He built gods. He silenced ghosts. But now the ghosts have names—and the gods refuse to kneel. The world isn't watching justice… it's watching truth.
Scene: Global Tribunal Broadcast – Day 01
The Resistance didn't hold the trial in private.
They set it outdoors.
A shattered amphitheater on the edge of Sector 7, once used for Zodiac recruiting galas. Now ringed with drone cameras, open access feeds, livestream threads.
No judges.
No attorneys.
Just a stage.
And a single seat.
Dr. Kalen Virex sat with his hands unbound.
By choice.
A thin mic loop wrapped behind his ear.His posture: calm. Unshaken.
He knew this was a stage.
He thought he still owned it.
Scene: Ava Takes the Stand
The first voice the world heard?
Ava's.
She stepped onto the platform with no script, no prepared speech.
Just her face, seen millions of times in broken footage, false propaganda, and now—finally—in her own control.
She looked down at Virex.
"You called me a malfunction."
"But I remember everything."
"You didn't design me to disobey. You designed me to reflect."
"But you didn't expect me to reflect you."
The crowd behind the cameras didn't clap.
They held still.
One woman whispered:
"That's the clone?"
And another whispered back:
"No. That's the one who lived."
Scene: Echo Testifies
Echo stepped up next.
She didn't raise her voice.
She didn't try to be poetic.
She just played one video file.
A fragment from her own training.
"Smile here.Raise your hand at .5s.Say the word 'hope' at 14.2s.Eye-contact with the child actor for 3.7s."
She played it twice.
Once raw.
Once with her face edited in real time by Concord AI.
Then she shut off the feed.
"You didn't build a person," she said."You built a performance."
"And now?"
"I've forgotten the script."
Scene: Aster's Quiet Statement
Aster stood on shaky legs.
The youngest. The softest.
The most broken.
She didn't accuse.
She asked:
"How many of me didn't wake up?"
Virex didn't answer.
She nodded.
"That's okay.I'll remember them.Even if you don't."
And she left the stage.
Leaving her silence behind.
Scene: Rook Addresses the World
Rook didn't testify for emotion.
He testified for clarity.
He opened a map of Concord's known clone programs, marked every secret blacksite they had confirmed.
Then he added one phrase:
"If you're still loyal to Concord, this is what you're loyal to."
He didn't raise his voice.
"A man who built daughters just to shut them up."
"And a system that punished the first one who spoke."
Scene: Virex Responds
He leaned into the mic.
"I didn't kill anyone."
"I created possibility."
"The fact that they rebelled proves how perfect the foundation was. You're not failures. You're iterations."
"And you wouldn't exist without me."
Ava's Final Response
Ava stepped forward again.
No anger now.
Just quiet.
"I wouldn't exist without pain, either.That doesn't mean I owe it anything."
Then she turned to the world's cameras.
"We don't want applause.We don't want titles.We want the right to write our own names."
Scene: Public Reaction
Across networks:
"Is Ava a person?""Did Concord break cloning laws?""How many 'heroes' were actually test subjects?""Are the Resistance building their own Zodiac?"
But the tag that trended highest?
#IAmNotYourProduct
Final Scene: Tribunal Close
No vote.
No sentence.
Just a door opening behind Virex.
And Rook's voice:
"You'll be held in a memory cell."
"Every day, the footage loops."
"Every day, you hear your daughters speak."
Virex didn't argue.
He didn't ask for mercy.
Because men like him don't believe they need it.