The bang! of the judge's gavel woke me rather rudely from my doze.
Through bleary eyes, I could see the disapproving glares of the oh-so-worthy denizens assembled before me. I regarded them in much the same way as I did the numberless dust pixels floating in the drab chamber.
"Aesh Petersen, for the crime of Artificing..." - a muttering of disgust went through the public gallery, as it always did - "...I sentence you to fifty years of death."
Bad.
Pretty damned bad, in fact.
But it could be worse, I thought. I might have been sentenced to fifty years of life.
