Carlos answered the bell without thinking about it. A woman stood in the doorway, attractive and apologetic, explaining that she had just moved in upstairs and wanted to say hi. She was planning to have a little housewarming party to get to know the neighbours and wanted to know if he'd like to come sometime next week.
Of course. I'd love to. Welcome, and nice to meet you.
As he stepped forward, she leaned in close and blew a fine white powder into his face.
He didn't flinch or step back, but something behind his eyes went quiet.
She walked in and sat down.
…
The next morning, Carlos's alarm clock didn't wake him up.
When he opened his eyes, something felt a bit off. For a moment he didn't know where he was. He was lying on his spare mattress in an empty apartment.
The television was gone. The stereo. His laptop with all his research. His hard drives. The wooden box his father had given him, where he kept his passport and his cash. His phone was missing.
He stumbled through every room in his underwear, opening cupboards that had nothing in them, standing in the kitchen where the table used to be. He opened his safe, bolted to the floor: all gone. Even his favourite bowl and cup were missing.
…
When he knocked on Marta's door to borrow her phone, she was surprised to see him.
I thought you'd moved out yesterday, she said.
At the police station they showed him the footage from his apartment block.
Carlos watched someone who looked exactly like himself carry his belongings down four flights of stairs and load them into a van parked on the street below. There was the woman, and another man he didn't recognise.
On the camera he saw himself making trip after trip up and down the stairs.
He was careful with the fragile things. He smiled on the stairs when the woman said something that made him laugh.
At times he even seemed to be having fun. He watched himself hold the entrance door open with his back and wait for her to come through carrying one of his favourite paintings. When, at last, the van was full, the camera showed him wave them away, like they were old friends.
The detective then showed him a second clip.
A different man, the same week, standing outside a nightclub on Carrera 7. A woman leaned in close beside him.
Over the next two hours they visited four ATMs across the city. At each stop he entered his PIN with the focused attention of a man who wants to get something right, counting the notes before handing them over.
When the fourth ATM returned insufficient funds, he stood there looking genuinely sorry and apologised to the woman before she walked away and left him alone on the pavement at 3am.
…
The drug is scopolamine, extracted from the borrachero tree that grows in gardens all over Bogotá, Colombia. It produces delicate white flowers that smell faintly of honey.
It is a beautiful tree.
It dissolves the barrier between your own will and someone else's instructions, so that what you are told to do becomes what you genuinely want to do.
And from inside your own head you cannot feel the difference.
The victims tell police the same thing. They felt helpful and warm and present.
It felt, from the inside, entirely like their own idea. They wanted to do it.
Carlos sat in the plastic chair long after the detective left the room, holding his head in his hands, staring at his smiling face frozen on the screen.
How was this possible?
Source note: Official UK travel guidance confirms the use of scopolamine in drug-assisted robberies in Colombia. It can cause rapid disorientation and memory loss, and can be fatal in high doses. Read the guidance.
Michael has spent much of his working life online—and much of the rest of it trying to stop that technology taking over. He has thrown a phone into a lake, locked devices in boxes and experimented with long periods offline. He writes about what helped, what failed and how to keep the useful parts of digital life.