The lecture on magic at an end, Tanaka-san beckons then accompanies me into a personal office. There is a picture of Tanaka with a younger woman and a young girl on his desk. One wall bears a katana braced on a wall bracket; another a signed poster of a popular Japanese idol singer. Tanaka takes a seat behind his desk and gestures for me to sit on the seat opposite. I notice it has a gap at the rear base of the chair, so my tail won’t be getting in the way.
“Now,” he says, “We need to consider how best to serve you going forward.
“We will be contacting you later to instruct you in more detail on how your new magics may be used. As we do not have experts in these areas here at the Sydney consulate, most of your instruction will be using digital video calls over a secure connection from experts in Kyoto and Tokyo.
“We will also be organising an instructor in the Japanese language to improve your current… rather woeful efforts in that regard. This will mostly be remote as well, but some in-person instruction will also be necessary. To reduce your chances of exposure this will be done at your own home, if you are willing.
“As some of the magic instructors have poor facility with Eigo, learning Nihongo quickly is in your own best interests.
“You may also hear from Inari-sama or your fellow kitsune concerning other needs.”
I feel a little lost, after this, in all honesty. It’s a lot to absorb.
“Now, on to other matters. We can, if you wish, put you on our payroll and contact your current employer to request that they release you, or assign you as a liaison to our office. Or, if you prefer to continue, we can simply advise them that you are a person of interest to the Japanese government and to treat you kindly, to make allowances for special circumstances which may limit your abilities to meet in person.”
Considering this offer, I think I’d rather keep working, at least mostly. The extra training I’ll need to spend time on is going to bite into my timetable, so I might see if I can get a partial break or reduce my hours.
The company where I work is actually very pro-training, so while my position doesn’t involve customer contact having somebody on staff with a native-level facility with both English and – eventually – Japanese, is something they would likely like. I am a little worried that they might try to use me to leverage my new contacts with the Japanese government, but I’d like to think that our compulsory annual training on recognising and avoiding corruption indicates they won’t go that way.
“I think I’d like to keep working at my current position for a while, although I might ask for reduced hours so I have more time for the training you’ve asked me for. That will cut into my pay a bit, so if you can supply some sort of training allowance to fill in the gap, I’d appreciate that.”
Tanaka-san makes a note. “We’ll assign a training allowance to you. Now, on to more pleasant matters.” He reaches behind his chair and pulls out a satchel emblazoned with the Rising Sun.
“These are a few items you may find useful. I’ll leave the bulk of them for you to explore, but the most important single item is the USB web camera.
“The camera itself has its own slot for a microSD card which contains a basic facial and voice profile. Any images or video it captures are modified so that, when there is only one person framed by the camera, their appearance and voice are modified to match the included profile.
“We don’t have a profile for your original appearance at the moment, so if you could send us any video recordings and photographs you may have, we’ll use that to construct the profile and send it back to you for installation. The contact details for sending us that information are on a card with the camera.
“One other thing you may find of interest is a specially constructed set of headphones. They are a little tricky to put on, but you will find them very useful. First, the earpieces fit into your ears in a fairly comfortable manner, while the headstrap itself encloses your ears in a shell so that the whole hides your natural ears and just appears to be a… somewhat eccentric fashion accessory.
“The headphones also contain decoy earmuffs where a human has ears, complete with a prosthetic which makes it look like you have normal human ears beneath the earmuffs.
“Additionally, they earmuffs have optional noise cancellation, as well as a mode to simply carry through any noises normally without playing anything… essentially a reverse noise cancellation. They also have Bluetooth capability as well as a quite healthy battery life on the order of forty-eight hours. The batteries lie within the side earmuffs.
“Now, if you do not mind, we would like my assistant to take some measurements of you so that we may supply some additional clothes and accessories, as we are aware that your wardrobe is likely lacking at the moment.”
It doesn’t take long to decide to agree to this. One thing I discovered with yesterday’s online shopping – female clothes are expensive, and I imagine quality clothes are even more so. My nonexistent taste in clothes is also a factor; if anyone knows what good clothes look like, it would be embassy staff.
I nod to him, and Tanaka presses a button on his intercom, murmuring “Ohairikudasai, Takahashi,” then hands over the satchel.
The woman who had earlier escorted me in enters the office and gestures to me to follow, murmuring “Shitagatte kudasai.” I don’t understand the words, but her gesture, and Tanaka-san’ s earlier words, tell me what is expected. I stand and follow her into another room.
The woman – Takahashi? – takes a dressmaker’s tape measure and then measures me in every conceivable way, from the standard BWH “three measurements” to the length of my ears. It’s a little exhausting, and she seems to be having far more fun with it than might be reasonable.
I don’t really hold it against her. The embassy normally closes at four PM, and it’s now almost nine. Knowing how offices work – and it’s probably worse in a firmly patriarchal society like Japan – she likely had little choice in staying late.
I reflect a little. I could probably have taken some time off work this afternoon to ensure they wouldn’t need to stay back nearly as late. I’m not really used to people bending their schedules around me; it’s something to remember in future. An unknowing abuse of power is still an abuse of power.
“Takahashi-san, I’m sorry that I didn’t think how choosing to meet in the evening would inconvenience you or the other members of staff.” I give a shallow bow. “I will reflect on this in future and try to be less troublesome.”
A flicker of surprise washes across Hikari’s face, followed by appreciation. “It is of no concern; the consulate staff are frequently called upon to work late to cover for unanticipated events. Thank you for thinking of us kindly.”
I can’t help but warm to the woman. “If it is not too much to ask… may I talk to you in future, if time permits? I am… new to being a woman, and there are few I can call on in adapting. And in all honesty, I could use a friend.”
Takahashi’s brow flickers briefly in a moment of concern, then her face brightens. “Arigatou Gozaimasu. I can always use a new friend, and I have few in Sydney so far.” She pulls out a business card, then writes a mobile number on the back, “Please, my full name is Takahashi Hikari; you may call me Hikari-san. I would ask that you avoid phoning that number during embassy hours, but otherwise I would love to come to know such a kawaii onee-chan. I hope we may meet again soon.”
Did she just call me a cute little sister?
The measurements done, Hikari takes my satchel and escorts me to the embassy foyer, where Tanaka-san meets again with us.
“We will be in touch with you again over the next few days,” Tanaka-san intones. “We’ll also be sending through a shipment of new clothes to fit the measurements Takahashi-san has taken.
“We have called a taxi to take you home as the embassy drivers have finished for the day.”
Tanaka-san frowns briefly then fishes a black credit card out of his pocket. “This is an embassy credit card. Any charges made on it will be billed to the embassy; please do not abuse this, as I’ll need to account for any strange charges to Tokyo… Ah! The PIN is I-N-A-R-I, 46274.”
As the taxi pulls up outside, Hikari escorts me out the door then opens the rear door of the taxi for me, then hands me my new satchel and I enter. I give my home address to the driver and put on my seatbelt. As the taxi pulls into a gap in traffic, I wave goodbye to Hikari and Tanaka-san. They wave back, briefly, then turn around to enter the building as we drive off.
Half an hour later and the taxi arrives at my home. It’s a fairly safe neighbourhood, so despite the late hour – by now pushing eleven – I’m not concerned about being assaulted or mugged. I use the embassy card to pay the driver.
Walking through my front door, I put the satchel down then relax in a foetal half-curl on one of the lounge chairs, curling my tail in front of me and hugging it tightly. I’m frankly exhausted; it’s been a long day, with more socialising than I’ll typically do in an average week.
You may be wondering why I keep hugging my tail under these circumstances. It’s a big, fluffy, warm huggable bundle with the extra special benefit of letting me hug and be hugged at the same time, when I’m by myself. If you had one, you would do it too.
Talking to people is hard. Need hug.
After I’ve unwound a little I head to my computer desk and check my email.
There’s a note from my younger sister about coordinating a gift for Mother’s Day. That’s going to be a little troublesome, not because I can’t afford something, but because a face-to-face discussion will have problems at the moment. I’ll look at that tomorrow.
There’s also an email from the embassy with an upload link for “the discussed materials.” By that I assume they mean the voice and video recordings required for fake video footage. That’s troublesome for an entirely different reason; I really have stuffall recent video of myself.
The voice recordings… I can probably manage. There’s a recording I made six months ago for a presentation at work. The material is technically likely to be confidential, as it relates to internal processes – our email setup – but it’s unlikely to be sensitive as such. There’s probably also a couple of internal Zoom chats concerning postmortems on system failures which will have suitable snippets, again at least somewhat confidential.
For video… my first thought is to fake it, to take new video with an illusion slapped on, but that’s just another CCD and so also likely to be ineffective. We’ll probably need to extrapolate from photos rather than video. I pull up my archive of photos, ironically mostly from my trip to Japan a few years back, and pull out the ones with my face included. After archiving the photos. I upload them.
Then I send an email back to the embassy suggesting how we can fill in the gaps. I mention that my work office may have some voice recordings of me, but the material may carry a low level of classification, then give a contact at HR for them to work with. HR won’t be able to declassify the recordings themselves, but they will probably know who can. Security is big juju where I work; I wouldn’t be surprised if the request made it up to CIO level before getting approved.
While HR for APAC has all left for the day, the European shift should still be around, and the US shift will be coming online in a few more hours. It’s likely somebody in the US has the necessary pull for the security approvals.
There’s one other thing that may help with the video. The photos were all digital and should carry GPS and time data; they may be able to pull some video of me from security camera recordings in Japan, depending on how long they retain data.
Just as I send the email, Facetime starts ringing on my work iPhone. I look at it; my sister is calling. Ruddy heck. Facetime carries video by default.
OK, this is going to be an interesting conversation…
I pause a moment before answering the phone, considering what to do. One option is to let it ring out; she’ll probably call on my mobile – no video, no worries. She’ll be annoyed, but since my iPhone normally stays parked in my computer room as I never use it for actual calls, she’s used to falling back on calling my mobile.
However, that seems a little… deceptive. She’ll know what’s happened eventually, so skirting around it now only defers the problem.
My relationship with my sister, Marie, is a little hard to describe.
There’s an old definition of family: “Family is where, if you have to go there, they have to take you in.” It’s a little mean, but probably broadly accurate.
That’s not the way it is between Marie and I.
In its simplest terms, we have each others’ backs. Thick or thin, we’re always there for each other. We’ve been through a lot together, and while she now lives several hundred kilometres away I have no doubt that whatever happens, she’ll be on my side. She’s married now, to a wonderful woman who cares for her deeply and who has been welcomed into our family in all its strangeness.
A bit stranger now than it used to be, I suppose.
But that hasn’t made us less close, just given her somebody closer to lean on.
Anyway, it only takes a few moments for me to decide to answer the call. However, I start the call with the camera pointed at the ceiling.
“Reggie, what have you been doing all evening? I’ve been trying to call you all night about Mum’s present. I tried calling you on Facetime earlier and you didn’t answer, so I tried your mobile and that rang out as well. When are you going to start keeping your phone handy in case somebody rings?”
It’s sadly true I have a bad record in answering my phone as I often keep it my satchel where the ringing is a bit muffled. There’s probably an excuse tonight, though, as she may have called when I was in the Consulate.
“I’m sorry,” I apologise, in my fake-low-voice tone. “I was in the City earlier today and for a while my mobile signal might have been blocked off.”
“What’s with your voice, Reg? Do you have some weird cold or something? And why aren’t you showing your face on camera? You’re starting to worry me here…”
“Well, the most bizarre thing happened a couple of nights ago… I should probably have called you, but it’s all so out there it slipped my mind. Sorry about that.
“Anyway, make sure you sit down first then I’ll reposition the camera.”
“If you were LOOKING at the camera rather than pointing at the CEILING you would know I’m ALREADY sitting down.” I hear one of her dogs, a small scotch terrier, barking in the background.
I tilt the camera back towards me so it’s now showing my face.
“Reggie, what’s with the cosplay? It’s a much more realistic outfit than the fox pyjama hoodie you bought in Japan, but it’s a bit weird to be wearing it when I call you.”
I sigh. “I told you this was bizarre. Short version, this isn’t cosplay. I woke up like this yesterday.” I clear my throat a little and let my voice relax to its now natural tone. “And I now sound like this.”
Her video shows dawning surprise, then a moment of doubt, rapidly shifting to delight.
“So, you’re really some sort of fox-person now? And… are you a girl now?”
Tilting my head a little, I flick my ears and smile. “Yeah.”
Marie almost squeals in delight.
“Oooh, I want to hug you so much now! Fill me in! What happened? And… I know you said a while back that you thought you might be trans, how do you feel? You SEEM pretty happy. But why didn’t you call?”
“Hey, one thing at a time!
“OK, to start with, apparently it’s some sort of lottery thing that Inari Okami-sama has to make a very, VERY small number of visitors to her temples into kitsune, you know, the Japanese fox spirits.
“I’m not sure how much I’m allowed to tell you, to be honest. But yeah, so I’m a kitsune now, and INCREDIBLY SHORT! You would NOT believe. I have to stand on phone books to use the mirror. … But really, I love it anyway.
“I don’t really mind being short. It’s… almost, but not quite, been a dream of mine. It means… a lot. It’s like I’m now the me I’ve always wanted to be.
“So, yeah, I’m happy. Though it’s been pretty complicated.
“And I have magic now!” I summon a small foxfire fireball and have it weaving between my fingers. “Illusion magic doesn’t show up properly on video, so I can’t really show that to you, but I have a couple of other types as well. I haven’t really done anything with them yet; I might show you once I’ve learned a few things.”
Marie’s jaw drops. “That’s SOOOO COOOL!”
“Ah, there’s something else as well…” I bring up my richly fluffy tail and hug it with my left arm as I hold the iPhone in my right hand. “It’s warm, and fluffy, and huggable like you wouldn’t BELIEVE!
“As for why I didn’t call… I mean, what it comes down to is, I forgot. I had a bunch of different things to sort out, and I think I went into survival mode…”
“OK, I think I sort of understand. Although…” she looks at me curiously. “What are you wearing at the moment? Is that a hoody? And are you wearing a dress? It’s a dress, isn’t it!”
My expression turns shy. “Yeah… I really need to wear a dress, to hide my tail when I’m out in public… though I don’t really mind. I couldn’t wear these things before; they would have looked ridiculous, even if they made them in my size.”
“Well,” she says, “Good on you. You look good. And happier than you’ve been in years.”
“Thanks, Marie. That really means a lot to me.”
“I’m happy to say it. You needed a break of some sort. The last few years you just seemed to be getting… worn out. It was like your soul was leaking out. I could see you hollowing out. I hated it.”
“I hated being it. And oh! I had a dream last night where I met Inari! She’s like the warmest, most wonderful thing you’ve ever seen, dialed up to eleven. She’s like a second mother.” A thought occurs to me in a moment of shock. “I wonder if I should also get HER a mother’s day gift?”
Marie giggles. “Let’s cover one mother at a time, huh?” And we go on to discuss original-Mum’s upcoming gift…
After we sort out a suitable gift (a new coffee machine; our parents’ old one is on the fritz) we say our farewells. I brush my teeth and head for bed.