B085 - Murphy, Brandon [DECEASED]

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Name: Brandon Murphy
Gender: Male
Age: 18
Grade: Senior
School: George Hunter High School
Hobbies and Interests: Reading, video games, internet culture, right-wing politics

Appearance: Standing 5'8" tall and weighing 180 lbs, Brandon's figure is fairly average. While slightly on the heavy side, he is best described as heavyset rather than chubby, with thick arms and legs and just enough body fat to hide any muscle definition. He has a light complexion, with pale skin that tends to burn rather than tan with sun exposure. His face is so round as to be almost circular, with a pointed nose, bushy eyebrows, and deep-set green eyes. A light smattering of acne dots his cheeks. His hair is curly and reddish-brown and hangs down around his cheekbones. Owing to myopia, he sometimes wears glasses with thick, square half-frames, though he prefers not to use them unless he has to read things from farther away, such as in the classroom or while driving.

Brandon tends to dress casually, and sometimes a bit sloppily. On the day of the abduction, he was wearing a typical outfit with a blue-and-white striped t-shirt, cargo pants, and white running shoes.

Biography: Brandon's parents, Andy and Karen, met while Andy was attending law school. He frequented the restaurant where Karen worked as a waitress, and as they interacted they eventually fell in love. Andy passed the bar exam shortly after they married and they moved to Chattanooga where he set up practice as a civil attorney. Karen soon became pregnant and they discussed their future plans, with Karen eventually deciding to stay at home full-time to care for Brandon. Though Andy's work hours were long and the pay inconsistent, both subject to the varying caseload that presented itself, they were able to earn a mostly comfortable life with their first and only child. Brandon spent his early years comfortably, never really wanting for any necessity and generally growing up happy, healthy, and overall well-adjusted.

Throughout his childhood, Brandon found himself enrolled by his parents in a variety of programs, from swimming lessons to piano, in an effort to give their son the best opportunities at finding passion they could. Some activities sustained his interest longer than others, but most eventually fell by the wayside. Particularly noteworthy of these was his entry into the world of baseball, thanks in large part to the urging of his father, who felt a special fondness for the sport. Though initially noncommittal, Brandon was encouraged to stick with it and soon came to thoroughly enjoy his time on the field as he moved from tee-ball up into the minor leagues. His participation also helped sow the seeds of what became a family tradition of watching professional games together during free evenings, with young Brandon excitedly picking out teams to root for and players to idolize.

One lifelong hobby that Brandon needed no prodding to pick up was gaming. The world he had been born into was an interconnected one, and one increasingly defined by widespread Internet access and personal electronics. This meant natural exposure to a variety of digital entertainment in his early childhood, but a more formal introduction came one weekend early on in his childhood. His parents engaged in sifting through the remaining cardboard-packaged detritus of their move, as they sometimes did, only this time with a lot more fussing around with cables and adapters around the family room television. Finally, to Brandon's great delight, they presented him with a working setup for a PlayStation that had been packed away for years, plus a racing game they'd deemed appropriate for his age. Brandon was enthralled, and spent much of that evening clumsily crashing virtual cars through their courses in what immediately became one of his favorite pastimes. As long as some moderation was exercised, his parents agreed, there was nothing wrong with him spending time in such a manner. And Brandon, for his part, was more than happy to oblige them, even as birthdays and holidays passed and upgraded both the antiquated console and the library of games, mostly racing and sports titles that were light on reading and heavy on action, in his collection.

As the years went by and elementary school gave way to middle school, a nagging realization finally came to a head for Brandon: as much as he celebrated and looked up to the professional athletes he watched on TV, he had very little in common with them. In reality, at his very best, he might be considered merely average. Though this hadn't bothered him at first, as things gradually became more serious he noticed coaches spending more and more time on his peers who were particularly strong or fast or coordinated rather than himself, and Brandon felt less and less willing to keep up with the growing commitments required. Eventually he made the decision to stop playing, though the he kept the friendships that he'd formed, as well as an appreciation for the game and the family bonding of watching pro games with his family. He also retained a passing appreciation for fitness, and however much time he found himself spending indoors as he grew older, he did at least try to get outside on a regular basis.

Around the same time, Andy experienced a particularly bad downturn in his work. With Brandon getting old enough to stay home by himself for significant periods of time and Andy's job hitting a particularly bad spot, Karen decided to start working. Having never finished her schooling and facing an economy still recovering from a major downturn, she faced some difficulty in her search but eventually found a job as a receptionist, which she was satisfied with as much comfier, if not significantly more lucrative, than her former job as a waitress. While the supplemental income steadied things financially, the increase of unstructured free time for Brandon and the sudden decrease for his family caused some strain. Brandon shouldered the extra stress poorly. His mood dropped and he started becoming difficult and acting out for attention in class. The ultimate remedy for this turned out to simply be time, though not without a series of conferences with concerned teachers as they noticed his change in attitude and as his grades, which had never been stellar, dipped close to failing.

One discovery from this process, as faculty pondered different solutions, was the fact that Brandon was becoming myopic. While not the silver bullet some hoped, the idea that his difficulty reading chalkboards and overhead projectors translated into difficulty paying attention in class did prove to be true and his situation improved somewhat after he was fitted with glasses. Over the years he has tried several different styles, including contacts, but couldn't adjust to poking at his eyes and never found a pair of frames he likes the look of. As a result, he prefers not to wear his glasses unless he really needs to.

Another positive discovery for Brandon during this period came by happenstance. In one of his classes, Brandon was assigned to read The Hobbit. Initially, this did nothing to help and he dreaded the assignment. After a couple failed quizzes and some considerable prodding, he eventually opened the book and, to his amazement, found himself absolutely enthralled. It didn't take him to long to catch up and then pass the required progress for the class, and he managed to re-read the entire book again by the end of the unit. This was a major accomplishment for him, as he'd previously regarded reading mostly as a chore. He had never imagined the clarity and seriousness with which ideas about dark lords and dragons and unassuming people rising to save the day through judicious use of power and diplomacy could be presented, and he soon set out looking for more. Though his tastes remained rather narrow, he gradually churned through a list of sci-fi and fantasy classics.

While his interest in classic literature grew, Brandon's unsupervised free time also allowed him to delve into a rather different world of the written word as he explored the Internet. The light-hearted humorous and memetic side had its obvious appeal, but he also found himself intrigued by the forbidden mystique surrounding places like 4chan and its various sub-boards and related forums. But on working up the nerve to venturing there, instead of grotesque and scary, he found much of the content to be surprisingly mundane. What he found truly intriguing was the effect of anonymity on perception. With no consistent identity linking his posts from topic to topic or even within the same thread of discussion, he was able to slip in and out of arguments at will and find each post judged solely by its contents. Though most of the topics of discussion were inane or otherwise pointless, the occasions where he struck a chord with someone formed his first major experiences of acclaim within a purely merit-based ecosystem.

Brandon's transition into high school went much more smoothly than middle school, and his interests continued to evolve naturally. He continued to churn through new fantasy books at a steady pace, tackling longer or more unorthodox series as his tastes matured. In the field of gaming, he picked up some of the popular competitive titles socially but eschewed the frustrating ranking grind for solo play sessions in favor of more story-focused single-player games. And, most notably to those around him, he found his ideals pulled more and more in line with those he engaged with online, a mixture of simple contrarian railing against the then-Democratic presidential administration and more complex arguments that used outwardly innocent premises to cloak less generally accepted ideas in the veil of plausible deniability. He became more outgoing and argumentative, eager to wield the pre-packaged rhetorical power of talking points against views that disagreed with his own. This began to shape his social circle, offending some and forging bonds between others who felt the same way.

President Canon's campaign in Brandon's sophomore year was a particularly strong catalyst for these viewpoints. The more outwardly acceptable themes of American exceptionalism, isolationism, and disdain for the entrenched system appealed to Brandon as they did many others, including his parents, but he had a special ear for the tacit endorsement of the anti-political correctness culture that emboldened and enabled the views he had begun to pick up. While not yet old enough to vote, he showed his open support and engaged online with arguments about Canon and his policies. As of late, he has been interested in the Q Anon conspiracy, a series of posts under a unique private identifier purporting to be from an individual with high-level security clearance detailing a secret war between Canon's administration and opposing forces within the government and casting Canon in a personally heroic role.

Brandon's grades have never been stellar and that has continued through his high school career. He favors softer subjects like English and history where rhetoric and grand narratives take importance and does poorly in hard subjects like math and science, which he views as overly rigid and abstract. His future is uncertain, and his grades don't recommend him well to many choice colleges, but he has vague ideas of studying political science and possibly following his father's footsteps into the legal world.

Advantages: Brandon's argumentative nature and confidence in his own rhetorical skill make him difficult to coerce or intimidate. His history of exercise for his own sake and experience in rarely having superlative strength or speed mean he possesses some degree of stamina and is mindful of his physical limits. His ideals, while strong, are not unique, and he has easily-identifiable potential allies in those students who do share them.
Disadvantages: The views which Brandon freely espouses are widely found to be offensive, making it much more difficult to secure allies outside his own social circle. He tends to see the world in absolutes and is likely to make issues out of disagreements that other students might be willing to overlook. Additionally, his myopia makes him reliant on his glasses to avoid severe disadvantages in all but very close-range encounters.

Designated Number: Male Student No. 85

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Designated Weapon: Billhook

Conclusion: Yet another fucking geek who talks too much and understands too little. Fortunately for him, things are as black and white as they get here: you live or don't, and B085 won't. - Veronica Rai

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