Chapter Five: Code Puts a Trillion-Dollar Giant on Trial

An hour before court, Dome Alliance purchased the city's largest screens. Their message contained one sentence: AN ALGORITHM CANNOT REPLACE THE LAW. Lin walked beneath it and smiled. “They're right.” The Alliance brought forty-seven lawyers, elite cryptographers, former regulators, and three ability-ethics experts. They did not deny the hospital assault. They argued that evidence produced by Xiezhi was untrustworthy, then asked the court to freeze every Spark mirror and designate Bai Ze and Xiezhi “privately held mass-anomaly weapons.” Lin brought one laptop. Su and Tang sat behind him. “Where is your counsel?” the judge asked. “Can't afford one,” Lin said. “But the code can testify.” The stream passed eighty million viewers.