↓ Transcript
AVERY: May I talk to Todd, briefly?
ANDI: You gonna hack my phone, or something?
AVERY: No, that's not my department. We have drama-mongering twenty-somethings for that.
ANDI: ... Speaker phone. Ten seconds. Go.
AVERY: Todd, this is Avery. Call in to work, call your daughter out of school. I need both of you here within the hour.
TODD (VO): What, now? Why?
AVERY: Todd, I am not talking to you as a friend, I'm talking as an overseer. Get dressed. Get caffeinated. Get HERE. NOW.
ANDI: So... Todd's buddies with a Fed?
AVERY: I'm afraid I need something from you before I can answer any questions, Miss McClellan.
ANDI: Oh, God. WHAT?
AVERY: Non-Disclosure Agreement. Welcome to the hell of government paperwork.
ANDI: You gonna hack my phone, or something?
AVERY: No, that's not my department. We have drama-mongering twenty-somethings for that.
ANDI: ... Speaker phone. Ten seconds. Go.
AVERY: Todd, this is Avery. Call in to work, call your daughter out of school. I need both of you here within the hour.
TODD (VO): What, now? Why?
AVERY: Todd, I am not talking to you as a friend, I'm talking as an overseer. Get dressed. Get caffeinated. Get HERE. NOW.
ANDI: So... Todd's buddies with a Fed?
AVERY: I'm afraid I need something from you before I can answer any questions, Miss McClellan.
ANDI: Oh, God. WHAT?
AVERY: Non-Disclosure Agreement. Welcome to the hell of government paperwork.
In triplicate and in four languages.
Welcome to the Rabbit Hole, Andi.
Don’t be late for the Jabberwocky.
“And if I tell you to walk because I don’t like your jabber?”
“Then we introduce you to the clause that catches.”
(Looks out window) Brillig, isn’t it?
And those Borogroves are sure looking mimsy.
I’m worried about the raths, though. They’re not outgrabing properly.
I’m more worried about what the neighbors will say when they see their mimsyed lawns and what the JubJub birds did to their cars….
“And if I refuse to sign this document, you won’t tell me what the fuck is going on with my daughter and how to help her?”
This is the problem I have. Though the fairly clear *moral* answer is “sign the NDA, which is coercive by this setup, and then ignore it and tell who you choose to tell regardless.” (Piers Anthony might disagree, but I’ve never appreciated the “keep your word to the villains who forced you to give you word” line of logic.)
Whether the government chooses to punish Andi for revealing things is a related but largely separate issue — most likely she already has enough information they don’t want spread around that they’ve got a team ready to shut her down if necessary. So she ought to be careful *who* she tells, and *how*, and so forth. But signing the NDA should have no bearing on *whether* she tells, given that there is no actual consent when your daughter’s health and safety is on the line.
Sadly the answer is kinda, yeah. Amanda needs the suport but if Andi starts spreading infomation all the refugee kids are going to get caught in the cross fire. Frankly the non discoser agreement people use around about medicine and treatment therapys are morally messed up already in the for profit medical systems so frankly really Amada being left to suffer from an “untreated illness” because her mom wont play buracratic paperwork is quite realistic. She’s actualy getting off light since this won’t put her into fincial ruin she just has to keep her mouth shut about it.
I doubt Amanda will be left to suffer if Andi doesn’t sign. Not now that she’s firing lasers. More likely Andi will lose custody. Which isn’t good for either of them, which is why they’re planning to brief her on classified information.
Yeah, the government doesn’t *want* to rip the kid with incipient laser eyes away from the long-lost mother, just after they’ve found each other again. If they do, they might as well sign Amanda up for the supervillain course track *now* and get it over with.
…I’d read that AU version of how things went.
On the other hand, they also don’t want nationwide panics, anti-sarnothi violence, or would-be supervillains trying to obtain some sarnothi to get some eye-lasers of their own, which are all distinct viable scenarios if word of this gets out, hence the NDA.
So yeah, Andi absolutely has the option of not signing it, but all the outcomes of that decision tree are bad for everyone involved, up to and very much including herself and her daughter.
No one’s trying to be the enemy here, and it’s for everyone’s benefit if that doesn’t change.
That would be my guess – if she didn’t sign the Todd would get custody since he’s already got clearance
The problem with that is there are now *two* governments involved and this is classified information. It’s likely that if she violates the NDA, she goes to *prison*. The only reason they’re considering giving her clearance is probably her need to know.
The NDA is more or less a formality at this point. Amanda is a MASSIVE national security risk (through no fault of her own of course). Does it suck for her? Yes. Does it suck for Andi? Yes. Does that matter when the consequences involve a massive war breaking out involving huge lasers and millions could die? Nope.
Andi can be as outraged and angry as she wants, but keeping Amanda under wraps is in everyone’s best interests and before Andi learns ANYTHING she needs to agree not to say a word.
None of which touches on the fact that Amanda is (again not her fault) quickly developing in to a weapon of significant if not mass destruction. I see no moral ambiguity here, this is exactly the sort of thing that does need to be super duper tip top secret.
I would generally agree with your analysis. Though also, from Andi’s POV, I would not let that NDA get in my way of trying to get help for my daughter, so if it appeared that the government was in some way sacrificing my daughter’s health in the interests of “national security” or other groups of people, and I saw some other way in which to help my daughter that involved breaking the NDA, I wouldn’t even hesitate (except for figuring out how to keep it secret, to some degree, out of fear of consequences on many sides).
Which implies that it’s also in the government’s best interest to find ways to help Amanda that don’t involve tempting Andi to break the NDA.
Because Andy has in the past proven herself to be highly reliable, dependable, and not at all prone to panic impulses brought on by assumptions made through insufficient information or just excrably bad personal judgement.
(Yes, her mom is a piece of work and yes, she was pressured into making that decision, but she’s still the one who made it, didn’t tell Todd, and then expected him to be perfectly okay about it when he found out years later. Not Cool, Andi.)
Avery is such gold! I wonder, though, will she be allowed to tell Jessie? I doubt it, but such a big secret could put a crimp in this new relationship unless Jess is extremely understanding. Be interesting to see how it all shakes out.
I’m of mixed feelings about Jessie here. My initial reaction to the thought was “but she’s used to hiding that she’s gay, therefore she’ll actually be *better* at knowing how to hide things” — and then I remembered the actual character and went “wait, no, never mind, and I gotta stop thinking of groups in terms of single shared traits like that 😅.”
I imagine, though, that Jessie will soon enough be exposed to this secret via circumstances. Given everything that just got in the way of secrets tonight (SEVERAL secrets), it seems unlikely that this story is going to suddenly decide that this particular secret can easily be kept around one of the group members, and Jessie has certainly become a group member.
I like how Avery did this; the NDA, the overseer, and how he made his commands known. The way he did this plants the idea that there may be other reasons Todd did not disclose anything last night.
When I first met Avery I did not like him AT ALL. He’s really grown on me. He has a job to do and can be extremely no-nonsense, but he also has a heart. He doesn’t express it overtly — but his actions show that he’s got compassion, empathy, and understanding. Well done.
I love the mutual “Neither of us wants to be here” vibes