I reference a couple of songs in this chapter. See if you can find them!

Chapter 3: What They Bought on eBay

He was flying.

The ride started when Turbo was beamed from the tiny black box to a set of cables across the arcade. Then he was taken through copper wires at breakneck speeds, much faster than he had ever gone before. At first he tensed nervously, but the tickling sensation in his stomach grew stronger and he couldn't help but laugh. So he pretended he was racing along some unexplored track and found himself liking the experience.

A world of colour and light suddenly opened up to him. His traveling slowed, and he stared in amazement at what was before him.

Humans, or rather, representations of humans like the square-headed Mr. Litwak from before, moved in the same direction in their own capsules. All around as far as his eyes could see were different-shaped buildings with their bright logos identifying them. This had to be the Internet.

Turbo tried to locate eBay, but all of a sudden he dropped toward a large, circular landing pad, screaming. Seeing Ralph and Vanellope already there and coming up fast, he yelled, "CATCH ME CATCH ME CATCH ME!" But his capsule rapidly slowed before he could hit the ground and released him gently. "Oh." He ignored Vanellope snickering at him.

"Guys, I don't think we're at Litwak's anymore," Ralph remarked.

Vanellope spun around in wonder. "We most certainly are not, friendo. We're in the Internet!" She grabbed his hand and Turbo's collar and started running off. "Come on, guys!"

Turbo yanked his collar away from her and sneered, "I can keep up just fine." He was starting to wish they hadn't brought Vanellope along. There was no way she should be enjoying this. Still, he followed them outside of the station to one of the large platforms overlooking the rest of the Internet.

Ralph breathed, "Holy cow. Look at all this stuff!"

Vanellope's voice almost started to break when she said, "Whoa. This is the most beautiful miracle I have ever seen."

Even Turbo had to agree with her. "It's Turbo-tastic…" Forget about it being like a giant Game Central Station, this was more like a densely packed city. Everywhere Turbo looked something was going on.

"But it's so big, it goes on forever and ever…" A glitching noise came from Vanellope, and suddenly her excited demeanor was replaced with mild panic. "How are we possibly g-g-gonna find-find eBay out there-"

"Hey, kid, kid!" Ralph soothed, and the girl's glitching subsided. "Don't worry. I'm sure there's someone out here who can give us directions." He glanced around and pointed. "Oh! Look at that little egg guy! He's got one of those hats that smart people wear, I bet he could help us."

Turbo followed his gaze and saw a brown building labelled, "the SEARCHBAR – powered by KNOWSMORE". Inside was the aforementioned purple "egg guy" running back and forth in front of shelves lined with books. It seemed like the logical place to go. "Good job, Ralph," he commended. Then, unwilling to let his chance go by, he mocked, "If this is too scary for you, Vanellope, maybe you should just go home." He knew she wouldn't, but her silent glare at him was still pretty satisfying.

"Come on, both of you," said Ralph, obviously wanting to keep the peace between them. "We're all on the same side." He headed over to the building he saw.

Vanellope stuck her tongue out at Turbo before following her friend.

They approached just as a human finished her consultation with the searchbar operator. When he saw them step up to his desk, he greeted, "Hello and welcome to KnowsMore's searchbar. One at a time, please."

Turbo observed, "Hey, your voice sounds familiar… Are we related?"

KnowsMore scrutinized him through his large, round glasses. "I highly doubt it. You don't look like the type who reads a lot of books," he answered in his snobbish tone.

Slighted, Turbo leaned over the desk and retorted, "I'll have you know I am twice as smart-" but Ralph moved him aside without letting him finish.

"Don't mind him. Look, we're in a bit of a hurry," the wrecker pointed out.

"Of course you are, sir." KnowsMore flipped through a book that was in front of him. "Interesting, you don't seem to have a search history. Well let's start one for you. What can KnowsMore help you find today?"

"Um-"

"Umbrella? Umbrage? Umami?" KnowsMore interjected.

Ralph furrowed his brows in annoyance. "No-"

"Noah's ark? No Doubt? Nordstrom Rack?"

Ralph growled.

"Ergonomics? Urban Outfitters? Urkel! Played by Jaleel White."

Ralph gave up and turned to his friends. "Looks like no one put Humpty Dumpty back together again. This guy's a little soft-boiled."

Vanellope suggested, "I'm pretty sure he's just trying to guess what you're gonna say."

KnowsMore rubbed his face and admitted, "Yes, I'm sorry, but my autofill is a touch aggressive today."

Turbo scoffed, "I bet I could do his job better than him."

This prompted an eye-roll from KnowsMore. "Ha! I'd like to see you try."

The racer cleared his throat and imitated KnowsMore's voice and mannerisms to near perfection, "Hello and welcome to KnowsMore's searchbar. Since you're video game characters, I will suggest things related to you. Turbo Time? Street Fighter II: Turbo? Turbo engines?"

KnowsMore's eyes widened and he said, impressed, "Oh you're good."

"Let me try." Vanellope stepped in front of Turbo, apparently eager to get on with their search. "eBay Sugar Rush steering wheel." She smacked the touch screen on the front of the desk, causing several books to flash different colours.

KnowsMore twitched uncontrollably for a second, then glanced down at his book. "Oh! I only found one result for your query," he told them. "Hmm, isn't that interesting."

The touch screen displayed a picture of the steering wheel, and Ralph stared in shock. "What? How did you-?"

"Ah, the Internet's very intuitive." Vanellope saluted KnowsMore with a grin. "Thank you, Mr. KnowsMore!" She selected the picture and a box-like capsule formed around her, Ralph, and Turbo, squishing them together.

KnowsMore smiled gratefully. "Well, you're welcome!" He waved as the box took them to their destination. "Oh I like her."

Turbo gawked at him, bewildered that anyone who sounded like him could like Vanellope. He immediately decided he and KnowsMore wouldn't be friends anytime soon. Turbo tried to put as much distance between himself and the other two as the capsule would allow.

Ralph spoke up, "Well, at least we know where to go if we ever need a pair of goggles."

Turbo craned his head to look at the building he was referencing. "That says 'Google', Ralph."

"Now that doesn't make any sense. What's a google?"

They passed by a tall tree where blue birds perched on the many branches. One of them tweeted out a picture of a grumpy-looking cat; the others responded with much angry squawking.

"Are we there yet?" Turbo rasped, nearly choking on the stench.

"Look, there it is!" he heard Vanellope announce up front. "eBay!"

Not soon enough, the capsule disintegrated and dropped them off at the entrance. Many rows of long aisles lined with booths were in front of them, each containing various items up for bidding. Everything seemed to be dividing into different sections.

All hope seemed restored to Vanellope as she said, "Guys, we're actually gonna save my game!"

"Told you not to worry," said Ralph, walking ahead. "We just gotta keep our eyes on the prize and stay focused."

A colourful person spontaneously popped up in front of them with a digital board and announced, "Get rid of belly fat using this one weird trick!"

"I love weird tricks!" Ralph sounded intrigued.

"Later," Turbo told him sternly when he saw him slowing down.

Someone else appeared to the right and flashed his board in Ralph's face. "Sassy housewives want to meet you!"

"No time." Then Turbo glared at the person. "Wait, why just him?"

Another one said, "These child stars went to prison! Number 6 will surprise you!"

Ralph glanced over. "That sounds interesting."

"It sounds pointless."

A green man popped up and asked, "Wanna get rich playing video games? Click here to find out how!"

Before Ralph could even respond, Turbo and Vanellope grabbed each of his hands and led him along. "No, thanks!" they said in unison.

"I'll be right here if you change your mind!" he called out.

Turbo let go of Ralph when they were further along. "Now, no more distractions."

"Right. Sorry."

The trio passed several odd items, such as a painting of a sorrowful kitten, a "Steampunk" keyboard (which was just a regular keyboard with gears glued on it), and a Dukes of Hazzard ashtray. Turbo passively wondered, Who buys any of this crap?

Ralph extended his hand to Vanellope and prompted, "Hey kid, hop up here and see if you could tell where they keep their steering wheels."

She did and when Ralph held her high above his head she gazed at the giant floating words with accompanying pictures to find the right section. "There's a bunch of, like, sports memorabilia… Big baby clothes… 'Ling-ery?'" She rotated and then spotted a different area. "Oh, there's a row with a bunch of old video game junk."

When they reached the video game section, Turbo searched for the wheel with them, glancing down an aisle as they walked past. Then he stopped and backed up. Turbo gazed down that aisle and blinked several times to make sure he wasn't seeing things.

Each booth contained Turbo Time merchandise.

"Wow," he breathed. As if drawn by a magnet, he wandered into the aisle and peered at the available items. One of them was an alarm clock with his face on it. "Heheh, Turbo Time! I get it!" Others included bed sheets, posters, a lunch box, a yo-yo, and even a skateboard.

Turbo's eyes welled up at seeing such dedication for him and the Turbo Time twins. All this time he thought he'd been forgotten; he never thought there were fans out there who still loved him.

And then he looked at the prices and realized they probably didn't love him that much.

"Oh for—five dollars?!" he exclaimed at a human placing a bid on a Turbo snow globe. "I'm worth more than that!"

The timer ran out and the auctioneer slammed his gavel. "Sold for five US dollars to Gameo_83!"

"Yippee!" the avatar cheered almost robotically.

Turbo sighed. At least the person had bought something. There were only a few others in the aisle but they were only browsing. Even so, Turbo found it hard to stay disappointed. The very fact that his merchandise existed meant that his legacy lived on long after his game was first released. He couldn't wait to tell the others!

Oh yeah, I forgot about Ralph and Vanellope. Turbo returned to the main floor and scanned the area. Further ahead looked like video game equipment, so he went there. "Ralph! Vanellope!" he called. "You better not have left me behind, because I can see you doing that!"

Just before panic could set in, he located them. "Oh, there you are!" He sprinted over to the two as they turned around.

Vanellope visibly deflated. "Aw, I wanted to leave him behind."

"Turbo, where have you been?" asked Ralph.

Unable to contain his elation, Turbo blurted out while gesturing wildly, "It was amazing! Oh, you should've seen all this cool Turbo Time stuff! There was an alarm clock, and a yo-yo—guys! I was a yo-yo!"

"Was?" muttered Vanellope with an eye-roll.

"You're just jealous because the only thing connected to your game is a junky steering wheel."

"Well that 'junky' steering wheel is what's gonna get my game plugged back in," she reminded. "And while you were off in Turbo Land, we actually managed to do what we came here for."

Ralph proudly held up his voucher- a small case with a picture of the wheel on it. "Ta-da!"

Turbo gasped with a smile. "You actually did it! Ha-ha!" He started skipping to the checkout line. "What are we waiting for? Let's go home!" Boy, this is gonna be a short journey.

When it was their turn at the checkout, they presented the clerk with their purchase and shipping address for the arcade.

The lady typed the information in, then said, "With expedited shipping, that should arrive Wednesday morning."

Ralph turned to his friends with a grin. "That's two whole days before Litwak scraps your game! We're way ahead of schedule!" He gave them both a high-five. "We rule!"

"I'll just need a credit card number."

Ralph blinked. "Sorry, what's a credi…" He fumbled the rest.

She glanced up at him over the rims of her glasses. "A credit. Card. Number."

Growing impatient, Turbo prodded, "Go on, Ralph. Tell her."

"Number. Right. Uh… 7."

Then Turbo's heart sank. Oh no…

"Excuse me?"

Ralph tried again. "Sorry. No, you're right. Ridiculous. I meant 11."

But the woman bluntly stated, "Those aren't credit card numbers."

"I'm pretty sure they are," Ralph said, a little taken aback.

Turbo hissed at the wrecker, "I thought you were gonna memorize Litwak's credit card number!"

"I didn't know I needed it! And even if I did, how could I see where it is?"

"Well you didn't say anything, so I assumed you knew what you were doing!"

The clerk spoke up, "How exactly do you intend to pay for this item, sir? You owe $27,001."

Turbo's jaw dropped. "How did it get that much?! It was supposed to be 200!"

Vanellope snarked matter-of-factly, "If you had been with us, you would've known that we needed to say higher numbers so that another guy wouldn't be able to take it."

"Yeah," Ralph laughed, "that guy couldn't come up with numbers higher than 500!"

Turbo was speechless. How could they be so dense? Any other time he would boast about his superior intelligence, but now it felt like more of a burden. Was he supposed to do everything himself? All he could say was, "How do you know about arranged marriages but not the basics of paying for things?!"

"Wait, so we need, like, money?" Vanellope inquired to the clerk, who looked like she was getting more annoyed by the second.

"Yes. And if you don't have a credit card, we also accept Pay Pal, Verifone, ProPay, SquareCash, and BuzzzBucks."

Vanellope started to chuckle nervously. "Ok, here's the thing—you're gonna laugh. So, this big galoot," she patted Ralph's shoulder, "he left his wallet at home."

"Yeah. Yeah!" Ralph played along. "I did leave my wallet at home in my wallet room, and the door's locked."

The clerk remained unfazed. "If you don't pay within 24 hours, you will be in violation of the unpaid item policy. You will forfeit the bid and you will lose this item."

Turbo gripped the edge of the table and cried, "No! You don't understand! We need this steering wheel to save our game!"

"Not my problem. Next!"

Turbo moaned in defeat and planted his face on the desk.

"How were we supposed to know how auctions work?" Vanellope demanded Turbo as the three of them left eBay. "How do you even know how auctions work?"

"I happen to be very cultured," he bragged spitefully without looking at her.

Ralph continued to grumble beside them. As he passed a human avatar, he said, "Hey buddy, you goin' to eBay? Well, I got some free advice for you: don't. What a scam!" In his rage he punched his fist through an eBay sign. Of course, since it was virtual, it went through without doing any damage. "The signs aren't even real!"

"Hey, genius, it's a hologram," Turbo pointed out in annoyance.

But Ralph ripped the projecting base of the sign and hurled it far away, where it crushed a human avatar who may or may not have been an Internet celebrity. Perhaps to not invoke another one of Vanellope's panic attacks, he took a deep breath and said, "It's ok. All we gotta do is figure out a way to earn a little bit of moolah."

Vanellope doubtfully stated, "We're video game characters, Ralph. We don't have moolah."

"Unless you can think of some magical way to get rich playing video games," sighed Turbo.

Ralph stopped walking. Then he turned to face them with the smile of an epiphany.

Sensing his idea, Turbo held up one authoritative hand. "Wait, I know what you're thinking, and the answer is no. We are not doing that."

They did.

"Can you please tell us how to get rich playing video games?" Ralph begged.

"You bet!" said the thin, green pop-up man from earlier. "By the way, my name is J.P. Spamley." He held his digital board in front of him. "Click here and I'll take you to my website."

Before Ralph could do so, Turbo asked in suspicion, "How do we know we can trust you?"

Spamley put his hand on Turbo's shoulder, much to the latter's discomfort. "Relax, pal. I'm just an honest guy tryin' to make a living by helping folks make a living. I'm not one of those clickbait jerks, I swear!"

Turbo narrowed his eyes, not sure what he meant. But if this was the only way… He sighed and finally nodded at Ralph, who tapped on the screen.

After squeezing uncomfortably into Spamley's dinky old vehicle, they puttered along slowly to a very rundown part of the Internet until they stopped in front of a dimly lit building called Lootfindr.

"I'd like to welcome the three of you to the Spamley family!" their host said, leading them inside. "Step into my parlour."

Turbo wrinkled his nose in disgust. Papers were strewn about, cardboard boxes lined the walls, and piles of junk made for very little room to walk around. "This is your website?"

"I know what you're thinking." Spamley tried to tidy up. "Not to worry, because my anti-virus guy was just here. Clean as a-"

"BUG!" Turbo jumped involuntarily at a roach-like microchip that had been under a box Spamley picked up.

Despite it appearing to be some kind of virus, Spamley easily crushed it to nothing under his shoe. "Oh my gosh, that's embarrassing," he chuckled nervously, putting the box away.

Turbo shivered and tried to relax. At least it hadn't been a Cybug.

Spamley started rummaging through a box of files. "Anyway, I know it's a little messy." He suddenly shouted, "Hey, GORD!" He got no response, other than the arcade trio's confused looks, so he continued, "I do have a system here, I really do, if I could just find that—GORD!"

Just when Turbo thought Spamley was crazy and that they should make a run for it, he sensed a presence behind him and glanced over his shoulder. He, Ralph, and Vanellope gasped in surprise and jumped away from a diminutive figure cloaked in a sweater up to his large eyeballs.

"Oh, there you are." Spamley turned to him. "These guys are looking to get rich playing video games. What do you got for them, partner?"

Turbo watched uneasily as Gord handed him and Vanellope a file each, and then proceeded to literally stretch his arm up to Ralph's face to give him one, all without moving his eyes. Turbo looked at his file, if only so he didn't have to look at the strange creature. It was a picture of a Diamond Sword and armor from something called Minecraft, and above it was the price of $100.

Vanellope stared at her file and spoke up, "So you're saying, if we find the Golden Cleats from Pro League Soccer and bring them back here to you, a human being in the real world will pay us $15?"

Spamley answered, "Yes, ma'am! Welcome to the exciting world of loot hunting! Folks go into games, they harvest the most coveted items, and they sell 'em on my website to the highest bidder!"

"Isn't that like cheating?" Turbo wondered aloud.

"Nope, it's just lazy."

"Ok, and here's the thing," said Vanellope, "we need like a buttload of money. Do you have any more… lucrative items, maybe?"

Turbo eyed her strangely. "You can't pronounce lingerie but you know what lucrative means?"

"Shush!"

Gord extended his arm towards Spamley and gave him another file.

"Thank you, buddy, you're such a nice guy." The green man smirked and showed the file to the others. "Is this lucrative enough for you?"

The file showed a sleek car, apparently belonging to someone called Shank. The price was a whopping $40,000.

"It's more than enough!" Ralph exclaimed.

Turbo added merrily, "Ooh, and it's in a game called Laughter Race! That sounds nice."

"Whoops." Spamley moved his thumb, revealing a letter it had been accidentally covering. "There we go."

"Slaughter Race?!" Turbo's shoulders sagged in worry. "Maybe it's nice on the inside?"

Spamley gave a dry laugh and explained, "Slaughter Race is the most popular online racing game out there. However, it's wicked dangerous."

"We ain't afraid of danger." Ralph put his hand on Vanellope's back and boasted, "This kid is the best racer in the whole world!"

"Ahem?!" Turbo pierced him with a glare.

"Ok, ok, you're pretty great too."

"Hmm."

Ralph promised Spamley, "We'll get you that car, no problem-o!"

Yes, that was a Toy Story 2 reference back up there. If only this sequel was as good as that one…