Note: This chapter has not gone to my editors and events may change before final release. The below is also unedited and in a raw non-polished form.

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“Guilty!” The judge slammed his gavel down with an authoritative bang.

Looking to his side, Tiberius saw his attorneys frown. The man refused to meet his eyes. Turning around he saw his only child in tears. Lilly was a wreck, any thread of her civility gone. Two officers were approaching him with cuffs in hand. His vision blurred with tears as they dragged him from the room.

How did I even get here? Just a week ago I was a happily married man. Now I’m being dragged to prison with a life’s sentence for a crime I didn’t commit. I did not kill my wife. My only wish is that Lilly believes me. She knows I would never hurt her mother, right?

“Move along.” A guard shoved him from behind, almost causing him to trip over the ankle chains they attached.

“Sorry.” Tiberius muttered, the pleasantry leaving his lips out of habit.

The trio continued until they came upon a room containing several cells, most of them empty. He was guided to an empty cell and pushed inside.

“Hands!” A guard shouted orders.

Tiberius put his hands through a small slot just big enough for both his hands to fit through. The guard pressed a metal spike against the side of his right cuff. A green light illuminated from an led and the metal connecting the two wrist cuffs retracted inward leaving only small metal wrings around his wrists.

“Now back off, wife killer.” The guard kicked the bars of the cell.

Startled, Tiberius stumbled back and tripped over his ankle restraints. He fell hard on the concrete ground. Not being quick enough to raise his arms up to slow his decent, he hit face first. Everyone around heard the crunch of his nose against the floor. Pushing himself to his feet, he wiped the blood from his face but it was ultimately a futile effort.

“I think it’s broken. Do you have a doctor?” He felt something in his mouth. Spitting into his hand, he discovered a few teeth shards mixed with gloppy blood.

One guard chuckled. “Doctors are for non-murders. I bet your wife screamed out for a doctor when you butchered her you sick fuck. Your lucky this place is under surveillance and I don’t go in there to finish what the floor started.”

The other guard grabbed his co-worker and pulled him back. “Chill, Jerry. Don’t take your divorce out on this guy.”

“Scumbag deserves it. You saw the crime-scene photos during the trail. He’s a sicko!”

“The captains going to fire you if your caught beating up another inmate, man. It’s not worth your job. Let’s just go.”

After a deep breath the angry guard joined his co-worker and left, leaving Tiberius wondering again. How did I get here? Taking a moment to reflect, he thought back on the last few weeks.

Tiberius is an accountant, or was an accountant, for the largest global technology company Techavant. He had worked for Techavant since his college days. Over twenty years and had steadily rose in their ranks. He was in charge of overlooking their most important account with the world government.

He remembered discovering some irregularities on the account that dated back several years. His manager had encouraged him to document everything and dig as deep as he could to uncover its source. A few days into his investigation, his manager was transfered to another department but he continued his work. After bringing his report to his new manager, he was told to wait in a conference room for a briefing with the company’s president.

The pieces started coming together in his head the more he remembered. No one, even one of their chief accountants, met with the president directly. He was far too busy and important to mingle with people not at the executive level. Tiberius recalled the president asking a ton of questions but slipping in the odd question here and there. Questions like, who else knows about this? Or, is this the only copy of this report?

Tiberius’s mind was set at ease when the president rewarded him for his efforts. He was going to be promoted to chief accountant and receive and office on the third floor. He was even given the rest of the day off, which had never happened in his twenty plus years working there. That’s when everything changed.

Stopping to buy flowers for his wife, he rushed home to share the good news. His wife’s car was in their designated parking spot at their apartment complex. Good. He remembered thinking. He wasn’t going to have to wait for her to get home. Rushing inside and up the elevator to their floor, he ran to their door and stopped.

Their apartment door was slightly ajar and the apartment was dark. His wife loved to keep the windows open in order to allow natural light to floor the small space. Putting his briefcase down, he pushed open the door and called out for her. “Hello?” There was no response. “Baby girl? I’m home.”

He tried the light switch near the door but nothing happened. He took a few steps inside and slid on something wet. Stumbling, he found the lamp on their kitchen counter and flicked it on. It illuminated a scene from a horror movie.

His wife was lying lifeless on the smooth wood floor in a pool of her own blood. Blood that was now covering his feet and legs but he didn’t care. He rushed over and took her in his arms, fruitlessly checking for a pulse. She was clearly deceased. If her lifeless form wasn’t enough of a dead giveaway, the countless stab wounds covering her body certainly were.

Tears streamed down his face as he screamed in anger. He noticed the knife still in her and tossed it aside after dislodging it. He doesn’t remember how long he sat there screaming and weeping before the large number of police officers rushed in and arrested him.

He tried explaining himself to the detectives but there were no other prints found at the scene. His short temper didn’t do himself any favors. Screaming at the officers and throwing things during interrogation painted a bad picture. It didn’t help that he couldn’t afford a good attorney.

He wasn’t poor but he was far from well off. The cost of living had skyrocketed over the years as population increased. His money allowed him to hire someone better than a public defender but by a small margin.

The worse part of the whole situation was being cut off from his daughter. She had been at college when the incident occurred, which he found to be a blessing. Otherwise he may have been facing duel murder charges. That’s where his luck ended however. He wasn’t allowed to speak with her and when seeing her briefly at the trail later, she refused to say anything. She just silently watched on as the evidence was brought against him.

The entire past week felt like a haze but it was becoming abundantly clear what happened to him. “Those rat bastards.” He screeched out of clenched teeth. This had to be a set-up. He thought. I must have uncovered some of the company’s dirty laundry and they decided to hang me up to dry. They won’t get away with this. I’ll make sure they burn.

His thought pattern was interrupted when the door leading into the room flung open. A man in an expensive suit came walking in and appeared to be heading for his cell. That was confirmed when the man stopped outside Tiberius’s bars.

“Hello. How are you?” The man asked in a navally voice.

“What can I say. I’ve been better.” Tiberius answered sarcastically.

“Right. I’m here to inform you that the state has concluded with sentencing. You have been given a life sentence without the chance of parole. I’ve been sent here to offer you alternative sentencing.”

Tiberius chuckled. It was faint at first but quickly turned manic. “You’re from Techavant, aren’t you?” The man nodded. Tiberius rushed the bars and attempted to grab the man but he was standing right out of arms reach.

“Mr. Stone. Have you not learned that violence is not the answer?”

“I’ll kill you! It was Techavant who put me here. You killed my wife!” Tiberius was nearly foaming at the mouth with anger.

“Now, Mr. Stone. I have no idea what you’re talking about. I’m here to offer you alternative sentencing. As you know, the average prisoner costs the government almost $100,000 a year. Techavant has created the worlds first and only alternative to a life in prison. We can offer you…”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah.” Tiberius interrupted him. “You can offer to put my mind in that virtual prison and dispose of my body. Uploading my mind and storing it saves the government a pretty penny, doesn’t it? And you rather shut me up. No matter what you say, no deal! I’m going to make sure the world knows what you’ve done!” Spitting at the man when he finished speaking, he stormed off to lay in the cot located within his cell.

The man took out a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped the saliva off his suit before speaking. “Oh really? You know that any prisoner who enters our virtual environment is compensated for their time. We pay what ever their prison wages would have been while they were incarcerated in one lump sum.”

“What need for money do I have if I’m dead? You really ought to change your sales pitch.”

“You may not need money but what about Lilith, your daughter?”

Tiberius sat up in bed. “Don’t you dare mention my daughter you sad sac.”

The man raised his hands defensively. “I simply wish to mention the benefits of our offer. Since your wife was murdered by her spouse, that voids her life insurance policy and you can’t provide for her while in prison. Since you were a trusted Techavant employee, we are willing to triple the payment a normal person would receive. Quite a generous offer, Mr. Stone.”

“You mean you’re willing to give me hush money, right? You want to kill me so I can’t speak ill of the company.”

The man spoke through a sly grin. “We simply wish to reward you for service and dedication to the company.” Tiberius’s face turned red and he opened his mouth to say something but the man stepped closer so only Tiberius could hear him and continued to speak. “With your crimes, even if your daughter wanted to see you, which she doesn’t, you’re going to the life prison on the moon. Even if she somehow raised the funds to take a shuttle there, they don’t allow visitation. Your life is over regardless of what you choose. At least this way you can pay for the rest of your daughters education and give her a little nest-egg to start her life off with.”

“Don’t play the nice guy. Techavant did this to me and I’m going to make sure the world knows that.”

“How?”

Tiberius was taken back by the statement. “What do you mean how? I’ll call a press conference or tell my lawyer. Hell, I’ll tell anyone whose willing to listen.”

The man nodded slowly. “So you’re going to tell fellow lifers that you were set-up.” He chuckled. “Most of them will likely tell you the same thing. And you’re never going to see your lawyer again.”

“I’ll tell the guards!”

“You mean the private security who runs the prisons. The prisons owned by shell companies of which Techavant owns? As I said, your life is over. Take my offer. Its your only real option. We’ll upload you into a brand new world where you can start over with a new life.”

“NO! I will ruin you. I will bring Techavant down if its the last thing I do.”

The man sighed. “To be honest. I was asking to be nice and I was hoping you would see the benefits of my offer but, alas, here we are.”

Opening the briefcase Tiberius failed to notice on the floor, the man took out a small silver dart gun. He only knew it was a dart gun because the man loaded a vial into the empty tube at the top. Once the device was loaded, he took aim at Tiberius.

“Wait a minute. You can’t do this. You won’t get away with it!”

“Don’t you get it already. We already have.” He fired the dart and it sank into Tiberius’s gut. The effects were almost instantaneously, as his eyes lids got heavy. The last thing he remember before his vision went dark was the man coming into his cell and whispering, “Don’t worry. We’ll make sure Lilith gets her money and is taken care of. We thank you for your service.”