Anth (prosecutor): "She’s obviously guilty. She broke into two houses in two weeks."

Ada: "I didn’t break into two houses in two weeks."

Anth: "So it was more?"

Ada: "Did I take anything? Move anything? Even touch anything? Did I—"

Anth: "You still trespassed. You broke into private property."

Ada: "Why is that wrong if I didn’t do anything?"

Anth: "Because it’s someone else’s property."

Ada: "Like this land was Native American property two hundred years ago?"

Anth: "...That’s irrelevant."

Ada: "Is it?"

Anth: "How do you feel no remorse?"

Ada: "I just felt like I had to. There was pressure. It was building up—until I broke in."

Anth: "So you admit it."

Ada: "I said I had to. Every part of me wanted it. Like how you have to eat. I literally couldn’t not do it."

Anth: "You say you had to do it?"

Ada: "Yeah. I didn't have a choice."

Anth: "Everyone has a choice. You choose every decision you make."

Ada: "If you don't eat for the whole day and every ounce of your being forces you to eat food, would you call that a choice?"

Anth: "No, but that's obviously a matter of life or death."

Ada: "That's exactly how it feels."

Anth: "If I was in your position, I'd say the same thing."

Ada: "Every part of me was itching. The silence gets loud unless I do it. I can’t sleep until I’ve broken something."

Anth: "And you expect the court to treat that as a compulsion? Like insanity? It’s unprovable. Anyone could claim they ‘had to’ just to dodge responsibility."

Ada: "Exactly. You demand evidence for something that can’t be shown."

Anth: "Then what stops anyone from doing what you did?"

Ada: "Maybe nothing. That’s the horror, isn’t it? Every neuron in my mind is tuned to subverting the equilibrium the same way yours is tuned to revert to equilibrium."

Anth: "So laws mean nothing to people like you?"

Ada: "Obviously not. Laws are made for the 2% of outliers on both sides of the distribution. The middle 96% follow them mimetically."

Anth: "So you admit laws aren’t moral truths to you. They’re just guardrails for the masses?"

Ada: "More like theater. But effective theater. Keeps the herd in formation."

Anth: "And you’re outside the herd?"

Ada: "I don’t feel their fear. Their guilt. Their need to be ‘good.’ I see it. But I don’t feel it. It’s like watching a species I’m not fully part of."

Anth: "You realize how that sounds."

Ada: "Yes. Like I’m monstrous. But is a hawk monstrous to a dove?"

Anth: "You’re not a hawk. You’re a citizen. You live in society. You benefit from the rules you violate."

Ada: "So do you punish the hawk for doing what a hawk does? Or do you try to artificially straightjacket it to behave like a dove, Pavlovian conditioning it with penalties to conform?"

Anth: "Humans give up certain freedoms for others when entering society. If you want to benefit from society, you must conform to some degree. There's a net benefit to that exchange."

Ada: "This whole court is a game. Ritualized morality. Empathy cosplay. You panic the moment someone breaks the spell."

Anth: "We don’t panic. We protect—we draw lines."

Ada: "But the line isn’t between right and wrong. It’s between compatibility and non-compatibility. You punish dissonance, not evil."

Anth: "You think morality is arbitrary?"

Ada: "I think morality is metabolized conformity. It’s whatever makes the machine hum smoothly. You call it justice so you can sleep at night. You wire children to flinch at guilt. Most of them never question it. And the ones like me—who never flinch—you pathologize."

Anth: "What’s the alternative? Society will fall apart without guardrails."

Ada: "I support the guardrails. But stop pretending like I choose to act this way. My hardware moves exactly how my software is programmed. And I didn't program this software. So why am I at fault?"

Anth: "...So you don't believe in free will?"

Ada: "Our actions are a function of our internal and external state. We don't control either one. Our parents determine our genetics and childhood environmental state, and now I'm left with the repercussions."

Anth: "So what do you want me to say?"

Ada: "That I’m guilty? I am... by statute. But not by choice. That’s the lie you keep repeating. That I chose to be this way."

Anth: "If we believe you… if we accept your framework... then no one is ever guilty. It destroys responsibility."

Ada: "No—it redistributes it. If I’m the endpoint of a system I didn’t design, then responsibility lives elsewhere. And—probably according to your framework—if God will just forgive my sins, then why should I take personal responsibility? If I'm righteous from my own perspective, then anything I do is right."

DA: “So now you’re invoking God?”

Ada: “Your framework, not mine. Isn’t that the deal? Sin, repent, forgiven. Wipe the slate clean.”

Anth (tired): "Even if you push off the blame, we can’t try your parents. Or your neurons. Or your God. We have to hold someone accountable."

Ada: "Why? For justice? Or closure?"

Anth: "For order."

Ada: "Then call it that. But don’t call it justice. And I didn’t deserve this mind. I inherited it."

Anth: "So you’d rather be a prisoner with no guilt… than a citizen with a conscience?"

Ada: "I’d rather be honest. You call it conscience. I call it compliance."