A wind gust knocks the single orange from Gabriel's tree planted directly on the Tropic of Cancer in Mazatlán.

Arcangel retrieves the fallen orange from a woman at the marketplace after miraculously towing a stalled truck with hooks through his skin.

A propane-carrying big rig crashes into a Porsche on the Harbor Freeway, killing the car's passengers and triggering a massive traffic jam.

Unhoused people move into cars abandoned by drivers fleeing the twin Harbor Freeway fires, forming an impromptu community.

Gabriel and Emi follow a woman arriving from Mexico to a hospital floor specializing in infant hearts and kidneys.

Rafaela overhears Hernando discussing the trafficking of a child's organs while visiting Doña Maria's house.

Rafaela steals a small cooler from Hernando's refrigerator on impulse and flees with Sol back to Gabriel's house.

Reports of oranges laced with a deadly narcotic rapidly spread across Los Angeles, sending the city into a panic.

Rafaela mails the cooler to Gabriel and boards Arcangel's northbound bus to escape the pursuing black Jaguar.

Arcangel tows a broken-down bus to the US border using hooks through his skin, dragging the entire Southern Hemisphere northward.

Hernando kidnaps Rafaela and their struggle transforms into a mythic battle, leaving Rafaela bloody and naked by the roadside.

Gabriel spots Rafaela collapsed on the highway shoulder and stops to rescue her.

A drive-by shooting in the freeway encampment triggers a military and LAPD massacre of the unhoused community.

Emi is shot during the drive-by shooting and dies in Buzzworm's arms as he carries her through the undergrowth.

Rafaela feeds the orange to the dying Arcangel, and Bobby lets go of the Tropic of Cancer line as his family reunites.

The novel opens with the orange falling from Gabriel's tree on the Tropic of Cancer, setting in motion a week of magical and political chaos. Arcangel, a mysterious traveler, retrieves the orange and carries the Tropic northward, bending reality as he moves. Meanwhile in Los Angeles, a freeway disaster creates an unlikely community while Gabriel and Emi uncover a deadly organ trafficking ring linked to Mexico. Rafaela, fleeing with stolen evidence, boards Arcangel's bus north but is kidnapped and nearly killed by Hernando before Gabriel rescues her. The military and LAPD massacre the freeway encampment during a drive-by shooting, killing Emi. The novel concludes with the wrestling match between El Gran Mojado and SUPERNAFTA, where Rafaela feeds the orange to the dying Arcangel and Bobby releases the Tropic of Cancer line.

The core events that reshape Los Angeles and the world.

Bobby physically overpowers a man who tries to carjack him at the cleaning supplies depot without breaking his stride.

Manzanar Murakami conducts his daily freeway symphony while the Japanese community of Little Tokyo tries unsuccessfully to have him relocated.

Gabriel tests new editor Terry with the phrase "pewter skies" and decides to pursue Buzzworm's suggestion to profile Manzanar Murakami.

Rafaela notices the orange has vanished from Gabriel's tree and discovers hundreds of crabs swarming the ground during a downpour.

Bobby receives a letter from an unknown cousin trapped in Tijuana who needs five thousand dollars to be released from smugglers.

Buzzworm gives his calculator watch and a poisoned orange to a young gang member who claimed to have seen bullets curve.

Bobby meets the snakehead in Chinatown and discovers his supposed cousin is a frightened twelve-year-old girl, not a man.

Buzzworm learns the young gang member died of a suspicious overdose, and that street vendor Margarita also died after eating an orange.

Gabriel and Emi dine at Hiro's Sushi, where Emi confronts a white woman who has placed chopsticks in her hair.

Time freezes briefly at noon and then restarts as reports of poisoned oranges flood every radio station simultaneously.

Emi tells Gabriel over the phone that the unhoused conductor on the freeway overpass is her estranged grandfather.

Buzzworm commandeers the NewsNow microphone and launches an improvised talk show broadcast live from the freeway encampment.

Bobby crosses into Tijuana, retrieves his young cousin Xiayue, and brings her back through Border Patrol posing as her father.

Buzzworm opens Rafaela's mailed package and discovers a preserved baby heart inside a small cooler.

All airbags in Los Angeles erupt simultaneously, stopping the military and police massacre on the freeway.

This pool follows the secondary characters and supporting events that give texture to the novel's week of chaos. Bobby's hardworking life in Los Angeles is disrupted by a stranger claiming to be his cousin, leading him into a dangerous trip to Tijuana and back. Buzzworm navigates his community and connects seemingly unrelated deaths — a young gang member and a beloved street vendor — to the poisoned orange epidemic sweeping the city. Meanwhile, the scale of the freeway disaster grows, and Buzzworm unexpectedly becomes a television personality, amplifying the voices of the unhoused. Emi's discovery that Manzanar Murakami is her estranged grandfather adds emotional depth to Gabriel's journalistic investigation. The pool ends with all of Los Angeles's airbags erupting simultaneously, finally halting the massacre and marking the beginning of the city's painful aftermath.

The lives and revelations surrounding the main crisis.

Arcangel wakes in Mazatlán and begins his inexorable journey northward, his path carrying him inevitably toward the orange.

The surviving passenger of the crashed Porsche reveals the driver blacked out immediately after eating a piece of orange.

Bobby quietly realizes that Rafaela ran away because she wanted something beyond the materialism his successful business provided.

Gabriel interviews Manzanar Murakami at Pershing Square alongside Buzzworm and senses something essential he must learn from the man.

Arcangel transforms into El Gran Mojado at a cantina cockfight and announces his upcoming championship bout with SUPERNAFTA.

Arcangel spends a day building Gabriel's property wall alongside Rodriguez, blessing and naming each brick as he lays it.

Rafaela recognizes the Tropic of Cancer line running through the orange in Arcangel's suitcase during the northbound bus ride.

The freeway encampment evolves into a functioning community complete with named streets, community gardens, and its own infrastructure.

Gabriel meets his contact Marcos in the Zócalo and receives a database documenting every person killed in his village.

Arcangel performs at Angel's Flight and Sol grabs the last remaining orange in Los Angeles, running through the crowd.

Rafaela wakes after her attack, walks north along the Tropic of Cancer line, and pulls herself into Bobby's arms.

Manzanar Murakami boards the helicopter gurney alongside Emi's body and loses his symphonic connection to the city.

El Gran Mojado sets SUPERNAFTA ablaze from inside his armor; the dying SUPERNAFTA shoots Arcangel through the heart with a concealed weapon.

Bobby catches the orange at the wrestling match and Rafaela has him cut it with Arcangel's pocketknife, revealing the Tropic line.

Buzzworm distributes all of his watches to community members after the massacre leaves time itself broken and unmeasurable.

This pool traces the emotional and revelatory moments that shift the novel's direction. Arcangel's northward journey begins as a quiet inevitability but builds into a mythic procession dragging the Southern Hemisphere toward the United States. Gabriel's unsettling interview with Manzanar Murakami and Bobby's quiet realization about Rafaela reveal the personal costs behind the novel's political scope. As the Tropic of Cancer destabilizes reality, Rafaela recognizes it running through Arcangel's orange on the bus, and the freeway valley transforms into a utopian community before violence destroys it. The pool culminates in the wrestling match and its aftermath — Bobby finally seeing the Tropic of Cancer line, Arcangel's death at SUPERNAFTA's hands, and Buzzworm's surrender of his beloved watch collection as time itself breaks down.