Author Notes: So, I saw ParaNorman this past week and fell head-over-heels in love with it. I won't give away any spoilers, but I will say that it strongly influenced my development of Turbo's backstory. I've finally settled on a full story about what happened, why he left, the cause of the game-jumping, etc. It won't actually come up in the fic until part two, but I'm really pleased to finally know the whole thing myself.

Anyway. Sorry to keep leaving you at the edge of cliffs!

Chapter Twelve - Code

Turbo kept low to the ground on instinct as he slipped through the curtain behind the throne. He could hardly fathom how it was possible that they'd gotten this far, that the twins had actually managed to sneak him into the royal chambers and through to the vault without being seen. It was a much tighter fit now in his cybug body, but he was anxious and admittedly a bit afraid, and the size of the hall leading to the vault was the least of his troubles.

The twins had agreed to stand guard at the doors to the throne room, leaving Turbo to proceed to the vault on his own. He drew a quavering breath as the first of the doors slid open before him, revealing the soft blue light of the entry hall that ended at the vault door. He'd always had a certain feeling of deviousness when he approached the vault, but today the feeling was different. It was desperate and nervous, and rather than reveling in his knowledge of this place and his control over it, he just wanted to get this visit over with. He crept through the hall carefully, ducked low, his feet ticking loudly in the enclosed space. With a trembling hand, he extended his claws to punch in the code. It seemed highly unlikely that the code could still be the same, but for the sake of not knowing any better, he tapped in the old familiar sequence and was surprised to hear the system accept it. The red lights blinked to green and the vault door's controller key rotated smoothly ninety degrees before locking into place and sliding open with a hiss.

'She didn't even change the code?' he thought briefly.

Fumbling a little with the cords, he eventually secured the end of the lifeline just under his chest. As he crept to the edge of the vault, he felt a pang of anxiety at not having Sour Bill present at the other end of his cable, but he tried his best to brush that thought aside as he stumbled a bit uncertainly out into the anti-gravity of the code space.

It was different, being a cybug. His coordination was off, and it was significantly more difficult than he remembered to get his bearings and move in the empty space. He buzzed his wings to life and managed to use them to stabilize himself before clawing his way over to the main convergence of codes, glowing softly and warmly in the dark emptiness of the vault. Casting his eyes over the tangle of cables and code boxes, he eventually spied his own code, King Candy's code, and clawed his way to it. The code box itself was looking a bit worse for wear, a few loose cables barely still connected to the body, with sparks glimmering at the ends. There was definitely a glitch, that was for sure. He touched the code with a claw and it opened up before him, allowing him a look at the details of the coding itself. Yes, there were connections that didn't used to be there. The parts of his original code had become near indistinguishable from King Candy's, and the whole thing was riddled with bits of cybug.

This was not good. His heart continued to sink as he scrolled through the coding with his claws, eyes darting over the surface. It was a mess, a disaster. This could take hours to repair, maybe days. If he even could repair it, and the more he scrolled, the more impossible it seemed to become. His throat caught. This was all for nothing, he thought desperately, I can't do this.

"You really shouldn't be in here."

Turbo spun, his spindly legs spiraling in the anti-gravity. Vanellope stood in the doorway of the vault, looking in at him with raised brows. Turbo's heart pounded. She didn't seem particularly surprised to see him, and as he looked back at her wide-eyed himself, the deep shameful weight of realization that he had been outsmarted sunk down in his chest.

Vanellope leaned on the vault's door frame lightly, putting her hands in her pockets. "I didn't race the random roster the morning," she said. "I decided to hang around and keep an eye on you."

Turbo let out a bit of a shaky breath, unsure if what was rising up in him was rage or horror or fear. "You set me up," he muttered.

"I knew you wouldn't try breaking into the vault yourself," Vanellope said. "And I wanted to make sure that the twins were really helping you."

He perked, a hot breath escaping his lips. He clenched his clawed hands into fists as a desperate streak ran through him. "They didn't help me, I came on my own!" A red ripple of a glitch coursed down his spine.

Vanellope rolled her eyes, pointing her thumb over her shoulder. "I just ran into them 'guarding' the door out there. Doesn't matter anyway, we had you all bugged. We've heard everything you've been saying since we brought you in here."

Turbo's heart sunk. A legitimate feeling of guilt settled into him. He had compromised the twins, after everything they'd done for him. "D-dammit..."

"I'm not gonna punish them or anything," Vanellope said, "if that's what you're thinking." He looked up at her again, his eyes still wide. Vanellope tilted her head, speaking softly. "Or you, for that matter. Got a look at your code, huh? It looks pretty bad. To be honest, I don't really get all that code stuff, but I did have a look at it after we brought you in." Turbo stared at her, his mind racing, trying to make sense of what the hell was happening and why she was talking as though he was a disobedient child instead of a psychopath deeply embedded in the coding of her game. "If you're interested," she continued, "I did have a pretty revealing chat with Ms. Calhoun about cybugs the other day. I didn't tell her you were here, of course, but I managed to find some stuff out that might interest you."

Turbo studied her suspiciously, keeping very still.

Vanellope shrugged. "But, if you're not interested..."

"I am," he snapped, cursing himself under his breath.

Vanellope smirked faintly. "Well, in Hero's Duty," she began, smiling faintly at the name, "guys get eaten by cybugs from time to time. S'part all part of the game. So it's not unusual for a guy to be in your, well, position. You're kind of a special case not belonging to this game and all, but, that's beside the point. The thing is, most times, when a cybug whose eaten a character is killed in the beacon—like you were—the character just regenerates as he should, no more cybug. But sometimes, cuz of a glitch, the character will regenerate still as a cybug—that's you."

Turbo watched her closely. His interest was undeniable, but he was still suspicious of the child, his enemy, who spoke of this matter like it was a joke. The whole time he watched her he was trying to make sense of what was happening, why she was standing there, by herself, talking to him, why she didn't have her guard rallied to take him in.

She continued, gesturing with her hands. "Now when that happens, a guy regenerating as a cybug, usually just killing the bug again will get the character to regenerate properly. But, we probably don't want to do that with you, because we're not sure the whole regeneration thing wasn't just a fluke in the first place. So, Calhoun says, on really rare occasions, a character will get stuck as a cybug, and keep regenerating as one. Until, the character resets. Now in Hero's Duty, all the characters automatically reset when a new game is started, but here in Sugar Rush, characters only reset when they run the roster race. Like me."

Turbo blinked at her, his mind running through the scenario she'd just described to him. "...I need to race."

"Bingo, jerkface." She pushed off the wall and stood, hands in her pocket, sticking out her bottom lip at him. "Just like my code reset after you tried to make me a glitch (thanks again), yours should reset if you compete in a roster race and finish. You don't even have to place, in fact, you shouldn't. But as long as you finish the race, your code should reset. I mean, maybe nothing will happen at all, you'll probably still have your glitch (I do), but, it could at least get you back to King Candy's avatar. Which is what you want, right? So you can race again, right?"

Turbo stared at her. He didn't know what to think or what to say. What was she talking about? Was she saying she'd let him race again if he got back to his avatar? Why? Was she giving him his freedom indefinitely? He lowered his eyes a little, trying to focus on the idea she'd presented. It made about as much sense as anything else, but when he thought about it it seemed rather more like wishful thinking. "I can't race like this..."

"Well," Vanellope mused, "like I said, you don't have to win. You just have to finish. So, if you can get the car to go forward and not drive it off a cliff, you should be okay. You just need to finish the roster race before the first quarter alert. If we get the race started a little early, I can give you some extra time."

Turbo thought this over carefully, then he lifted his eyes to her, trying to force down his feelings of pride to focus on what he really wanted. "You mean you'd...actually let me race the roster?"

Vanellope smirked and shrugged, looking aside. "I didn't say I'd let you win, but yeah. I'll let you race." She looked back in at him. "But right now, you've gotta get out of there, because I don't trust you quite enough to let you mess around with the codes on your lonesome."

Turbo frowned. He glanced back once more at King Candy's code, ravaged with the cybug virus and still sparking where the other cables connected to it. Grimacing, he turned away and pushed himself toward the vault door. Once there, Vanellope backed up to give him room and he scrambled into the doorway, insectile legs skittering a bit on the floor. He undid the lifeline around his chest and followed her reluctantly out as she locked the vault back up and hit a few extra buttons at the end. "Changing the code back to my own now, so don't bother trying this again."

He watched her with a sour frown until she shot him a look, at which he turned away to let her put her own code in. The blue-lit hall was empty and quiet. "You didn't even bring any guards...?"

Vanellope turned back toward him, lowering her brows seriously. "Don't get any ideas, Turbug. You try anything and I'll regenerate and then you'll be in even bigger trouble than before, okay? And you wouldn't want the twins to get wrapped up in some quest for revenge, would you?"

She stepped by him giving him a steady glance. Turbo grimaced darkly and slowly followed, his neck low. His utter inability to frighten her was beginning to grate on his nerves, but she was right. His concern for the twins gave her a power over him that was nigh impossible to get around. "I don't...understand why you're doing this," he muttered.

Vanellope crossed into the next hall, and Turbo behind her. The second sliding door slipped shut with a metallic hiss. "Don't get me wrong, Turbo," she said, glancing back. "I don't like you, and I don't like what you did to this game or how you've treated me or anybody else here. But the twins are nice, and they don't deserve to be punished just because you're a jerk, even if they did lie to me. I like them and I'd really like for them to be a part of this game." She held his gaze seriously. "Those twins would do anything for you, you know that? So you'd better not screw this up for them."

Turbo's frown grew a little deeper and he answered grimly, "I won't."

She looked back at him seriously a moment, then she nodded firmly and looked ahead, pushing through the curtain and stepping into the royal chambers. Turbo hesitated a moment out of sight, trying to wrap his brain around what the hell was happening, then he slowly followed her through. Vanellope had stepped around the throne and as he crept along behind her, she climbed up into it. She'd refitted the throne which had long allowed room for King Candy's prize kart as its base into an actual throne, cushioned seat and all. Turbo hated it. She crossed her legs and looked at him seriously. Turbo stopped moving in something of a crouch, watching her with sharp eyes. "I'm giving you three days," Vanellope said, "I sent the twins to make you a kart, and you can train with the them back out on Chocolate Twist. I'll make sure everybody stays clear of that track after hours. Come back here in time for the roster race on Thursday. We'll get you a coin and you can have a fair shot."

Turbo frowned at her toothily. "What about the other racers"?"

"Well," Vanellope said, waving a hand, "I've got three days to prepare them. So, until then, try not to be seen. The guards here are awful—I'm sure you already know that—so rumours have already been spreading. But...I'll do what I can. Kinda doubt anyone's gonna be happy to see you, though." She looked back at him, her expression quite serious now. Turbo had taken a step back and turned to go, ready to get out of here, to get himself somewhere he could think all this over. "Before you go, Turbo," she finally said, "I just wanted to say...I heard what you said to Ted and Ned last night."

Turbo started. He turned to her swiftly, his eyes flashing yellow. A strain go horror ran through him as he thought of the night before, his admission of weakness, King Candy's pathetic crying! He'd admitted his greatest fears to the twins, if she'd heard it-! He clenched his teeth, his face red, grasping at curses that didn't quite make it past his lips.

Vanellope gazed at him resolutely. "I would never take the twins away from you, okay?"

Turbo let out the breath that caught in his throat, looking away, body tense.

Vanellope sighed softly, tilting her head and leaning on one arm of the throne. "I didn't really mean much of what I said earlier, I figure you realized that. I mean, I wouldn't really do any of that to you...but you did a really awful thing to thing to this game. You do know that, right?"

Turbo took a slightly shuddering breath. He wasn't sure how to feel. For what it was worth, he felt weak and pathetic and exposed. If there was one thing he hadn't wanted the glitch to know, it was the depth of the fear that had taken root in his code. He swallowed.

Vanellope regarded him quietly. "You don't really think you deserve to rule in Sugar Rush again, do you...?"

He hesitated, then he glanced at her from the corner of his eye. Those brown eyes were flickering yellow again. He lowered his neck a little to her level, his eyes cold. His face glitched over to Turbo briefly, then he straightened up and lifted his wings with a buzz. "No," he answered.

She watched him silently, and he admittedly was more than a bit upset with the fact that she was clearly neither afraid nor impressed by him. He had been compromised in every way possible. Even now, he was being spared, being shown mercy, being given a chance by her. It was almost insulting enough to make him not want to take her help, but...he couldn't turn her down. Not when she was offering the one thing in the world he wanted. The one thing he couldn't get on his own. Baring his teeth, he hoisted himself up his wings buzzed loudly as he lifted himself from the floor. "Three days!" he called back at her, turning and heading for the far end of the chamber.

"Try not to be seen!" she called after him, her hands still in her pocket. "And thank Ted and Ned, would ya? They've done an awful lot for you!

Ten Minutes Earlier...

Ted and Ned stood side-by-side just inside the doors of the royal chamber, peeking out into the hall from a slightly cracked open door. Ned took a breath and glanced toward the curtain where Turbo had disappeared before looking back at his brother, anxious "Do you think this is...okay?"

Ted leaned on the door lightly, watching the empty hall beyond the room. "What, you mean 'right'? Ethically?"

Ned hummed quietly. "I feel really bad about lying to Vanellope."

Ted glanced at Ned with his eyes, then back to the hall. "Can we not talk about it right now, Ned?"

Ned hummed again and nodded, fiddling with his hands behind his back. "Isn't it strange that the guards left so suddenly?"

"Yeah, well," Ted muttered, "stranger things have happened, right?" But those words had struck a feeling of doubt in him. He leaned back into the hall a little more, Ned close at his arm. "But you're right...Where did they all...go...?"

"Fancy meeting you two here!"

Ted and Ned both spun to face Vanellope, who stood just behind them, her arms folded, looking up at them with a rather serious expression. They exchanged a quick glance and looked back at her quickly, both of them fumbling for words, "We were just-"

"Helping Turbo break into the vault?" she asked. "You know this isn't the only entrance to this room."

They both froze. Instinctively, they reached out and gripped one another's hand. Ted's heart was racing. He wondered where he had gone wrong, where he had mis-stepped. And suddenly seemed to reveal itself, the pieces fitting together perfectly. The way Vanellope had been treating them, the way she'd told them to visit Turbo, the way the guards had vanished, the way the door to Turbo's adjoining room had been left unattended...

"You...knew," he breathed softly.

Vanellope nodded. "I suspected that you two were lying. So we've been eavesdropping, more or less."

Ned squeezed Ted's hand tightly. "Please," he said quickly, "don't lock Turbo up! He's not trying to hurt anybody in Sugar Rush, he just wants to race again!"

Ted glanced briefly at Ned and back at Vanellope nodding. "We're sorry we lied to you, and we won't think anything of it if you retract your invitation for us to join this game, but Turbo-"

"Look," Vanellope said loudly, cutting him off. She met his gaze again. Her chocolate brown eyes were firm. "If you want what's best for Turbo, you'll both leave the palace and head for the bakery to make some new karts, and then go straight to Chocolate Twist without stopping. That where Turbo was hiding out, right? Just leave now and go wait for him."

"Wait for him?" Ned murmured.

Ted almost jumped. "You're going to let him go?"

"I didn't say that!" Vanellope said sharply. "But...it's possible he might escape, okay?" She shifted a little, her gaze somewhat irresolute now. "Look, you two," she extended her hands, trying to give her words shape, "I'm really not happy that you lied to me. In fact, I'm pretty mad at the two of you. But I have to appreciate why you did it..." She sighed, looking up. "I know what it is to want to race more than anything in the world and not be able to. Why you still want to race with Turbo, I really don't know, but...I do understand how you feel. And I want to help you."

Ted and Ned both stared at her, their appreciation for her kindness brimming behind the relieved smiles on their faces. "Vanellope," Ted murmured.

"But," Vanellope said, "Turbo can't be allowed to mess about in the vault. I've got a much better idea that's a lot...safer for everyone involved, okay?" She pointed toward the door. "For the time being, you two need to go. You can see Turbug later, okay? Just go get Ted a new kart and head for wherever you usually met him. I'll take care of the rest."

The twins hesitated, then bowed to her quickly. "Thank you so much," they said in unison, and Ned answered meekly, "He means an awful lot to us."

She glanced at him quietly, sighing. "While you're at the bakery," she muttered, "make...another kart too, okay? Something front-heavy. Something...Turbug could possibly drive." The twins both blinked. They opened their mouths to speak but she lifted an open palm to them quickly before pointing at the door again. "Just go." The twins exchanged a quick look, then smiled at her rather gratefully and hurried out into the hall. She sighed and glanced back toward the curtain leading to the vault, letting out a deep, uncertain sigh. This might be the stupidest decision she ever made, but she supposed her heart was in the right place.

Ralph is going to kill me, she thought bitterly.