Wanted Dead or Alive:

The Proper Villains

By: Matthew s. Van Hove

Chapter 1

“Can you state your name for the record please?”

“Detective John Orville; former lead detective for San Angeles Police department,

formerly Los Angeles Police Department.” An older gentleman sat down at a silver table

in the interrogation room. His soft southern Accent filled the still air. It was the same one

the department had used to question other criminals for years, and now he was there.

John was tired, but he was old so the two kind of went hand in hand. He was pushing

fifty and his waistline surly showed it, his eyes still sparkled blue, and his silver hair was

combed neatly trying to hide a bald spot that was rapidly growing at the back of his

head.

“And do you know why you're hear sir?” A very nondescript agent was already

waiting at the table. They all looked the same, no actual features to tell on from another.

It was supposed to be this way. The only thing that differentiated them were their bar-

coded badges that listed the pronouns they were to be addressed by.

“No, but I have a good idea. It's about time you IDL boys looked into this.” The

agent flinched a bit; it was slight, but John caught it. “Sorry, IDL folks. I don't need

another write up for Micro-aggression infractions.”

The agent; agent Becks, gave a curt smile and then placed a manila folder on the
table. The word: Classified was stamped in bright red across it. John looked down and

sighed. He knew what it meant, and this little meeting made even more sense now.

“Please, start at the beginning.” Agent Becks said motioning to the folder.

“The beginning? Alright, it all starts in 1990-”

“No the beginning of the case.” Agent Becks cut John off.

“Yeah, and for me to do that, we gotta talk about 1990. I mean that's when all this

really started. Do you wanna hear this or not?”

Agent Becks' lips tightened buy they relented with a slight nod.

“Alright, like I said, it was 1990, and the internet was just something that the

military was using to communicate with each other. That was until someone got the

bright idea to package it up and make it family friendly. And bam! The World Wide Web

was born. Now we gotta jump from there to 1995. You see, in 1995, the internet was the

wild wild west. You could find anything, you could say anything, and you could pretty

much do anything you wanted. Around this time, we started to see what we now call

'Black Hats' and 'White hats' starting to emerge.

Now around the time things started getting serious in cyberspace there was a

group of Black Hats that gathered up a bunch of information. They found something on

the president at the time and even the director of the FBI, so that's when you folks were

formed. The IDL; Internet Defense League. You boys started cracking down on cyber

crimes and soon enough you found all those Black Hats and scrubbed them from the

internet. I don't know what they had on former President Clinton or Director Mueller but
it must have been mighty important.” John reached into his pocket and pulled out a

small crumpled pack of cigarette. He offered one to Agent Becks who shook their head

quickly. Detective Orville then placed it to his lips and sat forward. He opened the folder

and spread out a few of the documents.

“Whatever information they had was enough to put the fear of God into thee

whole damn lot of them. Because they gave you folks carte' blanch to enact any kind of

laws you needed to protect the people from the evils of the internet. And you boys sure

went crazy.” Agent Becks visibly flinched again, John saw it again but chose to ignore it

this time and he continued.

“First went saying what ever you wanted in comment sections of articles or

videos, then things deemed too offensive got wiped clean, and finally the lock down of

extreme political ideas. Now it all came down to who was really in charge to determine

what was good and bad, but let's just say it was more of a conservative mind set that y'all

made sure got the ax. But there were good things too, in that time, cyberspace got

bigger, faster connection speeds, advancement in technology, and a space where you

could feel secure in the fact that no one would scream or holler at you. People got

smarter, well in the ways of maneuvering through the internet. This did split the web

though.

We now had a place where the Black hats went to hide, and you IDL were always

searching for ways in and trying to track them. The Dark web was formed, or Deep Web,

whatever you prefer. Both are technically right. Now these places, they were still the
wild wild west, so the moniker Black Hat was fitting. You could buy what ever you

wanted in these places, for the right price. Guns, drugs, people, children. I mean it wasn't

a safe haven in the least, but the Black hats thrived just like the other half. Now White

Hats are what y'all call innocents now, people who live their lives following the rules,

not straying too far outside what y'all have decreed as law. Black hats of course are

anyone who doesn't. Makes things simple. Anyway, that's how things were back then.”

John pulled out a picture of a young girl, no more than Twenty, she had blonde

hair and a bright smile. John's lips pursed together causing the unlit cigarette to push

upward.

“And then 1996 happened. This little White Hat girl.” He pushed the picture

towards the agent.

“She was too smart for her own good, she got accepted to a really good school,

one of those new tech schools that started popping up everywhere. Promising all sorts of

things. She had her whole thesis already planned out, from day one. Like I said, too

smart for her own good. She was going to document her journey through the darkest

parts of cyberspace, she wanted to see how deep things actually went. So, this little

White Hat girl, she dives in feet first, not having a slightest care in the world for what

she might find.

Well, she went deep. Breaking through firewalls, passing through hidden sites, she

went as far as one could go. And on a rather busy night, that White Hat girl, she passed

out at her computer. When she woke up, staring her in the face was a sentence in Ddos.
It said simply: Execute A Protocol: Yes or No?”

“How do you know all of this?” Agent Becks interrupted.

“It's like I said, she was documenting everything. It was in reams of Journals.

Each breach in a firewall, each hack, each move she made up until that protocol showed

up. She documented everything. Now you gonna let me finish or do I go smoke this

cigarette now?”

“Go on.” The agent said quizzically.

“So, as she documented, that little White Hat girl, she made a choice, and we

believe it was the last choice she ever made. Because the journal entry stops after she

says she is going to hit yes. SO the saying goes, Curiosity killed the cat. In this case,

curiosity sent her flying across the room with a jolt of electricity. Or so we believe. See,

she didn't write anything else after that. But, the one thing we do know is that the enter

key on her keyboard was melted. We found her six months later in some run down hovel

of a hotel on what used to be skid row. She was in the same dress she had worn that day,

and well, she had killed someone. You may be too young to remember this case, but it

was the first case of one of the IDL being killed. She had cut off their hands at the wrist,

pulled all the teeth out, and smashed the agents face to the point they couldn't be

recognized. It took weeks of detective work and reconstruction of the skull to figure out

who it was.”

John shifted through the papers and his hand stopped over an image of an old

Hewlett Packard. His fingers twitched and he grabbed it up quickly. The cigarette
pressed between his lips quivered slightly.

“The best we can tell, that jolt crossed some wires in her brain. All she says now is

two things.”

“Wait, she's alive?” The IDL agent looked shocked.

“Hmm? Oh, yeah. Sorry if I gave you the impression that she was no longer with

us, but she is alive and well. Well as well as she can be with being in a catatonic state

and all. She'll only mumble two things now. One being; You are not prepared. The other

being; He's coming. That 'You are not Prepared' thing was scrawled all over the room we

found her in, she had used the IDL Agents blood as paint and their hands as a gruesome

paint brush. I thought I would spare you those details. But this here, this computer was a

real brain burner. Like I said, we found her six months after all this happened, by all

accounts of her journal, and her dorm sure as hell showed it. Dust was everywhere, and

since she had paid up for the year of school, no one had even tried to enter it.

Now back then, if you didn't pay your electric bill, after the second missed

payment they would shut you off. Her place hadn't had power for a good four months.

The place smelled stale and moldy. Nothing was working, even the water had been shut

off. But this damned thing!” Detective Orville tossed the picture at the IDL agent.

“That damned thing was still working. No one could explain it, on the screen in

blood red letters it stated: You are not prepared. Just like she had scrawled all over the

damn place. We even unplugged the thing and it was still going. We had techs look at it

and they couldn't find any internal battery or anything that would make the thing still
work after four months of no power. So, since the case was pretty much open and shut, it

got put into evidence lock up. Now here's the funny thing about that Hewlett Packard.

The guy over in evidence lock up, he noticed something about it. It took a few months,

but he started to see the color fade. He figured what ever was powering it was finally

dying. But after about a week or so he saw the color start to brighten again. He told me it

was like a pulse, he watched it for a while and each time he was near the damn computer

he got a feeling it was watching him.

Now here is the thing that is really gonna bake your noodle. That little White Hat

girl, she got seen by a ton of doctors. By my count she has been seen by a total of ten

over the years. So this newest doctor, with all his new cybernetic enhancements and

shiny new diploma, he gets an idea. Something none of the other doctors had ever tried

by my account. Almost twenty years to the day, evidence lock up gets a call. The doctor

is requesting the computer. Now it is 2016, and we've already been through the new

wave of technology right? So evidence sees no reason not to let the doctor have this old

thing. It's been collecting dust. Damn thing is still on though. The colors had been

changing faster and faster up until this point. Like a heart beat.”

John reaches into his pocket and pulls out a lighter. Agent Becks clears their throat

and points to the no smoking sign. The Detective lights the cigarette anyway. “Trust me,

when I'm done, you are gonna want one.”

“So what happened at the hospital Detective Orville?' Agent Becks asked more

than a little annoyed and waving away the smoke.

 “Yeah. Well, that doctor set up the computer in that White Hat's room and showed

it to her, words and all. You wanna know what happened?”

“Tell me Detective.”

“Now first let me say this, that jolt from that computer did something to her. She

was so focused on going as deep into the Dark Web as she could that she had blinders

on. That jolt crossed some wires in her brain. I believe that it pushed everything she

drove past to the forefront of her mind. It is all she can see now. All the evil of the

internet. Sad really if you ask me.”

“Can you get to what happened Detective?” The last word made it clear that the

Agents patience was running thin.

“Well, that little emaciated, catatonic, completely gone girl took out four orderlies

before she could be stopped. Felt bad for that doctor too. All his fancy new cybernetics.

She ripped them right out of his damned head. Even went after the new eye he had put

in. It was a good thing none of that was connected to anything important right?” John

laughed a little and then took a deep drag on his cigarette.

“Four orderlies dead, one doctor in a vegetative state and that little girl fell right

back into her catatonic state as if nothing ever happened. But, one thing did change. She

wasn't speaking only two phrases anymore. Just the one: He's here.”

“Who?”

“What?” John asked confused.

“Who's he? Who was he?”

 “Oh, yeah. Well that is the best part. That damned computer got put back in

evidence lock up. That meant is was now our problem again. The officer that was there

that night swears to this day, on the graves of his unborn children, that what he saw

really happened. But wouldn't you know it, the security cameras stopped working at

around the time he says the thing that happened, happened.

He says that the red letters changed, not into a new phrase or dull like it had done

so many times before, No he says they shifted and molded into two round discs, eyes.

He said that the screen cracked below the eyes and formed into a smile, a smile too long

for a human and the teeth it showed were sharp, like a sharks mouth you know, just a

row of chompers made to tear things apart. Next thing this guy knows is he sees fingers

push through the glass as if it were water. First one hand, then a second and then

whatever it was pulled itself completely out of the computer screen, He says it stood up

and looked right at him through the cameras. It's skin was black, and I don't mean POC

black, Like African American black, now he says pitch black. The feeling he got staring

at those two red eyes were as if all the darkness of the Deep Web had just taken form. It

grabbed a red hoodie from evidence and grabbed the handle. Then it was gone.”

John waited for any reaction from the IDL agent and he saw a shiver go through

Agent Becks body from shoulders to their toes. The agent knew what he was talking

about.

“now this was something like ten years ago. No one has heard from this thing

since by my recollection. But something interesting has been happening hasn't it?”
 “What do you mean Detective?”

“You know what I mean. That saying! It has been popping up everywhere, You are

not prepared. It's been at hundreds of crime scenes all over the country, not just here!

You know what this thing is, or you think you have a good idea, but you don't know

everything! That is why you're here talking to the defunct detective! The detective that

was hunting a ghost! Right!” John was getting agitated at the cool demeanor of the IDL

agent and is was causing him to get flustered.

“But it isn't just the saying is it. That has become a rallying cry for the Black Hats

now. You know it. They have been breaking protocols and laws left and right. Two years

ago they held a free speech rally! The last free speech rally was held in 1999. You're

getting more calls because of micro-aggression violations, pronoun's being refused. I've

seen it, we all have. And on top of that you are here for information on the others.”

“the others?” Agent Becks raised an eyebrow. They were unsure how the

Detective had figured out that there were others.

“This one!” John picked up a picture of a blurry image of a dark haired woman

from behind. He threw it at the agent and let it slide in front of them. “Age, unknown.

Race, unknown. Location, unknown. Eye color, unknown. Hell,we're not even sure they

are a woman! Alias is Low Fi. She's been connected to Murder, breaking and entering,

kidnappings, and a slew of other crimes. I have a file cabinet in the back that has a

whole drawer filled with cases connected to her. They call her Low Fi because they

believe that is how she maneuvers undetected. Low Frequency, old tech, outdated
cybernetics and equipment. No one has ever seen her long enough to even get a clear

picture!”

John slid four other images of four separate women towards Agent becks and each

one looked completely different. “Hell, each of these women could be here. No one

knows, but that phrase, that is her calling card! That is Its calling card!”

“How did you-”

“I know about all of them!” Detective Orville cut her off. “I know about the so

called Cyber terrorist you are looking for too. That Esperion breach way back in 2017,

the one that stole credit information from millions of people. They bragged that they

could never be hacked, that their firewall and defenses were impenetrable. I know that

the firewall was manipulated after it happened with that damn phrase embedded in it.

That wasn't shared with the news, the public, or even low level IDL members. Only

White Hat brass is supposed to know this right? Zell Stryke! One of the worse Black

Hats that have ever graced cyberspace. I have another drawer filled with cyber crimes

attached to him. The bank that spit back millions of credits to random bank member,

Zell. The power grid that got shut down and held for the ransom of the first issuance of

all of Penthouse Magazine. Zell! Or what about the Super Bowl feed a couple years ago?

The big screen got taken over and showed hardcore interracial Nazi porn! That was Zell

Stryke too!” John had to stop himself from laughing at the last part, he and most of the

squad room laughed pretty hard for weeks at that.

Detective Orville saw Agent Becks blush and he calmed down. He had to
remember that even though they were IDL they were still human, at least most of them

were.

“So then you know about the berserker?” Agent Becks swallowed softly. The

Detective was a font of information. More than the IDL had expected.

“The Orc-kin? Yes. It was an interesting tale. About seven years ago we had that

influx of otherkin. The IDL made them an identity and a pronoun, and soon after people

were getting elf ears, tails, wings, and what ever else the cybernetic surgeons would

apply. That poor boy, believed he was an Orc, and the girl he was with at the time didn't

help. But what someone does in their personal life ain't my business. He decided to get

the full treatment. Before you all at the IDL made the otherkin surgeries government

funded. He paid out of pocket for everything. Increased strength, increased speed,

increased size, skin discoloration, tusk implants, cybernetic eyes, flattened nose,

everything.

While he was finishing his last surgery, for the increased strength, there was a

power surge. Now people were told that is was a power line that got severed because of

construction. I know that it was targeted and I know who's calling card was left behind.

The cameras show the berserker Brockus in the chair, the lights go out, and when they

come back on the Orc is gone. Now I also know that from reports he couldn't have

walked out on his own power. He had to be carried or helped out. I also know that 'You

are not prepared' was etched into the camera lense.”

“Detective, how do you know-”

 “Because I lost my career trying to find these people. A week after Brockus went

missing there was a television studio ransacked. Thousands of credits worth of

equipment was stolen. Things weighing well over a ton went missing in the twenty

minutes it took police to arrive. That is impossible. Unless you have enhancements. He's

been connected to violence all over the country.”

“You obviously know more than we thought.”

“Yeah well, maybe you should have come and talked to me first. I gave my career

for these freaks. I told you IDL jokes about Antwon before.” John sat back and put his

cigarette out on the table.

“Antwon?” Agent Becks asked confused.

“The red eyed thing that crawled out of a computer screen! Yeah, A protocol. He

calls himself Antwon. They have a following, the Black Hats see them as heroes. They

cause mischief and damage where ever they go. And what is worse is you all have been

trying to find them without even knowing it. You know about the pirate webcast?”

“Yes.”

“That's them. They are flaunting it in your faces. His voice is powerful, when

Antwon speaks, people listen. They are calling them the 'Villains.'”

“The what?”

“The Proper Villains. That is the name of their group, the Black Hats named them.

They ran with it. And do you want to know the worst part in all of this?”

“What would that be Detective Orville?”

 John took out his last cigarette and held it between his thumb and index finger and

pointed to the large mirror on the wall, the one-way mirror that he knew it was. “I know

that there is an IDL member back there getting me my walking papers! I'm being let go

today because I know more than I should. And once I get them, once I am finished

clearing out my desk and step outside; I am going to finally meet Low Fi for the first

time. More than likely it will be my last time too. Because those fuckers...”

He laughed and set the cigarette down.

“I thought I was closing in on them. I honestly thought I was getting close. But

they knew where I was the entire time. I got a letter. An honest to God letter. Not an e-

mail, not a text, or a tweet. A post card saying; Sorry to hear about today, tell the IDL

everything. Going to miss you buddy. Signed Antwon! You are not prepared for the

Villains, you don't even know what's coming.”

John was sitting at his desk later and looked up as his Lieutenant came to his desk

looking upset. He knew what it was, he didn't know how Antwon knew but he didn't

care. He was glad this was going to be over. He had become a laughing stock trying to

chase ghosts. After being congratulated for his service he was offered a nice pension and

full benefits. He knew he'd never get a chance to use them.

John Orville gathered his stuff for the last time and took his first steps out of the

station as a civilian and as he walked down the steps he continued to look around him

for any signs of the Villains. He could feel them watching him. He stopped and began to

open a new pack of cigarettes. As he placed the first on to his lips he hears a soft but
sing song voice whisper into his ear. “Those things will kill you John. We can't have that

now can we?”

“Low fi?” John felt his throat close up.

“Aw, you remembered me!” she chuckled.

“Can I at least take a look, I mean I've been looking for you guys for years?” he

could hardly breath.

“Look up Johnny boy. Right there. We really appreciate all this.”

John looked up and caught a glimpse of red. He saw them, Zell and his signature

blue mask, Brockus and his Orange hue, and Antwon, those red piercing eyes and

cheshire cat smile. He turned and saw Low fi, she was so close he could smell

something that his brain would register too late as papyrus.

“It won't hurt Johnny boy. I promise.”

John looked into what he could see of Low Fi's eyes, hidden behind beautiful

blond hair and a pair of glasses that made her look so unassuming you could easily see

her as a librarian, not the cold blooded assassin her files said she was. Green eyes,

playful and bright. There was a pinch in his back and an intake of air on his part, it was

uncomfortable but he could feel his energy being drained from his fingers. His knees

were weak and could no longer support his weight. In seconds he fell to the ground as

his life's blood drained onto the pavement. Low fi was gone before he had even hit the

ground.