There must have been thousands standing in the rain that day. They clambered to see a new hero among us. We stood at the foot of the main Capital City Library. The stairs stood before us like a wall. At the top of the stairs overlooking everyone were the organizers of the gathering and the man we went to see. He was a former police officer who was writing a book about his experiences. The files had been registered at the Capital City main library awaiting approval before publishing authorization. The approval should have been granted months earlier.

From what I heard he was often in the right place at the right time to catch a crook, or had arrived just in time to assist his fellow officers to save the day. The last incident he was involved in during active duty resulted in a suspension of his service. He shot and killed a suspect at a robbery scene. It didn’t seem to us to be an incident he would leave his job for, since he had killed suspects before. The organizers let us know there was more to the story than what government censors were going to allow. We stood there with the rain beating down on us to find out exactly what government censors were keeping from the public.

When he began to speak, his story poured out of him. “I was a police officer for 15 years. Many of you have probably seen some of the actions I took on the nightly news programs. It was often said that I was a lucky officer always in the right place to lend the hand that was needed. I enjoyed my work. I never heard from the people I helped, that there wasn’t a cop around when you needed it. I was that cop. I was around at just the right time. The incident that brought my service to an end has shaken me to my core. I was not fired, nor did I retire, as was stated recently. I quit the system that I held so dear because of the greater governmental system that I was a part of.” If it hadn’t been raining his words would have been splashing back and forth in the buildings around us just as they did in our minds.

“As many of you know during my last day of police duty a suspect was in the process of robbing a convenience store. I happened to be driving by after leaving my shift at the station, when I noticed the unmistakable flash of gun fire inside the store. I pulled my car over and immediately went toward the scene to intervene. I saw the suspect over the body of a diseased individual and ordered him to put down his weapon. He lifted it in my direction so I fired and shot and killed the suspect.” An uncontrollable pause coalesced upon him. “After backup arrived we looked into the identification of the suspect and that’s when I found out that that suspect was my own son.” The policeman’s voice stopped suddenly. His head fell down into his shoulders. Bringing himself up again, he forced his words out.

“After loosing my wife in the first movement to stop the reclamation I lost my son to the security camps. I was told he died there. They led me to believe I lost my whole family, causing me to have more of a commitment to my job.”

The door to the library flew open behind the speaker. A man in a well tailored suit, named Winston Huffington, a government censor, marched forward. “You must cease this gathering immediately. The information this man is speaking of is now the property of the Reclamation government and he has no authority to share it.” Winston stepped in front of the officer holding a small computer drive. “I have the files in my hand and the information will be published in a suitable form by a government press.”

The woman who organized the event stepped up to speak. “They want to warp this man’s story into something righteous and fantastical. He had a great number of years full of dedication and service to his job and protecting people, but the government wants another hero they can lift up and use to lie to us. They want you to ignore the ugly, dirty parts of the reality we all live in.”

“I’ll have none of that miss. Disperse or the authorities will remove you all.” Winston put the wet computer drive in his pocket.

I looked around to see if anyone else was dispersing. The plan was to have a protest march. We were going to follow the censor Huffington’s car on its route from the library to his offices at the main information bureau. The government censors and officials read it over, but delayed publication. They were most likely intent on altering the books ending. We gathered there to show our support for the truth, the whole truth.

Most of the people and stories the recently installed government promoted were from before the Reclamation Party took it over. They needed to keep fresh stories and heroes in people’s minds, so the general population would feel others were fighting for justice so they wouldn’t rise up. We went there that day to show them they were wrong.

Our leader shouted, “now it’s time to move. Show them we will not stand by as they corrupt our culture with lies!”

The crowd started to move. Winston Huffington tried to make it through the shifting crowd to his waiting transport. There was no way, with so many people having flooded the street, that the car was going anywhere. A siren started screeching in the background, then suddenly a clap of distant thunder. The noise of the rain confused our ears, but someone shouted “police, shots!” The crowd started to move quicker as confusion set in. At some point the censor, Huffington, must have tripped or was knocked over to the ground. More sirens started up and full panic fed into the crowd. Everyone around me was in a full sprint with random bodies falling to the ground. The slippery urban surfaces were hard to cope with.

In the end twenty people had been trampled by the frightened and uncontrollable crowd. Among them was Winston E. Huffington.

We wanted the freedom to know what happened; Huffington wanted a new hero for the cannon. They wanted new fodder for the rest of the country to look up at and be happy; with their government and its officers.

The anarchy that we all quickly jumped to in that moment showed me the risks of getting people exited without a plan. I wanted to take the knowledge I developed over the years of the responsibility of truth, and lead it to an end in which we all survived in the light of truth. I had work to do.

After I compiled information about the lies of the few stories I was aware of and how they were engineered by my government, I realized it wasn’t just those few stories that were falsified. The Reclamation Government came up with numerous heroes to name our new Capital City after. Buildings and streets were named for people they wanted us to look up to for a sense of wonder and safety. I finally understood what the stories really meant to my past. The heroes weren’t real.