This book is based on real events. Only the people, places, and events are fictionalized. The stupidity is 100% real.
Cynthia was back home, asleep (in her bed this time) at one in the morning when her microwave emitted a high-pitched, ear-splitting screech.
Cynthia bolted upright in her sheets and groggily made her way to the kitchen. She opened and shut the microwave door, stopping the God-awful tone, and was about to return to bed when its display lit up.
Text scrolled across the small LED screen that usually showed the microwave’s timer.
HI CYNTHIA.
It was the type of smart appliance Palo Alto product designers had convinced themselves would “make the world a better place” by learning customers’ habits, reporting bugs and malfunctions to the manufacturer, and suggesting optimal power levels, timing, and recipes. In reality, they connected a microwave to the internet because everyone else was doing the same with blenders, toothbrushes, refrigerators, and all other three-dimensional objects that could possibly collect user data to be sold to brokers who would then sell it to advertisers.
Cynthia bought the microwave because it was a nice shade of blue.
She certainly never used its internet connectivity to optimize the default two minutes on high she nuked literally every dish shoved into it. She did, however, occasionally wonder why her social media was deluged with ads for frozen mac and cheese.
Cynthia pursed her lips and shot worried glances at the corners of her apartment.
YES, YOU, CYNTHIA.
“Is this bluebunny?” she asked out loud, unsure where to direct her question, so she looked at the microwave.
YOU SHOULD CERTAINLY HOPE SO.
“How did you get into my microwave?”
THIS PIECE OF SHIT HAS THE SECURITY CONTROLS OF A ROCK. IT ALSO HAS A BACKDOOR TO YOUR ROUTER, WHICH LETS ME CONTROL EVERY OTHER POS IOT APPLIANCE IN YOUR APARTMENT.
The kitchen lights flickered on and off, her coffee maker brewed a pot, and the refrigerator started belting showtunes. The impromptu carnival lasted 30 seconds before everything shut down and Cynthia’ apartment returned to its prior darkness.
“Very spooky,” admitted Cynthia.
YOU HAVE NO IDEA.
“I’m glad you reached out. Let’s talk business.”
GO TO YOUR COMPUTER. MICROWAVES ARE NOT THE MOST ELEGANT COMMUNICATION DEVICES.
“I… don’t know where the charger is…” admitted Cynthia, slightly embarrassed.
ARE YOU SERIOUS…
“Yeah!” she replied defensively. “I haven’t been able to find it all day! It’s not in its usual spot!”
…
The microwave went dark for 30 seconds.
IT’S ON YOUR IKEA BOOKSHELF. SECOND SHELF FROM THE BOTTOM.
“Which one?”
THE ONE IN YOUR LIVING ROOM.
“How do you know that?”
I HAVE ACCESS TO ALL 12 CAMERAS IN YOUR APARTMENT.
“I didn’t know I had 12 cameras in here!” Cynthia exclaimed.
YOU’D BE SURPRISED WHERE MANUFACTURERS HIDE THEM. JUST PLUG IN YOUR COMPUTER. PLEASE.
Cynthia did as directed and was mildly surprised to find a blank white screen appear on her computer rather than the usual pathologically cluttered desktop. Black text appeared on the light background.
bb: That’s better.
Cynthia looked around her apartment again.
“Should I write back or can I just talk out loud…?”
bb: Talking is fine. Your apartment is packed with 27 appliance microphones.
Cynthia pursed her lips.
“OK,” she said. “I’m sure you’ve taken a deep dive into my history and accounts. What did you find out?”
bb: You’re subscribed to five different paid streaming services you haven’t used in more than three years. I took the liberty of canceling them.
“This is the greatest hack ever,” mumbled Cynthia, more to herself than her hacker.
bb: You’re also a decent journalist with shit luck. You’re desperate.
“I could’ve told you that without you spending half a day breaking into my accounts.”
bb: It took 10 minutes. Your passwords are… laughably terrible. “Hottyhoochie123”?
“OK, that one’s from high school,” shot Cynthia. “No need to come at me so hard.”
bb: Alright. Point is, you’ve got a good track record, you’re low on funds, and you’re hungry. Which leads me to ask what exactly you want from me.
“Cards on the table, I want your help and I’d like to help you in return,” said Cynthia. “I heard rumors that you have access to the inner workings of Governor Santos’ office. I’m trying to piece together exactly what she has planned for the Bulge. You have the data, and I can synthesize and collate it with other sources. If the governor is up to something nefarious, you can help take down one of your biggest targets, and I get a Pulitzer. We both win.”
A few seconds passed before bluebunny responded.
bb: And you’re willing to deal with a hacker with unknown motives using questionable means?
“Yes,” answered Cynthia decisively. “I don’t need to know your methods. Are you game?”
Another minute went by without a reply.
bb: I have to think about it. Let me get back to you tomorrow morning. Anything else?
“Yeah. I need a scientist. A good one, and local who isn’t afraid of losing funding for investigating what caused the Bulge. Can you help me?”
bb: Let’s talk again in the morning. Goodnight.
The screen went dark. Cynthia stared at it for a few seconds before deciding she was way too wired to shuffle off to bed just yet, so she fired up Netflix and dove into a wonderful, ahistorically multicultural world of cravats, breeches, satin waistcoats, and heaving, corseted breasts.
Cynthia awoke the following morning—once more on the couch—at 11 AM. She glanced up at her computer, which displayed the blank white background. She sat up when text appeared on the screen.
bb: Christ, you like to sleep in.
“You woke me up at butt fuck o’clock!” retorted Cynthia with a yawn.
bb: That was 10 hours ago…
“Are you here to critique my lifestyle or help me?” asked Cynthia crossly.
bb: I can walk and chew gum.
A few seconds of silence passed while Cynthia glowered.
bb: Anyway, I found something for you.
“Oh!” responded Cynthia excitedly. “Is it something from the governor’s office?”
bb: I haven’t decided if you’re trustworthy enough to share something like just yet. I did, however, find you a scientist.
“Great! Who is it?”
bb: OK, well, I had a few criteria to fill. They couldn’t be affiliated with any research organizations or institutions of higher learning. They had to be accredited and have an impressive publishing history. Finally, they needed to be local because no one else would travel to Miami to investigate the Bulge. That essentially left me one option. Carlos Adab.
Cynthia blinked.
“You’re kidding.”
bb: I’m not.
“Isn’t that the guy who..”
bb: The very same.
“With the massive…”
bb: Yep.
A Filipino scientific wunderkind hailed as the new Neil deGrasse Tyson, Carlos Adab had the preternatural ability to boil down complex technical problems into easily digestible concepts laypeople could understand. A Harvard graduate and Rhodes Scholar by the age of 16, an MIT PhD by 20, and tall and handsome to boot, he was a social media phenomenon booked on the world’s most prestigious lecture circuits. However, Carlos’ runaway success halted dead in its tracks during a record-setting TED Talk.
bluebunny pulled up a YouTube video on Cynthia’s laptop.
It started as typical corporatist influencer fluff. Carlos stood on a crimson circle on a large stage before hundreds of onlookers. He wore corduroy pants and a tight t-shirt that showed off his biceps. It read, “I am the climate future.” He couldn’t have been more than 22.
“The real climate crisis,” announced Carlos as he paced the stage, tiny microphone bobbing by his chiseled jawline. “Is a crisis of communication. Environmentalists, conservationists, scientists, all of us, are great at speaking with our colleagues, comfortable in our little, acronym and buzzword-filled echo chambers. But, unless we bring most of the non-PhDs with us, we’re talking into the void. Nothing will change other than an increasingly hostile climate.”
This went on until the 1:30 mark.
“We can post, we can march, we chant until we’re all blue in the face,” said Carlos. “But, only when our elected leaders get involved, does real, meaningful change take place.”
Carlos cleared his throat and put a hand in a front pocket of his pants, trying to shift something without being overly obvious.
“Regulation and legislation are the most effective tools we have to address climate change at its sources,” he continued, hand still in his pocket and voice more strained. “But you don’t have to go all the way to the top. You don’t have to petition the president or even your senator. You can start with your local city council.”
The cloth around Carlos’ groin grew taut as his hand sought and failed to wrangle what seemed like unruly pants-bound iguana. The crowd began to murmur. Beads of sweet formed at his temples while his cheeks blushed bright red, but Carlos, an unhappy soldier committed to his mission, marched sternly ahead.
“As much as we all love to malign elected officials,” he persisted, face determinedly set while the crotchal protuberance swelled to new heights. “They only have so much bandwidth.”
Carlos had given up trying to control what had grown into a truly gargantuan, publicly televised erection that so strained his corduroys’ stitching that their bottom hems rose three inches, exposing the magenta socks beneath. His hand was now out of the pocket and held mechanically by his side as he walked. Every time the poor man turned in profile, a gasp rose from the audience.
A voice from the crowd yelled, “You’ll kill someone with that thing!”
And yet, flying in the face of male statistical biological probability, the erection continued its rise.
Other YouTuber reactions visible in the “Suggested Videos” bar later estimated that the hypotenuse of Carlos’ anatomical triangle measured nine, 10, and even a whopping 12 inches in length. Regardless of its specific dimensions, Carlos retained sufficient blood in his head and grim determination in his heart to run right through to the end of his talk five minutes later.
All punchlines fell flat. All insights went unheeded. By the time Carlos powerwalked offstage, head down, ramrod in his pants swaying left and right with each step, the crowd was in a near-mutinous clamor.
bluebunny closed the window. Cynthia had, of course, seen it. Everyone had seen it. The video had broken all prior YouTube view records and crashed the TED livestream landing page.
“That’s the guy you want me to work with?” asked Cynthia incredulously.
bb: That’s right.
“He’s, like, world famous,” she protested. “World infamous! And there’s no way he’s local.”
bb: Wrong. After the Ted Talk debacle, he was blacklisted from scientific research and academia. He had no other options to earn money, so he moved to the OnlyFans capital of the world. Which is…”
“Miami Beach,” answered Cynthia, shaking her head.
bb: Correct! Our man’s been busy.
Two more tabs opened on Cynthia’s laptop. One showed Carlos’ Instagram account, which topped 90 million followers. bluebunny cycled through several videos, all of which showed Carlos sitting shirtless, visible only from the waist up, on a balcony overlooking the bright Miami Beach shoreline from hundreds of feet up.
Cynthia found it hard to concentrate on anything he said as her attention was far more drawn to his shoulders, arms, and six-pack abs, but she vaguely caught something about geoengineering, composting, and wireless energy transmission.
bb: Dude has a genius freemium business model, which you’d expect from, well, a genius. He gets megatons of views using free, sexy, but still censored content posted on social media. But, if you want the real goods, you gotta pay.
bluebunny closed Instagram and opened OnlyFans. Carlos now stalked the balcony in tiny soccer shorts, hands behind his back, with a full erection.
Cynthia swallowed hard, not even pretending to hear whatever peer-reviewed nonsense that gorgeous Southeast Asian man was spouting.
bluebunny closed the tab, eliciting an angry protest from Cynthia.
“Why’d you do that?” she cried.
bb: Because you need to focus, stop panting, and recruit Carlos.
“I’m not panting!” exclaimed Cynthia
bb: Your heart rate’s at 140 bpm according to your smartwatch.
“OK, you need to stop doing shit like that,” she answered. “Anyway, how am I supposed to reach out to him? Send a DM?”
bb: No. Even if his agency didn’t filter out your message, it’d be drowned out by the unsolicited dick pics.”
“Huh?” demanded Cynthia.
bb: Don’t ask. Point is, the only way to do this is to pitch him in person. He walks four blocks every day at 1 PM from his condo to his fancy yuppie gym. If you leave in ten minutes, you can still intercept him. Check your phone.
Cynthia flipped her old Samsung over and saw a map app open with a route from her place to South Beach. She contemplated whether she had the pure audacity to accost and enlist this world-renowned man with a world-renowned dong to her insane scheme. Then Cynthia remembered her Pulitzer and was halfway to the door before her phone rang. She stopped short and picked it up.
“Aren’t you forgetting something?” asked a robotic voice that sounded like Steven Hawkings.
“bluebunny?” asked Cynthia. “Why do you sound like that?”
“Once more, you’d better hope so,” came the reply. “And do you prefer this?” they added in Gilbert Godfrey’s voice.
“Good God, no!” responded Cynthia.
“OK, then don’t complain,” said bluebunny, returning to Hawkings’ artificially generated speech. “Look down at yourself.”
Cynthia examined the fuzzy house slippers, booty shorts, and oversized t-shirt a friend bought her in Key West that read “Ho Fo’ Sho,” and realized she probably looked far too crazy to approach anyone—much less a mega-hot, mega-influencer scientific savant.
“How do I know you’re not going to creep on me while I change?” she asked suspiciously.
“I have no interest in seeing you naked,” responded bluebunny. “I keep all the cameras and microphones in your apartment off when we’re not talking.”
Cynthia rolled her eyes.
“Fine,” she declared. “I just have to trust you, right?”
“You do,” said the computerized voice. “Now make yourself presentable and happy hunting.”
If you like our stories, check out The Miami Creation Myth hardcover.
