Adri turned to me slowly. I felt as though I was seeing him for the first time in a long while.
“Zo!” He said my name in a whisper. “I know you.”
I grabbed his shirt and burst into a million questions, tears of joy pouring down my face.
His face lit up, then dimmed.
My heart dropped. “What’s wrong?”
I could see the worry on Luna and Esme’s faces.
“You’re Zo, from Samaan Bay,” Adri said slowly.
That was all he could remember. He knew that he knew me and that, somehow, I was a friend, but that was all for now. Exactly who I was, how we’d met and the rest of our time together, back in Samaan Bay, were still shut up behind the Council’s door 197in his mind.
It hadn’t worked.
Adri stared at me, feeling my pain.
“I’m so sorry Zo.” His words tumbled out one after the other. “I know you’re my friend, but I remember what I did back at Lionfish Beach, the Ostrich Labs. I left you, sold you guys out, including your friends.” He turned to Esme and Luna, face twisted with remorse.
I didn’t know what hurt more, seeing the recognition on his face mixed with his still-lost memories, or the pain he felt at what a side of him had done.
“It’s okay,” I told him, trying to stop my tears and his. “It’s okay. Don’t worry. We can fix this.”
“Come on,” Esme said suddenly; fists wide on her hips, chess earrings swinging, eyes glinting in her wolf-moon face. “Let’s try again … if you’re willing, Adri. Let’s finish the job this time.”
I was shocked to hear Luna say, “Yes.”
Hope crept back into Adri’s eyes.
Then we heard the sound we’d been dreading.
“Ay-ay! Look at the par-tay! How come nobody eh invite me?” Cap’n Peg’s hairy voice filled the air. 198
I jumped. This time, she wasn’t a projection from our wristbands, but an actual flesh and furry-legged spider, hanging from one of the flowering bushes nearby.
“But where the cake?” Cap’n Peg swung closer. “You cyah have a party with no cake!”
I looked around for the Dragon Door, but there was none in sight. How had she gotten here without one? Maybe through one of the web portals I’d seen her and the spider-crew make, back in the forest of Samaan Bay.
“Surprised to see me?” her mandibles snapped open in a grin. “You all finished kiki-ing? Because we have work to do. And by we, I mean you.”
Suddenly a golden door shimmered into view behind Cap’n Peg. And it was open.
“Ew!” Esme covered her nose.
Luna gagged. Adri and I shrank back and tried not to retch.
From the door came the most disgusting smell. It almost overpowered the sweet scent of the garden around us.
Cap’n Peg climbed up onto the frame and sat on top of the door. 199
“Whew! That’s riper than my crew’s socks before washing day! But that’s life eh? One minute you’re up. The next …”
Suddenly, Cap’n Peg threw two thick ropes of webbing around Luna and Esme, yanking them through the open door. Before Adri and I could react, both they and Cap’n Peg were gone.
Adri and I rushed to the door and pushed our way in, not even remembering to grab our backpacks.
To our shock, we found ourselves sliding and spinning down a large, twisting pipeline, like a water-slide lined with grease instead of water, trying not to get tangled and stuck in each other’s arms and legs. We slid down and around until we were dizzy. Finally, Adri and I flew out of the pipe at top-speed, flipping into the air, shouting at the top of our lungs, with no clue where we would land.
Out of the blue, I was gripped by what felt like several pairs of metal hands that lifted me through the air. Adri was flying right next to me. He and I were being carried, some would say kidnapped, by what I could only describe as two flying machines made of trash.
One of them seemed to be made of tens of empty 200food containers, joined together to form a Jenga-like, building-block body. The other was made of melded plastic bottles and bags, like a weird hot-air balloon.
Attached to these bodies were old helicopter rotors and wings, spinning and keeping us in the air. From the base of each frame, several steel rods hung down like legs, each ending in a pair of grips that looked like large versions of the metal claws used to grab stuffed toys in an arcade.
Those claws were holding Adri and I around our shoulders, upper arms, and waists, airlifting us to who knows where.
Above us, the two machines beeped and rattled in what seemed like their own language. Were they simply machines or a form of artificial intelligence? I had no idea, but they smelled like the work of the Council.
Literally. The air stunk – a funky, chemical, smoky, acrid smell, just like the odour that had come through the door into the garden.
Speaking of the door. Where were Luna and Esme? Where had Cap’n Peg taken them?
“Look down!” Adri shouted. 201
I did and saw something I couldn’t un-see.
At first glance, it seemed like we were flying over the biggest dump, or labasse as we called it in Trinidad, that I had ever seen. It was about the size of several towns. But as I looked closer, I realised that this was more than a dump, it was a trash city. There were things that looked like skyscrapers, statues, vehicles, homes, streets and streetlights, bridges, mountains, rivers, valleys, lakes, plains, cliffs, and plateaux, all made from different kinds of trash.
The machines flew lower. Now I could really see what the place was made of.
Anything unrecycled and unrecyclable had made its way here. There were single-use plastics, including bottles, bags, disposable containers, food cartons and wrappers, plates and cutlery, plus styrofoam objects of every kind, batteries and broken lights. There were PVC pipes, discarded furniture and household appliances, spray cans, old car parts, scooters, skates, and bikes, tossed building materials, used computer parts and cracked mobile phones, plus clothing made from non-biodegradable materials.
This didn’t include what looked like industrial waste spilling out of giant pipes into lakes made of 202oil spills, artificial dyes, detergents, chemical cleaning solutions, sprays, and liquids. They all mixed together to form a pungent, almost unbearable smell.
“What is this place?” Adri muttered.
I had no idea. The only signs of life I could see were more trash-machines, in all kinds of shapes, sizes and materials. They seemed busy sifting, sorting, demolishing and re-shaping the trash around them, like a robot colony, or workforce. They were loud, communicating through a series of beeps, bops, whistles, squeals, revs, whirs, buzzes, shrieks, and roars, as they went about their day.
In addition to their various sounds, the machines also moved in different ways based on their construction and materials: driving, rolling, crawling, flying, burrowing, leaping, swimming, sliding, stomping, slithering and running through the trash-scape as if it were their home.
Maybe it was.
Soon we were flying over what looked like a huge stadium or arena, made, like everything else, out of trash. From it rose a roar like the noise of a crowd at a football match. From this height, I could see the wide, sunken field in the middle of the stadium, 203shaped like a giant bowl. It was surrounded by a sheer wall, impossible to climb, then a circle of stands, with rows and rows of seats: a place big enough to hold thousands of people.
The machines that were carrying us descended.
Finally, they were going to put us down, but why here?
As they dropped to the middle of the stadium, I understood. The seats were filled with machines of all kinds, in a frenzy of excitement. I could hardly hear myself think above the noise of the crowd.
Down on the field, I realised that it too was made, not of grass, but of compacted trash. In the middle of the field were five columns standing in a row. Chained to each column by their golden wristbands, were our friends, Luna and Esme.
Attached to the other two columns were two of their friends from Dragon Mouth Island: Martí and the little boy, Kendi.
My heart sank. Where were the others?
All of the rucksacks were piled at the base of the fifth column: a visible reminder of everything we’d been through so far. As the flying machines dropped us off next to our fellow survivors, we could see 204that they were out cold, as if in a deep sleep.
What fresh madness was this?
“Hello Bots and Machines!” Cap’n Peg’s voice boomed over loudspeakers, while her image hung over the stadium, “Welcome to your entertainment extraaaavanganza!”
Why did she sound like a wrestling announcer? Whatever the reason, it couldn’t be good.
Cap’n Peg kept going: “Today, we have for you a contest between man and maaachine!”
The crowd booed at the word “man” and cheered loudly at “machine”.
Cap’n Peg’s image continued, unfazed. “We have before us one of our top Warriors: Adri Khan! And Zo Joseph, our resident Memory-Worker!”
The crowd booed.
Adri and I stared at each other. What were we being set up for?
“One will fight the Beast!” Cap’n Peg declared to deafening noise from the stands. “The other will free the Champions!”
Oh boy.
Adri reached out and took my hand in his. It was surprisingly warm and comforting. I just 205kept breathing.
It was a relief to be able to focus and control my abilities, without falling into his memory when he held my hand. I couldn’t thank Esme enough. Now I just had to rescue her from whatever this was.
“With the one called Zo’s help,” Cap’n Peg pointed at me with one sharp furry leg, “each champion must go back to a key memory: the moment when they first used their powers.”
There were screeches and boos from the crowd. What did they have against gifted kids?
“I heard some gifted kids made them,” Adri muttered, “to work as free labour for the Council.”
No wonder the machines were angry. The Council was probably using this tournament as a way to distract them from more important things, like demanding their freedom.
Cap’n Peg kept rolling, unfazed by the noise of the crowd.
“Zo here, will help the Champions find a word or phrase from the first time they used their powers: any of the key words from the entrance interview our esteemed Head-high-mistress-ness Yara did with each child, when they first came to the Big House 206on Dragon Mouth Island.”
By ‘came to Dragon Mouth Island’ I assume she meant ‘were taken there by trickery or by force.’ A wave of anger ran through me. I gripped Adri’s hand tighter.
Meanwhile, Cap’n Peg’s image looked over its shoulder. Clearly, whatever room she was in, she wasn’t alone.
“I know, I know, Your High-most-less,” she muttered irritably, “I getting to that.”
She continued: “Only when Zo, then the Champion she’s with, says those words out loud,” Cap’n Peg announced with a high dose of drama, “will the Champion’s chains break free.”
The machines burst into a volcanic din. It sounded like they were mostly rooting against us.
Cap’n Peg’s image let loose a foghorn blast for silence. The machines piped down.
“Then, and only then,” she rolled on, “will the Champions have the chance to help the Warrior, Adri … Hopefully, he survives that long,” she cackled.
The crowd cracked up with mechanical laughter.
I glanced at Adri in horror.
“The rules are … no machines from the stands are 207to intervene in today’s match!”
Some of the machines booed that announcement at first, but they quickly piped down as more of the flying machines that had brought Adri and I here, hovered in front of the stadium.
Clearly, the Council believed in enforcement.
“As I was saying before I was so rudely interrupted,” Cap’n Peg continued, smirking. “The Memory-Worker: that’s you Girlie,” she clucked at me almost sympathetically, “must access the Champions in the order in which they are presented!”
“And our Champions are, in order … Drumroll please!”
A drumroll came out of nowhere.
“Luna the Light! Esme, the other Memory-Worker! Martí, the Amazing Insect. And, last but not least … Kendi the Bird-caller!”
Amazing Insect? Bird-caller? Okay, those powers didn’t sound too powerful.
There were a few isolated cheers from the crowd of trash-machines, but mostly loud boos.
Cap’n Peg’s image looked over her shoulder again at someone off-screen, muttering, “That is all? These children against the Beast? Kendi the Bird-caller … 208What is that? He does talk to parrots or what?”
She seemed annoyed.
“That eh no contest. This is wickedness, oui!” Cap’n Peg waved her robotic leg in protest.
Then she glanced back quickly, “Okay, okay, cool it. Don’t get your knickers in a knot.”
She dropped her leg back into place with a forced laugh, “Anyway, it eh my business. Once you all paying me, I good. I just hope at least some of them survive, especially the Girlie. Or the Boss Lady will take mih good eyes!”
“Alright, I agree. Enough ole talk.” Grumbling, she turned back to the stadium, took a deep breath and shouted: “Let the gaaaaaaaaaaaaaames begin!”