Murphy's Rebellion; Hero of a Forgotten Past

(Content Warning: Contains some adult language)

The city slept. All but one man were curled in their beds, dreaming of freedom, liberty, and better times. All but one man had accepted their comfortable, albeit boring, fate—handouts of food from the nutrition center, clothing from the uniform shop. All but one man had given up on living for mere existence and production. In the wee hours of the night, that one man walked toward the city center with purpose. John Murphy didn’t know what awaited him, but he knew where he was going, and he knew nothing would stop him from his destiny.

It had been two decades since all media were taken over and became owned by the GHC. The Global Humanity Corporation owned everything, including the government. Congress was nothing more than a dog-and-pony show, with the "President" serving as little more than a paper tiger. The GHC was the ringleader of the shit show.

That old proverb about putting a frog in a pot and bringing it to a boil had proven true. Every aspect of life was controlled. You worked the job they assigned you. You lived where they placed you. You ate what they fed you. Nobody did anything to stop it until it was too late. Sure, there were prophets. They’d stand on street corners yelling of conspiracies and tyranny. They were laughed and mocked or disappeared as quickly as they appeared. The only thing that couldn’t be completely controlled was the past.

Murphy remembered the good times. Though history books told a different story than he recalled, he remembered. He remembered having choices. He remembered a world with colors and kids wearing wild clothes. He remembered taking vacations for no reason at all, driving across the country to see landmarks, parks, and historical sites—all long ago destroyed by the GHC.

It was a swift transition once they made their move. He remembered noticing faces in the backgrounds of press conferences and the change in the tone of broadcast news. He remembered the broken looks of a handful of politicians and leaders. He didn’t know then that they were already privy to the takeover. He just knew something was wrong. Something wasn’t adding up.

Murphy had been given a job with the MPI, the Ministry of Public Information. It was his job to broadcast the message of the day across the country. Whether he was broadcasting a weather report, a fabricated news story, or "educational materials"—as they called them—it was his job to send it out. Everything was email and text now. Radio was dead. Television was nothing more than thousands of hours of cat videos and instructional videos on how to file various request documents with the proper government office. The internet was little more than a platform to order provisions from the company store, using company money.

With the Universal Basic Income Act of 2030, nearly the entire country lived off the same wage. All housing and transportation were government-owned and leased through the Lifestyle Office. Income was based on the number of mouths in your home; however, with standardized caloric distribution and mandatory exercise regimens, by the end of the month, every household had exactly as much remaining as every other.

There were very few exceptions. Those in "Upper Management" lived in walled-off neighborhoods outside the cities. Their neighborhoods were well guarded by armed soldiers whose families were only slightly better fed than average citizens. They were given more incidental pay to spend. Soldiers wore good shoes, almost as nice as Management’s.

Due to his communication role, Murphy was given a press pass. This allowed him to traverse the streets at odd hours without being detained by security personnel. At times, he would be given a message to disseminate at unusual hours. As far as anyone knew, this was one of those times.

Checkpoints had been installed a decade ago to protect city personnel from wild animals and enemy forces. "For the greater good," was the message. Children carried documents with their parents’ and teachers’ names. Checkpoint personnel would recognize when kids were traveling with the wrong guardians, keeping children safe.

Thank goodness for checkpoints—what would we do without them? Murphy flashed his pass to the familiar faces as he passed through the final checkpoint before turning down the street where the MPI was located. Just doing their jobs, he thought, like everyone else responsible for this mess.

John Murphy loved his fellow man. He loved the country his father and grandfather had fought for. He remembered the old documents he had seen on vacation as a boy. His family had loaded up in that big old car—the kind outlawed right after The Company took over—and driven halfway across the country to see Washington, DC, before it became GHC US Headquarters. Now it was just called GHC Headquarters; there were no states any longer, only regions. The entire country was split into five regions—North, South, East, West, and Central. During the Great Equalization, Murphy had been transferred to the East Region.

His parents had taken him and his siblings to a place called the National Archives Museum, where they saw many important documents, and a man in a bowtie had lectured the family about the Founding Fathers. As a child, Murphy was bored to death and wanted to go somewhere fun, but as an adult, he fought back tears over the destruction of the Archives and its contents. "Slave owners and oppressors wrote those documents, and their very existence put us all in danger." That was the message Murphy was given to disseminate. He was just doing his job.

Now the documents were gone. Most historical sites had been repurposed. Rushmore had been blasted and virtually erased. The remaining statues were melted down or crushed. History books were rewritten. The past was erased. They hadn’t erased it from the minds of those who had lived it, though. Some still remembered. Murphy remembered.

He had spent weeks secretly crafting the message he would send out. He knew he would likely die for what he was about to do, but he wasn’t afraid. He remembered words his father had read to him as a boy: "I regret that I have but one life to give for my country," some great man had said. Another man, a poet, said, "Freedom lies in being bold." Murphy knew it was his time to be bold. He had a life—only one—but it was his, and dying for what he believed in felt more like living than existing under the thumb of the GHC.

As he climbed the steps to the Ministry, he thought of Sarah, his wife, asleep at home. He hadn’t told her of his plans. She’d been depressed for months, barely speaking. Their application for reproduction had been denied. Something burned inside her, a need that even John didn’t fully understand. He wanted her to be a mother. He knew he could never be the father his was in this world, but he wanted it nonetheless.

"Last chance to back out," he muttered to himself as he opened the door to his workplace. He wasn’t backing out. This was his moment. He would either be remembered as a national hero one day, or his sacrifice would be forgotten, swept under the rug—but he wasn’t backing out.

Murphy had seen behind the curtain. He knew The Company’s mismanagement would be its downfall. Food supplies were running low. Years of oppression and dictatorial governance had produced a generation of unproductive, unhappy workers who lacked creativity or motivation. The systems holding the whole mess together were crumbling. Rumors were circulating of Upper Management seeking fallback locations, researching resources off-continent.

As he fired up the console and prepared to load his message, he looked up, as if to the sky. Religion was one of the dangerous practices that had been all but outlawed, and he hadn’t said a prayer since he was a boy, but at this moment, he felt something stir inside him. He felt a calming strength he’d never felt before. He was calm now, loading the message. He selected recipients: All Employees, Exclude Upper Management. He locked the office door, sat down, and hit "Send Message." Within seconds, every device in every region would receive the message as a "High Priority Communication," and per company rules, every employee would have to read it immediately.