Protection 101

 

                Jonathan and Sergius lived together in an apartment on the edges of Detroit after serving together as snipers for the US military. A pizza was delivered that early evening and the two men sat together eating and watching the news, horrified and angry about the increase of sexual abuse against children across the country.

               “Sergius, we really need to do something about this problem that is destroying the innocence of the youth of this nation,” Jonathan said, “I have a few ideas which we should share with our fellow soldiers in the area.”

               “Alright, that sounds like a good thing for us to do,” Sergius said. “Let’s start making some phone calls and gather everyone together, to think, to plan, and to begin executing your ideas. I would hope that we can gather very soon and begin to take action,” he said.

               After multiple phone calls and three days later, the ten men that had worked together in Iraq met at an abandoned warehouse just inside the outskirts of Detroit. The warehouse was clearly no longer in use, but still contained a number of tables, chairs, and manufacturing equipment. “Thank you everyone for coming,” Jonathan said, “if you have been watching the news like Sergius and I have been, you will have noticed the increase in the sexual abuse of children across this nation. This is a horrible path that our culture has begun to travel and we need to take action against the perpetrators of these crimes.”

               The other eight men all spoke out in agreement, confirming that they had taken notice of these corrupt and perverse crimes. “I think the first step in beginning this work is to find someone who has computer skills to hack into the necessary systems,” Jonathan said, “and begin to track who these men are and when they will be released from prison.”

               “Yes, that is exactly right,” Sergius said, “it is not good enough to merely execute them when they are released, I believe we should tranquilize them, bring them to this warehouse, restrain them, and hire scores of other men to continuously rape them, so they understand the feeling of helplessness and pain, much like what they have done to these children.”

               In the back of the room, a younger man raised his hand and confirmed that he had the computer skills to find the identifies of these men and learn their release dates.

“I know several men in the LGB community, who feel as angry as we do about the suffering these children are undergoing, and would be more than happy to help us inflict this type of suffering upon the perpetrators,” Jonathan said. “With that in mind, I will begin reaching out to them, to find many other men who will assist us once we begin abducting and restraining these horrible people.”

               “Thank you for willingness to help, young man,” Jonathan said. “What is your name?”

               “My name is Arthur,” the young man said. “I need a couple of days to set up the equipment to begin this work, which should take place in this warehouse. You and I can exchange contact information so we can begin this work as soon as possible.”

               “Again, thank you everyone for joining us, and being willing to step up and protect the youth of this nation and our area,” Sergius said. “Everyone please provide us with your contact information, I recommend using burner phones so we cannot be tracked.”

               The ten men all departed from the abandoned factory and scattered in many different directions. After setting up his computer system in the abandoned warehouse, two days passed and Arthur communicated the information about three men who would be released from prison in the next few days. “Jonathan,” he said, “our first perpetrator will be released the day after tomorrow. We need to set up a room in the abandoned factory to restrain him, and we need to pick up equipment for your contacts in the LGB community to use upon all three of them.”

               “Very good, Arthur, thank you for the phone call,” Jonathan said. “I’ll reach out to the others and communicate what needs to be done. I know that my contacts will be happy to assist us in this work. I’ll contact Edward about preparing his tranquilizer rifle for bringing down the first perpetrator, I trust we know his home address?”

               “Yes, I have his home address,” Arthur said, “I’ll send it over via text right away so we can plan accordingly. It would be great if we could have the room in the factory set up and ready for use by tomorrow afternoon at the latest.”  Arthur ended the call, entered the address into his phone and waited for a reply from Jonathan that he had received the information, which came back in less than one minute.

               After jotting down the perpetrator’s address, Jonathan searched on a physical map to find the location and then began making several phone calls to the other soldiers, communicating the details of what needed to happen in the next two days. “Phew, I am not too thrilled about going into a gay bar,” he grumbled to himself, “but I know I’ll find plenty of help there to deal with this horrible situation.”

               Jonathan found his keys, made the quick trip across town and entered the Rainbow Tavern to see his contacts on the opposite side of the room.  As he approached them, he ordered a round of beers for everyone at the table. “Gentlemen, I and my fellow soldiers have devised a plan for dealing with those who are guilty of the sexual abuse of children and we need your help,” he said.

               “It’s good to see you, Jonathan,” one of the men said, “yes, you absolutely have our support, no child should be abused in that way, the path of sexual activity should be chosen once one becomes an adult. Please tell us what you need.”

               “Excellent, I am happy to hear you say that,” Jonathan said, “one of our soldiers has exceptional computer skills and has been tracking who and when these men will be released from prison. Our plan is to tranquilize them, restrain them in an abandoned warehouse and have dozens of men continuously rape them so that they understand the pain and feeling of helplessness that the children they abused experienced.”

               “That sounds like a great idea,” the other man said, “anyone who abuses a child needs to feel that pain and the feeling of helplessness. Give me an address and a schedule for when this will begin,” he said, “I can think of about three dozen men who would be more than happy to assist you in this.”

               “Very good,” Jonathan said, “here is the address and once we have the room set up and loaded with implements for you all to use upon these deviants. We should be ready to begin on Thursday evening at nine in the evening. You all have the freedom to do whatever you want to them; the goal is to inflict pain and humiliation. Please be discreet in your travel to and arrival at the abandoned warehouse.”

               “Yes, of course,” the other man said, “I am thinking that each man should have about thirty minutes to work the perpetrator over, with a fifteen-minute break after each cycle of abuse.”

               “Yes, perfect, I was thinking the same thing,” Jonathan said. “Thankfully, one of our soldiers is well trained in the medical field, so we can monitor the perpetrators vitals during and after each cycle of abuse. If we start at nine in the evening, we can probably get three rounds of abuse in before we stop for the evening. We need to stay in contact as this progresses, as two soldiers will be on watch each day in six-hour cycles.”

               Jonathan and Edward met one block away from the perpetrators home, tranquilized the man as he exited his vehicle, watched him drop to the sidewalk to be enveloped in darkness, hurried to his location, and shoved him into their trunk for a quick drive across town to the warehouse. They arrived at eight-forty-five, pulled him from the trunk, dragged him across the pavement and into the warehouse to strip him naked, bind him to a table blindfolded with a rag stuffed in his mouth to minimize the amount of noise he could make to avoid drawing attention to their activities.

               At exactly nine o’clock, the first man arrived to begin his work upon the perpetrator. “Thank you for coming,” Jonathan said, “you can do to him whatever you want. We have a trunk full of implements that you can use upon him. The idea here is to inflict as much pain as possible. This is a very horrible person that we have abducted and from what we have read about him, he raped and killed four little boys due to internal damage from his violence against them, so do your best to make him suffer. We have medical professional here to monitor his vitals, so don’t hold back, do your worst to him.”

               Three cycles of abuse took place that evening and the man still had a solid heartbeat, giving Jonathan and Edward the opportunity to leave for the evening, as the naked man remained restrained to the table, quivering in pain and humiliation. Three more days of continuous abuse took place until the man finally expired from starvation and the physical trauma from the non-stop abuse. The two soldiers who were on watch that evening, unbound the lifeless corpse from the table, dragged it to an obscure corner in the warehouse to be wrapped in plastic and buried it where no one would find it.

               Jonathan and the other soldiers continued this sequence of events with eight more perpetrators and reached a point where no more child sex offenders were to be released any time soon. “Okay, gentlemen,” Jonathan said, “it seems that no more offenders will be released for several months. I will communicate this to our helpers at the Rainbow Tavern, so our work is done for now.”

               With his burner phone, Jonathan called his contact at the Rainbow Tavern to inform him that their work was done for now and he greatly appreciated their assistance in this work. “We will continue to monitor future perpetrators and will make contact again if we need your help.”

               “Yes, of course, Jonathan,” the man said, “all of us are very happy to help you in dealing with these horrible people. We have removed several very bad people from the world, so call again when you need our assistance, this is a very good thing we are doing.”

Permanent Obscurity

 

            Simon leaned back in his chair in his office at home, rubbing his eyes now tired after staring at a screen for the last four hours. Excessively blinking as the afternoon sun poured into the room, begging him, tempting him, and working hard to draw him outside for a jog through the woods. The clock overhead finally reached five in the afternoon, reminding him that he had very little time to enjoy a jog through the afternoon sun. Slipping into a fresh t-shirt, shorts, and his running shoes, he did a bit of stretching, and told his wife he would be gone for about an hour for a bit of exercise.

               He slipped out the front door, walked the sidewalk to the edge of the park to begin his run through the woods, nodding, smiling and waving at those he met on his way. Always one to think of himself as better than, smarter than, and more talented than everyone else, after a plastic smile, he internally mocked those he passed as he continued on his jog. Half a mile into the woods, he came across a path to the immediate left that he had never before seen. “Hmm, let’s check it out,” he thought, “a change in scenery might be nice.”

               The path in the woods came to an end as he passed into an open field that contained a small number of old, rundown buildings on the opposite side of the field. He maintained his running speed and was approached by three very odd-looking men as they rushed from one of the distant buildings. A projectile came into view that quickly connected with his forehead, bringing with it a bright flash and an immediate headache. He dropped to his hands and knees wondering at what had just happened.

               Within moments of stopping his movement, he felt three sets of hands seize him and drag him toward one of the decrepit buildings. Multiple punches and kicks landed on his body as he landed on a dirt floor inside the building, to be immediately chained to the wall. He felt his head swimming, his body aching, and he tried to understand what the three men were saying, as most of their words sounded like gibberish. The three men left, closed the door, and Simon watched the day grow dark, feeling hungry, thirsty, and incredibly sore.

               His mind was swirl of confusion, pain, and terror, wondering what had just happened to him and if he had any opportunity for escape. The final rays of daylight disappeared, leaving him swallowed in absolute darkness until the three men returned with a lantern to continue their blows upon him, speaking in a way that he could not understand. After descending into a state of complete and absolute pain, he was unchained from the wall, taken into another building, tied to a table, and repeatedly whipped with leather straps.

               The darkness removed all possibility of identifying who these men were, what they wanted or if he had any possible means of returning to his home. “Damn, those are some incredibly ugly people, they look inbred to me,” he thought. One of the men left the room, returned with a hammer and began shattering all of the bones in his feet and legs. When the destruction was complete, the second man left and returned with pruning shears to systematically cut off all of his fingers while chanting words that made no sense, to then cauterize each wound with a glowing red metal tool, the sizzle of burning flesh shot waves of pain through his damaged hands.

               The third man retrieved a long, rusty nail from a bench nearby and popped both of Simon’s eyeballs, when this excruciating pain was over, he felt a device fit over his head covering both of his ears into which came the sound of an airhorn over each ear, effectively destroying his hearing. A hook pierced through his lower jaw, forcing his mouth open, at which time one of the men began extracting all of his teeth, severed his tongue, and then branded his torso with the glowing red metal tool, spelling out the word ‘liar’. His fingers were dropped into a metal bucket as well as his now severed genitalia to be followed by cauterization of the open wound.

               The three men left the building, as Simon lay quivering in perfect, absolute pain across every inch of his body. Trapped in his mind with no way to communicate, he could feel the room growing warmer as the morning sun, he assumed rising on the new day. He lay still, suffering, aching, and wondering what would happen next. In a shocking and unexpected moment, the three men returned and began whipping him again with the leather straps. Simon could see nothing, hear nothing and say nothing.

               The restraints were removed, he was lifted from the bench and placed into a large bag that was dragged out of the building, dropped into the trunk of a car, and after some amount of time, he was removed from the trunk, dropped on the ground and left in a state of absolute helplessness. Terribly hungry, terribly thirsty, and in pain throughout his entire body, he felt the warmth of sunshine come upon his body, leaving him wondering if someone had found him and were trying to help.

               Completely at a loss as to what would happen next, he was lifted from the bag by two sets of strong hands and taken to a hospital in an attempt to heal his broken and tormented body. Still trapped in his mind with no way of communicating, he felt the prick of a needle upon his skin, giving him a reprieve from the pain that nearly swallowed him. After several hours of solitude, he felt a tapping upon his arm, a message in morse code, which allowed him to understand that his family had been contacted and were now with him.

               Now that he was no longer alone, he began to receive a pleasant, kind, and soothing massage on the parts of his body that were not damaged. Still trapped in darkness, silence, and solitude, uncertain of the length of time that had passed, he was lifted from the hospital bed, placed in a wheelchair and taken home, in torment over his inability to communicate what had happened to him. The morse code tapping began again, communicating that co-workers and family were with him, desperate for him to communicate to them what had happened.

               In his crushing state of solitude, his mind was a swirl of memories of the three men who had beaten and mutilated him, he struggled to think of a way to tell the story, their horrible disfigured faces, their inarticulate words, and their sheer brutality upon his now broken body. Now that he could not speak, could not hear, could not see, and could not type, he had no means for doing his work or earning an income to provide for his needs and the needs of his family.

               Now confined to darkness, silence, and a wheelchair, he could no longer walk, jog, work, or provide for those who needed him. Over the next six months, the savings account that he had been buildings slowly reduced toward zero. Every day, his wife and his children would visit him, hold his hand, feed him, and tap morse code messages that everything would eventually be alright. Simon knew better, knowing that the money would eventually run out, leaving them destitute and eventually homeless.

               As time passed, he began to communicate with morse code, telling the story about the damage that happened to him, who did it, and where they were, who they were, and remained uncertain as to their goal for damaging him in such a way. As each day moved into the next, co-workers and family continued to support him and his family, buying them food, and paying their bills. Still trapped in his silence and solitude, he hated the fact that he was trapped and unable to contribute anything of value, now lost in confusion and pain, he knew that there was nothing he could do to escape and be of value.

               Two full years passed and those who knew him and believed that he was still mentally intact, ran out of funds to continue caring for him. When this time came to an end, he found himself sitting alone on a pile of cardboard in an alley, while his wife and children moved on to another life where they could take care of themselves. Simon was trapped in darkness, silence and pain, hungry most of the time except for the few people who would give him food at least once a day.

               Eventually this philanthropy stopped and he found himself eating only once week, still sleeping on cardboard in an alley, wondering if there was any end to his suffering and solitude. Despite hearing nothing, seeing nothing, and speaking nothing, he became a non-person that eventually everyone began to completely ignore, to eventually starve to death behind a dumpster.

               A small group of old men found his cold, stiff body, shriveled and damaged, to then call the police that a body had been found and something needed to be done with it before the wild dogs and cats would begin to eat it. The paramedics arrived in the alley, moved the emaciated and damaged body into a body bag to be transferred to the nearest morgue in hopes that someone would be able to identify this person of seeming no identity.

               Simon hovered above the activity in the alley, desperate to communicate who he was, why he was there and trusting that eventually someone would identify him, give him a proper burial and allow him to move on. Still tormented at the shallow, empty life that he led which was nothing but deception, selfishness, and unkindness, knowing that he considered himself better than everyone, and wishing he could go back and re-live a life that was based on love for neighbor.

As this thought rolled around his disconnected mind, he noticed that he began a slow descent with an ever-increasing rise in temperature. “This is not the path I foresaw for the first fifty years of my life,” he thought, “I seem to be going in the wrong direction, I guess I’ll see how this comes to an end.”

 “Well, a change like that is not going to happen,” he thought, “I had one chance and I completely missed out on doing what was good and right, unfortunately thinking only ever of myself and distracted by the foolishness and inanity of my culture. I wish I would have listened closer, acted better, and focused on love rather than selfishness.”

The Price of Sacrifice

 

                Jonathan could not have had a better childhood, family life, and upbringing. Every need was provided for, he received the very best education, exposure to the highest quality entertainment including opera, symphonies, and ballet. Being the oldest in the family, he always strove to be kind, to be understanding, and to express empathy to those who struggled to make ends meet.

               His family grew and flourished from a long line of successful businessmen over the last three centuries. Any time he overheard his younger brothers speaking poorly of others, being judgmental of others, or condemning others for bad decisions, he interjected his thoughts, corrections, and the appropriate response to those who were in need.

               Jonathan graduated from university with a Ph.D in business, putting him in a position to take over leadership of the family company. His mind was sharp, precise, and sympathetic to others. Before taking over the role of CEO of the company, he worked through every department in the family business to understand the work, to understand his employees, and to know at the cellular level how their business performed and how to make improvements when necessary.

               After six months of work through each department, he made good connections with people in every department, understanding their struggles, understanding how regular people with standard income lived and their basic needs. He then transitioned into the office, to take on various roles in several different departments, still striving to understand more about the family business.

               His father eventually reached the age where he wanted to retire and hand over all of his responsibilities to Jonathan, knowing that his oldest son with a heart of gold and sympathy would continue to see success, help others, and thrive regardless of any detail or struggle that would arise. After three months in his role as CEO, he began a careful audit of all company business, all clients, and all categories in which they dabbled.

               After spending six weeks carefully picking through all business activity, he called a board meeting to be led by him in which he would announce a new direction for the company. He arrived to the meeting two minutes after it’s ten o’clock start time, to see the seven members of the board waiting for him, clearly agitated that he was late.

               “Thank you for coming, gentlemen,” he said, “I was intentionally late so I could see if you all would arrive on time and be prepared for a meeting to address certain details I have uncovered. I have spent the last six weeks looking through all of our activities, the fields in which we are involved and began to ask myself many questions about our activity.”

               Still standing in his position as head of the board meeting, he lifted his notepad and began explaining his rationale for the changes he was planning on implementing. “After all of my time of careful review, I see that we are involved in the medical field, in real estate, and providing military support for our government. Here is my decision, I strongly believe that we should pull out from our military involvement, as war does not bring life, love, or safety for our nation. We do not need to be the police for the entire globe.”

               An older gentleman at the far end of the conference table rose his hand, cleared his throat, and asked for permission to speak.

               “Yes, go ahead,” Jonathan answered, “share your thoughts on this.”

               “I am very familiar with the military support that we provide, and it makes up forty percent of our business,” he said, “if we walk away from this avenue of income, where do you suggest that we realign our time, money, and attention?”

               “That is a very good question,” Jonathan answered. “I would like to refocus our attention away from military action and toward providing economic support in real estate and in medical for the nations that are struggling with health issues around the globe. If we can strengthen and heal those around us, we will make the world a better place, rather than imposing more death and destruction with the weapons we provide.”

               “Very good,” the man said.

               “I would like to take a vote in this meeting,” Jonathan said, “if you agree with me, please vote yes, if you disagree, please vote no. We will do this by a show of hands. If you agree with me in making this change, raise your hand right now. Okay, very good, I am seeing that five of you agree with me. I can then assume that only two of you disagree. So, it is decided, this is the path we will take moving forward. I will send out details sometime today for a meeting to make these changes.”

               Two weeks later, the meeting was scheduled and took place, which brought about a radical change in multiple departments throughout the company. Two more years passed by as these changes were methodically implemented, bringing out a vast improvement in the quality of life in several countries around the globe.

               Jonathan invited his two younger brothers to a private meeting between the three of them to celebrate the radical changes and the overall improvements from their departure from military action. His brothers both heartily agreed with is decisions, encouraged him to continue making improvements, and helping those in need. After five more years of operating as CEO, Jonathan continued to challenge a few long-held ideas with the goal of making the world a better place through assistance to those in need.

               He entered his office, created a document that would declare his decision to step down as CEO, which would be filled by the next oldest son. He carefully crafted the piece, called in a secretary to proof read his work and deliver it to everyone who needed to be involved in this change. The secretary did an excellent job of reviewing his work, and had it sent to everyone who needed to know Jonathan’s plans.

               As he drew close to his thirty-fifth birthday, he remained unmarried and had no children. He sold his home, donated the money to a special fund at the family business which was to be used for his employees that had special needs, whether medical or otherwise. He handed over his responsibilities to his next oldest brother, encouraging him to continue on the path of bringing life, peace, and health to the world as much as possible.

               Jonathan bought a first-class plane ticket to Egypt, packing only simple, plain clothing, with which he would relocate to a cave relatively close to a men’s monastery in the Egyptian desert. He landed in Egypt, took a car to the local men’s monastery, introduced himself, and made a large donation to the monastery to help them take care of whatever needs they had. He communicated his plan of remaining in a distant cave and would be in regular contact with the Abbot of the monastery as the years passed.

               He filled his cave with only the basic necessities, emulating what the monks at the monastery were doing in their own cells. He no longer enjoyed the pleasures of wine, fine dining, comfortable clothing, and high-quality cigars. He planted a small garden for himself which would provide a simple and basic diet to keep him alive and healthy. He could feel himself growing older and weaker as the many years continued to crawl by.

               As he reached his seventy-fifth birthday, he continued his practice of visiting the Abbot once a month, and once a year would make a phone call to the family business to confirm that they were continuing the path he began so many years before. Each year he received the same message, that the family company continued to follow the path he started and was seeing great success and improvement in many nations around the world.

               Jonathan now owned nothing, enjoyed no creature comforts, and was thrilled to learn that their company was continuing to make the world a better place. Each time he interacted with the monastery Abbot, he was told the same message, “You may have accomplished much with your wealth and influence, but now that you are a monastic, your prayers will accomplish a great deal more.”

               Each morning Jonathan would rise before the sun, begin his morning prayer rule, and know that this new life was far more important and powerful than anything he did before he arrived in Egypt. When he reached his ninety-fifth birthday, he suddenly felt cold, ascended above and beyond his now lifeless corpse, to look down upon a body that he knew was his and was no longer animate. He felt a peace unlike anything he had ever before felt, knowing that he had taken an important turn in life to find himself drawing near to an eternity in the presence of holiness.

R Capital

                Anthony and Paul shared a two-bedroom apartment and spent each evening staying updated on local news, national news and global news. Sharing a pizza that had just been delivered, they shared a mutual disgust about the crime in their city, and the unsettling fact that their city had the highest count of rape incidents in the entire nation.

               “Paul, this is so bad,” Anthony said, “our city and our nation as a whole have descended into absolute depravity and selfishness, seeing these numbers of the women and children who are being assaulted is absolutely horrible. The weak and innocent need to be protected and not abused or taken advantage of, we need to do something.”

               “I absolutely agree,” Paul said, “if there was a way that we could intervene, protect, and stop this kind of behavior, I’m certain we can develop a plan to involve ourselves. We should research these statistics and determine which part of our city has the highest count of this kind of violence.”

               “Yes, I totally agree with you,” Anthony said, “let’s spend the next several days, find the worst neighborhoods, and develop a plan for beginning an approach to protect these women. I’ve been developing a few thoughts and ideas, if we find a prostitute, dress her modestly, pay her well to walk through these neighborhoods, and we can position ourselves to snipe these men before they grab the girl, we can intervene, rescue her and escape, leaving the bodies where they lay.”

               “That is a great idea,” Paul said, “if we do this three times a week in different neighborhoods, with no discernable pattern to our activity, we can take out a lot of horrible people. Personally, I don’t know any prostitutes so we’ll need to spend some time interacting with some of these women, find someone willing and interested, and we can move forward with the plan.”

               Three days of research passed, giving Paul and Anthony the time to identify the worst neighborhoods, approach a few different women on street corners and choose the best location to begin their work. “Okay, Anthony,” Paul said, “we’ve identified nine neighborhoods with the worst of this activity, so let’s formulate a plan, and choose several of these women to help us make an impact on this violence.”

               “Yes, absolutely,” Anthony said, “if we choose one different woman for each week, different locations in each neighborhood, and a very late hour to do our work, we should be successful and hopefully see a drop in this crime. So now, our next step is to interact with some of these women, generate a list and be prepared to pay them well for the dangerous situation in which they will be putting themselves. Hopefully our assurances that we will protect them before anything unsavory happens, will convince them that their help will reduce this crime in our city.”

               “Yes, this is a good plan,” Paul said, “we need to pick up burner phones so we can stay in contact with these women, choose which days and which neighborhoods to begin the work. Let’s start interacting and communicating tonight, the sooner we line up women to help us, the sooner we can get started.”

               Four more days passed, in which time Anthony and Paul contacted several dozen different women, handed out their phone numbers, promising them good pay for their time and the first day to begin the work. The two men picked up the prostitute at the agreed upon time, assuring her that payment would be made when they were done for the evening. “I want to make a suggestion,” Anthony said, “if anyone approaches you, squat down, hugs your knees, and we will execute whoever it is that is looking to abduct you, it will be safer for you this way.”

One in the morning rolled around and Paul and Anthony sat inside the window of an abandoned warehouse to see their first willing woman slowly walk down the sidewalk and be approached by an old sedan, from which three men emerged to surround the woman.

               “Take your first shot, Paul,” Anthony said, “three quick shots will easily bring this to an end, within the span of thirty seconds three shots were fired dropping the three men to the sidewalk, giving the frightened woman the opportunity to begin running. “I am on my way to the street to rescue this terrified woman and bring her to her home. We have done a good thing here,” Anthony said.

               Anthony moved quickly enough to meet the woman on the sidewalk, motioning for her to approach him. As she climbed into his car, he handed her an envelope containing the promised pay for her involvement in the dangerous situation. He and she drove for ten minutes and he watched as she walked into her apartment building, when she offered a quick wave and thank you.

               Two days later, Anthony placed another phone call to the same woman, confirming her continued involvement, more pay, and the time and place to meet for another round of protecting their society from men who were willing to oppress the weak and innocent. In a different neighborhood and in the exact same sequence as the first time, Paul executed three more men who surrounded and sought to abduct the woman from the street.

               This became a regular pattern for Paul, Anthony, and a sequence of other women over the next nine months. When their nine months of work came to an end, Paul and Anthony arrived at their home, cheering and congratulating each other for work well done. “Okay, Anthony,” Paul said, “we’ve worked through all of the neighborhoods and have executed about three hundred potential rapists. It is curious that we haven’t seen anything on the news about these executions. You have to wonder if the police are hiding this activity to protect themselves for their failure to do their job.”

               “One may think so,” Anthony said, “the thought occurred to me that it may be possible that some of these potential rapists are police officers or high-level important people. I believe we can say that we have done all that we can do to positively impact the quality of life in this city. I think we can begin the next step of this work to begin executing convicted pedophiles, but we’ll need to research who these men are and where they live.”

               “Yes, that is certainly the next step in our work,” Paul said, “let’s get to bed because it is really late, we can begin that research tomorrow night.”

               After far too little sleep, both men rose the next morning, showered, ate breakfast and left for work to return home at the end of the day and enjoy an Uber meal of Mexican food delivered an hour after they arrived home. The two men sat together at their kitchen counter, enjoyed their meal, and continued to talk about next steps and if to take a short break before beginning their work of continuing to cleanse the city.

               They finished their meal; they opened a laptop and began searching the sex offender database using a VPN to avoid drawing attention to themselves. “I think we should follow the same approach as we did with the potential rapists,” Anthony said, “three times a week once we have a list of the worst offenders and their addresses.”

               “Man, look at this list,” Paul said, “there are easily over two hundred child sex offenders listed here. Since the police aren’t doing anything to remove this scourge from our communities, we need to step up and take action. If we are careful and plan well, we can easily take out five or six in one evening. We need to create a list of addresses to best use our time and start as soon as possible.”

               Five days slowly crept past, giving them time to identify persons of interest, create an efficient plan and identify locations to place themselves after surveying the offender’s schedules of arrival and departure times. Following the same pattern as before, they began their work just as darkness began to settle, celebrating the fact that they were able to execute five or six of these offenders before the end of each evening.

               After ten weeks of sniping work, they kept a running list of executed offenders and as a final celebratory statement, they began to carefully watch the news but failed to see any comments from the police on the executions that had been taking place each week.  “Wow, that is really disappointing,” Paul said, “if the police would actually report what was going on, these communities would learn and hopefully appreciate the new level of safety they can now enjoy.”

               “Well, we’ve done a good work and regardless of the visibility of our efforts, we know that we have completed another phase of cleansing for our neighborhoods,” Anthony said, “I have to say that I am thrilled that we have completed our work and can now begin to get many good night’s rest. We have removed a huge number of very bad people from this world and should be pleased with ourselves for the great work we have accomplished.”

               “I completely agree,” Paul said, “we need to continue monitoring the crime statistics now that these people have been removed, I would hope that the numbers will decline and people will begin to appreciate living with a higher level of safety.”

               The following late afternoon Paul and Anthony rode the elevator together up to their apartment, after entering their shared domicile, Paul began preparing dinner, while Anthony turned on the news. “Hey Paul, quickly come into the living room, there is a news report about the shootings that have been taking place,” Anthony called out.

               The two men sat together and listened to the female news reporter begin her explanation of what had been taking place. “The latest news is that approximately two hundred men have been shot and killed over the last ten weeks,” she said, “all of these men are on the sex offender list for our state. At this time the police do not know who is responsible for these shootings. We will report back if or when we learn anything new.”

“Woo hoo,” Paul erupted, “at least now the general public knows what has happened and that there are now about two hundred less sex offenders roaming the streets. I would argue that our hard work, our research, and our willingness to take action has greatly improved the quality of life for our city.”