"...couldn't you just go to the edge and throw stuff?"

"The districts aren't really set up for that, mostly for security reasons. We're setting up chutes which will work approximately like that, though."

Nod. "That makes sense."

"Aitim set up an online way for them to anonymously submit complaints too."

"Why anonymous?"

"Because one thing someone might do is have a way for reds to submit complaints and then hurt the reds who used it, for being complaining sorts."

"That's evil."

"Yeah, there's a lot of - burning the commons in ways that don't even benefit us, when it comes to reds. The laws for everyone else are thoughtful about incentives, and then it comes to reds and everyone just doesn't think."

"Why? If they already have to think about reds to make laws for them..."

"Lots of people really don't think about reds as people who will react like other people to incentives. And you don't gain anything by being unusually good at it. And they're honestly really hard to get to the stage of having a working relationship with - like, getting random people prosecuted for hassling reds takes an absurd amount of political capital and effort and doesn't even help them that much, it's mostly symbolic -"

Nod.

"So it's hard. That's okay. Lots of things are hard."

"...it's okay for some things to be hard but it is not really okay for this thing to be hard."

"I mean, it would be super nice if this thing were easy, but you shouldn't be miserable just because it is hard."

"I'm not miserable."

"Okay. Your dads were a little worried about you."

"Why?"

"Well, this thing happened, and it's upsetting and hard to make sense of, and everyone is acting kind of scary about it, that's a lot to take in."

Nod. "I'm okay."

"I'm glad."

"Can I help you?"

" - I don't know. If the aliens want us to treat reds better that'd - do it, that'd change everything, but we don't actually know anything about what the aliens want and I think your parents would rather not tell everyone about that."

"And I don't remember anything. I'd just be guessing."

"And it's a dangerous thing to be public about, if the aliens who placed you are paying attention and might react."

"Yeah."