This book is based on real events. Only the people, places, and events are fictionalized. The stupidity is 100% real.
Cynthia sold the Elzos interview article for another $3,000. 13K for a few weeks’ work wasn’t bad but it didn’t make up for four months of unemployment. Also, though her reporting made a splash and elevated her profile, it wasn’t enough for the elusive Pulitzer. For a chance at the prize, she’d need to crack exactly what caused the Bulging, but that would have to wait, because she had a conference to attend.
She had been invited to participate in the Boulder Institute’s opening plenary panel at its annual climate summit in Miami Beach. It was part of the Boulder Institute’s convention series on art, technology, medicine, literature, business, and the environment that it hosted around the country. The climate conference was originally designed to congregate the world’s most prominent scientists, elected officials, activists, and private sector leaders to arrest humanity’s looming environmental catastrophe. By the time of Cynthia’s participation, however, it had largely transformed into a venue for politicians and multinational C-Suite types to lob greenwashing talking points at a captive audience.
It was a beautiful Friday winter morning in Miami Beach. The temperature hovered at 70 degrees, a light breeze tussled majestic royal palms arrayed down major thoroughfares like soldiers at attention, not a cloud was in the sky, and the streets were five inches underwater. An ill-timed king tide had pushed seawater up the street drains and manholes, inundating the entire city.
Cynthia showed her panelist pass to a parking attendant, who handed her a pair of complimentary, bright orange rain boots with the Boulder Institute logo before letting her through. She was glad to have them because, while splashing through the parking lot, she almost kicked a cuttlefish serenely cruising over the asphalt a half mile inland like it was on its way to an apartment showing.
Once in the lobby, Cynthia swapped her rain boots for a pair of sensible heels and entered the Miami Beach Convention Center proper, an enormous metal box whose interior looked like an empty Costco. Arrayed in aisles up and down the megalithic structure were small booths heralding underwater drones, living seawall construction, and turtle rescue organizations. Much larger displays were dedicated to the Meta virtual reality station, American Airlines eco-lounge, and Saudi Aramco hydrogen fuel exposition. The center of the warehouse had been converted into a serpentine racetrack half the length of a football field where electric vehicles did donuts. Shrieking tires echoed up and down the hall while a corner DJ booth pumped Danish electro-funk into the cavernous space.
Cynthia felt a wave of anxiety crest over her as she took in her surroundings. She was already nervous about getting onstage before a crowd of several thousand strangers, but the jostling multitude, harsh acoustics, and jarring clash of contradictions threw her for a loop.
“Hey, you doing OK?” asked a disembodied voice.
Cynthia turned around and met an unexpectedly concerned gaze. It belonged to a man in a rumpled blue suit with curly locks of brown hair, matching curly beard, a complexion bronzed and worn by exposure to the sun, and a kind, honest face. He was perhaps in his late-20s and looked like a taller, bewhiskered Frodo Baggins—an analogy made more apt by the fact that he was barefoot.
“This can be a lot, I know,” he continued, eyeing the Tokyo drifting Teslas.
Cynthia felt relief take a slight edge off her anxiety.
“This is nuts!” she waved at her surroundings. “What are Gucci and McKinsey even doing sponsoring a climate conference?”
She marveled at his serene demeanor.
“But you seem to be taking it all in stride.”
The man chuckled.
“Yeah, that’s ‘cause I’m microdosing. Want some?”
He popped open a prescription bottle holding slivers of hallucinogenic mushrooms.
“I also have gummies if that’s more your style.”
Cynthia desperately wanted to accept his offer but thought better of ingesting unknown drugs in unknown quantities from a person she just met right before a public speaking engagement.
“I’m OK, thank you,” she demurred reluctantly. “I’m Cynthia Burgos.”
“Oh shit!” he exclaimed.
They exchanged a kiss on the cheek.
“Badass! I read your article. I’m Noah Foster. You’re going to draw a lot of attention today.”
“Yeah, maybe.”
She shrank from the thought.
“Well, you seem to already know who I am. What do you do?”
“I’m just a geologist,” he answered with a shrug. “My day job means I mostly drill into Florida’s limestone bedrock and take core samples to check on the Everglades aquifer. But, when I’m not in a lab, I like to organize cypress dome tours, outdoor art installations, and other events that help folks disconnect from the concrete jungle and reconnect with Mother Nature.”
“That sounds lovely,” admitted Cynthia.
“You’re welcome to join us! We do a sunset drum circle the first Saturday of every month out on the pine rocklands along the L-29 canal and 325th Street.”
“Isn’t that just north of…” began Cynthia
“The Bulge, yeah I know,” answered Noah. “It’s still a beautiful community-building event even if the skyline’s changed a bit.”
“I might just join you,” mused Cynthia. “So, is this your first Boulder conference?”
Noah giggled.
“Oh no, I’m a hardened veteran doing my third tour. Luckily, I know one of the organizers who hooked me up. Otherwise, I’d never afford the $600 ticket.”
“What’ve you learned now that you’re on your fourth rotation?” she asked.
“Quite a bit,” he responded pensively.
Noah turned to face the hall.
“There are three kinds of folks here,” he began. “You see those clusters of people in tailored suits and sport coats scattered around the place? All Hugo Boss and Armani?”
“Yeah,” she answered.
“Those are the corporate guys. They’re here on behalf of the management consultancies, the big law firms, the Fortune 100 companies. Then there are the scientists. They love their fishing shirts and khakis.”
“What’s the third kind?” asked Cynthia.
Noah smiled mischievously.
“Ah! Those are my favorite people: the activists, also known as the weirdos. We’ve got ‘em in every flavor. See that lady in green leotard, tutu, and elf ears?”
Noah gestured at a tall blonde woman matching the description. She was deep in conversation with a man in Army pants, a filthy (formerly white, currently gray) long sleeve shirt, running shoes, and baseball cap.
“That’s Sofia Kuuk. She’s our resident Estonian wood nymph. Has an enormous following on TikTok. She dances around the hardwood hammocks. Poor thing gets wrecked by mosquitoes and poinsonwood, but she raised enough awareness to single handedly save thousand-year-old Tequesta midden mounds by Deering Estate from being flattened into a parking lot.”
“Who’s she talking to?” asked Cynthia.
“Julio Hernandez. We’re cool but some people think he’s a lot.”
“Why’s that?”
“Ah, well,” Noah raised his eyebrows. “They say he’s too much, you know? Julio claims he removed 26,000 pounds of trash from the mangroves, but he usually goes out alone so no one’s there to weigh it. There are rumors he just does it for the followers and media attention. He also runs a meme page and writes satire—it’s just too much for some. Like, maybe he should just pick a lane.”
Noah pointed at a tall, middle-aged couple in tank tops with matching, flowing hair.
“That’s Dan and Dorothy Damon,” he explained. “Hard-assed and persistent as hell. They’re the reason Miami Beach doesn’t allow Styrofoam in city limits even though the state preempted all municipal plastic bans. Behind them is Raquel Goldstein. She runs a nonprofit called South Florida Water Steward. Helped push the county’s fertilizer ordinance over the finish line to stop the massive fish kills in Biscayne Bay. She’s talking with Luis Aguila, a news anchor responsible for educating more South Floridians about local ecological threats than just about anyone.”
Noah turned to a man in khaki shorts and a shirt that read, “Don’t Trash Me, Bro.”
“Chico Redondo set up bucket stations all over the world so people can do their own beach cleanups. Next to him are Dani Dos Palacios and Drew Chau. They organize the monthly local climate happy hour. Harris Alex reports on all this for the Herald.”
A tanned woman with a magnificent head of straight, dark hair that fell halfway down to her back walked by next to a mustachioed man in a tweed suit and bowtie and a woman with a flouncy, flowing dress and light brown curls.
“And that’s MJ. She runs Clean Beaches Unite. Partners with the National Park Service to protect some of the most remote reefs and coastlines in the Upper Keys. She’s hanging with Alejandro Baez. He literally wrote the book on Miami climate change. And next to him is Yadi Paz, who is an incredible organizer and artist. And that’s just the activists I can see around us. There are plenty of others who put their all into protecting South Florida’s sensitive environments: Madeleine Man, Lee Suarez, Rela Bag, Spike Baldi, Launa Nolds, Bert Gomez, Dallas Cypress, Jorah Jacobs, the Gregs, the list goes on.”
“The weirdos seem to be some of the few people actually getting stuff done,” noted Cynthia.
“Basically!” replied Noah. “There’re only a few dozen advocates pushing to protect South Florida’s ecosystems working with a good cadre of city and county employees who implement these policies. Most of us don’t have a ton of money. The only reason we’re crashing this party is because we begged, borrowed, or stole tickets.”
“So, why crash the party?”
“It’s where the policymakers are,” he explained. “And we can sometimes corner them if we dodge their entourages. I’m not going to lie though, I mostly come to see my friends. Also, if I’m really lucky, I might actually learn something at one of these panels.”
“And which category of Boulder conference person do you fall into?” asked Cynthia.
“I mean, look at me!” he exclaimed, pointing at his feet. “I’m definitely a weirdo!”
Cynthia laughed.
“Why are you barefoot?” she asked.
“It keeps me grounded,” he said with a grin. “Also, helps save on shoes and scares away the boring people.”
A dog Cynthia first mistook for a chihuahua ran up and attempted to pee on her leg.
“What the…!” she yelled as she barely dodged the stream.
Noah looked down at the dog and frowned.
“Shit,” he muttered. “That means he’s…”
“Noah!”
A pale, lanky, dark-haired man with a vaguely South American (maybe Greek or Slavic?) accent waved from 20 feet away as he stalked toward them. He sported sunglasses, an all-white linen suit, and blue alligator skin loafers sans socks.
“You found Poochie!”
“Cynthia, this is…” started Noah once the man had closed the gap.
“Sergio Markolón!” he exclaimed, giving her an overly wet kiss on the cheek and an overly intimate embrace around the waist. “Noah! You must introduce me to your lovely companion! Don’t hog her all to yourself!”
“I’m Cynthia Burgos,” she recoiled out of his hug. “And—what the fuck!”
The dog Cynthia had initially identified as a chihuahua was something much stranger.
“Oh, don’t worry!” said Sergio, picking up his pet. “He’s a miniature Great Dane. Completely harmless!”
“Sweet Gregor Mendel!” thought Cynthia. “That thing looks exactly like a European hunting dog shrunken to the size of a house cat.”
“But…why…?” was all she could utter in disbelief.
“Haha!” exclaimed Sergio, ignoring the question. “I know who you are! You’re the reporter, aren’t you?”
“I am a journalist…”
“You should write a story on me!” he interrupted, boosting Poochie to a shoulder and launching into a practiced pitch. “I’m in the growth stage of building a Web-3 crypto exchange that facilitates trading non-fungible tokens whose values are derived exclusively from quantifiable environmental assets like mangrove plantings, manatee population tallies, Mongolian tundra preservation, and Madagascan baobab canopy cover to raise capital for mission-driven private corporations seeking Series A funding for profit-sharing ventures with historically marginalized communities in middle income countries…”
The five-minute-long, run-on, buzzword scramble to which Sergio subjected Cynthia elicited a nagging sense of déjà vu. She’d experienced something eerily similar—she was sure of it—though there was no way she had previously heard all those words in that insane combination. Only four minutes in did she realize that Sergio utilized a tactic honed by generations of unhoused people and sidewalk signature collectors: mercilessly talking at someone until they gave you their money, email, social security number, anything as they desperately sought to escape the verbal assault.
“Ms. Burgos!” came a loud voice from behind Cynthia just as she thought she would chew through her own arm and chuck it at Sergio to get him to shut up.
“We’ve been looking everywhere for you!” announced a woman in a pencil skirt and headset framing an up bun. “We need you on the main stage now! You go on in five minutes.”
She put an arm around Cynthia’s shoulders and dragged her away. Noah looked like the last man standing on the Titanic as Cynthia glanced back and mouthed an “I’m sorry!”
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