Ms. Kayla is sitting at her desk when a phone call beeps in. She reads the caller Id and puts it on speaker.
Ms. Kayla says with a hint of sarcasm in her voice “Well if it isn’t my favorite Superintendent.”
A man’s voice comes over the phone “Yes, I know how you feel about me calling you all the time.”
Ms. Kayla says “So what’s this call about?”
He says “I wanted to checkup on your experiment ‘The J test’.”
Ms. Kayla says “It’s going well. They have integrated better than the last one and even their parent is getting accepted by the community. I’ve even heard their little restaurant is doing well enough that they are looking into helping young Kemonomimis get cooking degrees.”
He says “That’s great. I’m hoping we can do a reverse test and have one of your students come to a nearby school.”
Ms. Kayla says “If it’s where I think your hoping to do the test, you already had the test and failed it.”
He says “What do you mean?”
Ms. Kayla says “Cathy came here.”
He says “The city is trying to attract you back. But everything they do seems to fall flat. Can you give me something to help us get you to come back?”
Ms. Kayla says “I’ll let you in on a secret. You’re not going to get us back anytime soon.”
He says “Why not?”
Ms. Kayla says “There are still people on both boards that were there when we were there. We aren’t going to come back until they are removed. But we aren’t going to tell you that openly.”
He says “But they have apologized for not listening in the first place.”
Ms. Kayla says “It’s doesn’t matter what they say. Actions speak louder than words. We aren’t going to trust that city again until we see the people who didn’t listen to us in the first place out of office.”
He says “You are harsh.”
Ms. Kayla says “We have to be. It’s the only way you will listen to us.”
He says “You treat us as if we are a different species, when you are humans.”
Ms. Kayla says “Yes and no. Even though we are technically just genetically modified humans, we can’t have children with you without modifying the non-Kemonomimi sperm or egg. So we are a different enough to be considered a different species.”
He says “Well you are all humans in my eyes.”
Ms. Kayla says “Tell that to the religious nuts that hate us for just existing.”
He says “You have a problem with religion?”
Ms. Kayla says “No, we don’t have a problem with religion, it’s religions that seems have a problem with us. We do have places for worship in our communities. Some of us are spiritual, agnostic or multi-denomination. We just put our community before our religious beliefs. Which puts us at more odds with the whole God before everything else.”
