We took our durian halves and ran to the bridge to get a better view of our potential ‘customers’. As we scouted the area, Quaid and Norris came over the bridge and ran passed us. Norris was trailing behind Quaid by some distance and was grunting and staggering along like a drunken sailor, but he still seemed in the game.
Speaking of sailors, as luck would have it a group of U.S. marines on furlough were standing on the bridge taking photos of each other and any cute girl that crossed their path.
Jamie walked up to them, hips swaying, the cameraman right on her tail and the boom microphone dangling over our heads to get premium sound, its furry tip fluffing in the breeze.
“Hey, Boys,” Jamie put on her cutest, sexiest pout and come hither eyes. When the group of marines turned and saw the two of us in our schoolgirl outfits and pigtails with a camera crew, they fell right into character, snapping away with their cameras and wolf whistling.
“Can you all help us? Do you dare eat the ‘stinky fruit’?” she asked coquettishly. “If you eat it all up, the two of us will show you a night on the town you will never forget!” She said making a promise she knew we wouldn’t keep.
“Oh, I’d eat anything you want to put in my mouth,” one of the marines countered, coming forward and scooping a handful of the white fleshy meat into his mouth. He gagged and we all laughed for the camera. Maybe he was their leader, a corporal or something, because when he swallowed enough to get a chance to speak, he said, “You heard the ladies. Men, eat their fruit. That’s an order. Let’s show them we aren’t afraid of new experiences.”
Obediently they stepped forward, only pausing for a second or two when they got a whiff before tucking in to the creamy stink. In no time, the durian was finished. We thanked them profusely, even hugging a couple and Jamie gave their leader a fake number. We ran back to Aaron Penang with our empty husk. Quaid and Norris were nearby trying to coerce a group of Japanese tourists to eat their durian, but the language barrier was getting in the way and it looked as if some of them were put off by Norris’s pale, sweaty face and bloodshot eyes.
Aaron Penang handed us our last clue which, thankfully, was very straightforward. Jamie read it out for the camera:
By land and now by sea, take a river taxi to the Tai Ko Heng Resort & Casino integrated resort, chose one of the three towers and ascend on foot to the AirGarden where riches await … for the winning team that is.
“Out of my way!” Out of nowhere, Lydia appeared behind us and pushed Jamie to the ground as she finished reading the clue, practically walking over her, reaching out to Aaron and yelled, “Give me my durian!”
With the three teams finally together in the middle of Singapore, people began to recognize who we were from the billboards, commercials and bus wraps blanketing Singapore. There were screams of recognition and the tourists and looky-loos changed into grasping and needy figures that began to press forward towards us in that star struck haze of admirers and fans normally reserved for the super famous.
Those closest to us booed at Lydia when they saw her push Jamie onto the ground and a couple of them helped her back to her feet. Jamie brushed dirt off her knees and raised her fist into the air in a sign of resistance and the crowd cheered. Smiling we waved and pressed our way through the throngs of fans to the bridge and, once free from the madness, we ran along the channel towards the river taxi pick-up point that our cameraman helpfully pointed towards when he saw we were beginning to lose our way.
There were hundreds more tourists milling around the river taxi pick-up point waiting for their paid tours to begin. The wall of flowered shirts and panama hats seemed impenetrable, until I saw a Cera flag fluttering high overhead a blocked out area for the Cera teams to get to their boats. We ran between the velvet ropes cordoning off the area and onto an awaiting river taxi docked against the side of the cement bank. I yelled to the captain, “Go, Go!” but he ignored me as we had to wait for our trailing camera crew to load up onto another boat beside us so they could film as we rode up river to the three looming towers of Tai Ko Heng Resort & Casino. Jamie stomped her feet in frustration on the wooden planks as we pulled away from the now teeming bank of gawking tourists because, by the time we got moving, Quaid and Norris were already loading into their river taxi behind us.
The river was choppier than I expected it to be and the going was rather slow. We were now racing in slow motion. The cameraman kept directing us around the boat to get different shots of us facing towards our destination and then worriedly, back at the boys who were within shouting distance of our putt-putting hull.
We passed underneath the iconic glistening white Merlion statue as it spewed a jetty of water from its gaping mouth, making for great Singapore television. The river opened up to a large area of the bay and the waters noticeably smoothed.
Even from the far side of the reservoir, it was obvious the grounds of Tai Ko Heng Resort & Casino had been taken over by the production. There was gigantic mob the likes of which I’d never encountered before in any Singapore celebration on the walkway between the dock and the towers, most of whom were dressed in tattered clothes and zombie make-up. Even in the midday sun, the spotlights and choreographed special effects lighting set up by the CARS team dazzled the eye and enhanced the monolithic fascist quality of those imposing monuments to materialistic greed and chance lurching awkwardly into the sky. The three towers were linked at the top by the exclusive boomerang shaped park lying precariously on their roofs. A half a dozen helicopters from Tua Kee Media and newscasters swirled and swooped around the buildings capturing the crowds thronging the area and the approach of our boats.
Sheldon was correct. Our reality show had struck a nerve with the global audience. And it had a fine tuning effect on that morbid fascination born from the zombie fever epidemic, turning it into a spellbinding hum of frenzied thrill the likes of which a television production had never realized before.
When we were halfway across the lagoon, I looked back behind the Ang Mohs and spotted Lydia and Derrik about ten minutes back. I pointed this out to Jamie, laughing at how far back they were and she joined in and together we shared in the joy of their misfortune. There was no way they would be able to catch up now. If we didn’t win, at least the boys would take the prize, depriving that undeserving witch and her idiot savant of the first place.
I was on a racing high, breathing in long deep draughts of victory and hubris.
Everything about the Berjalan penyakit and the vaccine had vanished from my mind.
We were going to win this thing.
As we approached the integrated resort, we could hear the booming of music and the high pitch vocals of what sounded to be the ancient hit from the 1980’s by the former pop king called, ‘Zombie Shuffle.’
So this must have been Sheldon’s brilliant plan for the finale. The closer we got, the music became louder and I realized I was looking at thousands of line dancers in zombie costumes and makeup doing the zombie shuffle in front of the towers. Sheldon and Tua Kee Media had organized a very un-spontaneous ‘flash mob’ of sorts. Singaporeans of all ages and races had headed the clarion call of the zombie shuffle, arriving before dawn to get the best spots in the synchronized spectacular. They were dressed as real Berjalan penyakit and fictional zombie undead and performing the dance routine again and again throughout the morning, perfecting their moves for the film crews circling overhead. I saw at least fifteen different teams of cameramen perched atop hastily constructed metal towers, on commandeered riverboats and deep inside the dancing spectacle getting those steady shots the six helicopters circling around Tai Ko Heng Resort & Casino’s towers filming our arrival and the manifestation of so many nut jobs participating in an outdated dance wouldn’t be able to capture.
When we were within about one hundred meters of the dock, huge volcanoes of blazing white fireworks began to shoot out of the AirGarden above and along the marina. Three gigantic Cera’s Amazing Rally Showdown banners were unleashed from the tops of the towers. They rolled down the front of the hotel turning the entire integrated resort into an advertisement for Cera cars and the reality show. At least we knew which tower we had to climb to get to the AirGarden above. There was a giant picture of Jamie and me posing in CARS racing outfits on the banner draped across Tower Two and a crewmember was there trying to get our attention and waving a cardboard arrow at its entrance.
We jumped off the river taxi before it came to a stop and ran up the dock and up the stairs into the organized chaos of the line dance.
Wow, those dancers did not make it easy to get to the tower. They kept turning and bobbing and weaving around in tight, well-rehearsed circles but we slowly we made our way through. The boys were having the same sort of trouble. Norris seemed to be in almost a trancelike state and he kept tripping over the dancing zombies and Quaid would have to backtrack and pull him to his feet. To make matters worse for them, from the looks of the banner with their shiny, white bald heads emblazoned on it, they had to run to Tower Three about another fifty meters further than ours. We reached the entrance and Jamie ran through the glass doors first, following a path of boney footprint stickers that were conveniently placed on the floor leading to the stairwell.
The cameraman and boom operator stopped at the foot of the stairwell, their journey was over. As we pushed through the door into the cavernous flight of steps they waved and mouthed an encouraging, “Good Luck” as we ran inside.
I took a deep breath and paused before following Jamie’s ascent up the iron wrought stairs swirling up the fifty-five floors to the AirGarden above.
This is it.
We can do it.
We ran and ran up those stairs. It was around the thirtieth floor when I began to feel my legs losing strength and getting that jelly-like feeling familiar from my secondary school days as a distance runner when my energy levels were too low.
Jamie was a few stairs ahead of me. She was feeling the drain as well and when she turned the corner on the platform of the forty-first floor, her foot caught the base of the railing and she went crashing onto the landing.
I came up beside her, huffing and puffing, barely able speak, “You … okay?”
No, it turned out she wasn’t okay. I squatted down and pulled her sock back to look at her ankle, which was already swelling and turning a reddish purple color. Her ankle was either severely sprained or possibly even broken. She grabbed at her calf and when she saw the damage began to writhe in pain.
I could picture in my mind’s eye, Quaid and Norris now passing us on their stairwell and Derrik and Lydia hitting the twentieth or thirtieth floor landing.
Dashed hopes of winning the competition drained my spirit.
We were so close. Maybe, just maybe, the boys were encountering similar delays during their ascent. After all, Norris was in no shape to attempt such a difficult climb.
We had to try to get to the top.
Without another word, I helped Jamie up and put her arm around my shoulder. She whimpered but knew she had to work through the pain. There was a million dollars prize hanging in the balance after all.
We made our way up those final sixteen floors and everything seemed to be going in slow motion.
I don’t know how long it took, but by the time we pushed our way through the exit door and onto the AirGarden, the victory celebration had already begun for the winners who were already standing on the stage set built over the infinity pool on the edge of the roof so that the entirety of Singapore’s beautiful cityscape could be seen in the background.
This was a closed set. No one but the Tua Kee Media production crew, team members and a few select hotel staff were allowed to see the final outcome of the race. There were only two steady cams on the roof filming the events. All other media and electronic devices had been banned from the rooftop as per Sheldon’s order and the helicopters had been instructed by the authorities to remain below the roofline or face legal action.
We limped forward towards the stage and the victory party.
No one paid attention to us as we were the losers and no longer part of the show.
There, on the stage, were Derrik and Lydia, handfuls of tightly bank-wrapped fifties held high, jumping up and down and hugging each other and lecturing the worldwide audience on how they were the best team and how they deserved to win because they were true Singaporeans. A bevy of the latest and most popular Tua Kee Media artistes surrounded the couple cheering along at their victory, trying to get in as much face time as possible, overacting in their artificial excitement, consciously aware that their reactions were being filmed for a worldwide audience.
There was so much commotion around those two winning losers and, as I said before, no one was paying attention to the two of us.
Likewise, no one noticed Quaid and Norris who were now standing beside the stage across from us, drenched in perspiration from the climb. Quaid had his mouth gaping open in disbelief. He’d seen those two trailing their boat some five minutes back. There was no way they’d passed our teams in their climb unless they’d taken the lift. He began yelling something at the top of his lungs at the people on the stage but was drowned out by the cheering and backslapping. As Quaid yelled his objections, Norris lowered his head and sunk to his knees and just stared at the ground, shaking his head back and forth unnaturally, the front of his shirt covered in a whitish, dare I say, greenish vomit.
The repetitious music of the shuffling zombie line dance below was being piped into the pool area through large amplifiers positioned around the deck. When there was finally a break in the music as the track restarted, I finally heard what Quaid was shouting at the people on the stage, “They cheated! Took the bloody lift, they did! The whole show’s been rigged from the start!”
Norris began trembling violently on the ground and I think I was the only one who was watching him as everyone else ignored the losers.