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Nomyad777 t1_jds7a1i wrote

"I'm not sorry. I did what I had to." I stared down the camera. I was ready.

A police officer asked. "Mr. Johnson, are you sur-"

"I am. We all know what I did, why I did it, and I would think the rest of you folks would be grateful enough to still be alive to forgive me." I spat.

"You know how it all started?" I spat again at the closest camera. They'd already sentenced James to death, I knew what was coming. "James, my old classmate, he approached me. Said he didn't want to die in nuclear fire, he had an idea. Rodney was already in. We would forcefully disarm the world of its nukes, saving your sorry brains. I would kill Chinese leadership, make sure that they would be headless and that the Terra Firma Systems Union would swallow them. The TFSU had too many redundancies, it had to be China. Rodney would hack TFSU nukes using his insider position, and James would hack Chinese nukes. Send 'em to the moon, they can't hurt anyone there."

"They did their jobs, I did mine. No nukes meant conventional warfare, which meant everyone is still alive. The Chinese always defuse that stuff at the last minute, live stream purposes. I got past it by setting the thing to explode at twenty to go." I stared at the international court below me. "James did his thing, and I'm no computer scientist, don't ask me how Rodney got past Canada AI. Maybe she let him through, didn't want to die either.

"I don't care. I'm not sorry for the people killed in riots, the soldiers killed in the war. They would've all died anyway, in a ball of plasma, fire, and radiation. Send me to Hell, I know I'm going there; I did what I had to, and you all know it." I ended my rant breathing heavily, eyes glaring at the court and cameras above me. "So do it. Get me back to Rodney and James. But we both know what we prevented."

The judges gave their answer. "Mr. Charlie Johnson, for regicide, assassination, and high-profile terrorist actions, the International Court of the United Nations finds you guilty and sentences you to death."

I watched the officers raise their weapons.

"I'm not sorry. I did what I had to."

A bang, then darkness.

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