for what it did." I added, as my violet gloved hands balled up into fists, "This is personal." Accompanied by my wave of nervousness I was soon filled with adrenaline. As I thought about what I was going to do, instead of pure distraught becoming my only emotion I felt a sense of desire to to put an end to the Cy-bug that was responsible for not only what happened to the destruction of the arcade and the real world, but what it did to Turbo.
"All right, in three...two...one..." Steven's countdown was slow, but as soon as the last number was spoken he pulled the trigger to the Shiva gun, resulting in the all too familiar blinding light to encase us and pull us into the digital grid.
It was all very much the same. When the light left us Calhoun and I were greeted by the blank and ominous grid platform. The portals blue light in the distance showcased the world we were in with such a bright intensity that it highlighted even the most distant of portions of the platform, reveling to us the sheer mass of the flash drive and it's potential. It was among this reveal of light onto the grid that we saw the Cy-bug. Well, in this case Cy-bugs.
"There's more!?" I gasped as I watched a group of six Cy-bugs start for the portal, only the original Cy-bug that had eaten Turbo differentiating from its candy coloring. It couldn't have been more than forty minutes, maybe more than that of driving and yet that was all it took for the Cy-bug to multiply. Watching them from where we stood, I saw their eyes become overwhelmed with a blue pixelation as a hum escaped from within their bodies. They were in a deep trance from the beacon and flying ever closer to this exit to the real world, when the plug was pulled. Steven at that moment must have shut down the portal, resulting in the Cy-bugs to come to and realize they were not alone.
"Prepare yourself, soldier!" Calhoun couldn't help but dive right into her programmed dialogue, "It's make your mama's proud time!"
Hearing her say that made me cringe. Her yelling seemed to have caught the Cy-bugs attention, and in that split second, their turned bodies to where the portal once was flipped around to look at us. I could see their bright green eyes fixate on us, and with a sudden and terrifying screech they started charging.
"Shit! This was a horrible decision!" I yelled, suddenly taking a step backwards as if I had the urge to run the opposite direction.
"There's no turning back now, soldier!" Calhoun began shooting at the oncoming Cy-bugs, causing her voice to drown out a bit but despite the loudness of the gunfire I could still hear her, "Fear is a four letter word, if you want to go pee-pee in your big girl pants keep it to yourself!"
"Holy flipping fu-!" I was caught off guard when Calhoun managed to destroy one of the Cy-bugs. When the Hero's Duty bullets hit the mouth of one of the monsters it shattered like glass, though unlike most Programs it excreted a green goo as it was destroyed.
"Five to go!" Calhoun yelled again, but continued shooting. My arms were shaking but watching her be able to kill that Cy-bug brought me to grab the pistol she had given me initially. Once I had it firmly in my grasp I tried lifting it upward to aim at the Cy-bugs, however, when I pulled the trigger I realized that my aim was horrific.
"It's my first time shooting a real Hero's Duty pistol, I don't know what to do!" I felt helpless again, good God.
"It's just like in the game, point where you wanna shoot!" Calhoun spoke like it was easy. I suppose it should have been easy for me, considering I played first person shooters all the time but being in the face of danger and potential death usually makes it harder.
"Kailey, look out!" Calhoun seemed to anticipate the Cy-bugs flight pattern. The candy bug and one of the other ones darted to my left, attempting to come around to flank me. Calhoun turned her riffle just in time to shoot the newer Cy-bug, but she had to aim her weapon back to her prior targets to keep them at bay. I realized that I needed to act soon, because the second monster was heading right toward me.
"WHAT THE HELL! GAH!" I yelled and started running away, though instead of the Cy-bug continuing its flight toward where I was it darted with me, attempting to keep at my tail like a cat chasing a mouse. At this point I could hear Calhoun getting in more hits, so she was far too busy dealing with the three remaining Cy-bugs to help me with the candy bug. I knew I had to take this opportunity to hit it, so with all the bravery I had instilled within me I flipped around and raised my arm to fire at the colorful Cy-bug. I was turned half way around by the time I realized it was literally right on my ass.
Gasping I pulled the trigger, causing a series of bullets to hit the Cy-bugs right eye and shatter it. The Cy-bug staggered but it kept coming, and within a split second it was on top of me, screeching and roaring as it kept its single green lightened eye fixated on me.
"Calhoun!" I yelled, but I realized she would be no real help to me with her own distractions. I tried acting quickly and shot at the candy bug again, allowing another good round of bullets to penetrate and explode in the Cy-bugs open jaws. However, unlike the larger gun Calhoun had, the pistol was far less effective killing the thing.
"No, I'm not gonna let you do this to me anymore!" I fussed against its roars, "This is for all you've done, you glutinous piece of trash! This is for destroying the arcade and my world! This is for what you did to Turbo!"
I shot at the Cy-bugs other eye again, causing it to bust after a few shots. Because the Cy-bug was suddenly blinded it began to lose balance, allowing me to reach into my pocket and pull out the grenade Calhoun had given me. I pulled the link on its side, and gave it a harsh throw into the candy bugs open mouth and scooted away as fast as I could. Once I was away from it I sat up and started haling ass, and as my footsteps seemed to countdown the seconds, the grenade went off behind me, sending me flying forward and onto the ground. Among the shattering sound of the Cy-bug being deleted, I heard the familiar collapse of the grid. It wasn't until I looked around did I see the explosion had caused another rift in the flash drive, having made another entrance to the coding space directly below.
"Kailey!" Calhoun called. I heard a cease of fire then, letting me know that Calhoun had managed to kill the other Cy-bugs, "Are you all right?"
"Yeah..." I placed a hand on my chest and tried sitting up, all the while regaining my breath as I wobbled, "I'm fine."
"Good," Calhoun sure wasn't one to console and provide sympathy, "Now show me the coding space. Where do we go?"
"There..." I lifted my hand from myself and pointed at the opening in the floor, "It's in there."
"You expect me to jump down a black pit?" Calhoun raised a brow, "That's a pretty deep fall... There is no way we'd survive it."
"You don't fall." I stated, "You float... It's coding space."
"I've never been in coding space before." Calhoun was a little sarcastic when she repeated me, "But I'll trust you. Come on let's go, quit being a pussy-willow."
Calhoun started to walk ahead, retreating her gun back behind her as she walked over to the large opening in the floor. While I was slowly following I could see her stop and impatiently look down into the pit, though all the while contemplating about the entire thing. Of course I probably would have done the same thing; the idea of jumping into a black hole would have concerned anyone, and even though Calhoun was good at hiding any sort of fear I could tell she wasn't sure about it either.
"Well?" I said aloud, "Aren't you gonna jump?"
"I was waiting for you." Calhoun huffed, causing the longer ends of her hair to flare up for a moment, "Let's hurry up, can't keep Steven and the others waiting."
Calhoun jumped in, triggering me to do the same. As the world of the upper grid transitioned to the coding space, I felt gravity leave me, causing my body only briefly to react and try to flail around. Once I managed to take back control of my balance, I stationed myself still and looked onward. The coding had changed, but it was still there. Instead of King Candy's code next to mine, it was Calhoun's.
"What the blazes..." Calhoun muttered to herself, "So that's what code looks like."
"So you're telling me you never discovered your code?" I asked out of curiosity. I noticed our voices were muffled slightly from the coding space but due to being right next to each other I could still hear Calhoun speak to me.
"Well why the heck would I? And even if I did Programs shouldn't have a right to tamper with the code."
I laughed to myself a little. Turbo did it after all, so a Program could become a programmer too by all means. The only difference was I figured humans had more range in what they could do to change a program, "Well come on, let's see what we can do here."
"Screw me up and I'll slap your skull." Calhoun seemed to be joking but she didn't sound like it.
Once we arrived at Calhoun's coding I reached my hand outwards to the light cube and triggered it to open. From there it was all from memory. I dived into the code, enlarging the structure to see it at a smaller level and took a look around. I saw Calhoun's main code; whatever made her who she was, her personality and appearance was all here. However, my eyes settled on the Hero's Duty gun programming within her code.
"See here?" I said, pointing to a close bundle of small blue box codes which contained an image of a riffle on it, "That's your Hero's Duty gun."
"Interesting..." Calhoun responded with a laid back tone, "But is there anything you can do with it?"
"Well, let's see." I said, taking the moment to think about what I could possibly do to Calhoun's gun code, let alone do anything with the code that could help the group. I thought about computers and my interactions with them at my Intern work. I thought about how I had to add directions to job sites for the engineers and data to fill in the needs they required for prior knowledge before heading out to build on a landmass. Those files I worked with usually simply required me to click "Save As". I had no idea how to go back and recreate a document just like they wanted, so I recycled.
"Copy and paste." I mumbled aloud.
"Say what?"
"Shh, I'm thinking here!" I narrowed my eyes as I reached my hand outward to the gun code, tapping my finger twice on its surface which seemed to trigger a highlight effect on the entire cluster. With my index finger still on it, I used my pinky to literally right click it, and with both fingers still glued onto it I drug a copy from the original and placed it into the open space directly in front of me. When I released the copied code, another Hero's Duty gun glitched into existence right beside me.
Calhoun's blue eyes fixated on the new Hero's Duty gun just as it finished appearing and grabbed it, "This can't be happening." She huffed again in disbelief.
"See if it works." I told her, "It looks legit to me."
For a second Calhoun messed around with the gun, flipping through its controls and looking through its scope before looking over at me, "It's legit, whatever that means." She grinned lightly, "Well what do you know, you're a programmer and didn't even realize it. I wonder if you can make a copy of me?"
"Eh, that looks more complicated." I responded with a nervous sigh, "It looks like that copy paste deal I just did only works on individual files in your code. I don't think I can copy paste the entire thing. Besides I don't know if having clones of everyone would be all that good."
"You do realize that there were probably clones of all of us at other arcades, right? At least before the Cy-bugs destroyed everything. A bunch of other mes and Felix's waking around all the same acting."
"Thinking about it I don't think they would be the same exactly." I nodded my head as I thought, "The copy and paste move could work on making your physical copies but you won't be the same people. Kinda like twins. You may sound and look the same but personalities are different."
"Can you imagine a Turbo that didn't go AWOL?" Calhoun chuckled a little, "I guess you're right. In your logic if all Programs were indeed the same we'd have a bunch of crazy ass Turbo's turning themselves into King Candy's. King Candy isn't even a real character, really. Turbo made him up."
"Heh, yeah. Turbo made an OC, only he became his OC."
"What the roar is an OC?"
"It's when- oh geez, never-mind." I shook my head as I tried to hide a smile, "After all this nonsense is over I'll tell you what all that stuff is."
"If I recall you also brought up something called cosplay. So yeah, you need to fill me in on all this User talk."
I laughed again, though this time turned my attention upwards to the open ceiling, "All right, let's go back and tell the others what we discovered. I think now that it's all clear in here Steven will want to have a look." I then reached my arms upward and kicked at the open space, seemingly swimming back up to the grid above me. Calhoun followed rather effortlessly even with a second Hero's Duty gun in her possession.
"Hello? Can you hear me, over?" Steven's voice came from Calhoun's wrist; apparently some sort of com-link was implanted there and Steven, being the smarty-pants he was, linked it to his Omni-Tool.
"Yeah, I hear you loud and clear." Calhoun responded, but right then didn't receive a response. Her eyes shifted to me for a second before talking back into the com-link, "I hear you, hello?"
"You didn't say over, over." Steven said followed by chuckling like an idiot. We could hear everyone sigh in the background.
"Cut the crap, four-eyes, just tell me what you gotta say."
"Okay, okay!" Steven let loose a long sigh before continuing, "I'm about to start up the portal, are you guys all right?"
"Yeah, we're ready for you." Calhoun responded.
A few seconds went by and then suddenly, just a few yards from where we were the portal appeared in all it's glory. I had anticipated it would open far away, like it normally would but this time that wasn't the case. I thought to myself how much easier things would have been the first time around if the portal was closer to me, but then again it would have probably been easier for that Cy-bug as well.
Without much hesitation we walked into the portal, soon being welcomed again by the wet air and constantly dripping raindrops of the real world. Steven, along with pretty much everyone else, looked at Calhoun's second Hero's Duty gun in awe, apparently realizing that whatever happened again on the grid was good on our part.
"How did- how on earth?!" Steven was overly exited, I could tell by the way his teeth clenched together and how his face turned red like a babies would when laughing, "You were able to code a new Hero's duty gun?"
"Well, not new, I copied it." I admitted, "Having another Hero's Duty gun on us will help us immensely."
"You better believe it!" Steven rushed over towards us, taking hold of the copied weapon and holding it in his arms like a child, "Oh wow... oh boy." He started to chant.
"You have the Omni-Tool, Steven." Dannen chimed in, "Why don't you let me have that gun? I don't have any program objects yet."
"Well, I guess you need it more than I do." Steven handed it to Dannen, "Kailey has the Light Cycle anyway, so we're even. But I wonder... can we make us Hero's Duty Armor?"
I shrugged and then answered for them, "Well, I wouldn't know how to make something out of nothing. If you wanna try and program a male suit for you two then go for it."
"Damn right we sure as bloody hell are!" Steven jumped for joy as he threw the Shiva gun in Vanellope's arms without second thought, "Shoot me!"
"Woah, don't get ahead of yourself Iron Man, you'll get your suit just hold up." Vanellope responded to Steven's demands while eyeing the Shiva gun, "I guess you just pull the trigger here?"
"Yeah, yeah just do it!" Steven was shaking his fists now as he waited anxiously, "Dannen, why don't you come with me so we can get you fitted for a suit too?"
"Hey, what about me?" I let my arms fall to my sides in disappointment, "Don't I need a suit?"
Dannen laughed at me, "Please Kailey, I think that racing suit will do you good for now. Besides, I don't think you are strong enough to carry a Hero's Duty suit."
"Bull shit I can carry a suit! I've cosplayed in armor before!"
"Plastic is different than metal." Dannen chuckled again, "Just deal with what you have."
I felt my face puff up in irritation but upon thinking about it I realized I wouldn't be able to carry myself properly in full metal armor like that. I had a hard time running as it was, so the lighter racing suit I was wearing would probably work for the time being. "Fine, while you guys do that I'm going to lay down in the truck. I think I'm done for now."
"Oh all right, yeah whatever..." Steven's voice drifted as he put his focus on Vanellope preparing the Shiva gun, while everyone else did pretty much the same out of curiosity to what was going on.
Letting my arms fall to my side and dangle from exhaustion I walked back over to the truck and climbed in, effortlessly closing the door behind me and falling onto my side. For a moment I laid there, staring at the back of the passenger's seat until I couldn't keep my eyes open any longer. With a sigh I shut them, hoping I could stay blissfully sound like this for a long enough time before something else weird happened again.
. . . . . . .
It couldn't have been more than ten, maybe fifteen minutes that went by before I heard the door to the driver's seat open and close. Despite whoever was attempting to come in was doing so as quietly as they could, I suppose without waking me, they were doing a horrible job at it. I knew Calhoun wasn't the most graceful of people but I had to hand it to her, at least she was trying. I suppose being a light sleeper had its difficulties anyway to begin with, not to mention this ability to awaken at the speed of light when hearing something abnormal would have been considered a super power on its own.
I stretched my body out, filling a good portion of the back seat as I attempted to open my eyes, though I found this was rather difficult since I managed to relax so soundly that my body had anticipated a full-fledged nap despite how we were only supposed to stay here a while to figure out the code. "Are we leaving yet?" I asked aloud as I rubbed my eyes, though upon my question hearing a soft gasp and then a grumble followed by the sound of keys falling to the floor board.
Opening my eyes then, and lifting myself up enough to look over the seat, I suddenly sucked in a lungful of air, at that moment prepared to let out a scream. From the driver's seat, looking at me from the corner of his eye, was Turbo.
What are yo-!?" I found this desire to yell was suddenly halted like a train slamming into a car when Turbo flipped around so fast that for a second his entire big balding head and purple tail coat seemed to mesh together in a line of color, ending with his hand completely covering my mouth and his face inches away from mine. A serious glare formed within his brown eyes but despite his attempts at looking like he was completely in control of his emotions a smirk began to appear on his lips.
"Be quiet!" He said in a harsh whisper, retaining his crooked grin, "We're leaving these buffoons whether you like it or not."
My mind started to race with different questions but with his hand latched onto my mouth I couldn't talk whatsoever. Instead I stared wide eyed back at him, still taking in his regular King Candy persona as if I was looking at a ghost. I was so used to his intimidating Cy-brid self that this was catching me off guard. He wasn't particularly intimidating anymore, and he certainly wasn't trying to kill everyone at every turn, but he still carried a mysterious aura about himself that didn't differentiate much from how he was like before.
"Now, Th'sweettart, if I take my hand off of you will you promise not to th'scream?" The harshness in his voice seemed to calm down.
In response I nodded my head up and down, grumbling a "uh-huh," to let him know I would listen to his request. For a moment he stared at me, his glare softening and causing his thick grey eyebrows to heightened on his forehead, twisting his expression to something that of victory.
"Good."
After his statement he removed his hand from my face, allowing me to let out a deep breath and begin to speak.
"What are you doing? And how did you get in here without alerting the others?" I asked, completely baffled by his return.
"Those ideotth's are too concerned with that laser thing that they didn't notith'ce me. And if it wasn't already obvious I'm getting us out of here."
"Please..." I cooed, attempting to laugh a little when I heard him say he was trying to escape, "With the truck? I'd like to see you try and reach the pedals, Shorty."
His grin momentarily dropped, "Don't underestimate me." He stated sternly.
"Listen to me..." I tried extending my hand slightly to show I was being sincere now but regardless Turbo still continued to carry himself like a wolf on the prowl, "I know you had a rough past with Ralph and Vanellope but this is above all that. We're dealing with something much bigger than ourselves and we need to stick together."
"You talk as if you trust me..." He narrowed his eyes again, and his lips pulled back, revealing some teeth, "You're talking to me as if I have done nothing to you."
"It's because I choose to!" My voice heightened then, causing me to pause abruptly to attempt to keep in line to what Turbo had asked of me before. When I felt like I had my tone under control I continued, "I didn't go the extra mile to watch you run away, or to try and steal our truck with me in it."
"Then why?" His voice cracked, "Anyone else would have taken the chance to destroy me. Even those fools outside you call friends rejoiced my first 'death' when they saw me go into Diet Cola Mountain. Why are you... how could you forgive me?"
"Because I believe in you." As I looked at him again my rushed voice slowed down. I could tell he was sincere, which was a rarity considering the type of person he was and what he had done. I admit I was a little taken back. The last time he looked at me like that was the night before when he was still a Cy-brid; the moment it seemed to escape me that I actually cared for him. Although this seemed like a repeated conversation to me in some ways, I realized how now, at this moment, he was beginning to realize what I was trying to do.
Though of course realization doesn't change what you want right then and there.
"We're still leaving." Turbo said sternly, "And you're coming with me."
"Stop!" I tried lifting myself up from the seat, though he cornered me again by placing both hands on my shoulders and pushed me back down. Once I fell back harshly on the seat he turned around and fell to the floorboard to try and retrieve the keys. Once my eyes looked upward and around the vehicle, however, I noticed everyone standing at the windows peeking in, containing a scowl on their faces so low that at first I thought they were stuck like that.
The door flailed open and Ralph's hand followed inside, grabbing a hold of Turbo and pulling him out of the truck. While sitting up as fast as I could I heard Turbo spill a series of random words, stumbling apparently since he was caught in the act. "Put me down, Wreck-It Ralph!" He managed to get out.
Kicking my door open I plopped out and onto the ground and got around everyone, who watched as Turbo struggled to get out of Ralph's large hand like a cat trying to get out of an unwanted embrace.
"Start talking!" Calhoun walked up to him, and poked his nose harshly, "Give us a good reason why we shouldn't dump your scheming self right here and leave without you!"
"Hands off me, you barbarians!" Turbo wailed his arms a little extra this time, refusing to answer Calhoun's question.
At that time Steven and Dannen came running up to join us, wearing their own sets of Hero's Duty Armor, though made specifically for their size. At least I knew now they got the coding figured out.
"What the hell is going on?" Dannen lashed out.
"What does it look like?" Vanellope may have been a little girl but her voice was like venom, "Turbo here tried to kidnap your sister again."
"Persistent little guy, isn't he?" Ralph mocked him as he continued to hold onto him, "I wonder how much it would take to squeeze you out cold?"
"You guys, stop!" I finally leaped in fully, diving in front of Ralph and placing a hand on his large knuckles. "You all stop this now!"
"We're giving him a taste of his own medicine!" Vanellope looked up at me, containing her irritated scowl on her face, "After that we'll leave his dirty butt here."
"Let's see how you can handle yourself, all by yourself with nobody to talk to, Turbo." Ralph had an expression that seemed to be filled with enjoyment. It was like whatever he had felt in the past was suddenly being thrown onto Turbo, and he found a sense of justice in this.
"Ralph listen to me!" I was louder this time, which caused Ralph to finally look at me, likewise with everyone else, "You are all supposed to be good guys! Maybe your game doesn't say you're a good guy but you need to choose who you want to be, here and now! What is good about any of this? What kind of example are you showing?"
"For fifteen years King Candy made me suffer." Vanellope didn't seem to want to give in, "Every single day I was bullied and tortured and it was all his fault!"
"Does that make this justice, by becoming a bully yourself?!" I found my eyes were watering again but despite this I held them back with all the power I had, "I may have not been tortured for fifteen years, but I was not exempt to Turbo's cruelty. But you know what, I didn't choose revenge, and neither should you!"
Vanellope's little fists started to un-clench, her eyes meeting Ralph's with a silent mutual understanding. Through Vanellope's irritation I could see her hazel eyes start to glisten with frustration, "Ralph, put him down..." Vanellope was now the one trying with all her might to keep herself from breaking down.
Ralph gave a concerned expression down towards little Vanellope but ultimately listened to her. Once Ralph released Turbo from his grip Ralph in turn reached out to Vanellope and placed his large hand on her back, being gentle as could be despite that he looked like he could hurt her due to his size.
Felix, as well, being the kindly man he was, approached the little dark haired girl, consoling her all he could, "You're doing the right thing, Vanellope." He assured her. Even from the start I could tell he was more on my side when it came to Turbo, but he always chose to stand idly by until his sympathy was needed.
"I don't believe this." Calhoun huffed again, "We may have mended some sort of weird ties, but I for one still don't trust Candy Freak. Who's going to watch him?"
"I will." I volunteered this instantly, "I'll take him as my responsibility. I fixed him, so he's mine."
"I hope you know what you're doing." Calhoun admitted, "Let's all hurry up and get back in the truck and get going. We've wasted enough time as it is."
Quietly everyone started following Calhoun to the truck, leaving me and Turbo standing alone. Crossing my arms over my chest I stared at him intently, watching as he came back out of his mental shell and looked up at me. "You heard her." I stated, "Let's get moving, King Candy."
