Cole winced. As if things couldn't get any worse for Zane, now the kid was unable to even leave his game? Ouch.
That was when a thought struck Cole. He looked at Zane (who turned away dejectedly), looked at the surrounding landscape with new eyes, then glanced back at Zane again. What was that the glitch had said would happen if he won?
POW! PAPAPAPA-POW!
Zane whirled around to see Cole running around, slamming his fists into the ground and walls in a strangely circular pattern. "Hey! What are you doing? I know this is far from the greatest place, but it's all I have!"
Still pounding furiously, Cole answered, "If you're going to be a racer, you have to learn how to drive."
He skidded to a stop in front of Zane and pointed back over his shoulder. "And you can't do that without a track."
Zane hopped down from his rock to peer around Cole. His eyes widened as he saw what Cole had made: a beginner's race track around the hot springs. "Oh my."
"'Oh my' is right," Cole approved. He started toward the cave entrance, calling back, "C'mon. You'll need your kart."
"Our kart," Zane corrected, following at his heels.
Cole smiled and nodded.
Together they pushed, pulled, and rolled the kart onto the makeshift track.
"Alright now, let's hustle up. It's driving lesson time!" Cole declared, cracking his knuckles.
Zane tilted his head to one side. "Wait a moment. Do you know how to drive?"
"Yeah! Of course!" Cole insisted. Then he paused. "I mean, I haven't done it, but, uh... Look, I flew a spaceship today, okay?"
"You did?" Zane asked curiously. "How did that go?"
"I, uh, made a controlled flight into the terrain with an unplanned landing," Cole answered, defiantly lifting his chin.
Frowning, Zane concluded, "So you crashed it."
"Just get in. How hard can it be?" Cole dismissed.
Zane didn't look convinced, but he climbed into the driver's seat. He looked over the multitude of dials, switches, and gauges with awe, then glanced up. "What shall I do first?"
"First, uh..." Cole hesitated, walking around in front of the kart. "Oh! Start it up."
Finding a long rotating lever labelled 'gear stick', Zane started it up and carefully revved the engine.
Cole jumped back, surprised. "Wow, I wasn't sure if you could figure out how to do that. Good for you."
Zane gave him a look that clearly said 'I have spent my entire existence in this racing-obsessed game. I am perfectly capable of starting a simple kart. Thank you for your immense faith in me."
"Well, you couldn't do it before in the bakery!" Cole defended instinctively. "How was I supposed to know what you could do?"
Zane gave him a different (but just as clear) look, which expressed his disbelief at Cole using a high pressure situation to judge the entirety of his driving skills when presented with a brand-new kart that he had never seen before.
Cole elected to pretend he didn't understand what Zane was communicating. "You did it, it's done, so there you go. Okay, now..."
Voice trailing off, Cole thought hard. How did karts work, exactly? The brief glimpses he had caught of Sugar Rush from his own game did nothing to help him.
"There are so many things in here," Zane observed. He reached out a tentative hand and lightly patted the dashboard.
"Don't start touching anything yet, we don't know what it does," Cole advised.
"How do you suggest learning what everything does if we cannot try all of the parts out?" Zane asked rationally.
Cole took a moment on that. "I- I, uh, suggest we should go through all the stuff. Methodically, of course."
"Of course," Zane agreed. He promptly began touching everything. Flipping a switch and feeling no change in the car, he asked, "Did that have any effect?"
"That turned on the lights," Cole said, squinting hard. "Wow, those are bright. Could you turn them off?"
Zane obliged. He pressed a button down and held it, listening to the sound it produced.
"That's the horn," Cole explained. He winced as the sound kept going. "Yeah, that's still the horn."
Zane smiled. "I like the horn."
"Listen, I remembered something useful, so stop with the horn," Cole ordered. "Now, there should be some buttons on the floor."
"I believe they are called pedals," Zane offered.
Cole sighed. "Pedals, buttons, whatever. Now, the one on the right should be the go pedal. The one just to the left of it or about middle of the floor is the stopper, I think."
Zane looked at the floor, then looked up. "What about the small one on the far left?
"What?"
"There is another pedal, a small one, on the far left. What is its purpose?" Zane rephrased.
"Honestly, I don't have a clue. You know what, just go ahead and try it," Cole encouraged.
Zane pressed it with one foot. Then he pressed it again.
"Did you press it yet?" Cole asked, looking the kart up and down. "'Cause I don't see anything happening."
"I have pressed it twice. I do not believe it does anything," Zane admitted, pressing it a third time.
"Try it in combination with something else," Cole advised. He walked around to the back end of the kart and lifted it up slightly, trying to see if the pedal had done something there.
"What about this joystick?" Zane asked, manipulating the gear shift. The kart lurched forward, dragging Cole with it and promptly dropping him flat on his face.
The kart engine stalled and Zane looked back worriedly.
Cole lifted his head after a moment and gingerly patted his face. Finding himself all in one piece, he said, "Hey, not bad. Let's try that again."
"Should I try it with or without you hanging off of the back?" Zane asked, genuinely wondering.
"Ha, ha. Without," Cole answered dryly. "In fact, wait for a moment, just so I won't be tempted."
Zane waited while Cole walked to stand in front and just to the side of the kart. "Ready?"
"Fire it up," Cole replied easily.
Tapping the left-most pedal, Zane gently moved the joystick in the same pattern as before. The kart zipped forward.
Cole yelped as it slammed into his legs. "Ow!"
"My apologies," Zane said immediately. "I probably should have seen that coming."
They tried it again as soon as Cole stopped muttering in pain long enough to limp to the back of the kart.
"You should be unable to be hit back there," Zane said helpfully.
"I figured that out for myself, thanks," Cole muttered. Before Zane could say anything else, he loudly said, "Okay, let's do this again."
Kart gears grinding, Zane tried to steer while simultaneously shifting with the joystick. It got caught in a halfway spot and the kart jolted backward, right into Cole.
Cole made a strange whimpering noise and limped off to hide behind a jawbreaker boulder by the sideline.
"Are you alright?" Zane asked worriedly. "Is there a way I could assist you?"
"Just keep trying and give me a minute. I'll be fine," Cole instructed tersely.
"Are you certain I should continue?" Zane checked, fiddling with a lever.
Cole shrugged. "As long as I'm hidden safely back here, what could it hurt?"
Still uncertain, Zane pushed at the joystick. The kart inched forward.
"Try the, uh, go," Cole advised, peeking over the top of the boulder. "You'd never win anything at that speed."
Zane tapped the gas pedal. The kart shuddered forward, then again, hitting a candy cane tree.
The trunk cracked and splintered, the top swaying. Then it split completely off and collapsed sideways. As luck would have it, the tree fell directly onto Cole.
Jumping out of the kart, Zane hurried over. "Cole? Cole, are you still alright?"
"...Ow. You know what, let's try something else."
It took a couple of moments for Cole to recover enough to gather the thoughts and materials for his new idea. Before long, he was standing in front of a 'chalkboard' made from a stale slab of dark chocolate. Zane was seated before him on an old truffle, watching with no small amount of curiosity.
"If you're going to race, you have to be tough," Cole explained, writing something on the makeshift chalkboard with a spare bit of Mento. "You have to stand up for yourself and not let anyone push you around. You have to be able to fight back. So, I'm going to teach you how to do all that."
He stepped back and gestured to the board. "This... Is Trash Talking 101. Any questions?"
Zane raised his hand.
Cole frowned. "Why are you doing that?"
"I have a question. What happened to Trash Talking 1 through 100?" Zane asked.
"Uh, nothing happened. That's just something you say about a basic beginner's class," Cole dismissed. He rubbed his hands together. "You ready?"
"If you are," Zane said politely. "What do I do first?"
"Repeat after me: stink brain," Cole instructed.
Zane tilted his head to one side. "That makes no sense."
"It's a figure of speech. Say stink brain," Cole repeated.
"Why?" Zane asked innocently.
Cole sighed. "Just do it."
"Stink brain," Zane obediently repeated. "Is that all?"
"Oh no. We're just getting started," Cole said seriously. "Now, say 'you idiot'."
"Why?"
"Or 'dead meat'."
"How is that in any way useful?" Zane asked.
"Or you could say, 'selfish baby', or even 'eat my dust, slowpoke'," Cole added, somewhat desperately. "That would work."
"Those would be unkind," Zane protested. "I am not saying that."
Cole sighed again. "Let's go back to that whole 'driving' thing."
Zane got back into the kart and Cole decided that the safest place to stand would be a little ways behind, so he would have time to jump out of the way if needed.
Then the driving began and it started to blur together in a mess of rumbling engines and hard work. Looking back, Cole could only remember bits and pieces.
...Zane successfully starting the kart while keeping it in neutral.
...The kart skidding in a complete 360 and Zane staring down at the wheel like he had no idea what he just did (which he didn't).
...Cole trying to drive the kart by sitting on the back and pushing the pedals with one hand, steering poorly with the other and slamming into rocks.
...Figuring out the windshield wipers for the first time and then spending the next several minutes playing with them, putting things on the window and observing with fascination as they were cleaned off.
...Building an obstacle course for a slightly more challenging drive.
Then came the moment when Zane could drive well enough to do laps, speeding up every time.
"You're doing it!" Cole cheered, watching him go around and around.
"I am doing it," Zane repeated happily. "I am doing it!"
"Perfect," Cole declared. "You know, when you said racing was in your code, I doubted it. But look at you now!"
"Hey Cole, watch this! I can go off-road!" Zane said excitedly. He drove right up a steep, natural ramp and flew over a part of broken track, landing beautifully.
"We've got that medal in the bag!" Cole enthused. "Hey, Zane! Take that really big jump!"
Zane immediately twisted the steering wheel to aim for the giant ramp Cole was pointing to. He took flight a little too eagerly and glitched upward, taking the kart with him. It was out of control and headed right for the stalactites.
"Look out!" Cole yelled uselessly, desperate to do something but unable to help.
Ducking, Zane narrowly missed hitting his head against the Mentos. The back of the kart wasn't so lucky, smashing right into the biggest stalactite. He glitched again and crashed onto the track on the other side as the stalactite began to crack.
Giant chunks of Mentos fell, one after another, into the hot springs. Hot splashes of Diet Coke went everywhere and bubbling geysers shoot up. Cole jumped backward, dancing out of the way of the boiling cola falling around him.
With a long rumble, the room slowly calmed down. All the Mentos had been used up and the pool of Coke quieted to a murmur.
Having finally slowed his spinning out of control, Zane skidded to a stop in front of Cole. The two looked at each other, catching their breath.
Zane recovered first. Almost merrily, he asked, "In your opinion, how did I do?"
"How did you do?" Cole repeated. "Um... Well, you almost blew up the whole mountain."
"Almost. It did not actually happen, so that is a high note," Zane concluded, hopping out of the kart.
Cole snorted, then made himself keep a straight face. "You've got to get that glitch under control, kid."
"I will!" Zane promised. He hesitated, then asked, "And if I can accomplish that, do you think we will have a chance?"
Contemplating that, Cole looked at Zane, at the kart, then back at Zane. He grinned. "I'd say we've got more than just a chance."
Zane's eyes widened. "You really we might win?"
"'Might' win?" Cole asked, giving in to his own enthusiasm. "We'll definitely win!"
Zane held out his hand sideways to shake.
Cole wouldn't have any of that. He held up his own hand enthusiastically, palm out and waiting for a high-five.
Smiling, Zane obliged.