Kidney seller in Egypt: $2,000
Kidney seller in Kenya: $650
Kidney seller in Moldova: $2,500 to $3,000
Kidney seller in Peru: $5,000
Kidney seller in Ukraine: $200,000
Kidney seller in Vietnam: $2,410
Kidney seller in Yemen: $5,000
Kidney seller in the Philippines: $2,000 to $10,000
Liver buyer in China: $21,900
Liver seller in China: $3,660
Courtesy of www.havocscope.com
11 - Smoker
The boy is certain he’s going to die.
He sprained his ankle falling into the pit, maybe even broke it. Now it’s swollen and blue, and has been that way for days. It’s bad, but it’s not the worst of his problems.
The pit is more than ten feet deep, and even if his ankle were fine, he’d never be able to climb out. For five days he’s been screaming for help, and now his voice is nothing but a dry rasp.
And all because of those stupid cigarettes.
It had been weeks since he had a smoke. His supplier had been arrested again, and although there were kids at school who bragged about smoking, no one would offer him a cigarette, or even give him the name of a dealer. That’s why he came to this part of town—a warehouse district of unused, rotting buildings, many of which were condemned, but no one wanted to waste the money or energy it would take to tear them down.
He knew if he was ever going to score himself some smokes again, this was the place to do it. Even if it was just one or two from some skank nic addict, it would be worth it. That day was the third time he detoured through the warehouse streets on the way home from school, and nothing. No one. It seemed not even the nic addicts found the warehouse district worthy of their attention.
So imagine his surprise when he saw an open door, and cigarette butts strewn on the ground in front of it, like they had no better place to be.
He stepped into the rotting building. The huge space smelled of evolving mold, and paint chips littered the ground like a fall of leaves.
Then he saw it—way at the back of the warehouse was a mattress. It was dirty, shredded, probably the digs of some homeless dude. Nothing was remarkable about it. What was remarkable was the unopened carton of cigarettes sitting on the mattress.
He couldn’t believe his luck! He looked around to make sure there was no one there, then hurried to the mattress, and, stepping onto it, reached for the cigarette carton.
Even before he touched the carton, the mattress fell out beneath his feet and plunged into the pit. Although the mattress had mostly broken his fall, his right ankle hit the ground unprotected. He almost blacked out from the pain, and when his vision cleared he realized what had happened.
He was furious. His initial thought was that this was some sort of practical joke—as if his buddies from school would be looking down at him at any moment, pointing and laughing, calling him an idiot. But he quickly came to understand that this was not a joke at all. This was a trap.
o;So what do we do if it says things are getting dangerous?”
“Damned if I know,” Hayden says. “That’s Connor’s department.”
There’s a console from which Hayden creates playlists and runs interviews for his Radio Free Hayden show.
“You realize that it doesn’t broadcast any farther than you can shout,” Starkey tells him with a smirk.
“Of course not,” Hayden says. “If it did, then the Juvies could pick it up.”
“If no one is listening, then who’s it for?”