Opposite Sides of the Track

Battle Scars

Opposite Sides of the Track

Chapter 3

Battle Scars

"You look like you got 10 minutes of sleep," Vanellope deadpanned as Hiro walked into the interrogation room.

Hiro raised an eyebrow and sat down in the seati n front of her.

"I'm not here to fight with you." Hiro said, running his hands through his hair.

Vanellope snorted, "Yeah, right. You're just not here to sarcastically fight with me. You know I'd win anyways."

Truth be told, Vanellope was trying to distract Hiro from seeing how little sleep she'd gotten. Because of his stupid, stupid, stupid "gift". Then he turned up the Mod damn air conditioning! It wasn't like they'd given Vanellope anything more than a cot, so no blankets or even a pillow. But Vanellope wasn't going to let them win. Not like that she wasn't. So she had been just really really cold that night. And had gotten very little sleep. Think of the devil...

"So, did you like your gift?" Hiro asked coily.

It was Vanellope's turn to glare.

"You do realize I have my own wardrobe somewhere in the world, right? How do you know that the 'gift' wasn't really just something I could pull out of my closet?" Vanellope accused.

"Because you'd be wearing it," Hiro answered matter-of-factly.

Before Vanellope could retort, Hiro moved on.

"Well, believe it or not, I did get information on your parents," Hiro said.

Vanellope's eyes widened. How? She'd 13 years looking for anything about them, and Hiro had gotten them in a day?

Hiro snickered.

"What?" Vanellope snapped.

"I thought you'd gotten rid of that."

"Rid of what?"

"The whole 'unconsciously thinking aloud' thing."

Vanellope tried to avoid sinking down into her seat. She remembered from ages 5 to 11 she'd had the embarrassing habit of saying what she was thinking aloud. On accident, of course. The more Vanellope had lied to Hiro, the more she'd stopped doing that. But having a voice box Vanellope could turn on and off had made her slip...

Hiro cleared his throat. It gave Vanellope some comfort that at least Hiro looked embarrassed too.

"So," he said, "Information swap. As tradition goes, the hostage goes first."

Vanellope growled, but obliged.

"There are bases all over the world. The main one is called Game Central Station."

Hiro rolled his hand for her to go on. Vanellope shook her head though.

"Nope. Not until I'm sure you have something on my family."

Hiro glared, "Fine. Your mom's name was Vivian and your dad's name was Victor."

Vanellope raised an eyebrow.

"You're kidding me..."

Hiro shrugged.

"I'm really not. And everything else in on this file," Hiro waved a tab folder, "So continue."

"The reason why our headquarters is called Game Central Station, or GSC, is because we use video games to test and find our recruits. Like I said, there are different locations. Each location's named after a video game; the one you were recruited with is the one you belong to."