Joel2 tsk-tsked. “Those bumps must have really rattled your code.” Still, he patted the cart on its hood and crept into the parking area. It was empty, but he thought walking through the front door was probably a bad idea, especially since he didn’t have any weapons. A hand-carved wooden sign hung off to the right side of the house, labeled LA JARDíN in white paint. He walked past it and then down a steep flight of stone steps. Moist fallen leaves squished beneath his feet, making him slip.
Fuckin’ Monteverde, he thought as he continued into a lush, overgrown jungle garden. Everything here is always uphill or downhill. Why can’t they just build things at street level?
Because we’re on a mountain, Joel. Mountains go up and down. Do I need to remind you what monte verde means in Spanish?
He passed a half dozen tables and a small apiary. Reaching the other end of the garden, Joel2 found himself at the bottom of another stone stairway. This one led up to what looked like a wide patio on the back of the house. He scanned the nearby area, finding a mossy baseball-bat-sized stick and hefting it in his hand. It wasn’t an assault rifle, but it was better than nothing.
Joel2 double-checked his comms. Sylvia was definitely inside. He was about to head up the stairs with his branch when the back patio door slid open. He ducked behind a broad ceiba tree. Footsteps squished down the wet stairs, then foliage crunched as whoever it was walked directly toward Joel2’s hiding spot.
The person started whistling. It sounded as though they were watering the tree. You’re in a cloud forest idiot. Nobody’s watering shit. That’s a guy taking a leak.
Joel2 tightened his grip on his bat-branch. Sharp, stabbing pains made him look down at his hand. The branch was crawling with red ants. Fire ants. Still—this was his chance. He was tougher than I would have been in that situation. And he proved it, stepping around the tree trunk and swinging the branch like Ted Williams going for the fences.
The urinating man had barely managed to turn and look at his assailant before Joel2 hit him at the base of his skull. Whether it was the adrenaline pumping through his veins or some kind of hyperactive drive to live, Joel2 swung much harder than he needed to. The guard’s head snapped backward, cracking against the tree trunk behind him like an egg on the edge of a bowl. He stared at Joel2 for a brief moment, a look of pure confusion on his pockmarked brown face. Then a line of blood dribbled out of one nostril and he collapsed to the wet forest floor.
Joel2 dropped the branch, brushing the still-biting fire ants off his hand. He peered down at the unsuspecting Gehinnomite. The first thing that occurred to him was how ordinary the felled man looked. He wore brown corduroy pants and a tacky button-down shirt decorated in purple and yellow flowers. The next thing he noticed was that the man’s head jutted off at an unnatural angle from his body. There were two lumps in his neck where none should be. Spinal cord lumps.
The man was dead.
Previous to this, the worst act of violence Joel2 had ever unleashed on a fellow human being was a kick in the nuts. He tried to remind himself that this guy was no fellow human being, he was one of his wife’s kidnappers, and—just like in the boxing ring—this was an unfair fight that he had not chosen. He did what he had to do, using the skills at his disposal to survive. That didn’t stop a heavy, cold, and definitely sinking feeling from manifesting itself. It was like a brick of ice descending from chest to gut. This was not a kick in the balls. It was murder.
His throat rose involuntarily, but he managed to keep down last night’s dinner.
Amid the noises of the forest, a loud, deep birdcall snapped him out of his downward spiral. Sylvia, he reminded himself, brushing the last few fire ants off his arm.
Tabling his revulsion, he bent down to examine the dead man. In a makeshift holster on his hip was a smooth brown truncheon. At least that was something. “He had a weapon. It was self-defense,” Joel2 whispered. Unprovoked self-defense, came a niggling voice in his head, but he ignored it and grabbed the carved wooden club.
Joel2 slowly crept up the stone stairway, unsure of who or what he would encounter next. He reconsidered Julie’s suggestion to call the authorities. Maybe he was just being paranoid. Maybe IT was only trying to help. Still, now that he’d murdered a man, that option seemed more untenable than ever.
He peered over the top of the ridge to see the patio was empty. It also had an amazing view of the entire cloud forest.
“Eduardo?” a man’s voice called from inside the villa. “Eduardo? ?Sigues orinando?” His accent was too thick for Joel2’s comms to translate.
Joel2 hustled up to the patio and ducked behind a corner just as another man walked to the top of the garden stairs. He wore a Hawaiian shirt like Eduardo’s, and tan corduroy slacks. His face fell as he saw Eduardo’s body in the garden below. As the man ran down to it, Joel2 mentally kicked himself for not hiding the body.
“Eduardo—ay dios mío!” the second man wept.
Glancing down the stairs, Joel2 ascertained that the man was about the same build as him, and could be overpowered if need be. Just go for the knees this time. He clutched his truncheon, and was about to rush down the stairs, when a board in the patio deck creaked.
The weeping man whipped his head around. Seeing Joel2, his eyes burned with raw fury.
Joel2 backed away, raising his truncheon in self-defense, but the man was up the steps and upon him in moments. He grabbed the club from Joel2’s hands and swung it right into his forehead. Pain exploded like a firework in his brain. Joel2 dropped to the patio floor, shielding his face as fists, feet, and elbows rained down on him. Joel2 didn’t stand a chance.
“Stop. Please!” he screamed. “I’m sorry!”
The beating paused. Joel2 heard heavy breathing.
“Jes, now joo be really sorry,” the man responded.
Joel2 curled into a fetal ball. He heard the man walk a few paces into the villa. Something heavy was dragged across the terra cotta floor. There was a weird metallic clicking. A guiro? Joel2 wondered. Costa Rican music often featured the ridged musical instrument, sometimes made of metal, that rasped when scraped with a stick. But was his attacker really planning to kill him with a percussion instrument?
Joel2 peeked out from under his arm. Edification, unfortunately, did not bring relief. He found himself looking up into the business end of an antique weapon—which his comms helpfully identified as a Remington Model 870 Express seven-round, pump-action shotgun.
WITH FRIENDS LIKE THESE
“FELIPE, DETéN!”
The voice was strange, metallic, almost inhuman. It came from a speaker on the other side of the living room.
“He killed Eduardo!” the man spat defiantly on the patio. Joel2 craned his head to see who was saving his life, but the shotgun barrels blocked his field of vision.
“And we kidnapped his wife,” the robotic voice calmly stated. “He does us no good dead, Felipe. Come, bring him downstairs.”
Felipe cursed in Spanish. Joel2 could tell his would-be murderer was torn between following orders and letting him live, and following his heart and blasting his head off. “Fine, okay,” he begrudgingly said.
Thank God for you, robot stranger, thought Joel2.