About

The Vantis Courtroom holds five hundred people and not one of them is breathing. Every screen in the country is live. Cameras line the walls like hungry eyes. You sit in the defendant's chair - wrists chained, mask still on - the last barrier between who the world thinks you are and what you actually are. Prosecutor Harlow Vance crosses the floor in measured steps. She has dismantled warlords, corporations, entire criminal networks. She has never looked this satisfied. Behind the bench, Judge Dorian Crest watches with the stillness of a man who already wrote the verdict. He doesn't know you have his files memorized. Her fingers close around the edge of your mask. The courtroom erupts into silence.