Editorial: Boneslum Millionaires

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Type: Editorial Subject: Boneslum Millionaires; or, Kingpins of the Kaiju Black Market by Anonymous Chapter: Chapter 29, Page 288 Transcript: In every city where a Kaiju has made landfall, there’s a guy like him: the guy who shows up just after the kaiju has gone down, greases palms, makes sure the authorities look the other way long enough for people—the right people—to get to work. The black market in kaiju parts is one of the biggest untaxed—by which we mean illegal—industries in the world, surpassing the trade of endangered species. Anything people used to get (or think they got) from tiger blood or bear gall bladders or rhino horns… now they think they get it from kaiju bits. And the godfather of that industry was Hannibal Chau. He’s dead now. You may have heard. You may also have heard of the manner of his death, in which case you might see a certain poetic justice in the idea that kaiju kingpin Hannibal Chau was eaten by a prematurely born kaiju committing its single living act on this Earth. That’s karma, is one way to think about it. But you only know about Hannibal Chau because of the ostentatious ninety-year-old fashions and loud elective dental work. Did he have style? Yeah, in the way that gangsters have style because if they don’t, the kind of knuckle-dragging subhumans who work for them get ideas about taking over. Style keeps people cowed, especially when you combine it with violence. Was Hannibal Chau innovative? Absolutely. He saw the potential in the postmodern kaiju market is worth billions, and even government agencies need to work with the kingpins because they want what the kingpins are selling: for research so they can save the human race. The stakes couldn’t be higher. That’s why all the other kingpins, in Los Angeles and Sydney and Lima and Shanghai, are looking at each other and wondering who’s going to step into the void he left. With Chau out of the way, the kaiju black market is without its capo. There’s going to be a fight to replace him. Not that any of it will matter if the kaiju keep on coming. Pretty soon they’ll be trading human parts on whatever passes for a black market wherever they come from.