[video]

[smarterthandad]

[There is a blue-eyed child looking at you. She can't be more than three. She is, however, wearing a very grown-up expression of dissatisfaction. And some kind of superhero outfit with a big "6" on the chest.

Ordinarily, Val would be cagier about immediately going public in a strange place, but, well, she has A Problem. When she speaks, it's with fully adult syntax and no hint of a lisp or any other childish speech impediment.]

Hi. I'm Valeria Richards. Assuming no alternate timeline stuff--not a safe assumption, I know, but sometimes you gotta live dangerously--it looks like there are a few people out there who're friends of my parents. You've got a couple of hours to come get me before they [she turns the phone to show a pair of what are presumably social workers, looking simultaneously put-upon and patient] try to stick me in foster care and things get sketchy.

[Anyone who knows Val will know that's more for the prospective foster parents' protection than hers. No one wants her turning some unfortunate family's appliances into her robot escape army.]

...'Bye.

Comments

video;

[glowsferatu]

So, refraining from sharing details with a stranger is one of them. It's a fair start, if the stranger has no ill intentions.

video;

[smarterthandad]

Do they not have after school specials where you're from?

[They don't make the kind of Very Special Episode Val needs.]

video;

[glowsferatu]

Where I come from, simply withholding details of your plans for safety wouldn't keep the stranger from killing you still. Even your friends could potentially be your murderer.

video;

[smarterthandad]

Well, that's depressing.

[Val would be so good at the culling game. You don't even know.]

video;

[glowsferatu]

That's life. [ or unlife, perhaps. ] You learn to navigate the difficulties or you sink below the surface. We simply need understand the needs dictated by our situation.

video;

[smarterthandad]

You're in a human-dominated society now, which means you're substantially less likely to get murdered in the street.

video;

[glowsferatu]

You'd like to think that, wouldn't you? I don't have fingers enough to count the stupid and meaningless ways I've seen people die here.