The Prize of Dysprosium

Chapter VI: To the Marrow

"The Governor might, now that he has been outed," I say although I don't sound sure at all. "Or maybe, if the girls know what's going to happen, they'll stay away from strange men inviting them to strange places."

At this Garmen sends me a tired look. "Would you have?" she asks. I don't answer because she's right. The time I lived on the streets I wouldn't have cared if I knew someone wanted to cut me open so they could eat my organs, as long as they fed me too. The truth is I might even think what Governor Raze offered was a better alternative – have one last meal and then die. When I was fourteen and starving, that fate wouldn't have seemed bad at all.

"Look, I know this luminary-"

"Alle," I say out of habit. Garmen send me a stern look.

"Alle. I know she's playing the long game here, I get that. It just seems unnecessary in some way."

"It's not even certain it'll get streamed," I say, "And if it does, it's not certain anyone will believe it. It's a long shot."

Garmen nods, but she doesn't seem all that convinced.

We spend the day doing nothing except drugs and drinking the rest of the red wine I stole yesterday. Garmen is in the middle of pointing out the clouds through the window when Ki Aimi swings herself into my room so the door slams against the closet, her eyes wild and alert.

"Oh my God, get downstairs," she all but yells. "You've got to see this. Quills! Ricardo!" she hollers down the hallway and then she's gone. Garmen and I exchange a look before both of us scramble to our feet. We rush down the hallway with Quills, Ricardo and Ki Aimi following right after and descend down to the ground floor where the rest of the prostitutes have gathered around the bar; some slung over the stairs, some on the refractory table, but with all their heads turned up towards the tv screen.

"What's happening?" Garmen asks Ginnifer who's standing beside us.

"Sammie, Frei and Brice were in the middle of watching the news when the newscaster suddenly gets a message that everyone should turn to channel fourteen-"

She says something else but I don't hear it. Instead I hear the story floating through the screen.

"-Starving girls?" a voice I know to be Mafalda's asks. But it's distorted and unrecognizable in every way possible. It's sounding over old footage of all the politicians in the White House cut together, underlining that this story could be about either one of them. I catch a glimpse of Governor Raze in the middle of the jumble and have to asphyxiate my own gasp.

"Yes," the transmission says – my words but not me. "The man in question has a stooge which he sends into the lower parts of the city once every third night or thereabout."

A collective gasp goes through my colleagues. I see Endria inhale and Carrie-Ann and Alivia begin whispering to each other.

"The stooge's job is to find female hooders or lowlifes, whoever is in need of food or other things you can only get for money, and promise them money and meals if they show up at a specific address at a specific hour."

"What?" Hannah exclaims in the middle of the crowd. "That can't be true."

"No, it can't," Ricardo says beside me. "Nobody from the Government would be that dim-witted as to act on those kinds of impulses, even if they had them. I call bull."

"I think it's true," Frei says. "This whole world would make much more sense if the Government is as perverted as we all know the rich are. And why would Piece lie?"

The fake name sends a pang through me like a dam breaking, and suddenly all my blood rushes freely past my ears. We here in the Cave are no strangers to weird urges, and we know how far some people will go to have them satisfied. We also know that the most polished people are usually the ones with the weirdest kinks. But still everybody here seems surprised. And if a bunch of sex workers doubt and find it unjustifiable that a politician, a country leader, does this in the shade of the night, then how are the middle class going to react?

Suddenly the gold bag in my closet seems all too noticeable.

"I bet it's Carlton," Brice says as I notice that Alle has made Mafalda cut out the time I say 'imagine' in the interview. She really is thorough. "Nobody takes their health so serious without having a few skeletons in the closet."

"I think it's Hera Thelonious," Endria says from the table and crosses her arms.

"They say 'he' multiple times, smartie," Alivia says.

"So?" Endria says with a lewd grin. "It could be to throw us off. We can't rule out the females because of a use of pronouns, we of all people should know that. I could imagine the first wife getting down and dirty with a lot of other ladies."

I don't say anything and neither does Garmen. We let the others come up with their own far-fetched conspiracy theories and hopes for another episode as soon as possible. I notice Barooba standing in the doorway to her office, looking at the screen after the interview is over, before I drag Garmen with me upstairs to make our own conspiracy theories about what this means.

It turns out Mafalda Kase might as well have dropped a bomb in the middle of the street and left it to the rats to clean up the mess. The story and the debate of whether or not the accusations are true is everywhere Garmen and I turn the rest of the day. We overhear it in the streets as we go for a walk, at home, at the crossbreeding cage and afterwards when even Gunnar asks whether we believe it or not and we answer that neither of us are sure.

"Personally, I don't," he says while he scratches the back of his head. "But those Government bastards? I mean, you can't help but wonder..." Garmen doesn't say anything but I know the talk makes her uncomfortable and that she wishes it would go away fast. I don't. Within a day I'm being quoted on different tabloids – not that I'd know, but at least according to the news – and Potentate Thelonious issues an official video statement about the horridness of the accusations.

"Whoever this 'Piece' is, they're a liar, and a thief," he speaks so it echoes from his podium in front of the White House, his eyes looking even more white than I remember them.

Behind him I notice Governor Raze standing unmoving. Has he told the Potentate the rumors are about him? Does the Potentate already know?

"And when we catch them," the Potentate says and looks straight at the camera, "They will be trialed for public dishonesty, and a failure to reveal their own identity."

His threat scares me to the marrow of my bones, but it's diluted with a sick kind of excitement. I did that, I shook him so much he has to address the entire nation as damage control. I can't help but think that finally I have something I have never had before: Power. It is a need I didn't know I have, but now that I've successfully made the whole country listen by just opening my mouth it's as clear as day for me that I've been carrying these secrets for too long.

After the statement, it's like the whole city holds it breath, waiting for whether Piece will tell another secret, make another move against the Government. Nobody believes it isn't a political stunt now, although it originally was about the money and the satisfaction of watching Ridder Shawthon's face. But I am sure only a few people have guessed the real reason why the interview was made in the first place. And it seems Alle has been beyond successful in her idea to drag the public into this game.

"K said it's a show," I hear Brice tell Sammie the next day as they walk past my room. "That means there are going to be more episodes."

And would you believe it. Not even three days later, when most of my bruises have faded to light yellow and some have disappeared entirely, Alle comes visiting again.