S088 - Miller, DeMarcus

#1

Name: DeMarcus Miller
Gender: Male
Age: 17
Grade: 12
School: John Endecott Memorial Academy
Hobbies and Interests: Watching YouTube essays, online gaming, Twitter trolling

Appearance: At 5’8” and 230 pounds, DeMarcus Miller is an individual whose lack of physical activity is evident in his weight. He is broadly built with thick legs and arms, with most of the aforementioned weight being carried in his round gut. He has dark brown skin indicative of his African-American ancestry, with light brown eyes and dark brown, wiry hair that is typically in an unkempt, small afro. His attempts to grow a beard have only resulted in wispy hairs around his upper lip and chin and scraggly patches on his cheeks, which he is vehemently against shaving. His neutral expression is often misconstrued for a scowl, as he naturally purses his lips and knits his eyebrows together.

DeMarcus has a restrained sense of fashion, more out of lack of care than a sense of style. He tends toward baggy jeans and shirts with gaming logos, offset by the occasional flannel or button-down shirt. He also has a few pairs of beat-up, off-brand sneakers that he rotates between. The only consistent part of his wardrobe is a black Apex Legends snapback. He was wearing this hat on the day of the abduction, along with a white and blue pair of sneakers, old dark-blue jeans with frayed knees, a wash-faded black T-shirt with the Alienware logo on the front, and a similarly faded grey and black checkered flannel shirt.

Biography: DeMarcus was born the only child to Denise Johnson and Alvin Miller, the latter the owner of a semi-successful barbecue restaurant (“The Firepit”) and the former a waitress at it. Denise had been hired at The Firepit at roughly the same time that Alvin’s father, Marcus Miller, had passed the reins to him before lung cancer claimed him. The two hit it off fairly quickly and, within a year of Alvin’s tenure, Denise had become pregnant. DeMarcus came into the world in December, named as a compromise between his mother and Alvin's grandfather, and Alvin considered him to be the best Christmas gift he ever got.

There were two institutions outside of school that defined DeMarcus’s life and upbringing. The first, of course, was The Firepit. With both parents spending their time ensuring the restaurant could weather any financial storm, DeMarcus was a fixture around the small building most of the time, usually sitting in a spare booth with coloring books or action figures wiling away the time or charming regular customers with his unbidden but not unwelcome questions. The second was church. Alvin Miller was a devout southern Baptist, as much for the community as for the religion, and while Denise wasn’t so stringent she would almost never miss a service in the beginning.

The first few years of DeMarcus’s life were relatively uneventful. Though he didn’t meet many children outside of preschool, the volume of interactions he had with customers and at church ensured he was socialized. However, there was a strain on his parents that would influence the trajectory of DeMarcus's life. Denise had always been inclined to go to school to aspire for something other than helping out with The Firepit. This inclination would grow stronger in the face of the 2008 financial crisis. The event had the dual effect of straining the The Firepit’s finances while spurring Denise to believe higher education was necessary to help them move past it. Alvin wanted more of Denise’s help right when she started taking online and night classes toward a degree in nursing. The couple grew colder to each other and while DeMarcus didn’t understand what was going on, he intuited something had gone wrong. Since he still spent most of his time at the restaurant, his father not so-subtly indicated that it was his mother’s choice that was causing the problems.

While DeMarcus was brought up religiously, his parents didn’t have the time to curate what he did when he was home, especially in the wake of the crisis. Video games, especially shooters, were as much a babysitter to him as the series of teenagers the Millers scraped money together to hire. These video games and the interactions that he ran into while he played them online had a profound impact on him, especially because he gravitated toward toxic lobbies where slurs were commonplace and griefing was just part of the fun.

While one couldn’t say that DeMarcus lacked an imagination in school he lacked the spark that would allow him to excel in subjects like English or Art. He performed well enough in them while excelling in less creatively-focused fields like math to still be considered a decent student. He had no inkling of what he wanted to move toward and did not figure that his father was grooming him to take over The Firepit, even as the restaurant continued to struggle through the early 2010s.

While DeMarcus’s mother was beginning to entertain some more openly LGBT-positive, liberal views as a result of her collegiate endeavors, his father was starting to solidify his more conservative standpoint as a black small business owner that had, in his view, made it. Often the two would get into heated arguments at home and while DeMarcus was kept out in those moment, his father would often be the one to take him aside and mention in furtive whispers of how his mother was buying into black victimhood and implying it was views like hers contributing to their problems. Whether by exasperation or ignorance of Alvin’s growing resentment, Denise never provided her side of the discussion. Furthermore, most of DeMarcus’s social activities were with a small subset of the already non-diverse Salem community, giving him a sharply conservative social view of the world.

By the beginning of high school, DeMarcus had gained a strong distrust of social issues leaking into his one prominent hobby. He had become active on social media with at least one purpose being to troll left-leaning people. At the same time that Canon’s election campaign was in full swing, DeMarcus had taken steps further right through his online viewing habits. He had taken to watching SJW cringe compilations and the YouTube algorithm had started recommending him anything from skeptics railing against feminism to classical liberals expounding anti-immigration rhetoric. At the same time, he had cultivated a group of dominantly white friends through gaming and at school that were like-minded. He was unaware of his own tokenism within the dynamics of the group and often he would let racialized language slide in their company. He led a double life, keeping to himself in-person while his more sordid online activities stayed on the net.

His father and, by extension, DeMarcus, had seen the election efforts of Canon as a chance to course correct where the country seemed to be going. The Firepit was soon decorated in Canon campaign signage. Alvin would never admit that some of the lost revenue could be, in part, attributed to some of its black clientele being put off by said signage. Canon’s eventual victory was as much a bonding moment between DeMarcus and his father as it was a wedge between him and his mother, who had thrown herself even more deeply into collegiate endeavors. By the time of the election, she had dropped down to barely a couple shifts a week at the restaurant while Alvin had been forced to spend more of their waning revenue on staff.

The Canon administration and its doings seemed to confirm for DeMarcus and Alvin that a change was on the horizon, that their fortunes would shift and for some time, the business did see an uptick. It wasn’t enough to save the Millers' marriage. Denise was nearing the completion of her degree and, between stress, the impact of the election, and dissatisfaction with Alvin, the two chose to separate.

Based on his financial resources and DeMarcus's preferences, his father was awarded primary custody. At that point, Denise had left her job at The Firepit entirely. A friend of hers had gotten her a job as an administrative assistant at a local law firm and the salary allowed her to rent a small, one-bedroom apartment while she finished up her studies. DeMarcus spent most of Denise's weekends there, typically with his face down in a laptop or trawling his smartphone for entertainment. Whenever her time and money would allow, Denise would try to take DeMarcus to events representative of the avenues that her collegiate life had opened up to her. She'd take him to book signings and readings of local authors, visit dance performances, or attend art walks in Boston. DeMarcus took little enjoyment from these events. Between Denise's rough living accommodations, the unfavorable perceptions he already had of the other attendees, and his own father's commentary on the new direction his mother had taken, DeMarcus further entrenched himself in his worldview. Denise worked to counter Alvin's overwhelming influence with fervor for the first year before she slowed down, either by exhaustion at the lack of results or the need to buckle down and throw herself into the last segment of her education. DeMarcus loved his mother but retained his distance, as he perceived her as leaving his dad to chase a dream at the expense of their family.

Meanwhile, the coronavirus pandemic helped codify DeMarcus’s radical ideas. He consumed online content of a conspiratorial nature wherever he could find it. He participated in online brigades of media outlets speaking negatively of how the virus was being handled. He joined gaming Discords for individuals sharing his views. Since his hobbies were all online, his day-to-day routine was not especially affected by the pandemic except for granting him a new subject with which to troll.

By the time the country had come out the other end of the pandemic and administrations had shifted, DeMarcus had become even more sullen and volatile in his online rhetoric, enough so that it leaked into his in-person life. He has avoided dropping into outright hate speech but the student body is partially aware of some of his more virulent views on social and political issues, typically through casual remarks revealing snippets of his worldview or through his sporadic participation in class discussions. In general, DeMarcus has a reputation as a loud and outspoken individual. At this point he is biding his time until he can graduate. Though his grades would be considered good enough for a decent college, he lacks any aspirations besides continuing to help with his father's business. His only passions are gaming and trolling and he hasn't given his life past school much thought besides the path that Alvin has constructed.

Advantages: Having spent much of his leisure activity playing shooters and games requiring twitch responses, DeMarcus has notably fast reflexes. As he is not exactly shy and is straightforward in his speech, communication is not a hindrance to possible teamwork.
Disadvantages: DeMarcus’ reputation and views likely do not endear him to a significant portion of the student body, which is exacerbated by his bluntness and lack of filter. He is in poor physical shape and any activity requiring cardio or agility may be beyond his abilities.

Designated Number: Student No. #088

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Designated Weapon: Desert Eagle handgun (.50 pistol)

Conclusion: Here we have: a nobody, a loser. Use that pistol to avoid becoming a victim, a statistic. Or don't. It doesn't matter and neither do you. - Jim Greynolds