Democracy vs Corporatocracy

Chapter Five: The Fall Of Boston

March 3rd 2041

Marcus, Samuel and Eivor were gathered around the table in the church basement. The basement was rather large, had brick walls and there were other rooms in the basement that were being used to store supplies and equipment. Eivor said to Marcus "Long ago, Boston was a magnificent city, with over 680,000 people living here. It wasn't the best city, but the people here got by and lived good lives". Marcus then asked "What happened then?" Eivor moved a hair away from her eye and said "MegaCorp started buying up every small business they could lay their hands on and by 2030, they owned just about everything".  Marcus groaned and said "Of course, leave it the MegaCorp to ruin everything". Samuel nodded and said "They do no good for anyone but themselves". Eivor nodded in agreement and said "MegaCorp then started building this huge car factory in Boston, to fund the project, they took a ton of money from the small businesses they bought up and made false promises of paying them back double the money they had". Marcus noticed that the kids had written down landmarks on the map of Boston and written down where the factory was. Marcus asked with anger "What did they tear down to build it?"

Eivor answered with "James Creamery, they had the best hand rolled ice cream in Massachusetts. Junipero's day care, where so many parents got their children and took home after a hard day at work. Finally, St Teresa's Church, whose choir filled the city with song every Sunday and Wednesday". Marcus asked Eivor "How do you know?" Eivor bought out a book from under the table that said "City Archives" on the front of it and Marcus said "At least the Council of Boston had the decency to write down what Boston lost". Samuel then told Marcus "What made it worse, was that the car factory would only supply the people of Boston with half as many jobs as all the businesses did, so things would only got worse". Eivor proceeded to say "About halfway through construction, on March 15th 2033, there was a gas leak and the whole thing exploded!" Marcus gasped and said "That's terrible, did anyone get hurt?" Eivor said with sad eyes "Half the construction crew died in the explosion and MegaCorp didn't say anything about it". Samuel then told Marcus "What's worse is that the gas was never cleaned up, so its not safe there". Marcus angrily said "I bet MegaCorp ignored safety measures to cut the costs and pulled out after that". Eivor nodded and said "They did pull out and didn't even give all those small companies their money back".

Samuel finished with "The companies went bankrupt and shut down. There were no more jobs, so everyone left after that". Marcus couldn't believe it. Boston had been left to rot and it was all MegaCorp's fault. Marcus then noticed how some of the brick pillars, holding the ceiling up, had been reinforced with glue and duck tape. Marcus realised that after eight years of neglect, the church was falling apart and would soon collapse. Eivor noticed him looking at the pillars and said "This old basement is 15 feet tall and might collapse soon. We've been talking about relocating". Marcus noticed how the kids liked this place, it was much better than whatever abusive homes they had run away from, but needed to be fixed. Marcus then told them something shocking about his Dad. "My Dad was a building manager". Eivor's eyes widened with shock. Then Eivor realised something and said with enthusiasm "Then maybe he taught you something about building maintenance". Marcus confirmed this and said "We need brick fillers for the cracked bricks and replacement bricks for the too badly damaged ones". Samuel then asked "Just where do we get all that?" Marcus thought for a moment and saw the construction fight on the map. Marcus snapped his fingers and said "The construction sight!" Rachel Medicus, the sort of doctor at the Freedom Nest, had just finished placing a plaster on a kid who scraped his knee, heard Marcus say that and said with shock "But what about the gas?" Marcus looked at her from the table and said "Do we have any gas masks?" Rachel nodded and said "Yes, Ryan bought some with him when he ran away from his Corpo of a father, but there are only 3". Marcus then said "We will go in a team of 4, one of us will wait in a car and the other 3 will head inside and bring as many bricks and fillings as we can carry". Rachel reluctantly said "Ok then, just remember that the air in the masks wont last forever and take this air tester with you". Rachel handed Marcus an air tester, it was similar to a walkie talkie and has a small screen that showed weather or not the air was safe to breathe.

Marcus noticed that all the other kids had heard him and were looking at him. Marcus stood on top of a chair and said to the others "We make our move tomorrow, then we fix this place up, whose with me?" The other kids started saying "We're with you" and "Let's do it guys!" Marcus then said to everyone in the Freedom Nest "Then lets get to work".