2014

Thomas stood on the balcony of the 42nd floor corner office, smoking his cigarette, as he looked over the city. He wouldn't dare call it “his” city, after all. Not out loud, at least. But deep down, he did think it was his. Or rather, he thought of the people as his. After all, all the applications, the information, the credit scores, the tax filings, they all went through his offices. They all went through him. If a person stood out to him, if he didn't like them, he could revoke their licenses. Trigger an audit with the CRA. Any number of things, if he really wanted to. No one would question him, if he did – his record of cases processed and cleared was spotless. Even if it was technically the analysts and reviewers who worked under him that really did the hard work, all it would take was for Thomas to put his thumb on the scale, flag a Social Insurance Number, and suddenly someone else, somewhere in this city, would have a very, very bad day.

He didn't do it often.

Just enough not to get caught.

Jordana opened the door to the office behind him and knocked on the door. Thomas put the cigarette out and stepped into the office.

“Hello Jordana, what brings you by this lovely morning?” He asked as he sat behind his desk. “You've got my coffee, haven't you?”

“No, Mr. Post. I don't do that.” Jordana said firmly, her expression neutral. Thomas chuckled – that was their morning routine. He'd ask for a coffee, she'd say no. He liked their game.

“Well, if not my coffee, what do you bring for me?” He asked as Jordana walked in, the door closing behind her. He eyed up her legs, seeing she was once again wearing a pantsuit, and silently wished she'd go back to wearing skirts again. Make one comment about your assistant's legs, and suddenly she'll cover them up.

“A report, sir, from last night.” Jordana said. “There was something in the system, sir. One that might cause a security problem for us.” Thomas raised an eyebrow, his attention now on her. He motioned for her to continue. She gave him a file folder. “Last night, some sort of fluctuation occurred within our systems. A power surge, is what the engineers are guessing. As a result, some of the servers and backups were affected with the-

“Spit it out, Jordana, what's the problem?” Thomas asked as he flipped through a few sheets, only seeing a few graphs, and seeing nothing about why it should be his problem.

“Some records were removed. Corrupted,” Jordana corrected herself. “Personal information, banking information, paystubs, tax records, everything. We don't know how many SINs were affected, because... well, the records were deleted, sir.”

“Why were records of Canadian citizens deleted, Miss Jenzen?” Thomas asked. Now it was his turn to sound firm. If personal records of that kind of importance were gone, that would soon be a huge scandal. So many people, so much extra paperwork. And his bosses would come down on him, asking him uncomfortable questions about workplace oversight.

“The servers, seeing corrupted data, automatically flagged these profiles for deletion. Then the system did. It's all part of the automation,” Jordana said. “The hard copies of the records, the paper copies, those still exist, but they might not be as up to date. I don't think we've lost everything, sir.”

“Then what's the problem?”

“The problem is that we don't know what we've lost. It will take a team of people to go through the partition of data that got corrupted, and hand check what the hard copies say to whatever is left in the system.”

“Mm.” He said in understanding. This was worse. Not only would his bosses be asking him about office oversight...

“Which is why I propose we form a small team to go through it. We will have to approve overtime-”

“No.” Thomas said firmly as he put the file folder down.

“I'm sorry?”

“No overtime. It happens on the clock.”

“Sir, with all the regular duties the analysts have to do, it won't be possible-”

“Then we hire more staff.”

“Sir, the budget the government gave us won't cover new staff members, let alone being able to train them at the speed we need them to work at.”

“Yes, it's a shame the budget is so small this year. No room for more hiring or overtime.” He said cooly. “Gather who you think you'll need to do the tasks. If things slow down, so be it.”

Jordana was... furious. He could tell. The last time she was this mad, it was the Legs Incident. She was holding her tongue, that was for certain, but finally he sighed.

“Oh, what is it?”

“Sir, I've seen the spreadsheets. I've seen our budget and what you've been spending against it.” Thomas straightened up. Jordana continued. “I've seen the claims you've made. For traveling. The Bahamas-”

“Jordana.” Thomas said.

“Mexico.”

“Jordana Jenzen, I think you should be very careful what you're talking about.”

“I'm talking about embezzling taxpayer money for lavish vacations.”

Thomas closed his eyes and sighed, a long and heavy sigh.

“Mm. Well. That's a shame.” He opened his eyes and reached for his phone. “I'm afraid security will have to escort you out, Miss Jenz-”

Something struck his arm. He pulled back and gave a gasp of pain as something ran up his arms. “What-”

“I'm sorry, sir. I've had this prepared for a while now.” Jordana said as she pulled out another item from her pocket. “You can find a lot of things on the Internet these days, sir.” She said as she stuck.. whatever it was, into her own arm. She gasped in pain as well, shaking her arm. “Oh, I wasn't told how this would feel,” She murmured.

“What did you do, Jordana?” Thomas gasped as he held his arm. His hand looked different. His nails looked... red? Was he bleeding? He rubbed his nails and found that it wasn't  blood, but rather... polish. Red nail polish. His skin was different, too. It felt softer. His hand felt smaller. That wasn't all, his whole arm was changing. Both arms were, his left now matching his right. He felt muscles tense up in his back as if they were being pulled in.

Jordana grabbed a chair next to the desk and held herself against it. While Thomas' arms were shrinking, hers seemed to be growing, pressing against the sleeves of her blazer. She was gasping for air, groaning as she was hunched over. With some shock and some terror, Thomas realized that Jordana was growing taller. Or perhaps, he was shrinking? It was with a sinking sensation that he realized that it was both.

Something was tickling the back of his neck, and he reached up, shocked to feel hair. Hair, growing from his bald scalp? He hadn't had hair in twenty years, and yet he could feel the itching of his skin as it grew, starting as stubble but very quickly forming into thicker strands. Longer and longer they grew, until black curly hair fell from his head and around his shoulders. His posture felt off, it felt wrong, and he tried to sit up straight. That was when he discovered his chest was larger, jutting out more against his shirt.

“What I did, “sir”,” Jordana said with a half-hearted smirk. “Was give you a fresh start. We'll have to blame the fact you won't have the right paperwork on the surge from last night, deleting your record of employment. That'll be a shame,” she said as she stood up straighter. “Oh, holy hell, that feels incredible!” She said as she stretched. Her clothes looked tight at the chest, but not because of (breasts, Thomas realized, he had breasts now, and Jordana didn't!) her body parts. It looked like her whole body was gaining mass even as he was losing it.

“I don't understand,” Thomas argued as he stood up, nearly falling over as he tried to take a few steps. His pants had pooled around his feet – it seemed he had lost several inches of height, and as a result his clothes were dangerously close to falling off of him. He stumbled and fell to the carpeted floor of his office, shaking a little as he felt something shift at his hips. It was his hips. And then something at his... no, not that!

“You've been a terrible leader, Thomas,” Jordana said, her voice deeper now as she stood above him. “You've been abusing your power, stealing funds, stealing resources. I've had this in my back pocket for a while now, and this seemed like the best time to use it. Consider this a... hostile takeover.”

“You can't kill me,” Thomas said. That had to be what he was feeling – death. Jordana just laughed.

“It's not death, sir. Not at all. You're getting another chance at life.” Jordan said as he looked down at the shorter, younger woman who was curled up in a ball on the floor. “Looks like you lost about... twenty five years of age. Not bad, that puts you at university age. Sadly, the leadership position you had needs at least ten years of management experience. I don't think you have that anymore.”

“What are you talking about?” Thomas asked as he scrambled to his knees, looking down at his body. “My voice, my... clothes! What did you do?!”

“Thomas... hm. That's not the right name. Tammy. That will do.” Jordan nodded. “And I told you. You're no longer the boss. You're not even an assistant.” He looked Tammy up and down. “I think you'll make a suitable receptionist. As for your clothes... well, look.”  Tammy looked down, and then did a double take. Her clothes were changing now – pants shrinking, forming something transparent and becoming leggings. Her business shoes were changing into heels, about two inches tall. What remained of her pants were soon changing into a skirt that clung to her knees – a pencil skirt. Her dress shirt and suit jacket were shifting into a blazer and blouse, and underneath it, she could feel a bra wrap around her breasts and support them. And then, perhaps the worst thing of all happened: The quality got worse.

Her expensive watch started to change, shifting into something small, with a simple digital readout. Her blazer didn't fit as well as it did moments before, and looked more off-brand. There was a hole in her tights, she could feel it at the toe. The heels were different, too. They felt second-hand. She looked up at Jordan in horror, watching as Jordan's suit started to form, looking high quality, expensive. Jordan sat down behind Tammy's old desk, and smiled. He looked everything like a boss should.

“Y-you can't do this to me. You don't have the experience, you don't have what it takes,” Tammy argued.

“Yes, I do. And soon, you won't,” Jordan said simply.

“Stop talking in riddles!” Tammy exclaimed.

“I'm being very plain,” Jordan said. “Miss Post, you're about twenty years old now, give or take six months. Very soon, you'll have the knowledge and experience of a twenty year old. That is to say – nearly none. You'll be well suited for a receptionist role, you know. And as for me, I'm gaining all that experience. How to lead a team, how to supervise and show oversight to the massive amount of paperwork that will need to be done to fix the mistakes that happened last night.” He leaned back a little and smiled at Tammy. Tammy shook her head, focusing. No, she knew how to be the boss, she spent ten years in business school, getting a Masters degree, her thesis was on... it was on... Okay, that wasn't important, but she knew how to talk to management! Her boss' name was...

She looked up at Jordan in a panic.

“There we are.” He said with an amused smile.

“I don't understand, I... I forgot my boss' name!”

“That's because he's my boss now. You don't know his name because he's so far above your station, you'd never meet him.” Jordan leaned forward. “You're a receptionist, Tammy. Barely above an intern.”

“No...” Tammy whimpered. But she knew Jordan was right. She had been kicked down the corporate ladder all the way down, nearly to the bottom. “What am I supposed to do?”

“Who knows? I'll call down to admin and let them know that there's a new receptionist coming down to start today. They'll have so much for you to do, after all, since we have to get so much information hand-checked on the clock. No overtime.” Jordan paused. “Actually, I don't think you qualify for overtime. I think you need to be a supervisor for that.” He smiled. “Oh, and...” Jordan leaned back, smiling widely. “Nice legs.”

2024

Tammy Post was enjoying her brief coffee break in her office. It was smaller, of course, nowhere near as big or as lavish as the one she had many, many years ago. But it was comfortable. Being on the fifth floor wasn't as bad as she thought it would be, and she had learned and slowly climbed back up the ladder to a new position: Analyst Supervisor. It took several years and grueling hours pouring and combing over documents and materials, but finally, Mr. Jenzen looked at her application favorably. And for the last two years, she had been enjoying the relatively easy life – easier, at least – of Tammy Post. She no longer had to worry about big meetings involving budgets of seven figures, or the responsibility of four hundred employees. Now she supervised forty employees, and at most had to have a monthly meeting with her boss. And, occasionally...

There was a knock at the door.

“Come in,” Tammy said as she looked up. The door opened, and her 3:30 appointment walked in. The woman was tall, taller than Tammy, at least, and had alert eyes that looked around the office. “How can we help you? I read your file,” She said, motioning for the chair across her desk. “You're looking for information on a family member?”

“That's correct,” the woman nodded. “My... um, cousin. He went missing in 2014, and I was hoping I could find a few records about him. Where he last worked, or lived.” She smiled, adjusting herself against the chair. Tammy noticed a tabby feline tail twitching behind her. “Oh, sorry about this, it's... genetic,” She excused herself.

“Oh, I wouldn't worry about that, it's...” There was something about it that seemed wrong, in a way. But then things clicked into place. Tails weren't a weird thing at all. It was just her. “It's not an issue. Anyways, what was the name of your cousin?”

“K*̶̧̃͌͋͗́̕͜@̶͓̳͙̬͍͔̫̲̯̜̒̚!̷̨̨̭͈̳̥̝͍̞̥̩͖̲̭̳̣̾̇̈͂̎̏͜#̴̡̙̫̼̜͖̯̰̓̽́͜͜*̸̥̙͙̗͇̘̻̥̮̝̄̀́̈̊̊͊̿̔͜͝!̵̡͈̯̞̝̱͓̣̤͌͗̂̑#̴̧̢̝̭͓̫͇̝͕̣͎̠̯̠͍̄́̓̎̈͗̍ͅ%̸̞̋͛”

Tammy blinked. She must not have heard correctly.

“Could you repeat that?”

“K*̶̧̃͌͋͗́̕͜@̶͓̳͙̬͍͔̫̲̯̜̒̚!̷̨̨̭͈̳̥̝͍̞̥̩͖̲̭̳̣̾̇̈͂̎̏͜#̴̡̙̫̼̜͖̯̰̓̽́͜͜*̸̥̙͙̗͇̘̻̥̮̝̄̀́̈̊̊͊̿̔͜͝!̵̡͈̯̞̝̱͓̣̤͌͗̂̑#̴̧̢̝̭͓̫͇̝͕̣͎̠̯̠͍̄́̓̎̈͗̍ͅ%̸̞̋͛. Full name is K#̴̩̻̅̏͐̇͊̃̽̾̿̍̌̽̚͜*̴̨͙͇̃̉̿̌̇̈̆̇́͘̚̚͜ͅ$̸̧͔̬̝̮̹͚̝̪̹͋͊̿̍͗̈́͊͐̀̐̉͗̊̂͝@̶̧̡̪̜̘͉͎̾͒̅̈́̾̃̎̽̑̃̓͌̚̚͝͠!̴̛̙̮̱̟̥͇̪͔͕̟̙̮̯̈͊̋̔̎̇͌͛͂͐̃̏͂͘ͅ%̷̡̫̣̞̝̳̲͍̥̼͚̻̥͙̟̼̀̾́̋͌̒͗́̇̆ͅ%̴̛̮̟͓͇̒̅͛̔́̏͂̅̃̍̒͘͘͠^̸̡̠͓͙̗͉̥͇̜͇͓͉̎̈́͊͌͠ ̸̨̧͍͕̭͔̐̓ͅ*̴̲͙͚̅̾̀͌͌̃̄̃͝͝*̷̡̳̫̮̩͎̞̦̤̤͙̞̑̀̂̇̓̈́͐͆͗̅͑͜͝͠$̴̢̖͔̮̝̱̱̈̊̆̀̓̏̽̄͌̈́́́̊̕͝)̸͎̠̟̀̓̏͌͂̆̍́̍̄̚͜͝@̵̛̪̖͕̭̜̟̭̍̅̑̈́̿̌͊̿̀̋̽̚*̷̫̟͍͍͑̒̀̈͒ͅ ̸̢̡̛͖̝̟̻̬̜͓̞̤͓̜̋̏͊̈́̔̂̈́͂͋͜͝ͅ$̴͙̱͔̊͊̄̓̄͋̍̀̊͌̉́̆͒̍̕$̶̢̢̰̳͈̩̱͙͈͔̜͓̌̊̎̑͛́͒̌̒͗̓̉͘̕*̵̧̛͙͇̣͖̣̗̘̯̈́̏͌͂̓͋͝@̸̢̟̈́̇̑͛͊!̴̛͙̺̟͎͇͖͚̩̗̩̻̠̈́̂͑̓̆͛̀͑͛̅̇̓͐͘͘&̶̤̖̬̣͓̱̜͍̇̋̌̉̏̄̈́͠ͅ&̷͔̲̌̎̊͌̓̋̾̌́͊̀͘͘̕.

“Ah. Hm...” She nodded, and started to work on her keyboard. Scrolling through various different databases, she shook her head. “Sorry. It seems... well, I...” Tammy frowned as she searched through different partitions, different archives. “It seems it was deleted,” Tammy explained. The woman blinked several times in confusion. “Well, not deleted. I believe I found the... hole where the record was. Back in 2014, there was a power surge that overloaded some servers – some profiles were corrupted and deleted by accident. I was part of the team that worked hard double checking all of the files we had in that section of the server with the hard copies,” Tammy said. “It was... shortly after I started working here, actually.” She smiled softly. That wasn't really true, but it was true enough. “We got as many right as we could, but some profiles fell through the cracks. We've patched it up over time, but if your cousin went missing, then he wouldn't have bought anything, or filed taxes, or updated his address, and so his information and records remained... well, missing. Until now.” she wrote down a few numbers. “Would you like me to see if I can pull up the hard copies? This will take a few days, or weeks, depending on some crucial factors.”

“Yes, yes please,” The woman said, eagerly, straightening up, the cat ears perking up. “Anything helps me find him. I just need a good place to start, you know? So anything. Anything would work.” She paused for a few moments. “And you said this was in 2014?”

“Yes, that's when the overload occurred.”

“Hm. That's the year he went missing.”

“Oh. Oh dear,” Tammy said with a sympathetic frown. “Dear, I'm so sorry.”

“It's... it's okay.” The woman waved her off.

“It's a heck of a coincidence though. My life certainly changed at the same time, too.” Tammy found herself saying.

“...really?” She asked.

“Really. You could say I had a change of perspective.”

The woman nodded slowly, thinking.

“Yeah. Coincidence.” She said slowly.

“May I have your name, and contact information, for when we find the records?”

“Yes, yes... Allison. My name is Allison.”

Outside, Allison took out her phone – such a small, thin thing – and opened a voice memo app.

“Any records of who I was before are gone. Digitally, at least.” Allison said as she walked down the street. “Even my name, my old name, seems to be struck from the record. Even saying it out loud seems to create a void, as if the name itself no longer exists. Like a...” she paused for a moment with a thin smile “Like a dead name.” She shook her head and sighed. “I have a theory as to what happened, and I hope I'm wrong. If I'm right, the accident ten years ago was much, much worse than I could have ever anticipated.”

She looked down the street and blinked, seeing an ad on a billboard. “I don't know if the culture shock I'm experiencing is simply from seeing what ten years of cultural and technological advancements look like, or if my accident affected the world at large... what the hell is a Tik Tok?”