This book is based on real events. Only the people, places, and events are fictionalized. The stupidity is 100% real.
Monica poked Cynthia awake with an umbrella.
“You didn’t shower,” stated Monica.
“Shit!” cried Cynthia as she lurched into consciousness. She furiously rubbed the sleep out of her eyes. “I was going to come onto Carlos!”
“No one wants you coming onto them if you don’t shower,” said Monica with a frown. “I could smell you from the other side of the door. Please go shower.”
She dropped the umbrella and walked out of the room.
Monica and Carlos were deep into a conversation about the likelihood of AI murdering everyone on the planet when Cynthia emerged from her room in an oversized T-shirt and jean shorts, her hair wrapped in a towel.
“Good morning, princess,” said Monica between chews. She sat at the kitchen island eating a mushroom omelet, a glass of orange juice by her side.
Carlos was busy at the stove. Cynthia cocked an eyebrow at the sight of his thighs stretching the bottom of a pair of running shorts.
“You want breakfast?” he asked upon turning around.
“Huh? Nothing!” exclaimed Cynthia.
Monica and Carlos gave her curious looks.
“Do you want some food?” said Carlos slowly.
“Isn’t it way past breakfast?” she asked.
“Sure,” he answered. “But it’s 8 AM somewhere. Here. Have an omelet.”
He served her a plate, brought it to the island, and sat at a stool.
“Don’t mind if I do.” She took the seat opposite his and stared at her plate to distract from the biceps bulging underneath his fitted long sleeve. “How long have you guys been up?”
“I woke up at 10,” said Carlos. “Mailed out the soil and air samples. We should have the results back tomorrow.”
“Cool.”
Cynthia took a bite of her omelet. It was pure fluffy, cheesy, savory goodness. The perfect post late-night crossfire meal.
“Mmmmm!” she exclaimed. “Not bad, Carlos! Did you put Manchego in this thing?”
“You got it!” he answered with a grin.
“What about you?” asked Cynthia, turning to Monica. “What’ve you been up to?”
“Got up at 9 and checked if there was any reporting about last night’s Battle of the Bulge Part Two: Moronic Boogaloo. The governor’s office is claiming it was all just routine demolition. No one seems to be contradicting her yet.”
“That’s what happens when you hollow out the Fourth Estate,” quipped Cynthia with a mouthful of eggs. “What’s on the docket for today?”
“I think it’d be helpful to talk to a Seabreeze Ridge resident who lived through the Bulging,” said Carlos. “I’d like to have some context on what happened before and during the event. It could prove useful for trying to figure out what caused it.”
“Ah, OK. We can reach out to the woman I used as a source in my first article,” offered Cynthia. “She lived smack in the middle of the Bulge and stayed there right until it destroyed her house.”
Monica perked up.
“Does she speak Spanish?” she asked.
“Yeah,” answered Cynthia. “But we spoke in English. She’s Colombian, I think. Came here with her parents when she was 12.”
Monica furrowed her brow.
And how old is she now?”
“Mid 20s, probably.”
“Uhuh, OK,” Her voice turned serious.
Afternoon light reflected off the Atlantic and danced across Monica’s face. Cynthia thought she had gorgeous skin, with barely a blemish or wrinkle. But her dark eyes were guarded, even when she was cracking jokes. They had a sad, weary quality to them, like she carried an invisible weight she didn’t want anyone to see. Cynthia wondered how old Monica was. She didn’t really know very much about her other than the few snippets she’d let drop during their misadventures.
“I should probably come along for this one,” announced Monica.
“What do you mean by ‘come along’?” asked Cynthia. “I thought we’d just call her from a payphone or something.”
“Not a good idea. First off, you won’t find a payphone outside a museum. Secondly, Santos and Elzos are probably monitoring the communications of everyone you’ve talked to in the last six months. This has to be an in-person thing.”
Cynthia frowned.
“Wouldn’t they also have someone watching her? Like, sitting outside her place in a car or something?”
“Almost certainly not. Maybe outside your parents’ house, but they’d have to hire 100 goons to physically monitor people not in your immediate inner circle. It’s just way too expensive. That’s why they usually elect to only track phones.”
“So, what are we supposed to do?” asked Carlos. “Just show up at her place?”
“Exactly that,” replied Monica. She drained the last drops of her orange juice, rose from her stool, and whipped her phone out of a hoodie pocket. “Cynthia, what’s this woman’s name?”
“Rosa Alarcón,” she answered through the last bite of her omelet. “But how are we supposed to find her? I don’t have an address or even the slightest idea what neighborhood she’s staying…”
“Aaaaand here we are.”
Monica glanced up from her phone, concluding her search before Cynthia had the chance to complete her sentence.
“Rosa Alarcón. 23 years old. Former resident of Seabreeze Ridge. Currently living in a FEMA-sponsored motel next to the airport. Is this our girl?”
Monica flashed her screen at Cynthia, which showed a petite woman with an upturned nose, round cheeks, and a pixie cut with purple dyed tips.
“Yeah, that’s her,” answered a stunned Cynthia. She slowly turned her head to Carlos, whose awestruck gaze mirrored her own.
“Cool. Alright folks, finish your food and let’s get rolling. Clock’s ticking.”
The Ocean Vista Motel was a shabby establishment located six miles from the nearest significant body of water—an irony not lost on the 200 former Seabreeze residents who inhabited it. Wide-bodied passenger airliners buzzed overhead every few minutes on their way to touching down on Miami International Airport’s runway just behind the parking lot. The two-story cinder block structure’s original white paint job had been tinged light brown by six decades of accumulated jet fumes. Exposed rebar poked through cracks along its open staircase and catwalk while the second-story iron banister was so rusted it seemed the next stiff wind would knock the whole thing over. Across the street was a self-storage facility where either the maintenance team hadn’t changed the fluorescent bulbs in a while or someone had decided on a cheeky bit of vandalism, because the 10-foot-high entrance sign read “Pubic Storage.”
Monica pulled her van into a parking space.
“Jesus,” muttered Carlos with a glance at the motel’s dilapidated front. “This is where they’re keeping the Seabreeze Ridge refugees?”
“Were you expecting the Ritz?” replied Monica.
“If the Bulging had happened in Coral Gables, I bet you anything they would’ve housed them in the Ritz,” said Cynthia, referring to Miami’s much wealthier tree-lined neighborhood.
“Yeah, well, people in Coral Gables have enough money to make political donations,” retorted Monica, undoing her seatbelt. She grabbed what looked like a metal cigar box from behind her seat. “These people don’t. They’ve been ignored by local and state leaders for their entire lives because they were poor. Why would that change now that they have even less?”
Walking through the first floor, the three noticed clothes, bags, and other personal belongings strewn through the hallway. A small crowd of people by an ancient vending machine consoled a crying woman.
“What the hell happened here?” asked Carlos as he climbed the stairs and did his best to not touch the rusty banister.
“Nothing good,” replied Monica darkly.
They approached a room with a broken door frame. Monica frowned.
“You two hold back a second,” she said, stopping Cynthia and Carlos ten feet from the slightly ajar door. “Let me take point.”
They nodded. Monica took a deep breath and knocked.
A small, young woman opened the door. Her eyes were bloodshot. Streaks of eyeliner ran down her cheeks past the bob of her short-cropped pink hair.
“Rosa?” asked Monica.
“¿Qué quieres?”[1] demanded the woman.
Monica opened the metal box she carried in her arms. On the inside of the lid, just above the hinge, was a handwritten sign that read, “Put your phone inside the box and I’ll give you $1,000. You can keep all three.”
Monica reached into her hoodie and pulled out a tight roll of $100 bills.
Rosa squinted at Monica.
“Is this some kind of joke?”
Monica shook her head and handed over the bills. Rosa undid the rubber band and counted them. She gave Monica another side-eye before reaching into her pocket, removing an old Samsung with a cracked screen, and placing it gingerly inside the box. Monica closed the lid and handed it to Rosa.
“That’s a Faraday box,” explained Monica. “It’ll block la migra and anyone else from listening to our conversation.”
“Who said I want to talk to you?” asked Rosa, deep skepticism etched on her face.
“Hi, Rosa!” exclaimed Cynthia, who approached with a raised hand. “I’m Cynthia—the reporter. We spoke on the phone a few weeks ago about your experience during the Bulging.”
The look on Rosa’s face morphed from surprise to recognition to blinding fury.
“¡Malparida hijueputa!”[2] yelled Rosa. She strode into her room and slammed the door, which rebounded off the doorframe.
[1] “What do you want?”
[2] “Fucking bitch!”
