As 2040 came to a close, City 31 prepared to commemorate its perseverance through the trials of the previous twelve months. The death of Mayor Nightingale heralded a firestorm of domestic terrorism in the first half of the year. Sacred Coil, Gray Phoenix, the Progeny, and Shrike, along with dozens of smaller organizations, tore at the fabric of society. Civil unrest in the city repeatedly approached the boiling point. Even now, the Fade pandemic still threatened Hybrid populations around the world.
And yet there were also triumphs to celebrate. The Restoration was in full swing. City 31, a hallmark of multispecies cooperation, lead the way into a better future for all inhabitants of Earth. Chimera Squad and 31PD maintained peace and order against overwhelming odds. Deputy Mayor Parata proved to be a competent leader, definitively winning in the second mayoral election. Despite the continued restriction on Gene Clinics, the spread of Fade within the city's Hybrid community was minimized by effective public health policy.
Humans, Ailens, and Hybrids alike could look forward to a prosperous, safe 2041. Accordingly, Mayor Parata dedicated the final week of 2040 to the first annual Freedom, Unification, Cooperation, and Kinship Festival. The name was changed the following year. On the last day of December, which felt auspicious enough given the city's name, citizens were asked to give a gift to a friend of another species.
It was in this spirit that Maxwell decided to make a grand gesture towards his occasional Viper companion. Likewise, Ione wanted her human partner to know how much she appreciated him. Interspecies romantic relationships, while not entirely unheard of in previous years, had become increasingly mainstream. The newfound celebrity of Chimera Squad undoubted contributed to this trend. However, as was the case in the world at large, some significant challenges remained.
Maxwell, despite being initially attached to Ione because she accidentally exposed him to Viper pheromones during their first encounter, had come to appreciate her exotic beauty. Although the entire species of lithe, vivacious females benefited from its curious mix of danger and attraction, Ione particularly appealed to Human appetites. Certain Humans' appetites. At least as a terrestrial snake, she would have been quite pretty. Her primary coloration, faintly iridescent milky white, glowed with a diffuse array of warm tones-sfumato through the high clouds at sunset. Against this fair canvas, vibrant crimson scales, concentrated at the crown of her head, spilled down her neck and formed intricate patterns upon her back. Her eyes, bluescreen blue; her body, Venus crossed with the Serpent of Eden.
All he wanted, all he asked: the ability to properly please such a goddess. Sadly, he lacked the anatomy required to be up for the task. Maxwell, however, had a plan. He scrounged the extra credits from his wages. Packing his lunches, turning off central air, keeping water filters past their expiration date (a practice he later abandoned after reading an article about an increase in water-borne teratogens since the Elders' departure, even though the effect mostly seemed to impact non-mammalians), he eventually saved enough money for what he needed.
Ione never felt the touch of a male Viper. Sure, Humans had their advantages: they were warm, covered in their sparse fur, and catered to a wide variety of fetishes with their legs, feet, earlobes, and generally prey-like appearance (if you were into that kind of thing). Still, she craved, desired, needed what was missing. Maxwell would do in a pinch. He was okay for a Human, she guessed, unaware he was aggressively average-looking and not particularly fit. Since vipers' hormonal cycles make them sexually receptive only once or twice per year, they wanted the itch to be scratched with talons instead of some flimsy fingernails. Of course, the demand for male Vipers greatly exceeded the supply. Being a scientist by training, instead of merely accepting this fate, her fertile imagination saw a fresh way approach the problem.
One evening after his shift ended, Maxwell did not board the Port Authority II bus that he usually took back to his apartment in Highland Square. Instead, he hailed a gypsy cab and headed to the edge of the fringe. There were doubtlessly more reputable underground medical facilities in the safer districts of City 31. His financial situation, though, necessitated a more economical option. The Sectoid doctor he contacted seemed, if anything, a bit too eager to take him on as a patient. Ninety-nine percent of Sectoids would have expressed disgusted at his request. The remaining one percent nursed intense fascinations towards the subject.
"Greetings Human, welcome to my little establishment."
"Hi, Doctor, uh, Digon. Nice to, um, meet you."
"Yes, yes. Enough with the pleasantries! Do you have the credits?"
"Yeah, I can transfer them whenever you want."
"You may do so now."
With a few taps on his smartwatch, Maxwell authorized the transaction. One-hundred credits later, the confirmation message ended with "Thank you for choosing PNC!"
"Should've gone through."
"Ah, received. Thank you, sir. Sign this waiver, if you please."
Doctor Digon brandished a sheet of paper, seemingly out of thin air, as the Alien was totally nude and the room lacked any sort of desk or filing cabinet. Never having seen actual paper before, Maxwell stared dumbfounded at the object in his hand.
"Ahem. Today, sir."
"What, um, do I do with this?"
"My apologies. I forgot the pen."
Not caring to touch the pen or paper for longer than necessary, Maxwell scribbled his purported birth name (he tended to avoid using his Advent asset identification code) without bothering to read the text, which was in dense legalese anyway (it began with "Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet").
"Wonderful. Let's see what we have to work with."
"Uh, okay."
Maxwell, by now used to the smorgasbord of otherworldly oddness offered by City 31, complied with only slight trepidation. Looking the Sectoid straight in its oilslick almond eyes, he began to unzip his pants. He had already moved on to loosening the button by the time the doctor interrupted him.
"Er, no. I mean your biometrics."
"Oh."
Pants re-zipped, a sleeve rolled up, a needle pierced skin. Digon fed the small blood sample drawn from Maxwell's left arm to a device in the rear of the clinic. The machine regurgitated a series of yellow tablets.
"Here is your tailored immunosuppressive course. Take one per day until they are exhausted."
"Sure."
"Nurse Gorx! Prep the patient for surgery."
"Didn't you need to examine me or something?"
"Ha! You aren't the first Human to come in here with this problem, you know. In fact, this is a common request."
Maxwell would have took a moment to process this information, but a Muton dressed in scrubs had already rendered him unconscious. He was dragged behind a curtained partition and slabbed on an Alien Surgery table that looked like it might have pre-dated the invasion.
"Thank you, Nurse. Bring me one of the Viper dicks from the vat, if you would."
Fourteen minutes later, the operation was over. Nurse Gorx injected Maxwell with a stimulant, undoing her earlier handiwork.
"Wha...where am I?"
"You may experience some itching and slight discomfort during urination throughout the recovery period. Don't contact me again for any purpose, except for new business. Repeat customers enjoy a 10% discount! If something falls off or you die, remember the waiver. Anyone who comes looking for me will get Mind Flayed. Or worse. Have a nice day."
That very night, Ione started designing a GeneMod for herself. It wasn't going to be an easy one: several genes contributed to the formation of Human genitalia. She spent hours studying Hox genes and the Sonic Hedge Hog signalling pathway. Such an odd name. Humans, among their various idiosyncrasies, formed self-organized subcultures known as fandoms, to which they could become intensely devoted. The corresponding parts of the Viper genome had to be mapped out and modified with minimal unintended consequences. An overhaul of her endocrine system would be required for the other effects she was aiming for. Although the Truth and Reconciliation Committee banned her from performing the genetic research she conducted during the Occupation, she managed to hide a sequencer suite in her living quarters in Old Town. She resided in the middle of what had been a secure Advent compound on naturally high ground across the river from the city's starport. No Reclamation Agents had yet dared to raid the literal den of Vipers she called the closest approximate to a home she had on Earth.
Both of them experienced their own unique challenges in the following month. Ione needed to buy a whole new wardrobe of slightly longer tops. After the first couple of weeks, she began to understand Humans a little better. It was terrible to be receptive every minute of every day, especially if you couldn't do anything about it. Maxwell spent his time in considerably more than slight discomfort and went through most of a 60-day supply of catheters.
As the final week of 2040 began, with festivities commencing across City 31, Maxwell and Ione told each other they had a special surprise planned for December 31st. Giddy with anticipation, perhaps feeling a bit competitive, they imagined what a surprise it would be when they had their next date. Vipers were typically highly territorial and solitary, which is why the lovers spent most of their time apart. Assimilating into Human culture caused Ione to feel increasingly guilty about this, knowing, hoping Maxwell desired more contact with her. He himself often thought he could do with more sex. Maybe now they could be a 'real' couple.
At last, the day arrived. Ione and Maxwell were fully-functional and ready to share their gifts. They always met at her place, a sprawling grotto near the top of a luxury highrise; she could barely fit in the closet-sized space Maxwell somehow lived in. For once, he arrived a few minutes early. She immediately answered the door, pretending not to have been pacing in front of it for the past two hours. He pretended not to notice.
She greeted him, initiating their mating ritual.
"Hey, Max. Wanna come inside?"
"Usually...ah!"
Unable to resist, she grabbed him through the door frame and led him by the hand over to her padded nesting area. He noticed her once four-fingered hands now sported five fingers.
"Io, did you, um, grow an extra finger?"
"Never mind that. You shower?"
"Used the special body wash you sent me. Seriously though..."
Her tongue flicked around him.
"Oh, yum, that one is tasty...I mean sexy. Gotta present."
"Me, too. Should you get that checked..."
"Shh shh shh. Let me give it to you."
With a single motion, Ione wrapped around his lower body, unhooked her dress and used her coils to shimmy off his pants and underwear. Hood fully extended, neck shaped like the stem of a question mark, she tilted her face down at him, her azure eyes watching with intense hunger. Maxwell lowered his gaze onto the curves of her chest (he still had trouble locking eyes with her), down her tapered stomach, to the wide flare of the hip-like muscles that let her support an upright posture. Something was different. Normally, there was a smooth plate of scale where her legs would have met if she had them. This time, he found a low, fleshy mound surrounding a thin, folded slit. Exactly like...
As the thought that Ione somehow had acquired a Human vagina formed in his mind, Maxwell felt a familiar throbbing pressure form against her body. His two chopshop hemipenses squirmed free, popping up at the top of her coils, right underneath her labia. He could just feel the warmth that radiated from inside her.
Ione gasped and shrugged off of him to get a better look at the throbbing stalks.
"The fuck did you do?"
Maxwell caught a glimpse of her subcaudals as she untangled her body from his. Her anal plate, gaped open from the excitement of physical contact, revealed her vent, which previously housed her cloaca and dual vaginas. These structures had been replaced by a disturbingly Human-like sphincter.
"What did I do? Look at you!"
"You...you...dumb fucking monkey! Why didn't you ask me first?"
"I thought you wanted to be with a male Viper. This was the closest I could afford to get."
"And you were always pestering me for more sex. I wasn't ever have the same drive as you unless I changed something. So I did."
They both stood apart for a moment, gawking in silence.
"Um, so, can you still..."
She flicked her tongue out to the side, bowing her head, embarrassed.
"Yeah...do yours..."
He grinned.
"Yep."
Eyes met eyes, connecting longer, deeper than they ever had before. The space between them vanished. Warm, moist flesh embraced cool, dry flesh, creating a kind of sensual alchemy. He craned his neck up, she bent hers down, curving its nine double rows of chevron scutes. Maxwell cupped his hands behind the sides of her lower jaw, fingertips brushing against the underside of Ione's lovely hood. He pulled her broad face in close, pressing his lips to the scales around her mouth. His tongue was no match for hers.
Their kiss tried its best to last forever, although everything must come to an end.
"Wanna try 'em out?"
He smiled and indulged her request.
There would undoubtedly always be ample differences to cause friction between species. A obstacle, yes, but, in diversity there is strength. In their own way, Ione and Maxwell proved that Humans and Aliens, being highly adaptable creatures, really did have the ability to work together. They could love each other, too. Even if it took some work. As the clock ticked over to 2041, the Human and Viper intertwined, the future of Earth looked bright. For now.