Deciding that the only true way to a clear conscience is to face up to your part in all this, you decide to stay where you are. Besides, both the door and the chute look really dangerous.
Within moments you're surrounded by gleaming, scorpion-like security drones, who apply electrical subdual probes which make your limbs and teeth feel like they're made of pain.
When the residual sparkling blue charge has dissipated, you wake already in the dock of a courtroom, hands and legs chained. The sleak, black walls are semi-reflective, and robots and aliens fill the large room with a buzz of noise and anticipation. When the questions begin they are stark and probing, and your answers come with difficulty, but sincerity.
You explain that you didn't know the drinks were dangerous, that the corporation gave you an incomplete briefing, and you throw yourself on the court for leniency. Your defense lawyer is a flamboyant blue Talganian, with dyed-cerise mandibles and a penchant for exaggeration, while the prosecution is the merciless new Lawdroid 8600, with optional legal thesaurus add-on and a vivid, metallic-ochre paint job.
The sentence comes in at 8.5 Solar years penal servitude on a desert planet in the Nydroxia system. You get off in 6 years for good behaviour and being too expensive to keep hydrated.
With the rest of your life ahead of you and a clear conscience, things aren't so very bad. It's difficult finding an income with your criminal record, but eventually you get work as a barman on an entirely different desert planet, which is enough to pay the bills at least. Where your life takes you from here is completely up to you.
Did you win? Debatably not. But life is full of opportunities to win, whether it's the big or little things, and all said this is one of the better endings. If you'd like to see one of the worse ones, or try for a better one than this, head on back to
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