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.”