Are you morally obligated to kill a murderer? It is the only way to keep people safe. Yet did the act of killing somehow bring you down to the same level as this guy? No. Some people are just better off dead unfortunately, and if somebody has to do it, it may as well be you.
This is the philosophy of many online forums dedicated to
hunting down those who kill. These vigilante streamers are collectively known
as killcels. They specialise in hunting down the destroyers in our society:
serial killers, domestic terrorists, mass shooters, political assassins.
Popular Tiktok videos of killcels involve hunting down local murderers with
high powered rifles with laser sights, running through forests at night and
taunting them with 2000s era club classics.
Killcels themselves had their own nemesis, which the entire
community was focused on in the hot June of ‘25. Somebody had been using drones
packed with high explosives, flying them near the killcel brigades before
exploding in a violent fashion. Sometimes they would appear whilst they were launching
an attack against the local serial killer, others would be followed home before
the explosives would detonate as they stepped out of their car. They called him
Droneboy.
Drone warfare had been practiced around the world, with the biggest user being the United States. It only makes sense that the escalation of weapons technology would eventually find its way into the hands of everyday citizens. Even the most well-armed foe, with years of military experience, multiple blackbelts in martial arts and heavy body armour would be blown to pieces by a bomb strapped to a flying toy you could buy at Walmart. This asynchronous combat had been used against civilians in other countries for years, but now it was happening to Americans, they had entered a new level of fear.
The killcels gather round a table made from a big empty bobbin of wire. We are at an undisclosed location at Sylvan Heights Bird Park. The men around me are twitchy, AR-15s in their hands and cocaine in their veins.
"What’s the deal with this Droneboy? What is he, an experimental musician?" I say, smirking.
"He hunts those that are hunting the hunters."
"Some say your vigilante justice often goes wrong, you kill innocent people regularly, as well as multiple bystanders. Is Droneboy not just doing what you do to others?"
"Do unto others as you would hath done to you. You're right. We're all going to go to hell for what we've done. But that doesn’t mean this guy can just fly a drone at our best soldiers and wipe them out like a call of duty killstreak."
"He should come out and fight us properly. Mano-a-mano." Says one guy with a katana.
"Why would he do that? He's winning." I say.
"We're evolving. We have tactics. Disguises. Our own drones that can elimate his drones. We run drills of what to do in an explosive attack."
They demonstrate for me, throwing themselves flat on the
floor, arms pulled over their heads. I stand awkwardly above them all whilst a
parrot cries from a nearby tree.
They demonstrate some of their other counter measures. Smoke
grenades, fireworks, antisignal wave disruptors, net guns, trained pigeons,
armour umbrellas, air cannons, lidar camera jammers, surface to air frequency
modulators and good old fashioned guns. Killcels now wore experiments hearing
aids tuned to the sound of a drone flying, giving them early warning as to when
a strike might take place. These bozos were armed, dangerous and more
paranoid than a 12 year old taking its first bong hit.
Droneboy had responded to each of these counter measures
with his own. He would fly drones far above his targets, cut the engines and bomb
down vertically and silently before exploding next to a killcel soldier. Other
times he had installed failsafe systems, so even if the signal was cut, an AI
on the drones computer would identify and lock on to the targets, chasing them
down until its battery ran out. Droneboy had tried aerial camouflage, armoured
units, high yield explosives, drones designed to be destroyed before splitting
off into a series of cluster bombs, remote control cars stuffed with C4,
randomised gearing on the drones so its signature sound was replaced, liquid
thermite barrels and so on.
The killcels and drone boy were locked in an endless arms race, constantly responding to changes in tactics with their own modifications. Online they portrayed killcels as Wile E. Coyote and Droneboy as Roadrunner, a humorous reference to the evolution of combat design between these two foes. I begin to ask them about their history of divorce, but they all tense in unison.
“Shhh. Drone at 10 o clock in the morning.” Says one of the killcels. We all crouch down as a drone flies overhead. Nobody knows if this was going to be an attack or some dad with a YouTube channel. The drone passes and we all start to relax again.
As I leave the group, I can’t help but think how pointless violence was. People making robots to fight other robots other people had made, what was the point in any of it? They may as well play Street Fighter 2.
Later that evening I watch the news. A report about a dust cloud is interrupted with breaking news that Droneboy had attacked again. A group of killcels had chased a spree killer who had circular saws around his boxing gloves, cornering him in a children’s play area. The killer slid down a slide and into a ballpit as the killcels emptied round after round at the bulletproof glass protecting the playzone. Helicopter footage shows a cloud of paper airplanes flying towards them before falling. Each of the pieces of origami was laced with a deadly poison made from the bodies of rare millipedes, when they hit the floor it would begin to bubble and melt. It dissolved the killcels within a few seconds, leaving the spree killer to continue his wild of murder. Who did this Droneboy think he is? Lady Justice or Judge Dredd? Either way, this bizarre terrorist engineer showed no signs of slowing down his attacks. Sometimes you just had to accept things, dance in the rain, and hope that things would get better by themselves.
