CHAPTER 7

Taffyta cranked her wheel hard to one side and came to a stop in a swirl of sugar dust. That was it—last race of the day. Thank coders. To call this day "the worst day of racing ever" was…okay, probably exaggerating, but not by much. She'd been by far the best racer on the roster, which was fun for the first couple hours, but after awhile got really tedious. The worst thing was that she still hadn't won all the races. Horrible gamers had kept selecting her—well, why wouldn't they, when their other choices included Torvald and Citrusella? Even Swizz, who was supposed to be good, had looked totally pathetic out there. And that was when he wasn't player controlled.

So she'd cycled through a whole range of emotions throughout the day, beginning with boredom, then embarrassment, then misery, and now, finally, as the arcade closed and characters dropped their professional facades, anger.

Swizzle pulled up next to her as she was getting out of her kart, along with Citrusella and Torvald. Minty, parked a few feet away, looked embarrassed, and Adorabeezle didn't even stop. She only slowed enough for the other racers to jump out of her way before she sped off again. Taffyta crossed her arms over her chest and watched Adorabeezle speed through the town square, half-wishing she'd had the idea first. She'd just look like a copycat if she left now, though.

"Hey, good day today, Taffyta," Swizzle said.

"Um, excuse me?" she asked, her eyebrows raised to her hairline. "That was a terrible day. Barely anyone played, and what in pixie sticks was up with your driving? No offense, Swizzle, but you looked pretty bad."

He looked unbothered by her criticism. "You never think anyone measures up to you. Except Turbo, of course."

Ignoring the jibe, she put a hand on her hip and shot back, "Just because you're never gonna be as good as me doesn't mean you don't try. You looked like you hadn't raced since the last time you were on the roster!" Which had been days ago, from what she remembered.

Swizzle looked vaguely uncomfortable, but Torvald laughed. "That's because he hasn't! None of us have."

Taffyta turned slowly to look at her. "Uh, how about you define 'none of us,' Torvald," she said sweetly.

At that moment, Vanellope pulled up and hopped out of her kart, approaching them. Their president's approach didn't stop Torvald from going on, "Citrusella, Sticky, Nougetsia, Swizzle and me. And Gloyd and Crumbelina, sort of. I mean, no one ever practiced as much as you, Taffyta, you've always been crazy. But we're all going to get on the roster no matter what now, because Vanellope made it random. So what's the point of practicing?"

There was a weird rushing sound in Taffyta's ears, and it took her several long seconds to realize it was the sound of rage pounding in her head. Her throat was tight with anger. This absurd, offensive question deserved a response so scathing that Taffyta couldn't even find the words, and honestly even if she found the words, she wasn't sure she'd be able to get them out. The point, she wanted to say, is that we're supposed to take pride in what we do. The point is that we're lucky to have the best jobs in the whole arcade. The point is that some people aren't able to race, and none of us should take it for granted even for a single second.

But all that came out was, "Ugh!" She turned around and locked eyes with Vanellope, shooting her a look full of daggers and more than a little I told you so, even though Taffyta hadn't told her, had she? She'd just complained about the randomizer. Now was the time to have the conversation she'd been putting off about the Random Roster Race. Vanellope had heard Torvald just as well as she had—what's the point of practicing when you're going to be on the roster no matter what? It was the perfect in, and no better opportunity to have this very difficult conversation was going to present itself. If she was going to ask Vanellope to reinstitute the Random Roster Race, it should be right now.

For a long moment, she stood there frozen in rage and indecision. Just do it. Talk to her! The worst Vanellope could say was no, right? And gamers knew she'd heard Vanellope say 'no' enough lately. One of these times it would probably even start to sting less.

She opened her mouth to speak.

Then she closed it. King Candy was the one who'd noticed how bad the recolors were racing. And he had a plan to take care of it, too.

Without saying a word, she stalked away. She'd come back for her kart later. King Candy was supposed to be meeting her in the town square. They'd planned on going to Fix-It Felix Jr. tonight. Now she wasn't so sure she wanted to. Chances were Vanellope would be there, and even though Vanellope technically hadn't done anything, Taffyta was still mad at her. She didn't have to use the randomizer. She could have gone back to the Random Roster Race. But she kept refusing to.

When Taffyta got to the town square, she found King Candy sitting on the brick wall of the fountain, flicking water at a couple of nervous NPCs every time their backs were turned. "Hey," she said, sitting down in a huff next to him.

"What, did you get third place?" he asked, raising an eyebrow.

"They don't practice!" she said, her voice high with fury.

For a second, he looked confused, and then he laughed, binary flickering across him. She didn't know why, it wasn't like this was funny. It was the exact opposite of funny. She glared at him, which he ignored. "Of course they don't practice!" he said, still hooting with laughter. "Why should they? They'll be on the roster no matter what!"

Darkly, Taffyta said, "That's what Torvald said."

With a shrug, King Candy replied, "She's right. I mean, isn't she?" When he paused to look at her, one eyebrow raised, she just pouted and refused to respond. He shrugged again. "Why waste your time practicing when sthooner or later your name's coming up on that roster? There're better things to do, at least, you know, I imagine there are better things to do, when you're nine years old? What do you wish you were doing, if you weren't babysitting me?"

"I'd be practicing," Taffyta said. And then, realizing what he'd said, added, "And I'm not babysitting you. And I wouldn't rather be doing anything else!" She needed to get off this topic before she put her foot any further in her mouth. With a frustrated sigh, she went on, "But like, racing comes first. That's why I barely ever went out into the arcade before. I thought you knew that."

"I did," he said. He hesitated. "It's not like we got to be friends by accident, you know."

This cooled her anger somewhat, and she looked at him and smiled weakly. The whole reason they'd become friends in the first place was because he'd seen so much of himself in her. That was something that had been a source of pride before the reset, then a source of shame and fear after it. Now…well, it was probably closer to the former, but tinged with the darkness of the latter. Thinking about everything that had come before the reset could be depressing, but it could be pretty great, too. Their friendship was a double-edged sword. She hopped up on the wall to sit next to him and crossed her arms over her chest. "I just don't get it," she said. "Racing's like, the greatest thing ever. It's what we're all meant to be doing. How can they just…not care?"

He leaned back on his hands and jiggled his foot, the gumdrop on his shoe jingling. "Oh, I'm sure they care. It's in all our code. It's just, they don't care as much. And when you care as much as, well, you do, my dear, or as I do, then anything much less than that looks like not caring at all."

She huffed. "Sounds like you're defending them."

That made him laugh again. "Well that's—hoo-hoo—that's a shame, really, because I'm not. It would ruin my image, don't you think? You know, big, bad Turbo, defending a bunch of children? Please." He glanced at her, an eyebrow arched, but he didn't say anything else.

Taffyta sighed with a puff of air and slouched her shoulders. She shouldn't ask what she was about to ask. She knew that. It was a Very Bad Idea. In her self-aware moments, Taffyta knew she wasn't exactly the queen of great ideas in the best of times, and this wasn't the best of times. And that meant she should keep her mouth shut. Don't make stupid, rash decisions. That was how you messed stuff up. That was how you got your game unplugged.

She was still for a long moment. Then, she asked, "Do you…do you still think we'd be able to…you know."

His eyebrow was still raised. "I'm not sure I do."

Looking around, she leaned closer to him and said, "The code. Do you still think we could pull it off? Make a big enough distraction so you could get into the code vault and change it?"

"Pfft, Taffyta. I know we can pull it off." His eyes gleamed and he drew one leg up, propping his heel on the edge of the wall. "Can I take this to mean you finally see the wisdom of making those minor alterationsth?"

Her heart gave a sickening flutter and something in her screamed not to agree to this. But then she remembered the smug look on Torvald's face as she'd said they didn't have to practice, and Swizzle smirking like he'd just figured out something really clever. Like he was so smart. "Yeah," she said. "We need the Random Roster Race again. They're just gonna get worse and worse, and fewer and fewer gamers are gonna play…"

And she could just see it now. Pretty soon there'd be hardly anyone playing at all, and Litwak would decide Sugar Rush wasn't making enough money to justify the electricity bill. And he'd pull their plug, just like that. No fanfare, no like, wailing and gnashing of teeth about the game being broken. Just a boring game that no one played anymore reaching the end of its life. The thought made her ill.

King Candy shot to his feet, intensity warring with delight on his face. Taffyta didn't know what she felt, she only knew that she had to do something. There were obviously enough racers in this game that didn't care, and Vanellope either didn't care herself or wasn't willing to do anything about it. She'd only been president for six months. Maybe she just couldn't handle a crisis. When the virus had gotten into the game three months ago—when Taffyta had brought it back, she reminded herself—Vanellope had dealt well with that. But this was different. This wasn't something you handled all at once, where you made a decision and it was either right or wrong. This required finesse, and dealing with people, and maybe making some of them unhappy.

Taffyta thought about that. The last thing Vanellope wanted to do was make anyone unhappy. And now that she thought about it, it was obvious. That was what the randomizer was all about—not making anyone feel left out. Not making anyone feel bad, like she'd felt for so long. And that was the thing that King Candy had always understood about being a leader. You couldn't make everyone happy all the time.

She caught herself before she followed that train of thought any farther. King Candy had taken over the game, reprogrammed it, tried to rip out Vanellope's code, and locked up all their memories. She shouldn't have been thinking about what a great leader he'd been.

Even if, a traitorous part of her insisted, he totally had been.

There was a grin on his face, and that made it way too easy to push her misgivings aside. "Excthellent! Do you want to go over my plan here or back at your place?"

"You…you already have a plan?" she asked.

He flicked his wrist. "Taffyta, please. I came up with a plan before we got back from Game Central Station the other night."

"Oh." Taffyta blinked, then crossed her arms over her chest. "Why didn't you tell me?"

Shrugging and rocking back on his heels, King Candy said, "Well, I couldn't be sure you were completely sold on the idea." He raised an eyebrow. "In fact I was pretty sure you weren't."

"It's not like I was going to tattle on you or something," she said, feeling just a little bit offended. After everything they'd been through, how could he think she'd do something like that?

He looked surprised, and a glitch rippled up him, but he maintained his form. Now that she thought about it, he seemed to be switching back and forth between King Candy and Turbo less and less, and it seemed correspondingly more and more deliberate when he did. "Of course not," he said. "Why would I—? I just didn't want you to feel…well, I don't know, like you had to go along with it. If you didn't want to, that is. I didn't really think you did, I mean, you said no to it about three hundred times."

"It wasn't three hundred," she grumbled.

"Hyperbole is one of my very best qualities, Taff," he said with a grin. Then, he sobered. "I just, you know, didn't want to pressure you. Your normally sterling judgement is clouded with an unfortunate affection for the glitch."

She ignored this. "Were you just going to do all of it without me, then?" she asked.

"Don't be silly." His mouth twitched. "My plan requires two people."

She looked around at the town square to make sure no one had heard this. None of the racers was there, but some of their fans were. Some of Taffyta's were, too, looking at her with a mixture of worship and nervousness. When she was with King Candy, none of them ever approached her. But she didn't really trust them anymore, anyway. She wouldn't tattle on him, but her fans definitely would.

"Let's go home," she said. Then, she realized what she'd said. It was her home, not his. Or did he consider it home, too? Even though he'd only been there a few weeks, her house would seem empty without him there.

He didn't have any reaction to this at all, though. With a slow smile spreading across his face, he said, "Let's take your kart. The faster we figure everything out, the better."