CHAPTER 10

Taffyta and King Candy stood in the shadow of Sugar Rush castle, listening to the grumble of go-karts in the distance. Marshmallow Peeps were singing in a nearby lollipop tree and she could hear the rustle of gummi worms sifting through cocoa dirt. The sky seemed bluer, somehow, and the lemon drop sun more yellow, than normal, even though she knew that the only thing different about this day, and this moment, was what the two of them were about to do. "You'll have to watch for me leaving the game," she said, her voice coming out remarkably steady considering how her heart was fluttering.

With a nod, he asked, "You remember how to get to the kart garage?"

"Yeah." She clenched and unclenched her fists several times. She hadn't slept much the night before, and honestly she felt like she might never sleep again. The whole world had a weird, crystalline clarity, like she could see everything at twice the speed she normally could and at 128 bit instead of 64. When the quarter alert announcement blared through the game, there was a sharp edge to the familiar voice, as though she was hearing it amplified through some sort of filter that made it simultaneously more and less real, closer and farther away, and both louder and softer. Maybe this was what it was like to lose your mind.

The thing was, she didn't feel like she was losing her mind. She felt more convinced than ever that this was the right thing to do. They'd stood outside the castle for over an hour before the first quarter alert had come, and she didn't have high hopes for the player, who didn't look old enough to steer and reach the pedals at the same time.

Hoisting the bag containing his clothes onto her shoulder, she said, "Let's go." The castle gardens had an entrance into the castle, and King Candy thought he could get into it even if it was locked.

They headed around the side of the castle and boosted themselves over the garden wall, landing in a bed of pumpkin spice marshmallow vines. The smell of cinnamon and nutmeg calmed Taffyta down a little bit, but she didn't appreciate the orange stains the marshmallows left on her tights. It was going to be impossible to get them out later.

Brushing themselves off, they moved through the garden to the door, which was locked. Taffyta felt her heart sink, but King Candy waved away the concerned look on her face, then pulled a piece of metal out of his jacket and stuck it in the lock. He jiggled it up and down a few times, then there was a click, and he turned the knob.

As the door swung open, Taffyta asked in a quiet voice, "Where'd you learn how to do that?"

"Paperboy," he replied, poking his head through the door and then stepping through. "That kid had a real kleptomaniac streak; did a lot of breaking and entering. Wonder if he ever turned any of that around…?"

She didn't ask why he'd wanted Paperboy to teach him how to pick locks, though she did file it away to remember for later. Sometimes the realization that he'd had a whole life before she ever knew him as King Candy hit her all over again. Even though she knew, in those moments, she felt its strangeness all over again. Sometimes it felt like she was getting to know him for a second time.

The door opened onto an empty hallway that Taffyta thought she recognized. They closed it softly behind them and made their way in the direction of the camera room. Neither of them spoke and their footsteps were silent on the sugar cube floor. King Candy had stuffed some cotton candy in the gumdrop bells of his shoes to muffle their jingling. "By the way," he asked in a low tone, "how are you planning on distracting the guard?"

Taffyta tossed her hair. "By playing dumb, duh. I'm a little blonde girl, people already think I'm just a ditz. Acting stupid's exactly what they expect from me."

With a soft chuckle, he said, "Underestimate Taffyta Muttonfudge at your own peril—now that'sth a lesson I learned early on."

She flashed a grin at him just as they reached a junction in the hallway. Taffyta knew that to the right was the camera room and that the guard would come from the left. They turned towards each other, neither of them saying a word for a moment. Taffyta didn't know what to say. Nothing seemed appropriate. If he got caught, no one was going to believe anything he said to defend himself. Even if they believed him, they wouldn't get why he'd done it. They'd think he was trying to hurt the game when he wasn't.

She opened her mouth to say something, even though she still wasn't sure exactly what it was going to be, at the exact same time that he started, "Taffyta—"

They both stopped and he motioned to her to speak. She swallowed and said, "I just—good luck. Be careful."

Giving her a serious look, he said, "You better be careful. If you can't crash safely, don't do it at all. You know—"

"I know, I know, if you die outside your game, that's it." She gave him a confident smile. Of everything in this plan, the thing she was least worried about was her ability to do a stunt crash and come out of it unscathed. That part was easy. They'd planned her driving route anyway, and she knew exactly how close she needed to cut her turn near Virtua Cop to hit the phalanx of benches nearby and send her car flipping end over end. It would end up resting upside-down against the wall and she'd unbuckle her seat belt, remove the Turbo jumpsuit and helmet, and sneak off. Anyone who saw her would assume she was out there to kill time on an off-roster day.

There was a flicker of doubt in his eyes. "I'm serious," he said. "Don't—I mean—" But then he closed his mouth and exhaled sharply. "Just be careful."

"I will," she said, surprised by this show of concern. And touched, if she was honest.

He nodded and didn't say anything else on the subject, though that shadow of doubt was still in his eyes. Instead, he nodded and said, "Well—hoo-hoo—showtime, I guessth." Then, without another word, he slipped around the corner and continued down the hallway. Taffyta watched him until he disappeared around another turn, and then she took a breath, squared her shoulders, and took the hallway that led towards the throne room. The new guard would come from there, so as she walked, she plastered a mixture of concern and confusion on her face.

Right on time, the Oreo guard appeared, and Taffyta squealed. "Finally! I thought I was never gonna find anyone in here!"

The guard stopped and gave her a stern look. "What are you doing here?"

She gave him her sweetest smile and batted her eyelashes at him. "I was looking for Vanellope, I thought she'd be at the starting line because she wasn't yesterday, so shouldn't she be on the roster today?"

The effect was instantaneous. What a dum-dum. And how completely predictable. Why did everyone assume she was stupid? The combination of her big blue eyes and pitching her voice up got them every time. Well, she'd be offended by it later, since right now she was totally using it to her advantage. Any suspicion on his face immediately disappeared as he replied, "The president isn't racing today, Miss Muttonfudge. I'm not sure where she is right now."

Scrunching her face in concentration, Taffyta said, "Um, are you sure? 'Cause I'm pretty sure she wasn't on the roster yesterday, and like, not being on the roster two days in a row isn't that random, don't you think?" Was she laying it on too thick? This was pretty much her best Candlehead imitation, but she didn't think the Oreo guards could really tell them apart beyond their names and the color of their clothes.

The Oreo guard smiled indulgently and Taffyta forced herself not to roll her eyes. "'Fraid that's not how it works, Miss Muttonfudge. President von Schweetz can be off the roster two days in a row, even with the randomizer."

Taffyta giggled. "Okay, well, I guess. If you say so." The guard nodded and took a step to continue towards the camera room and she panicked. No way, she hadn't given King Candy enough time! "Um, hey!" she said, grabbing his arm. "So like, do you know if she's coming back here later? Because I know a lot of times she just goes to hang out with Wreck-It Ralph, so is that what she's doing tonight?"

"The President doesn't usually keep us apprised of her evening plans," the guard said, shaking her loose.

"Really?" Taffyta asked. "That seems…" What did it seem? Did it matter what she said? "…weird. That seems weird."

"Not really."

"Oh!" She giggled again. "I guess not. Sorry, that's probably why Vanellope's president, right? She just kind of gets stuff."

That should do it. Good thing, too, because this was so nonsensical that she wondered where she was going to go from there. The fact that the guard stood and thought about it for a second was icing on the cake. "I…suppose," he said. She gave him an extra saccharine smile and he said, "I have to get to my post now, Miss Muttonfudge. I hope you find President von Schweetz later."

"I'm sure I will, thank you, bye!" she chirped, waving to him and balancing on one foot. When she was sure he wouldn't turn back around, she allowed the smile to drop off her face. Time to get to the kart garage. Vanellope's kart had better be there. It was one of the variables they didn't have any way to control, but Taffyta was pretty sure the president left it up at the castle when she wasn't on the roster.

Quickly and quietly, she continued down the corridor until she reached the door that led to the kart garage on the castle's lower level. Once she'd descended the spiral staircase, she took half a second to admire the space, which she'd been in once before. Cavernous, glittering, and well-lit, it housed fifteen karts, all different, and all totally beautiful as they gleamed in the light. They were all a lot nicer than the one Vanellope had made with Ralph, that was for sure, but Taffyta got it. That one was special. Anyway, she supposed it didn't matter how it looked, as long as you could win races in it, and Vanellope had no problem at all winning races in her little mutant kart. Of course, her glitch was basically cheating, but…

Shaking herself, Taffyta stepped into the garage. Vanellope's glitching wasn't cheating, it was just something she could do. Yeah. Right. Anyway, now wasn't the time to be thinking about that. She looked around and spotted Vanellope's kart at the other end of the garage, closest to the door leading outside. Okay, Taffyta, time to do this. The clock in her head was running and she knew she needed to get a move on; it had been just over six minutes since she'd left King Candy in the hallway.

She ran across the garage and threw her bag in the kart, then quickly pulled Turbo's jumpsuit on over her clothes. She hopped into the seat, feeling odd about sitting in another racer's kart. "Sorry, Pink Lightning," she mumbled, jamming Turbo's helmet over her head.

For just a moment, she sat there, getting used to the feel of the seat, the distance to the pedals, the position of the clutch. She put her hands on the steering wheel and flexed her fingers around it. Then, she checked one last time that she had the little code transmitter box—safely in the pocket of the jumpsuit—and punched the starter on the kart.

It roared to life, the engine echoing in the vaulted space of the garage, and Taffyta put her foot down on the gas and shifted. The garage door opened as she approached it, and once she was clear, she shifted again and held her foot down on the gas. The kart streaked down the road, cocoa dust billowing behind her, and she turned the wheel hard, drifting around the corner. NPCs scattered as she tore toward Rainbow Bridge. Good, if they'd seen the bright red T on her helmet, they might start alerting people. That would give King Candy more time in the code vault.

Tucking herself low over the steering wheel, she upshifted as she reached the bridge and went zooming up the steep slope. The kart didn't handle as well on the bridge as Pink Lightning did, nor was it as fast as the Royal Racer (which she'd driven once three months ago), but holy candy corn, its acceleration was impressive. She reached the exit to the game and shot through into the dark tunnel between Sugar Rush and Game Central Station. The headlights on the kart flickered on, illuminating the train tracks in front of her, but she could do this trip with her eyes closed. Litwak hadn't moved the cord in years, so every contour and turn of the tunnel was indelibly imprinted on her mind. Like any other track in the game, she guessed. After fifteen years, she could probably do all of them with her eyes closed.

A circle of light appeared in front of her, and she tightened her hands around the steering wheel. This was it. Thirteen minutes had passed. If everything had gone according to plan—if King Candy hadn't already been caught and thrown in the fungeon—then he should be ready to enter the code vault by now. He'd said he needed a minimum of three minutes to get in, change the code, and get out. That timer couldn't officially start until she set the alarm off on Virtua Cop. After that, there wasn't much she could do. She just had to hope he was as fast as he claimed.

The light got brighter and she breathed in slowly through her nose. Everything seemed to slow around her. It always did when she found herself at a point in a race where she had to make a whole series of quick decisions, decisions where you didn't have time to stop and think about it, you just had to do them through practice and muscle memory. But when time slowed like this, it gave her a few extra seconds to study what was happening around her as her brain worked double-time to choose the best course.

And it was time to pull off the best controlled crash of her life.

Over the years, Taffyta had perfected crashing without really crashing, because she hated, hated dying and regenerating. As long as she wasn't getting taken out by a giant gumball or a Sweet Seeker, she could almost always control how she wiped out. It was something that she'd worked on with King Candy years ago, more than a decade, and it suddenly occurred to her, as she careened towards Game Central Station, that the reason he was probably so good at it was that he'd wanted to avoid dying in Sugar Rush for as long as possible, just in case his coding wasn't as good as he'd thought it was and he didn't regenerate.

She shot into Game Central Station, feeling herself burst through the pocket of air that preceded the kart as it had zoomed through the tunnel. Characters screamed and jumped out of the way and Taffyta allowed herself a small smile. There was nothing, nothing like being behind the wheel and holding your foot down on the gas. Hadn't King Candy said he'd taken his kart out here back when TurboTime had still been plugged in? She could see why; there weren't many places even in Sugar Rush with such a long straightaway. TurboTime definitely hadn't had anything like it.

Cranking the wheel, she turned towards Virtua Cop, down at the other end of GCS. Everything was going exactly according to plan. She'd been worried about this? This was too easy! She'd crash, change, and be back in Sugar Rush within ten minutes. The train had even been sitting there at the station, waiting for her to board it and bring her back to the game. Total piece of cake. She could even see the group of benches she was going to use to flip her kart, and they were empty, just like she'd expected them to be at this time of the day. Her shoulders un-tensed. This was going to work. Dimly, she was aware that the alarm hadn't gone off on Sugar Rush when she'd left the outlet. Okay, so not everything was going to plan—but that was no big deal. Once she sent the transmission of King Candy's code, that would be all the alarm they needed.

Fifteen seconds, ten seconds, five seconds. Taffyta sucked in a breath and put her hand in her pocket, resting her thumb on the button that would send the transmission towards Virtua Cop. But then her chest and stomach seized with ice as a football came sailing through the air directly in front of her kart, followed a moment later by one of the football players from Madden.

"Oh, motherfudging sugar," she said.

She swerved to avoid the football player, way, way too fast, way too hard, and she knew immediately that she'd made a deadly mistake. The kart flipped up onto its two left wheels and fishtailed, and if this was her own kart then maybe, maybe she'd have been able to correct but she couldn't get this kart under control fast enough. It wouldn't respond to her. She looked up, her heart in her throat, just in time to see the bank of video monitors looming in front of her. All she could do was brace herself.

The kart slammed into the the kiosk with a screech of metal and a hail of sprinkles and wafer, spinning and coming to rest upside down, and everything went black.