INVISIBLE HANDS

['77 East]

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Government - noun: government; plural: governments.

1. the group of people with the authority to govern.

2. the group that will fucking kill you the minute you become an existential threat to them.

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Sixteen were gunned down, publicly they were victims of escalating gang
violence and attempted would-be robberies. Coincidental crime sprees.


Six more...
make that five, were still at large. One by one, the bikers came.
Men in ghetto getup, obfuscating helmets and plenty of government-issue
weapons, itchy trigger fingers and photos of their latest interest.


Five more...
came the stolen roadbikes, their plates replaced by forgeries.
Up came the Heckler and Koch lineup, silencers fitted and sights aligned.


Four more...
strode the gunmen, firing to kill and firing again to make sure.


Three more...
went the cleanup. Torch that building. Smash that office up.
Saturate the room in gasoline. Kick the door in before massacring those in
the poorly-named living room. More victims, more minutes spent on murders.


Two more...
for a second, and then that second last problem evaporated in a hail of 7.62
through a pool skylight.


The last...
was a soldier's farewell - Vlado Mladić, shot dead in his own car.
Never to know what he had been deemed guilty of, merely judged and sentenced.


Sixteen men and women, stretched across the world, in sixteen minutes.
Like proper government retribution, it was run on clockwork and without a care
to give on the expense reports.


The day was december 16th,
the new millennium only in a matter of weeks.