komrade komura
Active member
Dangerous Dancing
I apologise if my English is not as good as it used to be.
My name is Xeno Kovach and I kill people. I used to perform this service for my government. These days there is no such affiliation. It doesn’t matter which government it was, as in the end they are all about retaining and expanding their control. In my 10 year career with the Ministry, I was directly responsible for the death of over 100 people. Most were dispatched cleanly and swiftly from a distance, a single bullet imposing the will of the state. On two occasions, orders came to ‘make a mess’, killing by indiscriminate means, with those in the vicinity of the target deemed sufficiently guilty to warrant death. On both occasions my actions were accompanied by evidence which assigned the responsibility for my efforts to groups opposed to the aims of the Ministry.
I do not consider myself a bad man. I believe in God and at times have even been known to pray for forgiveness. In my opinion my worst sin is not the killing, but my own naiveté which allowed the Ministry to recruit, train and deploy me. My acceptance of their beliefs and lies were the root cause of my larger sins.
These days my targets are of my own choosing and death is the exceptional outcome. Do I have the right to do what I do? That is a debate which could go on for some time and involve discussion of morals and ethics. Whether you consider it a priori or a posteriori supposition, the fact remains: too often there is no justice. So while Immanuel Kant may call it a Categorical Imperative and by his definition, the duty of all to act; in the end most lack the skills, training and equipment required to follow the imperative. Due to my prior association with the Ministry, I do not suffer these limitations.
My work has not gone unnoticed. This is due to the nature of my justice. The knee contains the most complex joint in the human body and if destroyed properly will result in permanent impairment. While a smaller target than other more vital parts of the body, it can still be destroyed from distances of between 400 and 500 metres on a stationary target. The press refer to me as The Dancer.
I do not accept payment for my work and there is no method by which to request assistance. I operate across borders and at my own discretion. The Ministry does not look for me as they believe that I died in my last operation. The 6th body in that event was not mine and there was evidence that the money was destroyed along with the drone cloaking software. I still have both.
My first target was a criminal judge. A woman was convicted of deadly assault on her husband, a man with a history of domestic violence. Like most cowards fueled by alcohol, he would establish his authority with his fists. This tragedy also involved young children. The mother’s mistake had been firing a warning shot over the head of her husband, warning him to leave or the next step he took would be his last, a request with which he temporarily complied.
She confessed openly and honestly to the police because she did not recognize it as a crime but as permissible self-defence and defence of her children. She had called them expecting them to arrest her husband again. An overworked state defence attorney didn’t have enough time to mount a reasonable defence, given a case load which prohibits justice and results in the mere processing of the accused into official criminals.
She appeared before an ideologically strident and deeply ambitious judge who believed that anyone committing a crime should receive the harshest sentence permissible under the law, without exception, without consideration of the circumstances. The result was a 5 to 10 year sentence in a state prison for women. The abusive husband would now have unfettered control over his children and would manufacture two frightened, misshapen and deeply scarred humans.
It made no difference to me that the judge in question was herself, a woman. She lost her dance as she stood waiting for a valet to bring her car, outside of a posh Miami restaurant. I do not operate with the same rules as the Ministry; no one else was injured. In the time since my ‘death’, 31 people have lost their dance. An additional 5 have paid the highest price. Police have never connected the activities of The Dancer with the more permanent outcomes.
Most of my work is outside of North America. There have only been 11 dancers in the United States and Canada. Today will be the 12th.
D.E. A. Office
255 East Temple Street, 17th Floor, Los Angeles, CA 90012
Kyle leaned across the desk and offered his hand: Congratulations. I heard that with the sentencing from that grow op in the hills you have joined the 20,000 club.
Barry reaches across his desk and fake smiles as he shakes the hand of his closest competitor in the D.E.A.’s Los Angeles department. ‘Thank you’.
Kyle: How does it feel knowing you have achieved 20,000 sentencing years just for marijuana?
Barry: Pretty good I guess. But it is a little bittersweet.
Kyle: Yeah I heard about that. It was unavoidable. Anyone who makes a sudden movement when guns are out is a damned fool. She should have known better.
Barry: It was a labour pain, Kyle.
Kyle: Oh shit! Sorry, I don’t know that.
Barry: Well it is not common knowledge. With the number of weapons we found in the house, it was reasonable for the press to make incorrect conclusions and we let them.
Kyle: Don’t sweat it; you are doing God’s work. (he laughs). Who are you going for next? You finally going to get that noisy little son of a bitch with the podcast?
Barry: Yeah. How did you know that?
Kyle: That trigger happy kid Mitchell that transferred from your team to mine told me how crazy you get when he releases his weekly show. It is true they are sampling his rants on rap albums now?
Barry: Yes they are.
Kyle: Then it is definitely time for him to be shut up. For Christ’s sake, any kid, any age can download his filth and listen to him ranting against law enforcement. Definitely a public menace.
Barry: His podcast is one of the most popular stoner shows on the web. His numbers are catching up with NORML’s podcast. And it’s not even the ranting against us that pisses me off so much. It is the damned grow school segment of his show. Imagine a person teaching others not only how to knowingly break federal law but how to excel at it…all in the open, on the internet.
Kyle: Definitely asking for it. So when you gonna get him?
Barry: This weekend. We know from our snoop warrant that he is having friends over for a weekend smoke out. If we strike then, we should be able to get the maximum number of arrests and also there will be extra quantity in the house. He is holding an informal cannabis cup competition among close friends. Between the extra product for the competition and his 24 medical plants, we should have enough to send everyone away for a minimum of 10 years. If his new granddaughter is there, we also get them on child endangerment. No matter how liberal the judge, they will throw the book at them when they see a newborn was in the house.
Kyle: What do you think the count will be?
Barry: Minimum total, 120 years; although I am personally hoping to get closer to 200 or even above.
Kyle: You are a fucking machine my friend.