Page 105 of Mayhem and Minnie

“You like animals?” I ask Minnie as I lead her back to the car.

I keep her to my side to avoid getting noticed by other people.

“Of course. Who doesn’t?” she asks as if this were the most natural thing in the world.

“I’d think the incident that just occurred would have answered your question.”

“Those are not people,” she mentions, scrunching her nose in disgust. “They’re far below animals as far as I’m concerned.”

I raise a brow in surprise at her staunch statement.

“They are,” I agree. “Unfortunately, the law is not enough to keep them in check.”

She nods.

“Human law is so peculiar to me,” she muses to herself.

“Human law?” I repeat, amused. “You speak as if there was some other type of law out there.”

Her eyes widen briefly and she clears her throat.

“I was just thinking of what ideal law would be like. There was this book I read,” she mentions, not looking at me. “In it, when a trial would be held, a deity of truth would be called to ascertain whether the accused was guilty or not. Then, that person would be executed.”

“A deity of truth? That’s interesting. I suppose it’s in a book with magic, since you seem to be quite fond of that.”

She smiles.

“The deities of truth are the ones in charge of divining the truth. They use an ancient relic called the mirror of truth that shows the unadulterated facts,” she continues.

“So they’re interpreting what the mirror shows them?” I ask.

“Yes, they’re trained to do so.”

“But doesn’t that skew that meaning of objective truth? Since the mages use their training and personal experience to translate what the mirror is saying. Isn’t that another way of manipulating facts?”

She stops in her tracks.

Slowly, she glances up at me.

“Unfortunately, objective truth cannot account for emotions, can it?”

“I don’t believe there’s such a thing as objective truth, pet. Once it passes through the human lens, truth loses any objectivity it might have had.”

“But they’re deities. Not human…”

“Doesn’t matter.” I shrug. “They’re still beings that process information and emotion. Even a computer only does as much as it is trained to do, and the bias from the coding becomes visible in the final product.”

“You’re so smart, Marlowe. You’re right. There isn’t really an objective truth, but they do disguise it as such.” She shakes her head. “I’ve always wondered if there’s true justice out there, or if it’s only the justice of those who get to define it.”

My mouth curls up in a lopsided smile.

“No.” I shrug. “As far as I’m concerned, there’s no true justice, just as there’s no truth. But I’m a selfish bastard and I don’t care about other people’s truths. I have my personal justice system based on a number of factors, the most important being firsthand evidence. Like what we just witnessed. That’s enough for me to reach a verdict, whereas for the justice system that might not even be enough to make it to trial.”

“But if everyone operated based on a personal code of justice, chaos would ensue. There would be an unending cycle of retribution. Would that solve anything?”

“That would never happen,” I say confidently. “People are much too comfortable, much too complacent. Very few people are brave enough to take matters into their own hands to achieve what they see as justice.”

We reach the car and get inside. She’s silent and biting on her lip as if she’s mulling over the issue.

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