THE ROAD OF TRIALS
FOR A WHILE the ambulance was relentless—rightfully so—in its critique of my driving. At some point, after almost colliding with a produce truck because I was in the wrong lane, I stopped responding to its warnings. The ambulance, in turn, stopped using conversational language with me, reserving its speech for alerts like “Vehicle parked on shoulder ahead” and “Likelihood of collision has increased by thirty percent.”
Ninety minutes into our journey, just as I was getting a handle on the driving thing, the road got impossibly bumpy. It seemed as though it had been intentionally left unpaved by eco-conscious residents, resulting in a tedious, bouncy trip through the foggy mountain roads. My speed wasn’t aided by the entrepreneurial endeavors of townspeople along the way.
The Costa Rica of 2147 was what one might call a second-world nation. Metropolises like San José, Alajuela, and Rincón de la Vieja had first-world facilities and infrastructure, but the rest of the country was still very much a touristy boondock. Therefore, it was no surprise that in Quebrada Grande, the roadway became littered with merchants stepping in front of cars, each attempting to hawk their wares to passengers. I’m certain those peddlers regretted ever stepping foot in front of my ambulance. Especially when I heard a loud bang. I worried I might have hit one of them, but thankfully I had only run over a coconut.
Just to play it safe from there on out, I pushed the flashing siren icon on the console. A blend of tuba-like bass and trebly alerts started blaring from the ambulance. That did the trick. Like the Red Sea parting for Moses, the merchants moved out of my way and created a path.
Following the ambulance’s GDS route, I turned onto a blessedly paved side road that led up the mountain. A proximity alarm flashed, and I winced as a huge people-mover thundered past overhead.
“What kind of psycho would fly one of those things so low?” I wondered, looking back at the huge flying machine. It was already little more than a gray dot in the distance.
“I’m sure I have no idea,” answered the ambulance dryly.
I glanced back down at the ambulance’s map display. I was nearly on top of the coordinates Moti had given me. Sylvia. Looking forward, I saw that we were heading straight for a nice mountaintop villa. Below it were slopes of cultivated grapevines. At first, it looked like my wife had booked a much nicer resort for her and Joel2 than the one we’d stayed at on our honeymoon. Then I remembered that she had been forcibly taken to this place, most likely by the Gehinnomites.
At the entrance to the winery, I took my foot off the gas pedal. The blip on the map display blinked, and the ambulance told me, “We have reached your destination.”
Just off the road were the remains of a gatehouse. It looked like it had been stepped on by a giant foot, or maybe a people-mover. About a quarter mile up the mountain was a three-story mansion, the only place I’d seen in the last ten minutes that could be housing Sylvia. I got out of the vehicle, wondering whether it was a good or bad thing that no welcoming committee came to greet me. Was it possible that nobody was watching the entrance?
Guess I’m about to find out. Sylvia is in there. Hero time.
“Don’t go anywhere,” I instructed the ambulance.
“May I ask, when will I get the results of my assessment?”
“Soon,” I said. “So long as you stay put and shut up.”
As I exited the ambulance, three unfortunate truths unveiled themselves to me:
I was about to enter a terrorist compound by myself.
I was utterly unarmed.
I had no idea what to do if I ran into the other me.
Wait: Can two of me even exist in the same space? I thought. If we touch, will the world end? I guess, technically, only one of me needs to make it.
“Actually, one more thing,” I said. “Do you have any weapons on board?”
“Is this another test? I thought you wanted me to stay put and shut up.”
“I do. After you answer this question.”
“No.”
“You mean, no weapons?”
“Yes.”
“What do you do in the event of, I don’t know, a violent patient?”
“Summon the police.”
Good thinking. Unfortunately, I’m an international criminal with no identity. I slid open the door connecting the front cabin to the rear and looked inside. Bandages, sheets, Band-Aids, and lotions—Moti probably could have MacGyver’d something with all this stuff, but I sure couldn’t. All I needed was something sharp, like a scalpel, but no luck. I next tried looking for warning labels, indicators of things that could inflict damage on people. Nothing. There was a gurney on board, but when I tried to take off one of its legs to use as a club, I only succeeded in pinching my fingers. I was getting frustrated and flustered. Also, I was scared that at any given point, one of my wife’s captors or an angry vintner might spot the trespassing ambulance on his property.
I had nearly resigned myself to grabbing a stick off the ground when I saw it: a tiny little warning label with a lightning bolt on it. Electric shock! I opened the metal box. It contained … a lightning gun! I would strap it on, kill all the Gehinnomites, and save my wife. The end.
I wish.
The box contained a portable defibrillator. Well, beggars can’t be choosers. I took the defibrillator out of the container and pulled one of its two metallic paddles from the battery pack.
“Hey, ambulance, how many zaps can each of these defibrillator pads handle before having to be recharged?” I asked.
The answer came back, “Three, each. You don’t need both to complete the circuit; each pad is a self-contained defibrillator.”
I grabbed a bandage roll and wrapped it around the paddle in my left hand, fashioning a crude, electrified boxing glove. I’d have to make physical contact to use it, and also risk shocking myself in the process. I thought about putting the other paddle in my back pocket as backup in case I used all three charges, but knowing me, I’d accidentally sit on it and shock myself out of commission.
I examined my handiwork. One man with a defibrillating hand versus an army of Gehinnomites. Do this, and I might get my life back. Don’t, and I’ll just die. No. I refuse to give Moti the satisfaction. Despite my feigned confidence, I felt stomach acid rising up my esophagus, and my chest felt frozen. Great. A panic attack. I breathed in and out, but spending more time in the back of a stolen ambulance was not going to fix that. Fuck it, here goes.
The first step of my plan was reconnaissance. I started by creeping up toward the villa, crouching low to stay behind the grapevines. I’m not an expert at these things, but I had played plenty of stealth-combat video games. Staying out of sight was always the prudent thing to do. I reached the entrance and took a quick peek inside. Several parked cars, a large RV, and a completely destroyed golf cart. No guards. Off to the side was a wooden sign pointing to La Jardín. I allowed myself another glance and, seeing no movement inside or outside, ran through the parking area until I reached the garden and hid behind a leafy wet bush. After several long moments of listening and shaking off bugs, I was convinced that no one had seen me. I walked down into the garden, trying to see any kind of activity in the house. As a result, I nearly tripped over something wrapped in a blue drape.
My clumsy misstep caused the drape to unroll slightly, revealing—ugh!—the corpse of a man whose neck had been violently broken. My stomach churned. I felt the sick coming up, but held it down. My teeth clenched involuntarily. Relax, dead people can’t hurt you. I squeamishly re-covered the poor guy’s face, wiping my hands on my white lab coat afterward. There was a branch nearby swarming with fire ants, which I kicked over to hold the drape down.
I looked up a stone stairway, hearing a repetitive metallic clicking coming from the villa. Some kind of security system? Stealing up the steps a bit, I saw the sound was merely from the latch of the rear patio door, swaying back and forth against its anchor. Why’s the door open? Is this what walking into a trap feels like?
I tiptoed up to the door, my defibrillator paddle held out in front of me like a shield. Having it probably did more to boost my confidence than provide any actual protection. As I reached the top, I could see the cloud forest below on three sides. If I wasn’t about to barf from terror, it would have been a beautiful view.
I peered around the corner of the patio to the inside of the house. The hairs on the back of my neck could have only been straighter if I’d been shocked by the Levantines’ security system a second time. I felt an inkling of wind, the draft causing the door to crack open and close, over and over, each time generating that click-clack sound. Now or never. I pushed the door open ever so gently, but it creaked ever so loudly.
The living room was also empty, but I could see drops of blood leading into the kitchen. I followed the trail, going down a flight of stairs and finding myself in an empty basement winery. The whole place appeared to be deserted and quiet. I continued tracking the blood until I reached a small door set into the red mountain rock.
Steeling myself and clutching my defibrillator, I pushed open the wooden door.
Inside was a mosaic of violence.
Oh no.
There were at least four distinct human bodies, all of whom appeared to be dead. Blood was all over the place. Furniture had been broken and tossed around. Near the center of the room was a severed arm, blasted off at the shoulder. It was repulsive, but I forced myself to look closer at the corpses. An old man, a Costa Rican guy with only one arm, an old lady with a huge hole in her chest, and a slumped-over man in a chair whose face I couldn’t see. No Sylvia. If she’d been here, it appeared she was gone now.
I couldn’t hold back anymore. I stumbled outside of the room, dry heaving against the wall. A few coughs and a good amount of spitting later, the terrible thoughts hit me.
I’m too late. What if she’s not alive? Do not think that.
I had to go back into the room. If there was any clue as to where Sylvia was, or whether or not she was—don’t think that—still kidnapped, I had to find it.
Despite more loud inner voices encouraging me to flee, I stepped back into the room. Carefully avoiding the copious puddles of blood, I moved closer to the slumped man in the chair. I didn’t recognize any of the other faces, and his seemed to be the least splattered in gore.
At close range, he seemed about my size. Fresh blood still oozed from a wound in his temple. His head hung downward, but I could tell his right eye—in fact, the entire right side of his face—had been decimated by whatever had hit him on the side of the head. Something strange about this one. Slowly, I lifted his head back with one hand, keeping my defibrillator at the ready.
Something really strange about this one.
I angled his head to the left, studying what I could make out of his face.
My face.
“Oh God.” I was looking at a bloody, bruised replica of myself.
My words echoed all around me, bouncing off the bricks, wine bottles, and the pulpy face of my dead other.