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Chapter Text

The cracks began to show. She was well acquainted with them by now. Postwar life had brought with it a whole different set of problems. Late nights to keep the nightmares at bay, heavy doses of caffiene to keep the nightmares at bay, and -- oh, yes, drowning herself in work to keep the nightmares at bay.

She slapped the dossier onto her desk where it knocked over the stack she had accumulated from the night before, half illuminated by a cheap desk lamp. Torque, Cherub, Axiom...the names wriggled and squirmed like snakes, coalescing into an unreadable blob that swallowed up more and more of her vision. She rubbed her eyes and the papers were legible again. It was definitely time for a break.

Her computer shrilled angrily. An incoming call demanded her attention by taking up a full quarter of the monitor. A finger drifted dangerously close to the screen, just a hair from answering the call. She hesitated and glanced towards the kitchenette in the corner of the room. The coffee pot was bone dry, and tilting her mug to find it empty left her equally disappointed. 

She wiped the frown from her face and tapped the screen. "This is Jane Kelly."

"Kelly!" The call window shifted to a video feed, brightly lit by the camera's light. A rugged young man in military garb presented a smiling face, cigarette stains dotting his teeth. He pushed the lip of his helmet higher to uncover his eyes. "Been a while, ranger! Good to see you. 'Member me?"

A groan rumbled in her throat as she squinted her eyes. "I don't even remember what I had for breakfast. If I had breakfast."

"Ah, no big. It's Henrick! The Bulldozer, 'member? We served together, few years back. Operation, uh -- you know, there were so many of'em, I can't recall the right name."

She squinted harder. It didn't help. Just like the operations, so many faces had come and gone. Gone forever, in many cases.

"Why the call, Henrick? How'd you get my number?"

"Got a bit of a pickle here. Central said you were the lady to call. Said you were the liaison to the only functioning integrated government on the planet."

Jane's exhaustion gave way for a moment, making space for a mirthless laugh that died just as quickly. "Liaison is overselling it. So is government. Integrated is, too."

"Well, whatever you want to call yourself, you're the one he's passing this buck to." Henrick slipped from view as he shifted the camera away from himself. Behind him, stacks upon stacks upon stacks of some off-white things sat beyond a set of glass doors. It took her a moment; squinting helped this time.

"Are those eggs?"

"Bingo," said Henrick. He pulled aside the closest door. The glass rapidly fogged up. He grabbed an egg and held it against his head for scale. It was just as big.

"Viper eggs."

"Bingo again."

Now her interest was piqued. Her vision sharpened up and she sat forward. "What happened? Where is this?"

He replaced the egg, taking a moment to watch the condensation disappear from the glass after closing the door again. "Somewhere in the Amazon Rainforest, or what's left of it. We're hopping from blacksite to blacksite, scavenging what we can for XCOM's South American Reconstruction Effort. We just thought we were in another abandoned cloning facility. We clear it, start dismantling the reactor to ship it off, but then one of my guys finds a sub-level beneath the sub-level. All of it is storage, Kelly. I'm talking ocean-vast. Eggs as far as the eye can see. Fertilized too, but in stasis."

The old soldier in her simply said to torch it all, but black-and-white morality was a luxury only wartime had offered. "So what's the question here?"

"Well, let me get to that. The computer system on-site spits out a figure of six hundred thousand eggs, but only a fraction of that remains; climate control broke down before we ever got here and spoiled most of the compartments -- smells horrendous, by the way -- so there's about twenty-five thousand left. Now, since we started yanking out anything elerium, the last of the eggs are bound to go bad. If anybody wants to save'em, now's the time to say something."

"This can't be the first time it's happened. What do you normally do when you find eggs?"

"We've never found so many, not that I know of. A handful here, a handful there -- XCOM takes'em for storage or local forces torch'em. But your stupid city has everybody on edge now because there's a ghost of a chance it might work, and to your city's snake population, twenty-five thousand eggs might sound like the start of a genocide." He spat, then added, "Barely even a fraction of a percent of the humans they killed, but whatever. I just do what Central says."

"Just put the reactor back. Power it up."

He shook his head. "Taking these things apart is a hundred times easier than putting them together, and everybody 'round the globe needs bits and pieces of ADVENT's corpse to keep the lights on. Not every place has been as fortunate as City 31. Nothing's going to save these eggs except being moved or being hatched."

South America? Jane caught herself before she began to nibble on her thumbnail. That'd be a pretty long flight. And nobody moves ADVENT infrastructure through official channels without official authorization, which would have meant...

"Central authorized this?" Jane asked, narrowing her eyes.

"Authorized is a strong word. Like I said, he passed the buck."

So he wouldn't move them himself. Why? Even in the new paradigm City 31 was just beginning to herald, Bradford was not so easily changed. Aliens were still the enemy. XCOM was still the fighting force he had helped lead then.

Or perhaps he was more cunning than she gave him credit for. Bradford was insulating himself. He had just laid the social and political ramifications of this decision at her feet, and at those of the city. What would the resident viper population think after having learned that someone with even a tangential connection to the city council had allowed the eggs' destruction, by inaction or otherwise? He was thinking about the consequences of his actions, in a new world where aliens and humans were shaping up to live side by side. 

She smiled. So she was getting through to him after all.

"Look, Henrick. I'm not on the city council. I'm barely involved at the moment. I have a few ins and favors to burn, trying to get my department set up. I might be able to assist, though. I don't think the city has the resources right now to just accept twenty-five thousand new mouths to feed, and I'm not sure anybody even knows how to care for young vipers -- all we saw was adults, you know? But maybe the city can do something to help. Maybe other vipers can too."

Henrick threw up a series of hand signals, and a group of men and women rushed by. "We can wait here for a couple of days while we tear the place up but--"

"No, start packing them now. Ship them up here to 31 as soon as you can."

"You don't need authorization?"

Jane offered a tired smile. "You know the saying. It's easier to ask for forgiveness than for permission."

"Okay, on your order then." He barked orders that began a flurry of activity around him. "Nice talking to you again, Kelly. Hope your city works out."

The audio feed cut first, and a moment later the call window disappeared from her monitor. She leaned back into her chair and dared to close her eyes for just a moment. Any longer and sleep would surely have taken her.

"Yeah," she said to no one in particular. Her hand traveled through her hair and across her scalp, perhaps hoping to rub away the beginnings of a headache. A long grey hair fell onto her keyboard. She eyed it with dismay.

"Yeah, I hope so too."

Chapter Text

There was a time where she used to keep track of her dreams. They had fascinated her at first; intricately nonsensical stories from which any of a thousand meanings could be derived, or moments in her life that had been lost in whatever mental veil the Elders had draped across her mind.

The fascination had quickly faded, around the same time she had found her way to the city. Terror visited her far, far more often than whimsy. Though she appreciated them all the same. Every morning she woke up from another dream or nightmare was another reminder that her body and mind still belonged solely to her.

City 31 had afforded her a different sort of dream, however. This dream was startlingly tangible. Some days she saw it with her own eyes: scenery beyond her detention cell, a job acceptance email, a new view from her new apartment. Other days she could feel that satisfaction between her fingers: her cat's soft fur, a new outfit, a freshly-made meal.

Too soon though, the luster had faded. The dream had become a rut. A rut she saw in her faded, sagging couch and the worn buttons on her television remote. A rut that looked back at her from the bathroom mirror every morning.

"I can't believe this is what humans aspire to." 

She glowered at her reflection. A filed black talon reached up to scrape away a bit of old skin, still clinging to her scales after last night's molt. The rest of her old skin still sat in the shower like a bodysuit, an irritating reminder that she had yet to take out the trash. After a bit of readying up -- some flossing and brushing, a bit of scale polish -- she came back with a garbage bag and stuffed it full of her fresh molt. She carried it out to the balcony and hefted it over the railing. It tumbled ten stories into an open dumpster.

Her usual spot on the sofa waited for her. A bowl of horrifically sugary cereal in hand, she eased herself across the cushions, pausing every so often to listen to the springs' squeaking protests. Now comfortable, she was content to eat in silence.

Her cat had other plans. He jumped up onto her and attempted to push his face into her breakfast.

"Get away from me, Menace. This is mine." She gently shoved him away, though he was undeterred. She feigned anger with a terse hiss, but relented when he still offered no reaction. The cat lapped up a bit of milk, then wandered over to lie between her coils while she finished breakfast.

"I just give you run of the place, don't I?"

He trilled in reply, then loudly mewled as her coils shifted around him.

"Yeah, well," she began, placing her empty bowl in the sink, "one of us has to earn money. Who do you think buys your slop?"

She grabbed her phone to check the time. A ticker ran across its screen: Good Morning Jia! She huffed at it before disappearing into her closet, then reappearing moments later fully dressed. A blouse and skirt made made her feel stuffy, and the jacket over the top even more so. A black tail sleeve covered her up below the skirt. She never went to work without one. Kids were gross, after all; the floors were always covered with food, snot, spitballs, and whatever other toxic garbage children managed to produce.

Before leaving, she opened and emptied a can of cat food into a bowl on the floor. Menace bolted over and shoved his face into it, purring as he ate.

"And I'll leave the TV on for you," she said, switching it on. Mayor Nightingale's face appeared, talking about some opportunity for everybody to help each other. It was hard to listen to such sickening naivety, but Menace liked the background noise while he was home alone.

"Don't watch too much", said Jia to her cat, "it'll rot your brain."

---

"Good morning, Jia!"

That voice, sweet and thick like syrup, belonged to Linda. And just like syrup, it was bearable in small amounts to the viper. Somehow, the human always arrived in the teacher's lounge at the same time as Jia, no matter how Jia attempted to modify her schedule in order to avoid her. 

"Mornin'," Jia grumbled back. She placed her knapsack into her locker, which always bothered her. Having to unlock it and lock it again every time she wanted something was a hassle, but even teachers could be thieves. She had learned that six months ago; Mikhail had been stealing lunches, and had only been caught when Jia had baited her sandwich with a copious amount of onion. With a flickering tongue, she had zeroed in on him from all the way across the building, down six different hallways. Easiest search-and-destroy she'd ever peformed -- minus the 'destroy' part.

"You ready for another day, sugar?" Linda chimed.

"As ready as I can be."

"Oh!" Linda slid her belongings into her locker and placed a container into the fridge. "Saw the cutest little thing at the bus stop. City boys were putting up a poster with a bunch of little yous!"

Jia stopped halfway out the door.

"Yeah, little baby snakes -- er, vipers. Another poster with the Mayor's face was next to it, something about helping each other. Gordon was saying the news has been doing a bit about it all morning, but I haven't had a chance to check the news yet. Duty calls, right? My curriculum's in shambles. Would you believe little Theo got in trouble yesterday? Threw off the whole class, I couldn't finish my lesson before the bell rang. Now I'm two days behind!"

The woman would talk and talk and talk if anybody let her. Jia slithered out unseen, a notebook cradled in her arms and her gaze transfixed on the white tiled floor.

But still... hatchlings? Jia hadn't ever seen one, despite obviously being one herself at some point. Her earliest memories weren't exactly fond ones. There was no doting parent, no sibling love, no family to speak of. In fact, Sister was really just a formal title vipers used to refer to each other, devoid of any actual love or respect. It was no different than calling the sky blue or the grass, green; it was just how it was.

Early life had been equally stark. There was darkness, then light, then years worth of knowledge crammed into a young mind, all before a gun was shoved into her hands and she was kicked out of the proverbial house. 

The empty space, the utter lack of context and of age bothered her most. Jia had only the most fleeting memories of being small, and then afterwards she was holding a plasma rifle and being dumped out of dropships and forced to gun down a bunch of two-legged animals she'd never seen before with her own eyes.

Humans had birthdays and global events and catastrophes that acted as milestones. They knew how old they were when this happened or they got some special toy during that birthday. Jia -- no, vipers as a whole lacked that context entirely. Jia knew she was twenty-five Earth years, but only that -- just the number. Even a tree had references within its rings to life-altering events.

But not Jia. There had been a long, continous moment of existence that had only ended with the psionic network, after which a new sort of consciousness had taken over.

Then again, Jia's workdays many times felt similar to that old life of hers: a single moment stretched out for eight hours, populated by screaming children, inattentive slackers, or absolute clowns that thought the rest of the class found them funny. 

Jia had enjoyed being a teacher. Though the whiplash coming from being a killer before was enormous, it was relaxing and easy -- at first. Children had respected and feared her, the first non-civilian alien to teach at the school. She had never engendered such fright but she had certainly never tried to outright dispel it. Instead, students had discovered on their own that Jia was not some monster, masquerading as an educator to get close to and eat little boys and girls. She had loved seeing the understanding in their eyes when she explained a new mathematics formula, or when she gave pointers on how to pronounce any of the dozens of languages she knew. She had adored them, watching the fear slip from their gazes as they had gotten to know her better.

She truly had enjoyed teaching. But now?

She entered her classroom and found her French class living up to expectations.

"Everyone, phones away," Jia commanded, deadpan. "Remember, if it rings or vibrates, you dont get it back until class is over. And my hearing is very good."

Half the class grumpily stowed their devices and turned their half-lidded gazes towards their teacher and the e-board behind her. They disinterestedly watched as Jia put her books and bag down on her desk. Her already dangerously-low morning enthusiasm flickered much like the light in the back-left of the classroom.

She spun in her coils to scribble on the board. A black line of script quietly followed her fingertip. 

"Today," she she said, "we'll be moving onto conjugations. Specifically, I'll be showing you differences between verbe être and verbe avoir. To start--"

A low frequency beat against her tympanic membrane. She instantly twisted around and zeroed in on the source with a glare. She slithered down the rows of desks and stopped at one to hold out her hand.

"What did I say not one minute ago? Give it up, Horatio."

The boy groaned, dug into his pocket, and slapped his phone into the viper's waiting hand. She glanced at it.

"'From Isaac: first period sucks--'"

"Hey, you can't go through my phone!"

"I'm not, your home screen has the notification clear as day." Other students giggled. She continued, "'First period sucks. Got some type-9 leaves, want to meet in the bathroom?'"

Type-9 was a waxy, broad-leafed plant that was used as an additive in food manufacturing. Ground up into a pulp, some dumb kid had learned it gave a mild high and the info had gone viral.

Jia put the phone in her desk. Her tongue lashed the air. "Isaac, though I quite believe you would be foolish enough to trespass and steal from the vertical farms in the Stacks, if you had any type-9 on you, I would have known the moment I walked into the classroom. Secondly, everyone here -- including you -- knows Horatio well enough that he would say no, but he likes to brag and gossip and would probably show off this text to others. As such, I can only surmise you're using him for social clout. Am I wrong?"

Both boys sank low into their seats amidst their giggling classmates. Jia quietly hissed to herself; she hated moments like this. These days, she only temporarily gained the respect of her older students by 'owning' their classmates, as the kids would say. She carried on with the day's lesson.

Like her dreams of a new life devoid of killing, so too had Jia's enthusiasm for teaching faded away. Her students had grown complacent. Over time, she became just as much as a doormat as Gordon and Linda. No matter how many she sent to detention, no matter how much homework she threatened to assign, Jia had lost the respect of her older students. Her younger classes still listened to her but having their respect was like having a cat's. It was certainly nice but fleeting and unfulfilling. There was something about the flippancy of teenagers that just cut deeper than Jia would have thought.

Tristan didn't care why his equation was wrong. Irinka felt no compunction to understand the score on her French essay. Stefan's book report had completely missed the theme because he had barely read it, by his own admission. None of them cared, so Jia struggled to as well.

She tried to make her lessons interesting -- she used to try, anyway. She had taken tips from other teachers, like dressing up as historical figures or  relating classroom problems to pop-culture references. Again, her younger students received the former well, but pop-culture hadn't really come along yet just four years after a twenty year-long war and occupation. All the references Jia had come up with were decades out-of-date and went over the kids' heads.

As per usual, the brightest part of her day came under a darkening afternoon sky: quitting time. The final bell had rung an hour ago, her grading was caught up, and all the busy-body teachers had left already, allowing Jia to grab her things from the teacher's lounge without having to stop and chat. Though Omar was still there when she left; he had thankfully offered nothing but a quick farewell as he finished grading his students' essays.

Jia took the subway across the district, ending up in a Riverside bus that spat her out in front of her apartment building. She swiped her phone across the door terminal and the locks pulled away to allow her entry. The mailboxes were immediately right of the entrance; she picked up a couple of envelopes from her box before heading upstairs. On her way, she passed her next door neighbor, Suti, with a friendly hello. She worked at a corner grocery store downtown and was the only other viper on Jia's floor, so the two got along well by nature of their proximity and their shared gripes about city life.

Menace was waiting eagerly by the door when Jia got in, meowing while circling her and jumping over her tail as she disrobed and left her things on the table. 

"Envelopes! Can you believe this? Who sends physical mail anymore?" She waved them in his face before tossing them onto the kitchenette counter. "Open those up for me, would you? I'll get your dinner going."

Jia grabbed a can of cat food from the cabinet. She hooked a claw through the pull-tab and peeled away the top, then messily dumped the contents into a small bowl. Menace patiently waited, sitting in his usual spot with his ears pricked and his pupils wide.

"You didn't open the mail," she huffed, placing his food in front of him. "You've got to start doing something around here if you're not going to pay rent."

A claw sliced through the adhesive to get at the letter within. Her hood flared, eyes narrowed, and the paper crumpled in her grip the more she read.

"They can't raise rent! What's new construction got to do with this dump? They could put the Parthenon next door and it still wouldn't make this place any nicer! I mean -- where do they think we live, Renova Heights?"

She slumped onto the sofa, a whirlwind of questions and anxieties in her mind. Does this mean less groceries? Does this mean more work? Do I need a second job? Do I need a cheaper apartment? Does this put me in a different bracket for basic income? Should I get lower quality cat food?

Menace jumped up onto her chest and curled up into a purring ball. No, she definitely wouldn't switch cat food.

She sighed heavily and, not wanting to disturb her cat, used the tip of her tail to probe for the second letter. She felt it beneath her scales and dragged it across the counter, whereupon it fell to the floor. Her tail pulled it closer until it was within arms reach, and she lazily tore it open.

Her eyes carefully scanned the first line twice. "From the office of Mayor Nightingale...

"'There exists now an unprecedented opportunity for us to help one another in making sure this world exists in perpetuity, for ourselves and for future generations'. Wow, she's coming on strong, isn't she?" 

At this, Jia paused. Mayoral addresses were normally broadcasted or streamed. Why the letter? Linda had mentioned the news had played some story earlier in the day. This must have been related. She read on, sitting up to read the letter to Menace as though he might have had some thoughts on the matter.

"'If you have received this letter, you have been pre-selected as a candidate for raising a -- oh come on, there's no way. I don't have time for this. This is optional, right? We're not slaves anymore, they can't make us do this, Menace."

Her eyes flew across the page, scanning up and down until she hit upon the magic words: This endeavor is non-compulsory and you may opt out by refusing to respond.

A sigh of relief escaped her. Watching over an egg -- even if it was a viper egg -- was not something she had any interest in. Not to mention the financial investment of such an endeavor. Parents had to buy food, clothes, toys, any other thing their child needed. Jia had enough to keep herself afloat for the moment, but that notion seemed shakier every day.

Until--

Basic income will be increased to assist those who elect to become guardians.

Hell, she was already great with kids. Spent the last four years around them damn near every day. How hard could it really be? Make sure they've got food, keep them out of trouble, take them to the doctor whenever they get a sniffle. Completely doable. Besides, she'd already proven she can raise a cat. Menace had been a kitten when given to her at the detention center. A cat can't be that much different from a kid, human or viper or otherwise.

"You're probably not going to like this, Menace."

He chirruped at her and rolled onto his side, largely unconcerned with anything but Jia's warmth and his next meal.

Chapter Text

Should you wish to become a guardian, please visit the intranet address below and fill out the questionnaire.

Jia had thought that questionnaire would have excluded her immediately. The questions regarding income stung a little after her rent had been raised. But it must not have had as much effect as she would have thought. Two hours later after completing the online form, she had received an email which had told her to report to the City 31 Civic Center, should she wish to pursue guardianship further.

Sitting in the waiting room, an anxiety crept up on her that she hadn't known before.

She had shown up looking her best: a freshly-washed and ironed white buttoned blouse, a navy jacket and skirt, a black tail sleeve. And somehow she still felt inadequate next to some of her sisters also in the waiting room. Some wore dresses that looked like they had just come from a gala in Renova Heights. Others wore sharp suits that that looked as smooth as velvet and probably cost more than Jia could afford. Maybe they were consultants on former ADVENT systems or software developers or something. 

The economic disparity was not the only thing that worried her. There were other species sitting all around the room, coming and going as names were called and meetings concluded. Besides vipers, there were sectoids, mutons, hybrids, and humans. Jia even saw a few interspecies pairs, recognizable by hand-holding or hushed conversations, though it appeared these pairs were limited to human-hybrid and human-viper. One of these vipers had the colors of a standard template soldier and had a hole in her hood, so she had clearly seen battle at some point in the past, much like Jia had.

The mere thought was as alien to her as she was to planet Earth. How could the oppressed ever find happiness in the faces of the oppressors? Racism ran rampant even in the utopia this city tried to be, and grudges new and old boiled over every day in places as high profile as political debates or as dark and obscure as streetcorner fights. 

Racism even ruled the job market. Mutons were hugely desired for manual labor -- things like construction or public works. Sectoids had carved out a niche as skilled therapists and crisis workers, with licensed psionic work giving them insights into their patients. Vipers were sought for their multifaceted intellect as interpreters and teachers, and their graceful and exacting movement lent itself well towards becoming surgeons. The latter quality also had given rise to a handful of unsavory establishments that some humans found themselves drawn to in the seedier districts.

Jia frowned. Maybe the few interspecies couples here today were the result of nothing but fetishism.

Beyond that -- what the hell would any of them know about raising a viper hatchling? Why were these aliens being given a chance to raise one of Jia's people? Even if nobody knew what raising a hatchling entailed, surely a viper would still know best how to raise a viper. A muton couldn't teach one to bite without envenomating. A sectoid couldn't teach one how to climb a tree to access an adjacent rooftop. A human couldn't teach one how to constrict without harming somebody.

She decided it didn't matter, shaking the thoughts from her head. She was here for what was sure to be easy money. Some of these people must've been here for the same reason.

"Jia Smith?"

A wrinkly woman called the name out again as Jia gathered herself from her coils. The woman saw her approach and held the door open with a smile, then directed and followed her to an office four doors down the hall. White noise generators drowned out any discussions in the other rooms they passed, though sometimes other vipers stepped into the hall to leave, flanked by someone else that called into the waiting room for a new name.

The viper ducked her head just a bit to get past the doorway. The spartan office had only two chairs and a desk, upon which an assortment of pens and papers laid scattered around a computer. About the only comforts to be had were a window and some rough carpeting that kept snagging Jia's tail sleeve. She gently pushed the chair away and opted to rest on her coils, while the old woman sat down opposite of her, behind the computer. She tapped the touchscreen.

"We are now being recorded," said the civic center worker in a voice shaken with age, peering over her silver, thin-rimmed glasses. "Jia Smith, Riverside District, Nova Apartments, Unit 1025."

"Yes, that's me."

The white noise masked the beat of silence between them. "Smith?"

Jia's hood went rigid. "I just chose a common surname to make integration easier."

"I see," the old woman said. She quickly typed something. "Would you prefer Miss Smith or...?"

"Jia is fine."

"All right, Jia. I'm Bohdana. Or just Bo, I don't mind either." Bo took a paper from the desk, tilting her head to look at it with her bifocals.  "I will be your case worker for this entire process, whether you are ultimately given guardianship or if your efforts unfortunately end here today. My sole purpose is to help you ensure all necessary paperwork and electronic filings are properly documented, and to conduct the initial in-person questionnaire. I wish to stress that I am not the one who decides if you are selected for guardianship or not. Do you understand?"

So she was reading from a script. "I do."

"And do you consent to allow city employees related to this project to make wellness checks, including but not limited to video calls and at-home visitations? And that in the event a city employee related to the project is unavailable, an officer of the City 31 Police Department may carry out these wellness checks? Please note that within the context of these visits, consent to a wellness check does not equate to consent of search or seizure of personal property."

"I consent."

"You are single and currently employed by the city in Renova Heights' second subdistrict school, Star Rise Primary-Secondary?"

Jia could see the computer screen's reflection in the lone window. Bo was reading from Jia's file.

"I am. I've been with the school for just under four years now -- since I was released from detention."

"How does that work? I'm only curious, it has nothing to do with all of this. I was all done with school well before the invasion, so I'd always guessed things were a little different these days."

"Classes are in session Monday through Friday. Tuesday and Thursday, I teach basic math and language," she paused to consider her words, "to my younger children. Monday, Wednesday, and Friday are the days I teach French, Algebra, and Colonial Era history to my older children."

"Goodness, that certainly sounds hectic."

"It can be but the City Council finds the results acceptable."

"I see. So, onto the reason you're here. For the record, you wish to be a guardian."

Finally. "Yes."

"Tell me about yourself."

"I am twenty-five years old. As you can tell by my coloration, I was an ADVENT soldier during the invasion and occupation. The moment the psionic network went down, I surrendered myself to a resistance squad that eventually became a part of Shrike, and I was held at the detention center here. I passed my evaluations and was released."

"Does your past still affect you?"

That felt like a loaded question, even if it was more than fair to ask it. Were they asking if any grudges remained? Were they asking about the nasty looks and comments some humans still offered? Jia was certain they were looking for some sort of answer. Anybody in this day and age, non-human or not, that said they were unaffected by the last twenty-five  years was an outright liar.

"I try not to dwell on it. When it gets to be too much, I do have a therapist with whom I communicate. But if you're asking if the things the Elders forced me to do has had a lasting impact on how I conduct myself now, then no. My evaluations while in detainment showed I was capable of being a productive member of society, and my actions since release have only reinforced that." And I would really appreciate not having to prove it at every fucking turn--

"Which evaluation program were you a part of?"

"Oh," Jia said, mentally gathering herself. "I was a part of the feline care group," Jia said. Experience already had her fishing her phone from her knapsack. It was an interesting thing, how pets could so easily break the ice, as humans said.

"Oh! Do you still have -- aw, look at that!" Bo swooned as Jia held the phone out for her to see an orange tabby taking up the screen, squinting at the camera while laying on his back. "Isn't that just adorable? He sure looks happy. Do you enjoy taking care of him?"

That was almost certainly one of the scripted questions. Though brutish and transparent to Jia's trained ears, the ease with which this old woman slipped such a question into the middle of small talk was impressive. Nothing about her screamed former resistance; Jia wondered if all government employees could so sneakily cut to the chase.

"Of course. It was something new every day for the first couple of years. He's an adult now though, so he's got a routine that I accommodate. He's only gotten friendlier with time."

Nevermind the fact that Menace's care was initially forced upon her as a ticket to freedom, but she was long past that. He was her cat now, and it bothered her just a little to admit that she cared so much about such a simple creature. All he did was eat, sleep, and excrete, but she couldn't imagine coming home not to find him.

"I'll bet," said Bo, squinting at her computer and then the paper again. "What about your current employment? Do you enjoy teaching? What do you think of children?"

"I love them," said Jia, vividly imagining her younger students -- and only her younger students -- to convince herself she was being honest. "Teaching them the things most take for granted has been richly rewarding. Hearing them speak with more confidence, watching them eagerly volunteer to write on the board where before they used to be shy and unsure of themselves -- I love to see it."

"Can you tell me something about a favorite student?"

'Favorite' was always a dangerous word for teachers. Identify one such student and others might think they were getting preferential treatment. Worse yet, parents might feel the same.

"Well," Jia coyly smiled, slightly sinking into her coils, "I would never pick a favorite. Little Diogo is the definition of a teacher's pet: follows my every instruction, wants to help with every classroom activity, would rather eat lunch with me instead of his friends. He's a sweet boy all around, to be honest. Any time there's an argument, he's first on the scene trying to calm everybody down. He's a little peacemaker."

Bo grinned ear to ear. "Why do you want to be a guardian? Does Diogo have anything to do with it?"

Easy money is what she wouldn't say. "Partially, but -- my sisters and I are obviously well-suited for raising a little one like us. I think another viper would best be able to transition a hatchling into being a productive member of society. We can pave the way to integrating future generations."

If Jia hadn't skipped breakfast, it might very well have been all over the desk after that line. Reciting it in the mirror had been easier.

Bo nodded thoughtfully. "Do you have any health issues?"

"None."

"What was your childhood--" Bo pursed her lips and crossed out a long line on the paper. "Sorry. How were your parents -- sorry again," she added, crossing out another line. She scribbled something into the margins, made a note in her computer, and crossed out another three questions.

"How is your financial situation at the moment?"

"Mildly strained," Jia honestly answered. They'd be able to look up if she was lying anyway. She was half-convinced the city had detailed files on all its inhabitants. No way they would just let ADVENT's identification systems go unused. "My rent went up earlier this week, but my lifestyle is sustainable. Adding a hatchling would necessitate a few easily managed cutbacks."

"Ah, well, the city would help. This is an experiment for all involved, after all. Let me just pull up your tax filings -- yes, you're close enough that'd you'd be bumped to the next tier of basic income. That would be an extra four hundred a week. Your tax bracket would remain unchanged. Though your first expenditure is obligated to be spent on an incubator."

"I understand." 

"This meeting satisfies the interview requirement for selection. You will be notified within one week if the city has approved you for guardianship, and you will receive an additional forty-eight hours to prepare your home as needed for your child, though I recommend starting now just in case." Bo shuffled the loose papers into a yellow folder, though kept one out for Jia to sign that said shed been present for the interview. "Do you have any questions for me?"

No, none at all. The extra cash was all I wanted to know about. Just go home, Jia.

"What did you mean when you said this was an experiment?"

Bo shuffled the extra paper into the folder. In the window's reflection, Jia saw it disappear into a box beneath the desk. "There isn't a single file in any ADVENT system yet discovered that details any aspect of rearing young vipers. By all accounts, hatchlings were indoctrinated early and had their growth accelerated to be combat capable within six months. When we place these eggs into their new homes, we will require all guardians to maintain detailed notes on developmental milestones, behavioral and physical. When they start to make noises, smile, walk -- er, slither. Things of that sort."

"And so you just hand them off to anybody that wants one?"

Bo's brow grew a few new wrinkles. "Of course not. All potential applicants have undergone a rigorous pre-selection process. Vipers are given precedence over all other applicants, and vipers in stable relationships are given the highest consideration of all. Non-viper applicants would only be chosen as back-ups, in case too few of your sisters apply for guardianship."

Jia took a deep breath, closed her eyes, and exhaled. "I apologize if my question came across as combative."

The warm smile Bo had first worn returned. "You wouldn't be the first, nor will you be the last before this is all said and done. The unfortunate truth is the city lacks the space and resources to hold twenty-five thousand eggs in continual stasis; if we don't start now, some of them may not make it at all."

"What happens to my job?"

"You will be given eight months maternity leave at full pay, same as every other person. The city will assist your employer in quickly finding a substitute or temporary to fill your position. If you are able and so desire, the job is yours again when your leave is up or anytime before."

Eight months vacation at full pay, an extra four hundred in basic a week -- all to take care of a bigger, slightly smarter cat. It was too good to be true. Jia could swing a bigger place with that money, maybe one of the two-bedroom suites above her current place. The mere thought made her light and giddy. She hid it behind her respectful facade.

With all of her questions answered, and an assurance that the minutiae of guardianship would be further explained should she be chosen, Bo and Jia bid each other farewell. In the waiting room, the social worker called out a set of names as Jia left the office; a human and viper rose from their seats together.

Staring out the window on the bus ride home, butterflies made themselves at home inside Jia's stomach, separate from the anxiety that had bothered her earlier. It felt impossible to pin down; every possibility she mentally repeated in an effort to dispel it did nothing. She had no qualms about how easy it should be, how much breathing room the extra cash would give her, about having to invite city reps into her place. None of it bothered her. 

What was it then?

She quietly hissed, flicking her tongue as the bus passed a busy park playground. She wouldn't let it bother her. All that mattered was the money.

Chapter Text

"I can't believe you're going through with this, Sugar."

In this day and age, with the grand diaspora humanity had undergone during occupation, southern hospitality was a rarity for Jia to encounter. She hadn't even known about it until being freed from ADVENT; as a slave, most of the action she had seen had been in Europe. It was a disarmingly genuine way of interacting that made her overshare because the other person seemed like they were actually interested.

And Linda was a master of it. If ADVENT had known how much information kindness could have gathered, the resistance might very well have never stood a chance. And in spite of Jia's reluctance to talk, she wasn't so awkward as to simply sit in silence while others spoke to her.

"It hasn't actually happened yet," said Jia, impressively noting how much of a sandwich Linda could scarf in a single bite. "I could still back out of it if I wanted to, up until the moment they call me. If they're going to call me at all."

"I feel like you're going to have a bad time, sweetheart," said Linda, pausing to suck down a gulp of soda through a straw from an oversized cup. "I see you some days. You're not a clock-watcher, but you never stick around longer than you have to; to me it seems like you enjoy being home because it's where you're free."

Jia forced a short hiss but stopped short of rolling her eyes. "Having my tail glued to the couch and my eyes glued to the TV or my phone is a strange kind of freedom."

"But you could do anything whenever you wanted, is what I mean. Maybe you are in a rut or something but the choice is there, that you could get up and go to the park or see a movie or eat at a nice place. If you've got a kid, all of that's out the window. Your life revolves around them from then on. Eighteen years, minimum. Human kids, anyway."

"Could you be any more doom-and-gloom, Linda?" The microwave beeped. Maayan, a math teacher Jia only sometimes crossed paths with, reached inside to grab her steaming lunch before she sat down opposite of Jia. "Don't listen to her. Kids are wonderful. My husband and I live for them. We've been parents for eight years and I still cant explain what is it they make me feel. Watching and listening to them grow in every way is just..."

Jia stopped short of finishing her meal. "Yes?"

"I don't know!" Maayan laughed. "I just see so much of myself and my husband in them. I look at my twins and think 'wow, we did that'. And they're so nice and they share and they talk and it's like -- it's like I'm good enough. My husband and I were good enough to make these little guys and we made them better than our parents made us."

Linda scoffed. "They're eight. Wait until they realize they can talk back to you. And they're yours. Jia's thinking of adopting. Adopted kids always have issues."

Jia, facing the doorway as she was, saw Omar, a history and language teacher, freeze before entering. His fist clenched around the plastic bug carrying his lunch. Linda was unaware of him, and puzzled at the viper's expression.

"I'm adopted," he rumbled. Linda's eyes went wide; she didn't even bother to look at him.

"You know," she said, quickly gathering her things as she choked down the last of her sandwich, "I think I'll go check on the little ones. Recess should be about over anyway."

Nobody felt like pointing out recess still had another twenty minutes.

Linda sidled past Omar like he was radioactive and disappeared into the hallway. His gaze stayed trained on her for a few seconds more before he plopped down at the table with a laugh that melted away the tension suffocating the room. Jia and Maayan chuckled with him.

"I'm guessing that was about your endeavor, Jia?"

She nodded. "News gets around quick."

"I'm certain you'll be a fine parent. Where the girl comes from doesnt matter. If she's your blood or not -- it doesn't make any difference in how you should raise her."

Jia loosed a low, drawn-out hiss and thoughtfully flicking her tongue. "Speaking from the heart?" She asked, to which Omar softly smiled. "If you don't mind my asking, what exactly is your story? I didn't know you were adopted."

He appeared taken aback. "Generally you don't ask much of me at all. Or anyone, for that matter."

Jia averted her eyes.

"I was born in Dubai, and I was five years old when the invasion started. I don't recall much. I remember lots of fires and lots of people, masses of refugees just aimlessly floating across the desert like algae across water. My parents were gone. Don't know if they had lost track of me or if they had died. Nobody paid attention to another child crying at what I guess was a ration line. An Indian pair, migrant workers from the UAE, took pity on me and just...adopted me. The world was a shitstorm -- pardon my language -- so it wasn't as if there was any paperwork or agency that would disallow them."

"Just like that?"

"Just like that," Omar said, still smiling.

"Is that a happy memory?"

He laughed, to Jia's confusion. She didn't understand. His parents gone, his world torn up by its roots, wounds that he would carry forever -- and he did so with a smile?

"Of course it's a happy memory. Where might I be now if my new parents hadn't found me? That was the day my life began again."

"Was it easy?"

"For me? Sure," said Omar, digging into his dish with a plastic fork. "I was five. I didn't really have a grasp on what it meant for my parents to be dead. Growing up, I had toys, food, friends in City 48. Apart from the backdrop of an alien invasion and occupation, I felt like I had what most would consider a normal upbringing."

Toys, food, friends. Jia hadn't thought about socialization. She mentally chided herself as she finished her lunch; of course a child would need other children. What else to entertain a young mind but another young mind? She began making a checklist in her head: parks, play dates, schools. What age might a hatchling start school anyway? It would probably have to be a special school, some sort of onboarding program. Kids fought all the time after all, and a hatchling mistakenly biting another child or constricting a limb until it broke would be problematic.

It was sounding a little more complicated than Jia had first thought. Still easy, but certainly more involved. She and other adoptive parents would be ground zero, the baseline for viper development. The city would need a whole new curriculum to accommodate maturing vipers. Jia saw herself at the middle of that endeavor, already a teacher herself. She absently wondered if she could leverage that into a new position with better pay. The hatchlings would probably grasp mathematics and language sooner than human children; would they be separated from older students or would they have all viper classes?

Jia shook her head at that last thought; segregation wouldn't go over too well, she imagined. Though the army of racists throughout the city would probably clamor for it. The hatchling would have to be kept safe from them too. 

These thoughts persisted through the rest of her day, through her classes and lessons, through quitting time and on her ride home. Separate from the fears of racists and ne'er-do-wells, Jia's mind circled back around to the most basic idea of safety in the place her potential hatchling would spend the vast majority of her time: the home.

The bus passed through the main strip of Riverside. Jia impulsively pulled the stop signal and the vehicle pulled up to the next stop. She slithered off, taking a moment to get her bearings on the sidewalk. The nearest intersection was labeled 3rd and 14th; she was closest to a long line of clothing stores. The specialty shops were a block down. She hissed, realizing she should've stayed on the bus for one more stop.

She made her way down the busy sidewalk, ignoring the noisy advertising and bright lights that beckoned from every storefront. Her mind was preoccupied; what was it she was looking for? How would one baby-proof a home? Humans had been raising children for eons, so perhaps someone at the hardware place would know, and better to do it now then when the egg would be at home, begging for her attention so she could witness the moment of hatching.

A man sat on the sidewalk, grizzled by age and with an empty gaze that Jia knew only combat could leave behind. He needed a shave, a haircut, probably some new clothes too. He had on a faded brown jacket, a slash torn across the right breast and a dark stain centered around a hole in the left shoulder; with a flick of her tongue, Jia knew it was old, old blood. She also knew he needed a bath. And by how other humans avoided him, she guessed he was homeless as well.

As she drew closer, she could see the cardboard sign he held: Androids took job. Anything helps.

Curious that he would choose to remain jobless if that were the case. The city always had openings in dozens of fields, some manual, some technical. Perhaps this man wasn't a fan of the options he had been given. Also curious, the city was not in the habit of ousting flesh-and-blood taxpayers with soulless automatons. Something didn't add up, but it wasn't Jia's problem and she devoted no thought to it.

What did bother her was how this man asked human passersby for assistance, but conspicuously remained silent and avoided eye contact as Jia slithered by, despite her fleeting interest in his sign. She huffed when out of earshot and turned into the hardware store. Still, the man outside ate away at something inside of her, him and his thousand-yard stare that had only hardened when she had showed up.

A store associate approached  as Jia took out her phone. "Can I help you find something today?" he asked with a forced smile.

"Just a moment." She keyed in the Burger Palace intranet site and made a delivery order for a Number Two Special.

"I'm looking for things to baby-proof my apartment," said Jia, stuffing her phone back into her knapsack.

"Oh, one of you guys!" The clerk fished out a crumpled piece of paper from the pockets of his green apron. He attempted to smooth it out against his thigh before holding it up. "The city council let us know there'd be a lot like you. We've got this list of things you might want. It is, uh, an incomplete list because nobody knows exactly what you'll need. So please don't -- y'know, don't try to sue us or anything because we're not the authority on this, but we can help. Just throwin' it out there."

He offered the paper to her, and Jia looked at it with an arch in her scaly brow. It was a lot of things she had no idea even existed.

"What's an outlet protector?"

"It's like a little plastic plate that slots into an electrical outlet, to keep the kiddos from jamming anything into it."

"Human children do that?"

"Well, they're not the sharpest knives in the drawer. They'll try to do anything."

Jia narrowed her eyes at another item on the list. "Corner cushions?"

"Kiddos run around everywhere, sometimes they trip and fall. If you slide one of those cushions onto the corners of a table or countertop, it'll keep'em from whacking their head too badly. Enough to keep'em out of the emergency room."

A viper's sense of balance was impeccable, and she couldn't being to imagine even a hatchling being so stupid as to attempt to stick anything into an electrical outlet. After all the things she'd seen during her tenure as a teacher, she fully knew human young could be so spectacularly foolish, but a viper? It just didn't track. A full-grown viper was just so much smarter than a human -- it should follow a hatchling was just as smart compared to a newborn human.

Then again, humans were the ones that had been child-rearing for millenia. They admittedly must know more than Jia did about these things.

The viper further scrutinized the list, eventually finding the bottom of the page where an estimate for every suggested item waited.

"It's just a suggested list," said the clerk as he saw more and more color in Jia's widening crimson eyes. "Not to mention there is a ninety day return policy, so anything you don't end up needing can be returned for a full refund."

Good enough.

For the next hour, Jia spent her time browsing up and down the aisles for everything on the paper. Every item she picked up seemed so ludicrously simple, with easy mechanical bypasses for adults, that she couldn't even fathom a hatchling being stumped by them. For example, a door handle cover; it was just a malleable plastic sphere fitted over a doorknob, with holes punched into the shell that allowed a person to actually touch the doorknob instead if just fruitlessly spinning the plastic shell. Then there were water faucet covers to prevent hot water burns, latches to keep cabinet doors closed, special curtains to prevent blind-pull strangulations...

It soberingly dawned on Jia as she piled more plastic odds and ends into her cart, that experience is the most useful teacher anyone could have. Some child, somewhere and somewhen, had gotten into an unsecured cabinet and had partaken of the household chemicals within. Some child must have gotten themselves tangled in the pull cord of blinds and strangled themselves. Some child must have flicked the hot water on and badly burned themselves.

But still -- human children had done these things. 

She paid for it all -- there went a chunk of her first week of extra basic -- and hefted her bags onto the next bus home. As the vehicle pulled away, she lazily glanced through the smudged window at the homeless man, licking his fingers as he finished off the last bite of a juicy burger, the yellow Burger Palace bag crumpled up in his lap, nestled against a large fountain drink.

The apartment complex waited for her, as if calling Jia back to her usual spot on the couch, her fingers tapping the same buttons on the television remote. At least Menace was waiting for her too.

She called the elevator before stopping to check her mailbox, unlocking it with a swipe of her phone. Finding it empty, she closed it again, though the box next to hers came ajar when she did. There was a lone slip of paper inside; some sort of advertisement. Jia grabbed it and stepped into the elevator.

Menace waited as always, loudly crying as his viper made herself at home. She placed her bags down, fed him dinner, scooped his litter box, then left her home again.

"Suti!" Jia rapped on her neighbor's door.  "Your mailbox is busted again!"

Another viper answered the door, looking worse for the day's wear. Her half-lidded eyes could barely focus and she hadn't even had the energy to change from her work clothes, and her unbuttoned shirt loosely hung from her shoulders.

"Oh, Jia, I'm so glad your here. And with my mail! But where's dinner?"

"Aren't you funny today?" Jia slithered in and slapped the mail on the counter. Suti swept it up as she rooted around inside the fridge.

Suti's place shared the same floorplan as Jia's, so it was easy for each to make themselves comfortable in the other's home. Creature comforts varied, however; Jia had a bigger television and a longer couch, whereas Suti enjoyed reading more and had a library against the wall adjacent to the balcony, and a loveseat angled such that the afternoon sunlight would pour across it through the balcony's glass doors.

"Wow, physical advertising?" Suti chuckled with a low hiss. "Can you imagine sending out so much spam email that the city blocks you from intranet?" She grabbed a soda for herself and tossed another at Jia, who snatched it from the air. The mail ended up in the trash.

"Soda? I thought you switched to beer, what with that human girl you hung with."

"I keep it around for Bria, but I can't stand it. Us vipers can't get drunk so there's no reason to put up with the awful taste."

Jia popped the soda, imitating the crisp hiss of escaping carbonation as she draped herself across a loveseat. Her flickering tongue caught a soft cherry scent. "You're still seeing her? I haven't noticed her around for a little while."

"Off and on," Suti said promptly. She laid back across her sofa, staring at the ceiling, only lifting her head to drink from the cold can she held. "We're both fine to play the field, as she says."

Do you really get along with her? How? Doesn't she see twenty years of terror in your face? Does the guilt gnaw at you like it does me sometimes? 

These questions went unspoken and remained only in Jia's mind, and two vipers sat in silence for a little while, sipping their drinks as the city outside shouted and screamed with car horns and expletives. Suti switched on the television to drown it out, though neither of them cared for whatever was on.

"So why're you glad to see me, Suti?"

"It's nice to have someone to vent at."

Jia nodded her agreement, savoring the rich sweetness of her drink. There was no way the Stacks would ever swap out cane sugar; Suti alone must've accounted for half the crop with how much soda she drank.

"All right, let me have it."

"People can just be so stupid sometimes," Suti groaned, "and they don't retain anything. You've been to my cornerstore. There's six aisles, and people still ask me 'where's the soda, where's the bread', where's this or that -- and somehow it's my fault that the store doesn't stock the brand they want?"

Jia laughed.

"We are four years post-emancipation, there aren't a lot of brands to choose from. And it's the same people, always humans and mutons. Hello, you were in here just yesterday asking for the same thing and its location hasn't changed, please let me stock the shelves without stopping to answer your banal questions!"

An enormous hissing sigh slipped from Suti's lips. "So that was my day -- same as always. How was yours?"

Jia hesitated to admire a pair of bright green eyes peering out of the darkness of the bedroom. They disappeared moments later. Suti's cat was so shy around company.

"Linda got me talking again."

"Again? For how much you can't stand the woman, you sure blab to her all the time."

"I can't help it, she just -- its so strange how easily kindness gets under my skin, even if it's fake. She starts talking, I start talking, and then I immediately regret it because she just knows it all, apparently "

"What about?"

"Oh, I let it slip I applied to the egg adoption program."

Suti sat up. "Hasn't it been about a week or so since those letters came in? Aren't you due for a call sometime soon?"

Jia waved away the question. "If I'm chosen. A lot of our sisters were there, I doubt they'll call me. I looked like a beggar compared to some of our sisters in the waiting room." She meant to carry on, but her train of thought switched tracks. "Did you think about doing it?"

Suti laughed long and hard, like a teapot about ready to come off the burner. "As if I have the patience. I can't deal with grown people asking me questions. What makes you think I'd want to deal with a kid asking me a million a day?"

"Come on, it can't be that bad."

"I don't know, Jia. I've seen humans show up to shop with their kid in tow -- kids, in some cases. The parents don't look too enthused and they're fine to let me deal with the clean-up when their two-legged terror knocks over a display."

Jia swallowed, but she hadn't taken a drink.

"But I think you'll be fine," said Suti, still staring at the ceiling. "You been corraling ankle-biters for four years now--"

"Ankle-biter?"

"Human term. I thought it sounded hilarious. I'm just saying what could a kid possibly do that you haven't dealt with before? Not to mention I've only ever seen you totally in control. Maybe a bit of that combat conditioning the Elders forced on you had some use after all. Me? My hood is half your size so I got no training on how to be cool under pressure and they jam me into a city cornerstore like a costumed character at a carnival ride."

"Sounds better than being recycled, Suti. Way better."

Suti noisily crumpled her soda can inside her fist, then chucked it into the garbage across the room. "Maybe I'll agree if I ever get out of this damn store. I need to do something new."

"The civic center can help. They've always got openings in damn near any field you could imagine, short of nuclear engineering."

"I know..."

Left unsaid but painfully obvious was Suti's indecision, the fear of something different, a feeling Jia assured herself she was unfamiliar with. When given a directive, Jia had executed flawlessly every time. That was how she had survived the entire invasion and occupation. There had been no time for indecision or second guesses when grenades had sailed through the air and bullets had slapped the dirt around her tail.

Maybe that combat training and indoctrination had rubbed off somehow onto Jia. That anything the Elders had done to her still remained as some part of the most basic fabric of her being -- the thought burned a hole into her chest. She chugged what remained of her drink to try and douse it. 

"Jia?"

Jia wiped her arm across her mouth to find Suti staring expectantly. There was a loud chime as Jia's phone rang a second time, and the fervor with which she rifled through her pocket to grab it surprised even her.

She held it up and listened, her heart fluttering and her hood flared as widely as possible. Thoughts and questions and vague feelings she could scarcely identify flooded her mind. Was this it? Was I being let down? Why do I care this much? Why does my chest hurt? Why do I feel the sudden urge to curl myself around a tree trunk and squeeze until it snaps?

"Yes," she said into the phone, "Jia speaking."

Snapping that tree trunk was looking more and more like a good time, a quick-release pressure valve for the stress surging inside of her. And then for some free reason Jia saw herself, stretched out to her full length and frozen stiff, as the thing being broken in half. She realized then that he had a death grip on the tip of her own tail. She relented and rubbed away the soreness while she listened.

"Of course. Yes, I'll be available then. I understand. Thank you."

The call ended. Jia's arm fell limp, though her fingers still greedily clutched her phone. Suti was wide-eyed, leaning in so far that she may as well have been lying down flat.

"I have forty-eight hours before the egg arrives."

"Oh wow, hey! Congratulations! Though that doesn't seem like much time at all. Are you all set?"

"I don't know," Jia stuttered, crossing her arms to keep the chill that swept through her at bay. "I have a bunch of baby-proofing things to set up in my apartment, I got them before coming home--"

Suti sprang up from the couch, buttoning her shirt as she made for the door. "Come on, I'll help you out."

Chapter Text

Jia stopped just short of opening the door. A few wrinkles remained, so she took a moment to smooth out her dress again. She'd only done it a dozen times already, waiting for this visit. She wished that she had instead gone with her normal button-down shirt and skirt; those outfits were always neat and pressed.

Another knock sounded at the door, and Jia reached to open it.

"Jia Smith?" A sharp looking human woman greeted her, peering at her over the top of a datapad. She was flanked by a muton in a public works jumpsuit and a member of the City 31 Police Department, looking neat and clean in his grey-and-white uniform. The muton held a large box, while the officer held something resembling a soft lunch box as big as his torso. Jia guessed what each one was.

"That's me. Please come in." She moved aside for them to enter. The muton brought up the rear, squeezing and compacting himself as much as possible to avoid damaging the door or the box he carried. Jia winced every time he bumped into something, though no damage was done.

"Congratulations on being selected for guardianship, Miss Smith," said the human in the suit, reaching out for a handshake. Jia obliged her. "My name is Ha-yun. I'm sure you know why we're here. Is there somewhere Reegor can set down the incubator?"

She spun and pointed at an empty space on the kitchen counter that she had cleaned up yesterday. "There is fine."

Reegor the muton plodded over and effortlessly settled the large box onto the spot provided. He plugged it in and tapped something into its interface, then gave an awkward thumbs up.

"Thank you so much, Reegor," Ha-yun said as the giant alien brushed past, squeezing himself back out into the hallway. "And this here is Officer--"

"Officer Calloway," he said, reaching for a handshake. Once again, Jia obliged. "Congrats on motherhood."

"Uh, thank you," said Jia, watching as he moved past. He unzipped the flap of his soft box, and there it was. Perfectly smooth, creamy white, and as big as Calloway's head. Ever so gently, he reached in with his fingertips as if caressing the egg, then softly applied the palms of his hands around the bottom, lifting it up and gingerly placing it inside of the incubator.

"Congrats again." Smiling warmly, he tipped his officer's cap towards her as he left.

"For clarity's sake, Officer Calloway will be your wellness check visitor in the event I am unable to be here," Ha-yun said, "and again, inviting him into your home is not consent to a search or seizure of your person or property. Our role is only to ascertain the development of the child and conduct a cursory visual inspection that the home remains safe."

Ha-yun's wording was a little different from Bo's explanation last week, and so sat differently with Jia as well. Ha-yun must have seen the hesitation in her eyes.

"I mean -- look, if we see a set of cutlery just lying around within easy reach, it'll look bad for you. We're not going to go rifling through your drawers or anything so ludicrous."

Jia nodded. "Understood."

"Now, onto the nitty-gritty," she glanced at her datapad. "The incubator is set to maintain a temperature of 99 to 103 degrees Fahrenheit at 98 percent humidity. If the temperature or humidity deviates from these ranges, contact us immediately. The egg is to remain in the incubator at all times. Do not remove the egg from the incubator and do not change the egg's orientation, though physical contact is allowed three times a day for twenty minutes at a time; stroking, caressing, things of that sort."

Despite trying to remain as passive as could be, Jia found it impossible not to raise her brow. Ha-yun noticed.

"There is evidence that contact with an unborn human -- touching the mother's belly, for instance -- aids in development. You'll have to excuse the anthropocentrism. We're only going by what we know." She waited for Jia to nod. "We also encourage talking to the egg and playing music for it. Pre-war studies showed classical music evoked greater response than other genres, but rock and pop are also..."

Jia nodded along as she listened, already assembling a catalog of artists and songs in her head. She didn't see a reason to be too selective. She could play old world classical by Bach, Beethoven, and Mozart. Pre-war rock-and-roll was all over the radio, dominated by artists like Queen, The Beatles, and The Rolling Stones. Post-war pop music had exploded in City 31, with even some non-humans gaining traction, such as Hissters, Slambound, and Psyk-out. Their vocals could be a little rough but their beats and melodies were catchy and easy listening.

"In the event of a power outage," Ha-yun gave Jia a list of different telephone numbers, "call the number labeled 'power outage hotline' and an airship will arrive with a battery back-up within fifteen minutes. Do not open the incubator during this time in order to retain as much heat and humidity as possible.

"In case of a medical emergency involving your child at any point, call the standard emergency number and inform them of your situation and that you are participating in the city's viper hatchling guardianship program. A medical airship will arrive within five minutes via rooftop landing."

Jia flared her hood and visibly recoiled. "You guys aren't messing around, are you?"

Ha-yun smiled. "This whole thing is an experiment of the city's, Miss Smith. If, heaven forbid, something should go wrong, it won't be because the city dragged its feet in any respect. Doctors on staff are worried physiology or biochemistry may differ between a hatchling and an adult, so quick action and diagnosis will be paramount should any medical catastrophe arise. I presume once medical baselines are demonstrated, the complimentary air taxi service will be halted. 

"On that note, do you consent to having your child's medical records released to the city in an effort to establish said medical baselines? We will not collect identifying information; only things such as age, height, weight -- parameters that allow us to establish maturation and growth charts, nothing more."

The rampant collection of information was beginning to sound like ADVENT. The city's reasoning made sense, but it was very difficult to separate them from ADVENT's results. The Elders had used similar information gathering techniques in the gene clinics to determine which humans would be culled in their freakish experiments. Some days Jia had to actively remind herself that even if ADVENT systems were still in place, they were in the hands of better people. Ostensibly.

"That makes sense. I consent." Why do I care so much?

Ha-yun tapped her datapad. "Excellent. Now, because we also have no idea of emotional or mental development, we are asking that guardians keep detailed notes on when they believe their child is displaying growth of this kind. We want to know every tiny detail, no matter how insignificant you think it may be. We want to know when your daughter first makes eye contact, when she first makes facial expressions, when she recognizes facial expressions, when she first speaks and gestures -- anything at all like that."

"Okay, I can do that."

"Now, we also have a list of dietary suggestions," said the human, handing over another slip of paper with a long, long list of various foods. "We recommend a bland diet to start and slowly introducing her to a diet not dissimilar from yours. Though if she has any reaction to anything specific, immediately call the emergency line."

Ha-yun swiped her finger across the datapad and brought up the next part of her presentation. "Now, just some background on your soon-to-be daughter: the egg was found in an ADVENT storage facility in the Amazon Basin. The egg has a barcode on it that we have kept only for record-keeping purposes. That barcode also denotes the top of the egg; again, please do not change its orientation. Once your daughter hatches, you may do as you wish with the eggshell. We implore you -- and indeed, legally require you to properly name your child. And perhaps begin thinking on it soon because penetrating scans suggest the egg will hatch in approximately one week. We also--"

"Wait, wait," Jia closed her eyes, as though shutting out all other information while trying to process what she had just heard, "you said a week? One week?"

"Approximately. You know, give or take. Due dates are never set in stone when it comes to babies. Further..."

Jia reeled even as Ha-yun continued speaking, oblivious to the viper's inattention. A week? Why was she surprised? Why had she thought there'd be more time? She'd have to start stocking the fridge now, she needed a crib or bed, she needed toys and games and books!

But how can she know what exactly to get? Would a crib suffice? If the little hatchling is immediately mobile then she'll just climb out at every opportunity. What then? A cage? The very thought made Jia cringe. Could she sleep on the couch and turn her bedroom into a baby room? It was rather spartan, and it didn't seem to her it would be much work to empty her room and baby-proof it.

Something began to gnaw at Jia, something she'd never felt before in all her years of soldiering or teaching. Some invisible force seemed to crush her chest, trapping her lungs and heart in a tightening vise that made it immediately difficult to breath. Another heartbeat passed and she found her calm again; the vise was still there, insidiously clutching her insides, but deep and quiet breathing allowed her to loosen its grip.

You've been through so much worse. Bullets, bombs, snipers, mechs... this is nothing. This can still be easy money. It's just a little more work than you had initially envisioned.

"...and that should cover the essentials for now, but because this is an experiment, the city will reach out with any new or revised guidelines. Also, everything you and I have talked about today can be found in this information packet," Ha-yun handed off a stack of paper to Jia's waiting hands, "and you will also receive an email later today with the same information."

She flipped her datapad around. Its blank screen stared at Jia for a moment before a wall of text clogged it up. A window in the upper left popped into existence as well, and Jia was looking at a live recording of herself. A red light near the datapad's onboard camera blinked.

"We are now being recorded," Ha-yun said, "and to save you the trouble of reading all of this legalese -- you still can if you'd like, and I'll wait for as long as it takes -- this form states that the child is being left in your care; sign here and you have a daughter. It's that simple."

Jia's eyes narrowed to slits as she quickly scanned each paragraph. There was nothing sinister within, nor was there any deceptive wording. She slid a claw across the line at the bottom, affixing her digital signature. The screen shifted again to another page.

"This one is a receipt that says the city dropped off the egg and an incubator -- which, by the way, is a rental. Call us after your daughter arrives and we'll come pick it up. No need to fully purchase something you'll only have for a week or so, right?"

Jia signed that one too. Ha-yun flipped the datapad around to look, then flashed a bright smile.

"Congratulations on your official guardianship, Miss Smith," said the human before making for the door, "and can I just add -- all of us are really looking forward to the big day. Take lots of pictures, will you? They're only young once, you know."

Ha-yun disappeared with a polite wave, shutting the door behind her.

Jia stared long and hard at the incubator. It was a white box with the front plate beveled at the top and bottom. The top and front consisted of a centered piece of thick glass hinged at the back of the top side. It softly hummed from a set of three long vents on each side. She held her hand up to one and was met by a gentle flow of warm air. The interface beside the glass indicated a temperature of 101 degrees Fahrenheit and a humidity of 98 percent. In that moment, Jia found it difficult to remember what Ha-yun had said and she had to find in the packet what the correct numbers were; the humidity and temperature were fine. She sighed a breath she hadn't known she had been holding.

The egg was an ovalloid thing, placed on its side and looking not unlike a massive ball of dough. It sat in a bed of substrate, something like coarse sand. There was no texture across its surface.

Some irrational voice in the back of her mind urged her to touch it, to make sure it was real. She lifted the cover by its handle and somehow shivered in the warm, wet air that spilled out, then reached out with the pad of her pointer finger. The egg was leathery, soft -- it gave way beneath pressure, and Jia yanked her hand back in a panic to scramble for her phone as the incubator clacked shut.

She tore through the stack of papers, searching for Ha-yun's number and frantically misdialed it twice before getting a hold of her.

"Miss Smith? Everything all right?"

"The egg is soft! Why is it soft? Is it broken? Is it bad?"

"No, Miss Smith. That's how it is. There's nothing wrong with your egg."

An awkward silence followed, then Jia said, "Oh."

The disquiet worsened. Ha-yun waited for a moment more for any other questions, reminded Jia to reach out with any more concerns, then politely excused herself and hung up.

Jia took another deep breath to ease the crushing force that squeezed the life and breath from her body. It was new to her, having to fight for breath without the pressure wave from a high-explosive chasing the oxygen away, or without a bullet slamming into her armor and knocking the air from her lungs. After some careful moments regulating her breath, staring at the egg the whole time, she shamefully realized what it was she was feeling.

"You," Jia stooped down to the egg's level, staring daggers at it through the glass, "don't scare me."

The incubator droned. Jia's eyes narrowed.

She went on a tear for the rest of the day, ripping apart her bedroom. She moved the dresser out into the living room, lodging it so snugly between the couch and the wall that simply getting clothes into and out of it would be an irritating daily challenge. She swept up all the odds and ends -- old books, her phone charger, her back-up phone charger, loose batteries and trash -- and packed or threw it all away. She took down the venetian blinds from the only window in her bedroom, resolving to later get blinds that were child-safe.

By nightfall, she had cleared out enough space in her bedroom for a crib. It had taken far longer than she had first thought; throughout the day, she had been drawn over and over and over to the egg. She couldn't help checking on it every ten minutes, sometimes sooner. Yet always it was at the right temperature, always the right humidity. 

I need to think of a name.

She flipped the television on as she languidly ate a microwave dinner, too tired for a homemade meal. The background noise was nice, though she had no idea what was on; she couldn't keep her eyes from the egg. In spite of the television's commotion and glow, she still ended up falling asleep on the couch, sprawled across the cushions and pillows.

When Jia woke, hunger struck again. After checking on the egg, she rummaged through the cupboards -- taking just another moment to check on the egg -- and realized how much more food she was going to need. The human children she taught could be black holes, drawing in and consuming unfathomable amounts of snacks and drinks, sometimes making her wonder how the farms in the Stacks could ever keep up.

While stuffing her mouth with a bowl of sugary cereal, Jia used her phone to peruse a few nearby grocery stores and corner shops. Unwilling to leave the egg alone, she opted for delivery orders of things like rice, apples and type-8s, extra almond milk, more cereal -- more of everything, really.

She checked the egg again, taking a moment to stroke Menace's belly, whose new favorite place to curl up on was the top of the incubator. She cursed at herself for having forgotten to feed him last night and doubled up on his breakfast portion. He jumped down to eat his fill, purring all the while.

Her mostly empty bedroom beckoned, and she took a moment to appraise the changes she had made yesterday. The bed was now flush with the far wall, but she thought for a moment; this gave easy access to the windows. Five minutes of effort put the bed on the opposite wall, right beside the closet and perpendicular to the entrance. Every time she entered her bedroom, she would have to go around her bed to get into the closet.

But there was empty space now for a crib or child-sized bed, with enough space around it that the hatchling shouldn't be able to easily reach the window locks. Jia collapsed backwards onto her bed, staring at her phone and the many options for a baby's sleeping space. Everything she saw frustrated her.

It was all made for clumsy bipeds. Little boxes made of vertical bars that would allow arms and legs to poke through but would stop heads and shoulders and round bellies. Every single design -- useless to Jia. Vipers could flatten themselves to some degree and weave through the tightest of spaces that no human or muton could. This is what had made vipers feared scouts and hunter-killers during the war and occupation. Jia shuddered as unwelcome memories briefly resurfaced.

A hatchling would eventually learn how to control her muscles and fit into spaces she shouldn't normally. Bars wouldn't work. It would have to be a mesh screen of some kind, something see-through and strong. There were a few like that, but they were labeled as play pens. She ordered one anyway; if she would have to improvise, then she would.

Jia's confidence blossomed as her deliveries arrived one after another, each delivery driver announcing themselves like guests at a party. Her cabinets and fridge filled nearly to bursting, toys and picture books lined the wall of her bedroom, and last but not least, the play pen-turned-crib filled the space between her bed and window, still fresh in its box.

It was all an investment to Jia. Spend money now to make life easier later. So she could wait on a bigger apartment or new television. It wasn't a big deal.

That's what she told herself as she set up the play-crib.

A forceful knock bounced off of her apartment door. "Jia! You there? Let me in, I want to see!"

She sprang up to her full height, allowing the play-crib's pieces to fall where they might. She speedily slithered to let her friend in, excitement welling up in her chest.

"What the hell!" Suti hissed in mock anger, sliding past as Jia opened the door. "You didn't call me to show it off?"

"I don't want to show it off," Jia scoffed, only half lying. "It's not some -- some side-alley attraction."

"The phrase you're looking for is sideshow attraction," said Suti, displaying the linguistic knowledge she had acquired as a result of living among humans for longer than Jia. They flicked their tongues at each other in ridicule, but Suti's remained in the air for a while longer as she absorbed the new scents in the air.

There were the strong chemical odors of freshly unsealed plastics, the earthy aroma of herbs and vegetables from the Stacks, and the musk of cardboard and paper packaging strewn all about. Strongest of all, however, was the warm air tinged by the presence of coppery electronics. Suti zeroed in on that, cautiously approaching the incubator to peer inside of it.

"Is it weird it looks...beautiful, in a way," Suti said, transfixed on the egg, "even though it looks like a lump of clay?"

Jia hissed out a laugh. "It reminds me of dough. And no, I don't think it's weird. That's how you and I started off, after all."

"Yeah, but this one's going to have an actual parent! Can you even imagine what that's like? You and I only remember existence as we are now. Our eyes opened one day and we were already four meters long and knew how to talk in dozens of languages." Suti pointed at the egg, "This one's going to have to actually learn!"

The atmosphere soured a little. Jia asked, "Do you think she'll be worse off than us?"

"What? How can you even think that?"

"Gee Suti, I don't know. We only had our brains filled up with knowledge by god-like beings. Hatchlings are going to learn whatever we teach them, mistakes and all."

"They filled our heads with garbage because you and I were conceived as killers. She won't have that baggage. She's actually going to be a person, not a machine."

Suti's voice trailed as her own admission settled. Jia was reluctant to allow the silence to persist but didn't know what to say.

"Have you thought of a name yet?"

Jia wrung her hands. The tip of her tail lightly slapped the floor. "No."

Suti finally managed to tear her eyes from the incubator and slid behind the kitchen counter to get to the fridge. She opened it up and found no soda. After a soft disapproving groan, she left the apartment. She reappeared a minute later swinging two twelve-packs as if they were luggage. 

Putting both packs on the counter, she ripped one can for herself from the plastic and then sent another sailing through the air. Jia caught it without even looking.

"I'll sit here and keep my mouth shut," said Suti, draping herself over Jia's couch, "or I'll help you choose. Whichever."

It wasn't a hard decision. Jia hesitated for only a moment, thinking that she should bear the responsibility since she had chosen to be a parent. 

"I'll take some help," Jia replied timidly.

For hours and hours the two browsed their phones, pulling up list after list of popular unisex and girls' names. Even as the skies darkened and the stars brightened, neither stopped offering possibilities. Even as Jia cooked up some rice and chicken-simulate stir-fry, and they still offered up names for consideration. Eventually the night wore on for too long, and Suti retired to her own apartment, with a vow to keep looking tomorrow for the right name.

The day after was more of the same. After Jia had allowed Suti to sate her curiosity and touch the egg, they both paced about the room as they threw more suggestions at each other as the radio softly lullabied the egg with Mozart's Sonata No. 11. Menace sat atop the incubator, his eyes closed and his tail intermittently flicking, as if he too was considering all the names in the air.

"Amethyst."

Jia grimaced. "What? A rock? Since when are you so bohemian? What next -- Diamond? Emerald? Pretty sure those are names you'd find at one of those clubs in the Fringes."

"Emmas."

"I already nixed Emma. That's the same name, only with a consonant tacked onto the end. Why? It seems silly and pointless."

"A book I read had a character by that name. I liked it. What about Frida? Like that human artist," said Suti. Jia seemed lost in thought. "Soo-jin? Erzsebet? John?"

"John is a boy's name."

"Just making sure you're listening."

Jia groaned, her tongue flickering. "It bothers me that all we can offer are human names that use human sounds. What about our language?"

Her question was met with rolling eyes. "Come on. I don't even know the entirety of our own language, and I know you soldiers only knew enough words to survive in a battlefield. Imagine trying to name her with nothing but words like grenade, gunfire, flank, or other crap like that.

"Nobody knows how to read or write our language either because the Elders never thought we'd hold pen and paper. We were nothing but fodder to them, and may they rot in every single underworld humans have ever believed in. I don't know how well off we were before but as far as I can tell, they were a poison to our entire species for which we will never find a remedy."

Jia's eyes vacillated, wide and fearful or narrow and filled with fury, as she gazed at the incubator. Even without ever having been born a slave, this hatchling will have had so much taken from her already.

Jia did not share Suti's defeatism, though. There may be a remedy in time. Anything that survived a poison was strong indeed; the Elders were gone and yet the vipers remained. All of the Elders' slaves survived. They were all stronger.

"If you really wanted," Suti waved her hands in the air as though touching the words themselves, "you could just put sounds together. Grenade is what -- sihishie? You could lop off the start of that and put it in front of bullet -- sihishur'ha. Spelled phonetically in English, there'd be a lot of s's and h's and it would sound like a lot of stereotypical hissing, and then your daughter will get weird looks from our sisters as they wonder if she's supposed to be one or the other and why she's called that..."

"Okay, okay," Jia angrily slashed the air, "I get it. Nothing from our limited vocabulary. So we're back to human sounds."

Again this back and forth persisted for two more nights, with neither viper able to come up with a satisfying name. Over television dinners or delivery ordered by Suti, they both wracked their brains, searched the intranet, even worked up the nerve to ask some of Jia's coworkers for help. Predictably, Linda had the most to say, and they ended up regretting asking at all.

The next day felt lonely and empty. Suti was working a double shift, and so Jia was left alone with the egg and with Menace. While cooing and fawning over him, it suddenly hit her.

She slithered over to the incubator and popped the cover, taking a moment to stroke the egg's leathery exterior. Meanwhile, she tapped at her phone one-handedly and pulled up an old pop song playlist from the early 2000's. The volume was kept low to allow her to talk over it.

"It occurs to me I haven't spoken to you at all," she said. She shook her head at Menace when he lazily raised his. "How do you name someone that isn't even born yet? Any ideas?"

Only the gentle droning of the incubators internals answered back. Jia ran a gentle hand down the length of the egg. Her heart jumped into her throat when she thought she felt it shift beneath her touch. After waiting completely frozen for a minute, she convinced herself it had been her imagination.

"Suti, who you'll meet sooner rather than later, says the Elders poisoned us -- vipers as a whole, I mean. I hate thinking about it because I can't argue against it. We have only vestiges of our language. No memories of a homeworld. Don't know what governments or religions we may have had, what our cuisine was like, how our cities looked.

"The Elders had a bleak future in mind for us, one we were powerless to resist. But now they're gone, and their plans with them. You and your sisters will be proof life exists beyond the Elder's reach. You will be no warrior."

She paused. "Unless you want to be one, I guess. The mutons have this gladiatorial contest that airs on television every Monday -- I mean, you can choose to do that. You can choose to do whatever you want. Now that I think about it, you will be proof that Suti is wrong. You're the remedy."

Remedy? Jia touched the egg with both hands now, trailing her fingertips across it. That's not a name but what about...

"Remy," the French teacher said aloud. One song faded from the phone and another took it place. Jia repeated, "Remy."

This is still about easy money.

The surface of the egg squirmed. It was unmissable this time. 

Jia's hands flew to her phone, and she absent-mindedly closed the incubator while clumsily dialing Suti's number. There was no answer, and worry grew inside her as she dialed it again. The egg continued to move.

"Answer your stupid phone!" Jia shouted. "You said you wanted to be here! No, no, no, this wasn't supposed to happen until the weekend!" Call after call went unanswered; eight in total. None of her text messages got any reply either.

She snatched a frozen dinner from her freezer. After tapping the video record on her phone, she leaned it against the icy cardboard box, wishing for a second that she had in fact been silly enough to get a phone case with a stand attached. She made sure she and the egg were in frame, then turned around just in time.

The tiniest flash of green poked through egg's surface. It retracted, leaving behind a little slit through which an itty-bitty forked tongue lashed the air.

Everything that egg housed was about to burst out. Every ounce of anxiety and hope and fear screamed inside of Jia, urging her to do the unthinkable and to run and hide. Absolute, all-encompassing wonderment rooted her in place as the minutes ticked past, though her insides tossed and turned much like the contents of the egg. Should Jia help? Should she let her new daughter meet the world on her own time? Was she having trouble getting out?

The slit widened little by little as the hatchling shifted this way and that. Every so often another near imperceptible glimpse of the little body would emerge for just a heartbeat.

The hatchling's patience ran thin after ten minutes of tasting this new world's air over and over. Two little hands and arms pushed the egg's opening aside, and the new arrival unsteadily reared up from the cramped confines of her old world, swaying gently like a twig in a breeze.

The metallic scent of blood washed through Jia's mouth as she tasted the air, registering the scent of her daughter. Blood and membranous fluid slowly sloughed off of the hatchling's body as she rose a little higher.

Jia's flickering tongue slackened, loosely hanging a few inches out of her mouth. "You're green," she breathlessly whispered.

The little one's scales were a deep emerald green, like a lush jungle plant, and her chevron-like belly scales bore an off-white coloring similar to Jia's. Her hood was diminutive, like tiny flaps along the sides of her head. The eyes were a striking green as well, just a shade lighter than her scales, bisected by a narrow black pupil.

Jia couldn't tear her eyes from her daughter. She used her tail to open a drawer behind her, fishing out a bunch of clean dish towels. After balling her hands into fists to stave off her trembling, she hesitantly opened the incubator and reached in as though she were stealing treasure from a sacred pedestal. 

"Remy?"

Remy blinked slowly, a lot like Menace would, and mostly ignored Jia's hands as they gripped little towels to clean her off. She swayed with the gentle ministrations, and didn't seem to mind as Jia shifted the egg to softly spill the rest of her little body out. Her tiny tongue would not stop flicking in and out.

With the egg gone and Remy mostly dry, Jia padded the interior of the incubator with more towels. Remy precariously swung back and forth, dipping just low enough for her chin to graze a bit of towel, and just like that -- she was out. Her coils filled out the space neatly, with only her expanding and shrinking pint-sized torso telling Jia everything was fine.

"Remy."

Chapter Text

She was so unbelievable tiny.

Jia could scarcely believe she herself had been so small at some point. Remy was like a toy, something to be packaged in a clear plastic box for children to wonder at and beg their parents to buy. Jia nodded, silently admitting to herself that she would absolutely be one of those children.

It was impossible to keep her hands to herself. She reached inside of the incubator to stroke her knuckles down Remy's back. Her scales were so miniscule that Jia couldnt feel any texture whatsoever, like gliding her fingers across marble.

The hatchling's coils tightened in response and forced out a soft sigh that seemed to say five more minutes. Guilt compelled Jia to withdraw her hand again, and she used it to prop her chin up, sighing dreamily.

Earlier she had spoken in hushed tones into her phone, notifying Ha-yun of the big event. In the absence of any true emergency, a human doctor had taken an hour to arrive. Still in some form of shock, amazement, or both, Jia couldn't remember a thing about this doctor. They had held a scale flush against the incubator's opening and ever so tenderly, slid sleepy Remy's body onto it, then traced a string along her back, head-to-tail. She had come in squarely at nine-tenths of a meter and thirteen pounds.

Every so often Jia would stare in disbelief at her own reflection in a window, in awe at the sheer immensity of her own body. Then, inevitably, her gaze would fall again, fixated on the incubator's sole occupant.

Remy was so unbelievably tiny.

Menace jumped up onto the counter, precisely planting his feet before ambling over to the incubator. He pushed his face against Jia's, then stared with her at Remy's sleeping form. She stroked his back as he purred.

"This," she whispered to the cat, "is my daughter."

It felt strange to say, and she repeated herself over and over. Her first utterances felt empty, as though she were somehow speaking a language and yet ignorant of its words. My daughter. Mine. It didn't take long for her to understand.

Remy didn't belong to Jia in the same fashion as a mere thing or object. She wasn't a prop, some decoration to see only when arriving at home. She wasn't even a cat, an affectionate little creature that was happy either food and attention. 

Remy was Jia's to grow, to teach, to nurture, to protect. The utter responsibility dawned on her, and that invisible force of fear surfaced again to squeeze the breath from her lungs. Deep breathing lessened the strain more easily this time.

A ringing phone commanded her attention entirely. She tapped the screen to answer without looking at who was calling. She already knew who it was. Suti's face filled the screen.

"Suti, I am so sorry, I tried to call and text and I didn't know what to do so I just--"

"Pump the brakes, Jia, damn. I'm disappointed I missed it, is all. It's not like you told her to hatch while I was gone. At least you took video."

"Where were you?"

"Damn customers, I swear. One after another strolled in, looking for some specific this or that. The entire shop is six aisles! Just go look for yourself, you idiots. I quit today. Had enough."

"No!" Jia gasped. "What about rent?"

"It's not like I'm close to retiring, but I've got enough to pay bills for a while longer. I won't go hungry. Now quit yappin' and show me the goods."

Jia mockingly flicked her tongue out with a hiss before turning the camera onto Remy, still fast asleep. Drawing close enough to see her chest rising and falling, Jia held the phone still as Suti watched in silence. 

"The bus is pulling up to our stop now," Suti said, her image tumbling and slipping from view as she gathered her things. "I'll be up in ten minutes."

"Door's unlocked."

The video call ended, and Jia placed her phone on the counter. Her tongue flicked out. She frowned, then went to empty Menace's catbox. She tossed the bag of litter into the dumpster below her balcony before lighting a scented candle. Now that her home was a little more welcoming, Jia peeked again at the incubator.

Little Remy was wide awake. She tapped her palms against the glass door. Her gaze drifted as easily as her attention; after a few moments of patting the glass, she began shifting and sliding over her coils to inspect the rest of her little temporary hideout. After tunneling through the towels lining the incubator, she was especially curious of the coarse sand substrate that covered the bottom, and dug her face into it to see how far down she could go. It wasn't more than a few millimeters, and she reared up again, swiping her hands over her face to clear away whatever grains still stubbornly clung to her.

With more than a moment of hesitation, Jia's lightly shaking hand reached out to lift the glass cover separating herself and Remy. The hatchling's eyes followed Jia for moments at a time; she'd get distracted by the feeling of sand or towels and explore again, then suddenly remember that some giant was reaching for her and she'd focus up again.

The glass lifted. Nothing separated mother and daughter now. Remy poked her head out, not understanding anything beyond the fact her home just got a lot bigger. As she cautiously slithered out onto the counter, Menace made himself scarce. She hadn't even noticed him.

"Remy?"

Big green eyes snapped upwards to instantly find the source of sound, and then instead they saw bigger red eyes looking back. The giant extended a hand but Remy didn't seem to see it. Her attention shifted elsewhere again, flying about the room to soak up whatever new information she could.

Her tongue darted frantically, new and exciting scents registering in her young mind. One in particular seemed to powerfully grab hold of her and for the first time, she was rapt. Remy turned again to find the source and saw the big red eyes staring back down at her. 

"Remy."

Jia's daughter tentatively reached out, laying her little hands on Jia's palm. It was as if she was pulling herself onto it, before she resorted to grabbing the fabric. She slithered onto her mother's hand, but she didn't stop there. With surprising agility, she traveled up Jia's arm until she was practically face to face. She softly prodded whichever of Jia's scales she could reach.

"That's my mouth."

Remy froze again, hypnotized by the big viper's lips and how they moved. Perhaps she wondered where the sound was coming from. She impatiently tapped her hands on Jia's lips, drawing out a giggle from the larger viper. Remy reared back in shock at this new sound, but her flickering tongue signaled she was curious, not afraid.

"Look," Jia tapped the very tip of a claw against Remy's mouth, "you have one too. You can make noises."

Jia loosed a hiss so soft that she wasn't sure Remy had even heard it. The hatchling's gaze never left Jia's mouth as she repeated the noise several times more. There was a pregnant pause after the last hiss, and Jia waited with bated breath for a little hiss in reply. But Remy only barely opened her own mouth, perhaps expecting some sound to come out on its own. When no such thing happened, she lost interest again. Jia lowered her down and let her discover her home on her own.

After quickly growing bored with floor near the kitchen, Remy had a fair bit of fun tangling herself through the legs of the kitchen table and chairs. Curiously, she seemed unable to properly coil herself around cylindrical objects to climb or descend, and would instead rely on using her arms and hands to pull herself up, and then to brace again after she lowered herself to the floor. Jia made a mental note of that behavior in particular, to mark later in her journal.

The couch demanded her attention next. After crawling up the upholstery with the help of her claws, Remy dove again and again beneath the cushions, disappearing in one spot and reappearing in another. She'd pause to poke her head out, watching and listening whenever Jia laughed at her antics.

Remy's exploration was interrupted by a knock, and her head swiveled to the apartment's entrance. The doorknob jiggled before Suti let herself in. 

"What did I miss so--"

Suti stopped dead in her tracks to meet the green-eyed gaze poking out from between the couch's back and center cushion. Both of their tongues flew in and out, each registering the scent of a new arrival. As was usual, Remy lost interest quickly and went back to sinking into the upholstery, while Suti cautiously set her bags down as though she might somehow squish the hatchling from all the way across the room.

"So why is she green?"

Jia shrugged. "Not a clue. She's very pretty, though -- adds a dash of new color to the place. Say hi to Remy."

Suti crept around the closest arm of the couch, her eyes down to constantly check as her belly scales slid across the floor, afraid she was approaching too loudly for little ears. Remy paid no mind until Suti loomed over her.

"Remy, huh?" The hatchling emerged fully from her hiding spot and reared up on her tail to stare back. Suti slowly reached down with both hands and Remy slithered onto her palms, her coils barely spilling over the edges. "Does she already understand her name?"

"I don't think so. I think she just wants to get close to your mouth."

"My mouth?" Instead of lifting the baby high into the air where she might fall, Suti stopped down to meet Remy face-to-face. "What about it?"

Pap. Remy clapped a tiny hand on Suti's lips. The bigger viper's throat rumbled with restrained laughter, causing Remy to repeat the action thrice more.

Unease washed over Jia as she watched someone else interact with her daughter. She imperceptibly squirmed in her coils, trying to pin down whatever it was inside her that threw her off. What would a stranger know about Remy? I know best how to care for her.

Jia shivered, then ran her hand over her face as if to wipe away any such thoughts. They were easy to analyze and easy to label as ludicrous. She trusted Suti implicitly, and it wasn't as if she had known Remy for much longer. And yet, still some bit of fear weighed her down like lead tied to her tail. Remy was Jia's, and some irrational, previously unknown part of Jia made sure to angrily remind her of that fact when someone else was close by to the little viper.

"She's doing something," said Suti.

Jia snapped out of her introspection and saw Suti holding Remy closer. "What?"

It was then she heard it. Remy was hissing. It was so very quiet, but unmistakable.

"Is she trying to talk? Already? She's only -- what, eight hours old? And you said she's slept for seven of them."

"I have no idea, Suti."

They both stood there, watching the little hatchling as she made soft hissing sounds like air being let out of a tiny balloon. After a minute, she began modulating her volume and tone. There weren't any words or intent behind these changes, not that either adult could tell. The volume began to increase however, and the hissing was soon overtaken by a curious sort of keening sound.

"What sort of noise is this?" Suti said, her brow arching higher alongside Remy's volume. She poured Remy into Jia's waiting hands. "I didn't even know we could make this noise."

At this point Remy's chirruping cry began to sound a little like a cicada. Such volume from a little thing was honestly impressive. 

And then it hit Jia. She would've slapped her forehead if her hands were empty.

She slithered into the kitchen and placed Remy onto the counter, who still cried and cried. Jia pulled the almond milk from the fridge along with a cooked piece of leftover sim-chicken. She diced up the meat into chunks tiny enough for Remy to hold and to swallow, then poured a quarter-cup of milk into a measuring cup. She timidly slid both across the counter towards Remy, like a worshipper leaving offerings to a tiny god.

Suti mimicked gagging. "Milk and chicken? You're a monster."

"I was told a diet similar to mine, but I don't want to give her soda. It's literally sugar water, and water has no fat or protein which babies also apparently need. Human babies get breast milk for like, the first year of their lives. Two years? I forget."

Remy's keening abated, and her tongue tasted the air as she inspected the food and drink given to her. She dipped her head into the measuring cup, close enough that her flickering tongue would inadvertently lap at the milk within. Her weight tipped the cup, and the milk shifted so much that it momentarily submerged her head before she could whip herself backwards. The crying began anew.

"No, no!" Jia rushed to her aid with a dish towel, shooting daggers at Suti who was trying her best to suppress her laughter. "It's okay! Everything's fine! No problem, see? Look, I'll just wipe your face -- nice and clean, right? This is my fault, I should have gotten you bottle or something. I'll order a couple now, in fact."

Once more the crying stopped. While using one hand to shop using her phone, Jia used her other to steady the cup as Remy dipped her head in again. Her tongue-flicking curiosity was gone, though she eyed the liquid with no small amount suspicion. Any such feelings evaporated after her first sip however, and practically submerged her face trying to drink as much and as fast as she could.

"You definitely need to order this girl some bottles."

"I'm literally doing that right now."

With the almond milk gone in short order, Remy feebly attempted to push away the towel that cleaned her face as if it were some huge inconvenience, then turned her attention to the chicken. She circled the plate slowly, observing it from every angle. Her tongue whipped in and out. It was clear she liked the smell, but she still wasn't quite certain if the stuff was trustworthy yet. Would it tilt and bury her too?

"Look." Under Remy's watchful gaze, Jia plucked a piece of meat and popped it into her mouth. Despite the morsel's miniscule size, she made a show of swallowing. "It's food. It's good."

Good enough. Remy grabbed the nearest chunk of meat, greedily clutching it in her claws with widening eyes. She gaped her little maw as much as she could.

"Look at that," Jia said as the chicken slowly disappeared into the apparent black-hole that was Remy's appetite, "she has her fangs already. Humans have no teeth at birth."

It took about half an hour for all of the chicken to disappear. Remy seemed sated; she didn't show any interest in any sort of food or drink afterward, no matter what was offered. She drew her coils in and laid atop of them, her eyelids flickering as they grew heavier with each passing second. In no time at all, she was out cold. Jia wished she could fall asleep so fast.

An idea hit Jia before she could scoop Remy up again. "Be right back," she chimed, "keep an eye on her for a moment."

Jia disappeared into her room, shoving aside hanger after hanger in her closet until she hit upon it: a black hoodie. Even though the hood wouldn't fit up past her own hood, she liked how warm and cozy the material was during the fall and early winter days. This time, she slipped it on backwards. The hood dangled in front, at the base of her long neck.

She went to Remy again and gently slid her off the counter into the hood, where she nestled again after having been disturbed. The little one filled it out roundly, as though it were a pouch. Jia was visibly proud of her own idea. Suti rolled her eyes.

"This is easy," Jia whispered. "Play, eat, sleep."

Suti pulled down the edge of the hood for a better look at Remy. "Well," she said, "even if you dont need my help, I wouldn't mind if you let me come around more."

"Of course. What, are you thinking about applying for your own egg?"

"Hell no. I need to find a job first. Besides, I'm okay just being on the periphery. She can call me Aunt Suti. Way less responsibility on my part." She checked her watch. "I need to go fix my dinner, not to mention Queen's. She's probably pacing back and forth at her food bowl, meowing like crazy. Then I'll look into whatever the civic center can do for me."

"Best of luck. Don't let them stick you in some dance club in The Fringe."

The two vipers stuck their tongues out at each other, their mock scowls intensifying to the point of absurdity until Suti broke and laughed first. She remembered to gently close the door behind her when she left, and Jia froze until she heard Suti's door open and close. Then it was back to fawning over Remy, still sound asleep in her hoodie-pouch. Jia slithered over to the couch and softly laid herself across it, careful to keep her torso -- and Remy -- upright. 

The television was only a temporary distraction. Afraid of waking Remy, watching it while muted proved pointless. Getting lost in the news cycle on her phone was easier.

Mayor Nightingale flaunted the egg guardianship numbers and proclaimed the first wave of guardians a success already. Jia rolled her eyes; it was just like a politician to already claim success after only a week. Not to mention nobody knew how all these little hatchlings were going to turn out. Jia had no doubts of Remy's eventual brilliance but who was to say the others wouldn't eventually become bums and losers?

The Mayor was also attempting to calm growing unrest. The cops were uppity as of late, saying some new gangs were growing their ranks. Apparently a new arm of the police force was supposed to quell this gang activity -- Chimera Squad, the article said -- but the debate over their inclusion was still ongoing. This new squad had ties to XCOM which made non-humans on the city council nervous, though Mayor Nightingale had expressed vocal support for the squad's help, but there were no concrete policies as of yet.

A few unwelcome memories bumrushed their way to the forefront of Jia's mind. They dragged her to a place where bolts of plasma sliced through the air and bullets and mag-rounds chipped away at the brick wall she took cover behind. A body lay crushed in her coils, its armor emblazoned by the XCOM pentagon, blood trailing from its eyes and mouth. Air thick with screaming, the shadowy presence in her mind urging her onward and forward, to ignore the wounds and wounded, ignore her sisters and the hybrids cut down around her--

Thirteen pounds hanging from her neck minutely shifted. Jia looked down at the streak of green peacefully sleeping and breathed a heavy sigh. 

Jia had completely forgotten once again to feed Menace in a timely manner. While filling his food bowl, she felt her own stomach angrily rumble. A microwave dinner would suffice. She scarfed it down in record time, her voracious hunger fueled by the excitement left in the wake of Remy's arrival. 

The last thing before bedding down was note-taking. After running through the day's events in her head, Jia pulled out her phone once more and began tapping away at the on-screen keyboard. Remy appeared curious and outgoing, eager to explore. Her crying somehow sounded like a hissing cicada without the trill. She was immediately mobile and more then capable of using her hands and claws for gripping, though she appeared to have trouble with coiling; instead of wrapping around the table leg to ascend it, she would instead make herself as tall as possible before clambering up a nearby chair first. Her tail seemed to instinctively coil when she climbed, like she knew it could be used to help but she wasn't yet entirely sure how.

An alluringly sweet voice beckoned for Jia, promising both heavy warmth atop her and the crisp chill of sheets beneath. She followed the voice like it was a scent trail dangling in the air. Her bed waited at then end, and every ounce of energy instantly evaporated from her body at the mere sight of it. Little Remy now swung dangerously from her neck like a one-ton wrecking ball, threatening to topple her over somewhere that wasn't her bed, leaving behind a messy pile of scales and clothes. She locked her bedroom door, padded out Remy's makeshift crib with a bundle of blankets, then carefully slipped out of the hoodie and placed it inside the crib -- Remy and all.

Jia stooped at the foot of her bed. She lifted the covers and burrowed into the tunnel of sheets and blanket until her head hit that cushiony pillow, and she curled her tail beside her body until all of her was in bed. Though excitement still coursed in her mind, it had consumed every ounce of energy her body had to give. Her eyelids heavy, her thoughts drifting -- she drifted off almost as fast as Remy could.

The alarm whined. Monday.

Jia shifted, scrunching the covers in her fists and pulling them up to her head. The alarm must have been broken. It sounded odd, too. Regardless, she wasn't much of a morning person, and every night's sleep felt aggravatingly short. 

She glanced up to look at the sunlight pouring in through her window before remembering she had moved her bed. Her head slowly emerged from the covers like a turtle's head from its shell.

The window was still mostly dark. Only the violet hue of the broken street lamp closest to her window shone through, in fact. And through the thick fog blanketing her groggy head, Jia finally realized that piercing sound wasnt her alarm.

Remy shrieked from the corner of the bedroom. Jia tumbled out of bed, furiously disentangling herself from the sheets and blanket that had moments ago wrapped her up and deafened her to her cares and worries.

"Remy!"

The stench soaked Jia's tongue the moment it left her mouth, the moment she cradled the crying hatchling in her hands. So too did she feel the slimy grit beneath her hands. She scowled, and her tongue retreated into her mouth. There, she resolved, it would remain until Remy was cleaned and her bedding was changed.

Remy was a perfect fit for the kitchen sink. She continued to cry even as Jia rubbed her down with warm, soapy water, starting from just below her arms and then traveling down to the tip of her tail. Like pressing water from a towel. Not nearly as hard, though. The crying mostly abated at the same time as the water and disappeared entirely shortly after she was towered dry.

"This is...wow."

Remy watched as her sleepy mother reached into the pen. She deftly snagged the least possible amount of soiled fabric she could using just the tips of two claws, then dropped it into a trash bag. Jia knotted it left it just outside her bedroom before washing her hands in the bathroom. She then furnished the pen with another pair of blankets, laid Remy down for bed again, and collapsed into her own bed once more. Sleep took her near instantly. 

Though it couldn't hold her well enough.

Light commotion tugged her back to consciousness.  Little sounds beat against her tired mind like fingers tapping glass. She sighed and dared to look.

Remy had chosen now as the time to discover the colorful toys and books leaning against the wall. The latter quickly bored her with their indecipherable symbols, but the the former's funny shapes and colors were interesting to see and to touch, and the lights and sounds were an added bonus. Though with every button Remy pressed -- to Jia's sleep-deprived mind, everything was as bright and loud as a gunshot in the dark.

"No." Jia slithered out of bed with a sigh. She picked Remy up beneath the arms, her tail dangling, and placed her back into the pen. "Bed. You can play tomorrow."

Before Jia could even look away, Remy reared up to grasp the top edge of the pen and hauled herself up and over.

"No. Bed."

Back into the pen, the little viper went. And not one second later, back again over the top. Jia grabbed her and delivered her once more to her colorful, blanketed prison. This escape and recapture repeated three more times.

"Bed!"

Remy froze under her mother's glare. The word had no meaning to her whatsoever. Instead, the tone had commanded her attention, and the forceful nature of it made her recoil into her blankets.

Jia sighed, mumbling something that sounded vaguely like an apology, and ambled back to bed.

For a little while longer, at least. Jia cracked her eyes after she registered a rush of cool scales sliding against her body, nestling in the tight space between her chest and her pillow-gripping arm. Remy's tongue flicked out too closely to Jia' face and the big viper closed her eyes in surprise. They stayed closed for the rest of the night.

Sunlight poured into and illuminated the bedroom. Jia groaned as she sat up, squinting her eyes to stare at the window like an unwelcome visitor was on the other side. Remy slept slept soundly still, next to Jia on her bed.

One night. That's all it had taken. After a single night, every notion of an eight month long paid vacation was gone.

And every night after reminded Jia of that fact with a constant and randomized cycle of toys, soiling, bathing, cuddling. In all honesty Jia wasn't too frustrated with the cuddling but she had read about human parents rolling over their children in their sleep and the mere thought of such a thing happening absolutely terrified her. Afterwards, she got up to place Remy back into her pen every time the little viper tried to cuddle when she should have been sleeping.

And despite the play Jia encouraged during the day, Remy still found the energy to play more at the strangest hours. It became so troublesome that Jia had been forced to remove the batteries from the light-up and sound making toys. When Remy had discovered this duplicity, that her favorites no longer spoke to her or flashed pretty lights, she cried and cried until Jia put the batteries back in, and again her bedroom was speckled by flashing red and blue and yellow during the wee morning hours. She took the batteries out the next day and let Remy cry about it during the afternoon. She had cried herself out after a couple of hours and totally forgotten that night.

The constant soiling of blankets necessitated more time at the washers and dryers in the apartment's basement level. Jia found couldn't find a single wink there either, waiting for her laundry. The washing machines droned. The dryers rumbled. And of course, little Remy could not be left unattended. She accompanied her mother, snug in the hood of a backwards-worn hoodie, and normally clutching a toy in her little hands.

The nights wore on and on and on, seemingly longer and longer each time and still sleep eluded Jia. The constant interruptions eroded her state of mind, like rust to metal. The days were full of things Suti said humans called senior moments. Jia mentioned needing dishware and then looked in the fridge. She looked for her phone while holding it in her hands. She once left the television remote in the silverware drawer.

If Remy was causing too much commotion, Jia found raising her voice did the trick more often than not, if a terse hissing first failed.

When the toys began rolling around on the floor at three in the morning, shouting accolades like good job and there you go, splashing the walls with bright lights that seemed to shine right through Jia's eyelids:

"Remy!"

When, after putting her back into her pen for the umpteenth time and still Jia could hear Remy's claws on the mesh as she prepared once more to climb out of her nightly prison:

"Remy!"

When cool scales slid against her own and a little hand reached out to pat Jia's face when she was trying to get just five more minutes of shut-eye after a sleepless night full of interruptions:

"Remy!"

The late night cuddling attempts stopped. She would carry toys under the bed to play on her own. It all suited Jia fine, who only believed that Remy was quickly learning what was and what wasn't okay.

Already frazzled today and at the edge of consciousness from sleep deprivation, Jia felt herself losing her fight against gravity. The will to stay awake remained. The energy did not. A cloud must have passed in front of the sun; the apartment suddenly darkened, and Jia's mind with it. During the war, in the field, the psionic network could compel full or even partial slumber at times -- one half of the brain could rest while the other remained alert. The fact was even an engineered super soldier had her limits.

"Remy?"

The apartment was still. No green eyes peered out from the crevices of the couch, nor from the folds of the pile of blankets on the floor. The bag of crackers on the floor did not shift nor crinkle, and no flash of green skirted the kitchen table to see who had mentioned her name. 

A moment's panic gripped Jia, until she craned her neck to look down the shirt hallway to her bedroom. Beneath her bed Remy laid in her coils, a finger of dim light casting a glow upon her emerald scales. She was sleeping beside a handful of toys.

You started out following me all around the apartment. Why are you under my bed so often now?

Jia hadn't an ounce of energy to spend thinking on such a question. She promised herself she'd close her eyes for just a few minutes. Just a few -- maybe five minutes, tops. More or less. Then she'd wonder why beneath the bed was so interesting. Her eyelids fell, and the sigh of utter relief turned into sleep's first breath before it even finished passing her lips.

There was nothing behind her eyes. No nonsensical dreamscape or hellish nightmare. There was no memory from her days as a slave, replaying over and over like a bad movie.

There hadn't been enough time for any of that.

She awoke too soon. Acrid air stung her slitted nostrils, and her tongue flopped from her mouth as her senses returned through the haze of sleep-without-sleep. Slowly, Jia's tongue began to move with more purpose, and the scents which swirled about the air grew sharper and sharper. When she she finally opened her eyes, an orange glow on the floor made the situation quite clear. Then the fire alarm suddenly made it clearer.

"What the fuck!"

Jia flew at light-speed to the cabinet beneath the sink, fumbling for half a moment with the child-proof latch. She yanked the fire extinguisher out, and cans of cleaner and chemicals toppled out to add to the piercing screech of the alarm. She yanked the pin and depressed the lever, and the small blaze died beneath an icy torrent of white retardant.

As the cold mist dissipated, much like the stress that had gathered in knots under her muscles, her thoughts turned to Remy.

"Remy? Remy! Where are you? Remy!"

A subdued whimpering came from the bedroom. Jia dropped to the floor to scan beneath her bed. A lumpy shadow stared hard back at her, green eyes wide and full of fear. The sound she made -- it was like she wanted to go full blast but something kept it in check. Fear, shock -- Jia wasn't certain. Nor did she care. She reached beneath the bed and slid Remy out, cradling her in both hands. The hatchling's wild eyes, with their razor thin pupils, flicked from one side of the room to the other.

"You stupid, stupid..." Jia caught her breath, heaving nearly, trying to force the stress from her body. She gently squeezed Remy against her chest before pouring her into the jacket hood hanging from her neck. "So damn stupid, I can't believe you."

She returned to the living room to survey the damage, trying to tell Remy everything was fine while at the same time muttering curses beneath her breath that the hatchling was sure to hear anyway. The rug beneath the living room coffee table -- one of its corners, blackened and crumpled, the hardwood floor beneath it similarly charred. A carbonized little piece of something sat beneath the retardant; within it were a trio of burnt out sticks. Matches. On the table, directly above the damaged rug, were the burnt remains of one of Jia's houseplants.

"How in the--"

A ferocious knock overpowered even the ear-splitting fire alarm. "City 31 Police!" 

The door rattled up to the moment Jia opened it. A vaguely familiar face greeted her with a serious scowl and laser-focused glare. The officers eyes scanned the room the moment the door opened but he remained where he stood.

"Everyone okay?" His voice boomed over the alarm. Jia motioned him inside, then reared up onto her tail to press the reset on the ceiling smoke detector. The officer followed her in, but not before closing the door behind him after seeing a cat dash from the bathroom to the bedroom. "What happened?"

Jia fumbled for words. Admit to napping? That wasn't a crime. Or was it, with a child in the home? Precautions were evident everywhere, from the cabinet latches to the door know and water faucet covers. But it still burned her to admit -- oh, you know, catching a few winks while my daughter had the run of the place.

"I got distracted," Jia said, looking away, "for two seconds and then this happened. I don't even know how."

The officer knelt down to inspect the damage, donning a latex glove before poking around the charred remains. He zeroed in on the same clues Jia had, to her surprise. She imagined telling the little pieces charred black apart from the other pieces charred black wasn't so easy for someone not engineered for perceptiveness.

"Little one got a hold of some matches? Lit the plant on fire, maybe, and a piece fell to the carpet." He spoke normally now. He sounded and looked young. 

"But how would she have -- she shouldn't know how to use a match, she shouldn't have even known what one is!"

The officer's gaze tracked around the room, settling on a candle on the kitchen counter. He pointed and said, "Has she ever seen you light that?"

Jia followed his finger. She would have smacked herself if she hadnt been holding Remy. "Look, please -- I've done everything I've been told to, I read the emails and the information packets, I've bought every prevention device I was told to, I didn't do anything wrong--"

"Relax, Miss, relax," he said, bringing his palms in a downward motion. "If there's one thing I learned for myself, it's that kids always find trouble. A parent's job is to be there for them when they do. I don't think for one second you did anything wrong." He keyed the radio clipped to his shoulder. "Cancel that 11-71 at Nova Apartments, Riverside. No medical required."

"Dispatch copies," the radio crackled. "Alarm was on tenth floor. Records list one tenant as part of the hatchling guardianship program -- Jia Smith, mother, and Remy Smith, child. Confirm status."

"Standby." 

The officer casually approached the bundle of green currently flattening herself as much as possible into her hood. Not wanting to give the impression of hindering a check-up, Jia scooped her out for him to get a closer look at. To her surprise, Remy darted for the officer's hand the moment he extended it.

"Oh, wow," he laughed, "she's a friendly one."

Something hurt inside of Jia, somewhere in a place between her heart and her head that she hadn't known existed before. It almost felt like Remy was just trying to get away. "Yeah," she slowly said, "she is."

Jia looked on as her nerves gnawed on her, like some beast working first on her tail tip before it's gnashing teeth consumed more and more of her.

Remy was well-behaved as she balanced on the man's arm, recoiling and swaying whenever he pressed too far into her personal space. She followed his finger with her eyes, then reached out and grabbed it with her hands. 

"Calloway," Jia remarked, unsteadily at first. She wagged a finger at him as her memory filled in. "Officer Calloway, right? You dropped off Remy as an egg."

"That's me," he smiled, though at Remy as she tugged on his hand.

"How did you get here so quick?"

"I was actually in the neighborhood. Miss Ha-yun's not available, so your two week check fell on me. I mean -- not fell on, not like I don't enjoy this. You know what I mean."

Two weeks? There was simply no way. Yesterday had been Friday, because the day before she had ordered more milk, which had been Thursday -- no, that had been Tuesday. So then what had happened Thursday? That had been a cleaning day, where the red blanket -- no, no, the red blanket was washed last Thursday--

Jia nearly collapsed, as though the weight of all the time she had missed or forgotten now pressed her into her coils.

"Oh." Calloway focused on the top of Remy's right hand, on the scales between her thumb and forefinger. Jia craned her neck for a peek and saw it too: a little patch of scales slightly darker than the rest, with some sort of little blister forming beneath.

Now that beast that had been chewing up Jia's tail progressed all the way up past her head. The darkness threatened to swallow her. "Please, please don't take her. It was an accident, I just -- I looked away for a moment and she just -- I wasn't--"

"Miss Smith." Calloway used his free hand to motion downward, bringing Jia back to Earth. She clammed up while unzipped a pouch on his utility belt and fished out a little bottle. He tugged the cap off with his teeth and aimed the nozzle at Remy's hand, then spritzed a fine mist over it. She yanked her hand back in surprise while he laughed and cooed, telling her it was okay, everything was fine, she was a brave girl...

"She doesn't really understand words yet," Jia offered an apologetic smile.

"I figured as much, but a smile and kind tone work just as well."

Now Jia was interested; this was suddenly a learning experience. "Tone?"

"Yeah, you know -- baby talk'em. A baby doesn't understand words, and yelling just makes them scared. You can speak gibberish with a smile and a laugh then they smile and laugh right back. Watch."

He did exactly as he said he would: indecipherable words and sounds, utter nonsense, smiles and jolly tones. Remy was smitten right away, and actually laughed -- laughed! -- for the first time ever. Jia's heart sank as Remy's spirits went higher. Jia, the genetically engineered warfighter with intelligence to match her strength was not adept at all things, as she had been during the war. Humans still had many things to teach yet.

Calloway keyed his radio again. "Jia Smith and daughter are okay. No injuries."

"Dispatch copies. Clearing the alert." 

He noted Jia's surprise. "It's barely a burn," he said to her. "She probably held the match too long while watching the flame flicker. I won't report every parent I meet whose kid has a scraped knee or bruise. They're kids, they get hurt -- that's life. Besides, you don't seem the mean type to me."

"Get to know me," Jia grumbled out one side of her mouth. Calloway laughed. "You seem very comfortable around children."

"It's hard not to be -- with big green eyes like yours!" he grinned at Remy, who hadn't stopped giggling with a stuttering hiss. "Had a daughter with emerald peepers just as pretty!"

Human stress responses were something vipers could pick up on. It had been a necessity during the war, when vipers patrolled city streets or rural towns. A human's stress response triggered a range of physiological changes, dumped adrenaline and cortisol, temporarily changing biochemistry -- all of this carried through the air, detectable on the tongue of any viper. After all, in the midst of an insurgency, the human positively reeking of stress doing something as mundane as grocery shopping would warrant more suspicion than their peers.

And Jia sensed that now.

The air seemed sucked from the room, leaving behind a vacuum every bit as hostile as the cold dark of space. Calloway's smile thinned, emptied of any actual joy, and still he wore it to keep up appearances. 

He held Remy out. Jia slowly took her back despite her whining protests, how she reached out for Calloway again.

He tipped his cap as he turned to leave. "I've got a few other check-ups to get to. Just keep a closer eye on her," he said. Then, in a grave tone every bit a warning as it was a piece of advice: "And tell her you love her."

The door gently shut, and the stress that disappeared with Calloway left one question in its wake: he had had a daughter?

Jia hooked her hands beneath Remy's arms, lifting her into the air for a face-to-face. Instead of merely dangling, Remy's little tail coiled around Jia's right forearm. 

"I love you," Jia said, trying out the phrase for the first time. It didn't make her feel all that different. Remy cocked her head, wondering. 

"I love you!" Jia laughed, smiling while lifting the hatchling higher into the air. Remy giggled, her arms outstretched towards Jia's beaming face.

Now it felt different to say.

Chapter Text

Remy's first molt had come and gone.

Jia hadn't been prepared for it. In the chaos only a lack of sleep around a rambunctious child could provide, she hadn't even been thinking about a first molt. But one morning, Remy's behavior had been impossible to ignore. She had been fidgety and whinier then usual, following Jia around the apartment for hours at a time in search of relief. It wasn't until Jia had noticed a flaky flap sloughing off near the tip of Remy's tail -- then she had understood what was wrong.

"Look," Jia had opened her cavernous maw all the way,  had thrown her arms far out in a gigantic stretch. Just as predicted, Remy had copied her, and the dead layer of skin had loosened. Jia had helped Remy to use her own little hands to peel away the old her, revealing the bright, new, shiny hatchling beneath.

Oddly, Remy had carried around the molt for a few hours like it had been her friend, before losing interest.

So when Remy began acting whiny and more clingy than usual -- three weeks to the day since her last molt -- Jia already knew what to do.

"Come on," Jia slithered into the bathroom with Remy close behind, "I'll show you how I do it."

The bigger viper twisted the handle on. Jets of water shot out of the showerhead to startle Remy for a moment. High pressure was nice, to work water beneath the old skin and lift and separate it from Jia's body. It would probably be too rough for Remy, and it seemed to scare her too. Jia dialed down the pressure. The hatchling gathered her courage to closely inspect the water trickling from the showerhead. Now she was interested.

"Looks comfy, doesn't it?"

Remy climbed over the lip of the shower and cautiously approached the gentle streams, stopping just beyond their reach to hold her hands out in the falling water. It was pleasantly warm, and the pitter-patter as it hit her hands made her laugh. A shower was new; she was used to being bathed in the kitchen sink.

"You like it, huh?"

Watching her daughter shove her entire body beneath the stream was all the answer Jia needed. Remy twisted and turned, slashing her hands about as though she was trying to slap every individual droplet right out of the air.

Worn down by its wearer's constant motion and by the falling water, Remy's old skin began to soften and peel. Seams ripped all across it, new edges fraying and tearing. Jia waited for Remy to take care of it herself, but she was too lost in the shower. She smiled and took it upon herself to pick her daughter clean.

Or she would have, had Remy not pushed her hand away at every opportunity.

"Hey."

Her mother's big hands were only an intrusion on her fun. Remy didn't want to stay still so her old skin could be carefully rolled down and off. She just wanted to spin and turn and roll and--

"Remy, come on." Jia's patience thinned, but she only kept trying. Persistence was important, not fear or anger. 

Eventually and as always, Remy's attention wandered and the water-time fun became so passé. When her gaze traveled downward, it paused on the newly-formed ragged edges. She watched Jia's hands envelope her body, and only softly hissed at the mild discomfort as she was gently squeezed from the top down like a tube of toothpaste. The old skin rolled up like a tube sock with Jia's ministrations, and it was soon far enough down Remy's tail that she simply slithered out of it. She paused afterward, inspecting the molt. 

"There," Jia jostled Remy with a fresh towel, and instead of trying to push the cloth away, Remy only basked in the attention. "Isn't that so much better? Don't you feel great? That's why I--"

Jia paused. Her young students came to mind, and how their parents interacted with them.

"That's why mommy likes to shower when she molts."

That weight of responsibility pressed down on her again; it'd been a little while since she'd last felt it. Jia had said the word before -- it was 'M for mommy' in Remy's spelling book, after all -- but she'd never used it to refer to herself before.

There was a curious bit of discoloration in Remy's emerald scales. A nearly imperceptible strip of white had begun to materialize, running from her forehead back to join similarly new formations that ran perpendicularly across her back. Individually nondescript, though taken in all at once, they almost looked like...

"Stripes?" Jia mumbled as she touched her daughter's head, running her thumb across the slash of new color. Remy stared up at her. 

"Mommy likes being clean! How about you?" She used the towel to scoop Remy up and tumble her about its folds. Remy's stuttering hiss of a laugh was loud, muffled, loud, and muffled again behind the rolling fabric. Her little tail was firmly coiled around Jia's arm; she could've pulled herself out of the towel but chose not to. 

Jia carried Remy into the bedroom, nestling her and her bundled towel in one arm while using her other to rifle through the bedstand's three drawers. She came up empty.

It was the same story for the dresser and the closet. There wasn't a damn thing.

"This is... no, it can't be," Jia muttered, checking the floor and a handful of boxes before she was certain. "You are six weeks old and I haven't ever put you in any clothes?"

Remy hunkered down, pulling the towel over her head and looking very pleased about it.

Jia scratched her chin. "I guess you have been pretty happy with blankets and towels. Let's get some lunch in your belly, take another whack at using the toilet, and then we'll go try some stuff on at the store. Does that sound fun to you?"

Remy answered by exploding out of her towel, rearing up with both arms stretched above her head, laughing and smiling.

Lunch was gone in the blink of an eye. Remy was apprehensive of the toilet; though she was curious of it, any gurgling, rushing sounds it made chased her away. Instead, she used Menace's litterbox for the third time in a week, much to his continued confusion. Jia groaned disgustedly and then washed her in the sink, then finally scooped the box before their day out together.

Jia sported a light coat over the hoodie she carried Remy in; with the front zipped up, it kept the hood from sagging and pulling the hoodie from Jia's shoulders. It was a little too warm even in the early autumn chill, but she'd deal with it. The little viper herself was haphazardly bundled up in a blanket, her body from the arms up free to move and squirm and get comfortable.

This would be the first real outing for Remy, and the first time Jia had left the apartment since Remy's hatching. It was so simple to have everything delivered, and so freeing not to worry about the world surrounding Remy, pressing in from all sides with its potential for ugliness and strife and --

Jia took a deep breath. It was easy not to be scared for Remy while stuck in the one place Jia could say was her own. She breathed deep again, pressing her hand against the sagging hoodie, and stepped outside. 

The air outside was dense with scents long familiar to Jia. For Remy? Everything was new, unfiltered, fresh. Her tiny tongue whipped through the air so hard Jia swore she could hear it snapping like a whip. The jungle of foodcarts around the block wafted the savory scents of ramen, curry, pizza, and other quick eats. There was the pungent stench of gasoline from one of the rare old-world cars still on the streets, in the hands of an apparent collector that drove it once a week. A streetwashing truck blasted accumulated grime into the storm drains, the water carrying mild tones of chemical treatment and an unmistakable freshness -- petrichor, humans called it.

"Everything smells pretty great, huh?"

Jia smiled as Remy completely ignored her. She just sat in her hood, her head moving so exactingly that it almost seemed like she could see the scent molecules, and she precisely aimed her tongue to snatch them from the air. She did this the whole time while waiting for the bus. When it finally approached, she hid from its groaning brakes and hissing air, but her curiosity went unabated. Her tongue kept flicking over the lip of the hood as the doors opened with a hiss of their own.

"Bus," Jia said. 

Remy seemed to reply with an unusual hiss that certainly sounded more like a long s sound. It may have been hard for a human to tell the difference, but Jia could hear it.

Jia's heart fluttered. "Bus? Are you trying to say bus?

But she couldn't get another sound out of her daughter. As Jia slithered onboard and took her seat, she tried to coax any other sounds from Remy she could, but the little viper didn't make another peep. She just kept flicking her tongue, soaking up all the new scents as the bus got underway. Fake leather seats, rubber grinding against asphalt, the fruit the man in the back snacked on...

"Oh wow, look at that!"

A human woman came up from the back to sit across the aisle, right next to Jia and Remy. Jia immediately noticed the wrinkles across her forehead and the backs of her hands, and the hints of grey roots only barely peeking out from beneath her raven hair. A bulky pink jacket in this mild autumn chill told the viper this human was colder than most. If Jia had to guess, she would have pegged this woman at middle age. Forties, perhaps early fifties.

The unwanted attention already had Jia tense, and with her daughter in the mix, the feeling of dread was tenfold. She had to consciously relax, to abate the swell of venom she felt pushing from the inside out near the corners of her mouth. Her own reaction scared her; she couldn't even recall the last time she'd felt venom-rush.

"Is that," said the woman, craning her neck for an uncomfortably closer look, "a baby viper? They actually exist?"

"Uh, yes," Jia nervously chuckled. She kept her gaze trained on the seat in front of her, afraid somehow that acknowledging Remy at all would draw even more attention to her.

"Look at that!" The woman began to reach out; Remy's wide eyes never left the stranger's approaching fingertips. Jia shifted just barely, enough for the woman to notice, who pulled back in response but didn't let her smile fade. "She's adorable. And look at the colors! Never thought I'd be thinking one of you could look so cute."

The human's words were a dull knife digging beneath Jia's scales, an ache which sharpened the more she thought about them. So she stopped thinking about them.

"So how'd this happen? I thought all of you were ladies, right? How'd a baby come about?"

Such a blunt and prying question deserved no response.

"The adoption program," Jia blurted out, quelling the itch building within her. "The news has been going on about it since it's inception. ADVENT had eggs in storage."

"That's amazing. I can't imagine it being easy for you."

What amazed Jia was how with every phrase this human spoke, there seemed to be a hidden meaning, some subtext that rankled her scales -- goosebumps, humans called it. The sensation was sharply irritating.

"It has been a challenge so far, but I'm learning," said Jia, still refusing eye contact. After all, that was a common theme in much of the television that she watched, even where children were just background characters: nobody was really ready to be a parent. 

"Right, right, it's just..." the woman trailed off, sparing a moment to look at the ceiling. "I would think they'd let humans take a crack at it first. You know, we know how to raise kids, and you know how to, uh..."

Now Jia turned with a piercing glare. "What do I know how to do?"

The human turned sheepish and averted her eyes. "You know -- how to uh, soldier."

Too much of a coward to say kill. "And humans don't? Who won the war?"

"I just mean I would think humans could raise any kid better. We still have our society -- none of us are grown or cloned, I mean. We still know what family is."

Those last words hung in the air beside a conspicuous silence, interrupted only by wheels rumbling on asphalt.

"I'm sorry," said the human, her genuine and misplaced smile never fading once, "that probably sounded rude -- racist even! I'm not, I swear, I just think -- academically speaking, a manufactured people--"

"This is our stop," Jia said to Remy. It wasn't. Channeling the calm teacher who confronted parents upset at Jia with their own child's poor grades, she placidly said to the human, "Have a good day."

Jia slithered off the bus while cradling her jacket's hood; feeling Remy's weight within it had become something of a reassurance for her. Now it helped to quiet her boiling blood and the roar of venom filling in every hollow space in her skull. And both were very, very loud.

Manufactured? Where did she get off? Everyone was manufactured. What did it matter if it had been through biological processes or industrialized ones? That human thought one was inherently superior somehow? Just because humans were the result of two individuals -- they were better? They couldn't spit venom, their sense of smell and vision paled compared to a viper's, they had to wash away accumulated dead skin and bodily oils daily. But no, just because of their birth, they were better.

"It doesn't matter how you started," she whispered to Remy, who looked up as if she perfectly understood what her mother was saying. Passing by a storefront, Jia saw a different viper looking back from the window. This one wore thick metal armor and cradled a glowing plasma rifle, one finger poised on the trigger at all times as she glowered at throngs of civilians that passed by on the busy street, going about their day under ADVENT's auspicious rule.

Jia blinked, and with a chill down her spine she saw this viper's scales and eyes turn green.

"It doesn't matter how you started. If anyone ever says otherwise to you, find me and I will come running." Jia rolled her eyes at the expression. "Slithering. You know what I mean."

The department store wasn't too far away; Jia had only departed the bus a single stop too soon. Passersby gave a wide-eyed stare for a moment but otherwise, she and Remy went unbothered on the sidewalk. Some may have stared too long and sparked Jia's temper again, with that human's words so fresh in her mind, but she bottled it up. She reminded herself she was shopping for her daughter; this should be a fun time for little Remy. Don't let others spoil it for her.

A bell chimed overhead as the door opened, immediately catching Remy's wide-eyed attention. Inside were racks upon racks upon racks of clothing, separated by age and gender: men's, women's, children's. Each section further divided by brand and type. Signs hung from the ceiling to denote articles favored by the various alien species. The selection for mutons was smallest. They most often had to visit specialized outfitters and tailors -- big 'n' tall stores, humans liked to say.

Remy was practically spilling out of the hood while thrusting her tongue into the air, soaking up new fabrics and leathers that smelled fresh from their makers. Jia gently nudged her back, slithering towards the children's section. She stopped in front of a rack of tiny t-shirts, ignoring the watchful gazes of nearby humans. 

She grabbed one off the rack and held it aloft for a better look. "Normally t-shirts aren't too great," said Jia, bringing it closer to Remy's curious eyes and hands, "but your hood isn't so big yet. What do you think?"

Remy flicked her tongue at the item; a small white shirt boldly emblazoned with the number one, like a sports jersey. She snatched it from her mother's hand and immediately rolled it up around herself, entangling it with the towel she was already wrapped within. When Jia attempted to retrieve it, Remy began to whine.

"Someone's going to think I'm stealing it," she hissed. The whining didn't stop. "You better leave the tag on then."

Jia picked out another shirt. The tag indicated it was the same size as the first, but she stopped short. "You need to actually try this on."

She dug beneath the squirming bundle in her hood, cupping Remy against her chest while the other hand pulled the towel and shirt free. The whining grew again, and Jia attempted to soothe her daughter with gentle whispers and promises of fun times after leaving the store, perhaps of playtime in a nearby park. Jia was lying of course, and thankful that Remy couldn't understand her yet. Being out and about was stressful enough, and then she was supposed to just set her hatchling free in a wide open space filled with other people? Not a chance.

Little Remy was having none of it. No matter what was said, no matter what was promised, Remy's frustration built and built as her head was continually enveloped by itchy darkness. Every time she'd whine before ducking and weaving her way out of the shirt. Jia's efforts became more forceful, and Remy's graceful dodging devolved into erratic thrashing.

The boiling point had passed. Remy screeched even as she was placed onto the floor, and Jia felt every set of eyes in the store on her, no doubt looking at her as though she till wore ADVENT's armor. Her skin crawled beneath her scales, Remy's crying worsened, and the shame kept Jia planted as if her insides were lead.

A young human woman timidly approached; her shoulder-length blonde hair left a trail of acrid hairspray hanging in the air behind her and a twinkle in her eye surely indicated some sense of smug superiority. Jia rolled her eyes. No doubt things were about to go down just like they had on the bus, and Jia could only imagine what was going through her head. Oh, she's manufactured, she doesn't know what family is, she has no idea what to do--

"Can I give her something to eat?"

The question put Jia in a daze like a suckerpunch. "What?"

"Can she have something to eat? I have some crackers on me."

There were cameras everywhere. Vipers couldn't be poisoned-- they couldn't even get drunk. The woman's face was clearly visible. Jia had spent twenty years picking insurgents out of crowds based on scent and look alone. This woman had nothing but genuine concern about her. 

"Uh, yes," Jia stammered, "she would probably like that."

Her darting tongue told Jia the animal-shaped cracker the woman revealed from her purse was as normal as could be. The human knelt down to show Remy, whose screeching tantrum degraded into sniffles and whining as curiosity softened her temper. She watched wide-eyed as the cracker was split in two; one piece disappeared into the human's mouth and the other half was held out for Remy. She wasted no time in taking it.

"A trick I learned," said the woman, smiling at Jia, "is that distraction goes a long way."

While Remy ate, the woman slipped the shirt over her head. Despite a frustrated whimper as the arm holding the cracker was forced through a sleeve, Remy put up no fight.

"It looks a little small. I'd say she wears a six-to-eight month."

Where was the condescension? The self-righteous attitude? "Oh. Okay."

"You got your phone on you?" The woman poked at hers as Jia weakly nodded, procuring her own. They tapped the devices together. "Sent you a link for a family group app. Kids outgrow toys and clothes fast, so parents donate hand-me-downs to other parents. It'll save you tons of money."

They watched Remy finish the last bite of cracker, and she managed to squirm her way out of the shirt herself.

"She's adorable." The human looked to Jia again. "Cassidy, by the way. Casserby-two on the app -- like the word passerby but with a c instead of a p, and the number two. Maybe see you around, uh..."

"Jia."

"Jia! Nice to meet you and your girl. Maybe see you around."

Cassidy exaggeratedly waved goodbye to Remy, who clumsily imitated the gesture, before paying for her new clothes at the checkout. Jia watched in silence and utter amazement, one hand grasping at the empty hood hanging from her neck. Suddenly cognizant of her unattended daughter still on the floor, she bent bent over and scooped her up again, feeling more than a little foolish for imitating a whooshing noise. Remy laughed, and Jia's embarrassment evaporated in a heartbeat. 

"You happy now? Anymore fussing you want to get out?"

Remy settled in again, only her head swiveling and her tongue flickering.

The rest of their time inside the store passed without incident. Jia ended up with an armful of small shirts and even a tiny jacket with fake fur which lined the sleeves and neck. She balked at the price initially, but she was strangely thrilled at the mere thought of her daughter wearing it. 

This must be why kids like dolls, Jia thought. Images of her younger students swapping clothes onto and off of their toy figures flooded her memory. 

She paid for her haul, including the shirt Remy used as bedding. The cashier eyed the little viper curiously, then smiled outright when Remy locked eyes with him.

Jia slipped a shirt over Remy's head. The city and all of its smells waited, and Remy's tongue again went berserk the moment they were outside the store.

Jia stroked the top of Remy's head. "That wasn't so bad, was it? Minus the tantrum, obviously." 

Remy nuzzled hard into the base of her mother's neck, and there was another moment of uncertainty -- just a hint of a sound that made Jia think the little viper was trying to say something. That it was taking this long made Jia worry. Human infants vocalized around two months old, according to the intranet. Vipers were more intelligent, weren't they? Shouldn't Remy have already started to vocalize, beyond crying and grunting and squeaking?

"Are you trying to talk? Maybe -- bus? Mommy?"

Remy only glanced up to acknowledge that it was indeed her mother's mouth making noise, but then resumed swiveling her head to take in the city's sights. She did offer up a quiet grunt, however. Jia frowned.

"Well, we've been out less than an hour. We should do something else. This is your first time out, after all." She checked her phone to be sure of the time. "And it's been a while since I've had anything to eat. There should be some food trucks around the block."

She omitted the small park the these food trucks always gathered around. The well-mannered and honest adult in her felt obliged to let Remy loose like she promised, but the new mother in her was terrified of letting her go for two seconds, even if in a monitored public space meant specifically for children. These two sentiments clashed within, and the anxious build-up was nearly unbearable. Jia could feel it in her twitching tail, in her clenching jaw that she kept firmly shut for fear her fangs would reflexively pop out due to nothing but all encompassing fear.

The food trucks were in their usual spot, catering to a small crowd of suits on their lunch breaks or parents keeping watch over their nearby children in the park. Thankfully, the trucks and their myriad odors kept Remy rapt.

Though she had fallen in love with it right after emancipation four years ago, curry and ramen had worn out its welcome for Jia. As production of more traditional ingredients or their approximations resumed, more foods began to take the city by storm. New spices from alien flora crossbred with terrestrial plants were the hottest thing at the moment, sprinkled over plant-based meats to provide novel flavors that humans were still trying to identify.

Best of all, in Jia's opinion, was the influx of cheese into the city. The majority of it was simulated, though the real stuff was around, even if prohibitively expensive for the average citizen. But it made possible things humans called cream cheese that seemed lighter than air, savory cheesecakes that melted in the mouth, and most ubiquitous of all--

"Pizza!" Jia said, her tongue lashing the air. It led her through the sparse crowd, past half a dozen other trucks, until she stood at the back of the line of a pizza cart manned by a single gruff looking human who looked like he wanted to be anywhere but where he was. 

The line thinned soon enough. The pizza man would snatch the money, slap a slice onto a paper plate as if it were disgusting slop, then do it all over again. Smelled good to Jia though.

"Yeah, snake -- what'll it be?" The pizza man's eyes narrowed on sight of Remy. There was no curiosity, though. He looked at her like he looked at his pizza: with disgust.

Jia cleared her throat, adding a conspicuous hiss at the end. Let him think it was a threat. "I'd like a slice of pizza."

"Ya don't say. What kind?"

"Cheese."

"Fresh out," said the human without even checking his cart.

Jia frowned. "Pepperoni."

"Ain't any pepperoni these days, just the fake crap."

"Then I'll settle for the fake pepperoni."

"That's out too."

Her jaw noticeably shifted. She gently pulled Remy back into her jacket's hood, whose curiosity had nearly caused her to spill out of it. "Then what do you have left?"

"Wouldn't you know it? All my stock's gone."

Behind Jia, two other humans and lined up. "Suppose I'll wait here for the restock, then," she sneered.

"Listen snake, there's a dozen other trucks here, so go find someone that'll sing kumbayah with you because it sure as shit ain't me."

"That's very funny because there are still cities where humans and aliens cut each other's throats every day. Why don't you move to one if you're spoiling so badly for a fight and leave the rest of us alone?"

"Oh! Oh, ain't that somethin'," the pizza man raised his voice, looking at other humans nearby as if for approval. "The alien comes in and wrecks everything, then tells me to go somewhere else like it still owns the planet. Here's an idea snake, how about you and your little hellspawn turn your tails around and--"

"What is the problem here, Sam?" A uniformed man separated himself from the crowd. Both Jia's and the pizza man's eyes darted to the shiny badge pinned to his breast. "How is it every time theres a scene, its you? It never fails, I swear."

Jia recognized the voice.

The pizza man, Sam, was suddenly looking small and apologetic. "Calloway, look, I'm just tryin' to run a business here. She's scarin' away my clientele."

"Is she now?" Calloway regarded Jia with a warm smile before looking at the two people still in line behind her. One had begun to tap their foot. "Why are you such a pain? Can I walk my beat once without you causing trouble of some kind?"

"Like I said, I'm just trying to run a business. The snake is--"

"She is a customer," Calloway hastily swiped his phone across Sam's, "and you are obligated to serve her like everyone else. Grab her a slice and send her on her way."

Grumbling, Sam eyed his own phone until it chimed with a successful transaction. He popped open the cart, waved away the steam, and reached inside. A slice of cheese pizza on a paper plate came back out. He plopped it atop the cart and eyeballed Jia, as if daring her to take it.

She wasn't dissuaded, and she glared right back. Even as she slithered away with Calloway at her side. Even as he shepherded her to a park bench, Jia kept her eyes locked on. She took her time setting the plate down, settling within her own coils, taking her first bite -- all while still staring at Sam.

"You don't scare him," Calloway said, sitting at the table beside her. He took a sip from the hot coffee he had left at the table before coming to Jia's aid. "Nothing scares him. He'll be six feet under after starting a fight with an andromedon before he ever admits he's afraid."

"He sure cowered when you showed up. Can't you arrest him for discrimination? Why don't you?" She folded a corner of the pizza over to avoid touching the grease and sauce, and pinched off a small piece for Remy, who inhaled it in the blink of an eye and then clamored for more.

"Sometimes," Calloway sank close to the table, "little fish aren't so important. Sometimes they tell us where the real catch is."

"An informant," Jia hissed.

"More of a snitch than anything else. He is infamously racist but he tattles on anyone and everything. He is the definition of a curmudgeon."

Jia's frown shifted to one side, then relented. "I spent two years in City 52 -- Paris, after ADVENT rebuilt it. We were commanded to allow smugglers to move their wares so long as they notified us of resistance activity. The extra food and goods kept people happy, I imagine."

She watched little Remy practically spill out of the jacket's hood and onto the table, eager to tear into the pizza slice. She used one hand to keep Remy at bay and the other to tear off small pieces.

"Are you following me?" Jia asked without looking at Calloway. "Is the city so suspicious of us that we each get a tail? Remy's not even two months; I don't think she'd understand a word of any radicalism I might feed her."

"Paranoia is not healthy, Miss Smith," he laughed. She was surprised he recalled her name. "This is one of my beats. Nobody is following anybody. I heard an argument brewing and stepped in while on a coffee break."

Jia dismissed her own distrust with a grunt, too distracted by her daughter's mess. Remy's hands, face, and hood were slathered with red sauce, and her little tongue just couldn't get it all fast enough. Ravenous didn't even begin to describe it. Jia wondered if she wasn't feeding her enough.

Calloway fished a napkin from his breast pocket. "Here."

Remy squirmed as always, ducking and weaving to try and escape her mother's attention, then whining when that proved impossible. When the napkin was gone, so too was the mess. She licked her lips and was disappointed there wasn't anymore sauce to be found. But then her attention shifted to a shiny star on the human sitting beside her mother. Drawn to that at first, Remy's eyes tracked further up, attracted to the movement of lips and eyes and brows. All these things combined was a face she recognized.

"Hey there. Remy, isn't it?"

She practically leapt across the table, slithering as fast as her tail could carry her. Calloway held out his palm as if to stop her from careening off the table's edge, but she met it full speed, gracefully coiling up his arm without stopping for a moment. She was a blur of movement until she came to a rest at his shoulder and gently clapped a hand on his cheek, near the corner of his mouth.

Jia rolled her eyes. "She's still fascinated by mouths, I don't know why."

"Kids have their idiosyncrasies. They grow out of them." he said, using a single finger to lift her hand. Jia recognized he was checking the burn Remy had suffered a more than a month ago. "It looks good, almost like it was never even there. She's molted already?"

"Twice now."

"Probably won't even leave a scar," he held Remy's hand in front of her face, "don't you think? Doesn't look bad at all."

Remy was lost even if it appeared she initially understood -- she looked at her hand simply because it was in front of her face -- and her attention waned until she looked down. That bright and shiny badge of his was very interesting now that it was within arm's reach. She tried to pull it right off his chest. Jia reached for her but Calloway waved her away with a laugh. His hand disappeared into a pouch on his belt, then reappeared with a shiny gold sticker in the same shape as his badge. He peeled its back off and stuck it on her chest while she flicked her tongue.

"You really don't care," Jia pondered, "do you?"

"About what?" he said, nose-to-nose with Remy.

"That we're vipers. Aliens. That I was a soldier."

"I don't care for one second that you were a slave."

Slave was an uncommon word to come from a human. These days it was used almost exclusively by aliens, alongside other words and phrases like emancipation and it wasn't me or the Elders did it. While most humans in City 31 understood the psionic network had played some role in the lives of former ADVENT soldiers, few were so willing to allow the absolution such a label carried. Too many grudges and too much bad blood still. It never mattered how vividly an alien described their total subservience. Jia's experience had been the same as every other's; a lack of conscious thought, the total inability to comprehend that there was a right or a wrong, that there were choices to be made. There had only been the Elders' commands drowning out anything, everything else.

Jia decided then that her curiosity was piqued. 

Calloway noted the surprise on her face. "What?"

"I just thought I had humans mostly figured out. You, for instance: when you dropped off Remy's egg, and you smiled and congratulated me -- I thought it was just for show. That you were courteous because the uniform forced you to be. That all humans simply tolerate us because the city forces them too."

Calloway nodded thoughtfully. Remy imitated his motion. "And then they talk about you behind your back."

Something in his somber tone told Jia not to press him, that something lurked beneath the gentle surface. Experience darkly tinged his words.

"Exactly," she replied.

He plopped his face into his hands. Remy was draped across his shoulder, entangling herself in the springy wire of his radio. She cried out, and before Jia could reach for her, Calloway gave her his hand and she pulled herself free, coiling down his arm before turning to look up at him, green eyes gleaming. He offered a weak smile.

"My break's just about over, but could we talk more? Please?" He stood up and downed the rest of his coffee, then turned back to Jia again to see the hesitation in her eyes. Before she could answered, he added, "Remy's adorable; the only hatchling that actually recognizes me. And I've seen a fair few, mind."

Of course he was just trying to butter Jia up. She wasn't oblivious, but she was very curious.

"Uh, sure."

He fetched a card from yet another pouch on his belt and scribbled on it before handing it to Jia. "The top number is my desk phone but I'm almost never there. My cell is on the back. Let me know when your available and we can grab drinks," he said with a grimace that drew the the last word into an awkward hiss, "or -- you know, something."

Jia eyed the card. "Zachary Calloway."

He pulled his hands away as if refusing to take the formality she offered. "Just Zach's fine."

"Then I'm Jia."

"All right Jia. Text me whenever because my voicemail's, uh, broken or something. I've never bothered to fix it." He stooped down. "And bye-bye to you, Remy."

She grabbed at his hand and held on, lifting herself a good couple of inches off the table before she let go. She and her mother watched him melt back into the crowd. Like most everything else not within her immediate field of view, Remy soon forgot Zach had been there at all. Her attention returned to the pizza on the table, and Jia hurriedly took one last bite before her daughter could devour the rest.

"That was..." The myriad dramas and comedies and action flicks she would veg in front of at home sprang to mind. Seedy back alley dives, elegant bars in the fanciest hotels -- places where a pair might meet for...

"Did I just agree to--"

---

"A date? You?"

Suti scooped up Remy, who had wandered near with her arms outstretched, asking to be picked up. The bigger viper was all too happy to oblige and nuzzled her for a moment before turning her attention again to the other fully-grown viper in the room.

"Stop jumping to conclusions. It's not a date," Jia said confidently.

"He said he wanted to see you again, gave you his number and then said to ring him anytime."

"There's something else bothering him."

"Yeah, the fact he's not spending the night at your place."

Jia hadn't even heard Suti's last remark. She replayed her meeting with Zach over and over before opening her mouth again. "He called me -- he acknowledged I was a slave. He doesn't hold me responsible at all. He explicitly said so."

"So he's desperate," Suti rolled her eyes. "Who cares? This is your chance."

"Chance for..."

"Jia, sweetheart. I'm your best friend, so I'm going to lay this out plainly for you: you don't do sh--" Suti stopped and considered the hatchling in her arms. "You don't do squat. You go to work. You come home. Sometimes you have groceries delivered. Sometimes you go get them. I have never seen you go out to eat or go see a movie, you don't have any work friends. You won't even go out with me. You have zero social life. Literally nothing."

"Oh, so I'm just supposed to sleep with the first person that shows interest? Just to break out of my shell?"

"Now who's jumping to conclusions? I'm saying merely going out would be good for you. Text him, go grab something to eat with him. Maybe you guys like each other, maybe you don't, but the point is you tried. There's more to your life than your job and your apartment."

Having Suti hit the bullseye brought it all back again. All the longing glances at the mirror, Jia snidely ridiculing herself for having achieved the human dream of waking up every morning to work an unfulfilling job, suddenly burned her that much more. She worked so hard just to take of herself, only herself, and to stay out of the way of others -- and her efforts have earned her Suti's pity? Who else pitied her?

Worse yet, sadness ached in Jia's heart for the daughter she had chosen to care for. What would little Remy's life be like with a parent so bereft of any worldy experience that hadn't taken place through the ghostly glow of a plasma rifle's holographic sights?

Jia should do this at the least. If she wanted her daughter to be any sort of normal, she would have to know how to simply be around others -- something Jia was uncertain she could do herself.

"Okay," Jia shrugged, snatching her phone off her kitchen counter, "I'll text him."

"No!" A tail jumped up from the floor and slapped the phone away. It sailed through the air before plopping onto the couch, startling Menace in the process.

Confusion swept Jia's face, her empty hands frozen as if a phone were still in their grasp. "No was sufficient, Suti."

"Give it a couple days. Human courtship is weird and --"

"Again, I really don't think it's a date."

"--and texting right away seems really desperate, which is off-putting. Bria waited three days to text me back when we hit it off. Let him stew for a couple days at least before you reach out."

"How absolutely ludicrous," said Jia, crossing her arms.

"And no kids on a date. Let me know when you want to see him and I'll watch Remy for the night."

The bottom dropped out of Jia's stomach. Away from Remy for a whole night? Remy left in the care of someone else? Someone Jia implicitly trusted, someone that she'd known since being released from detention, that had helped her get her life in City 31 started...

But still -- someone else?

"For the love of -- Jia, you don't have to freeze up like a statue at the mere thought. You are so transparent."

"Am not."

"I am completely capable of caring for string bean here. I can chill with her here in your place so she'll have all her toys and her regular menu. Just let me know her routine before you go."

Jia closed her eyes and took a long, deep breath. "Fine," she said, afraid she might've changed her mind had she waited any longer to answer, "but you better not complain when I call you every five minutes for an update."

Suti rolled her eyes. "It's bad form to constantly check your phone on a date."

"Again, I really don't think it's a date."

Chapter Text

Jia eyed herself in the mirror with some satisfaction. Though she chose to wear one of the scholarly jacketed blouse-and-skirt-and-tail sleeve combos, it was far more respectable than what Suti had offered. Pulling the jacket taut by its sleeves, she smoothed the wrinkles out while admiring the gloss the scale polish had given her. Her teeth and fangs were clean, though she couldn't think of a reason why the latter would be visible tonight. She stared for a moment longer. Her fingers slowly undid the top button of her blouse. She frowned and quickly buttoned up again.

"Jia?" A light knock on the door. "All good?"

Jia turned away from her reflection and exited. Having never had to live up to anyone's standards but her own, she felt the heat of embarrassment in her face and hood as she presented herself for her friend's approval.

Suti frowned. "I've seen hotter librarians."

"Several of my coworkers, men and women, have remarked that our school's librarian is very attractive."

"What about the black dress I gave you? Black looks so nice on yellow."

"I'd rather not look like a walking piece of asphalt," Jia groaned with a roll of her eyes, "and I could have shown up naked and been more decent."

"My dress is classy, okay? Spare me your histrionics."

The bickering was broken up by Remy, who stretched herself out across Suti's shoulders with a conspicuous yawn, as if trying to tell the two bigger vipers I'm trying to sleep here. They took the hint by lowering their voices.

"Naptime should be done in twenty minutes, and then she normally likes to play for an hour before she gets peckish," Jia counted the tasks off on her fingers, "so she can have a snack from the bottom drawer of the fridge along with something to drink -- no soda, no matter how much she whines. Never should have given her a taste. If she gets fussy you can always calm her down with some television but I would prefer you at least attempt to read to her. She normally settles in quick when you start sing-songing from the book of fables. See if you can get her to use the toilet or otherwise she'll use Menace's litterbox and then she'll need a bath. Don't worry about Menace, I'll feed him when I'm back. And Remy's still not keen on pajamas so you might have a rough time--"

"Oh my gosh, just stop!" Suti groaned at the ceiling. "You're literally reciting everything you wrote down, verbatim. I've got it, okay? String Bean and I will be just fine."

Jia frowned from one side of her mouth. "String bean? You're sticking with that?"

"I think it's cute. Mommy Jia can call her whatever she likes and Aunt Suti will call her String Bean."

"It wasn't so long ago you were calling kids terrors and ankle-biters."

"That was then," said Suti, peeking at Remy from the corner of her eye, "and this is now. Enjoy it while you can because when I get a job, I won't have so much free time to babysit."

"How's that going by the way?"

Suti shrugged off the question. "I'll find something sooner or later. Now get going or you'll be late."

The door loomed, ominous and foreboding. On the other side was a place where Remy was out of reach, out of earshot, closer to trouble than to her mother--

"I will push you out the door, Jia. Try me."

"I'm going, I'm going."

-

The bus hummed along the road, its drive softly whining on acceleration only, when draw on the battery was stronger.

Jia spent her time staring out the window as the city passed by, illuminated by bright white street lamps and the occasional old one, marked by a yellow glow. Sometimes she'd catch a glimpse of her reflection, glassy-eyed as she went over her phonecall with Zach. She remembered being surprised that he had called after she had left a text.

I know a great place, he had said. Quiet and private, even if a little dingy. Most of his precinct drank there -- when they felt like drinking, Zach had added.

What still bothered her was his quiet tone, how unsure he was of his own words. Was he regretting their meet already? Was he ashamed of himself and whatever fetishism would compel him to ask out a viper? Maybe he wondered what his fellow officers would think.

Jia shook her head. It's not a date.

What then? What would possibly incline a cop to choose to spend time with an alien? Up until a while ago, Jia had thought like most other non-humans did, that the police were just an extension of XCOM, a softer, more subtle arm of the resistance's supremacist views meant to keep humans on top. 

If that were the case, under no circumstances would Zach have intervened at the park to ensure Jia was treated as equally as anyone else.

She shook her head again, hissing to herself as well. An intuition honed over twenty years of warfare and counter-insurgency was telling her something was off, something rested just beneath the surface, and she simply wasn't seeing it. The skills that had let her discern which conversations in a crowd were tense and conspiratorial, which faces were avoidant or guilty, whose actions were suspicious -- it was all flaking away like an old skin.

Everything the Elders had put in her head -- gone. The mere possibility sparked such joy that her heart fluttered.

Despite that, she was disgusted with the infinitesimal part of her that, against all odds and common sense, yearned for a simpler time where she had been good at everything she had been expected to do. She angrily glared at her reflection in the window and snuffed those feelings out like the fading embers of a dying fire.

Jia lurched forward as the brakes kicked in and the bus slowed to a stop. She disembarked and the bus pulled away as she paused to gather her bearings. She hadn't been to this place before. 

Nestled between an art gallery and a Chinese restaurant, in a narrow alleyway dimly lit by a handful of caramel lights overhead, sat a plain metal door embedded into the bricks on the right. The bright blue neon sign above said First Stage, and beside it was a little rocketship with its exhaust plume aglow in fiery orange, a cartoonish representation of humanity's Saturn-series rocket.

The door was a faded brown that hid the flaky patches of rust across its surface very well. Jia reached for the handle, its finish so worn away by use that it nearly looked as dull as stone. She briefly wondered what this place had been during ADVENT's reign, and then wondered more at the possibility that it could have even predated ADVENT.

A deep breath steeled her nerves. The handle turned, the lock disengaged with a heavy clunk that echoed down the alley, and she briskly entered.

The interior was warmer by far. The place was narrow but extended far to the left of the door. One side was devoted to a long wooden bar, polished and marbled by waves and knots inherent to the wood. The cushioned stools appeared supported by lusterless brass. The other side of the place was taken up by booths too small to fit anything but a pair of patrons.

Everybody in the place turned to see who had walked in. Jia immediately counted them off in her head, then added one more after hearing a sink running from the back, behind a door labeled restroom. Nine people: eight humans, one sectoid. Emergency exit at the very back, across from the restroom. One glass window above the bar, far too small for Jia to fit through.

"Jia!"

The only human sitting by himself waved her over. The other heads turned to look at him, then resumed minding their own business.

Though still in his uniform, it was clear he had cleaned up some. Short black hair shone softly in the light, and from beneath a few errant bangs he swept away was a hazel-eyed gaze. Jia hadn't noticed before but his sharp nose and shiny hair gave him a look she could only describe as sleek.

As she slithered to Zach's booth, she noted the walls. Every square inch of space was covered with golden-framed pictures of men and women, human and alien, all wearing the grey and white of the nascent City 31 Police Department. Some were group photos and others were portraits, some all smiles and others stone-faced with penetrating gazes. All the metal on their uniforms was brightly polished, their shoulders adorned by what appeared to be a short loop of thick yellow rope. They were graduation photos.

Jia slithered up to the table. She took her seat, laying as much of herself as she could across it to keep as much of her tail as she could off the floor. It wasn't much. She squished her handbag between herself and the wall.

After settling in, she timidly said, "Hi."

Zach smiled. "Hey," he replied, waiting for her to get comfortable. "Can I get you something? A beer or..."

Jia's mouth went dry at the mere mention of warm gutter water. "Something sweet. Do they have anything sweet? I've never been here."

"Of course, yeah." He waved to catch the barkeep's attention, who looked up from the counter. "Winnie, can we get an apple-tini here?"

"The stacks rotated the apples out two weeks ago," the barkeep shouted back, "so I've been using the type-2c, they're pretty good for it. You all right with that?"

Zach waited for Jia to nod her assent. "Yeah, one of those then."

They waited, never quite meeting the other's gaze. Only the occasional clinking glass or muttering of the other patrons broke the silence that filled the space between them. Eventually the restroom door opened and a woman still in her police uniform strode out. She cast a curious glance toward Jia and Zach before taking the seat at the bar beside the sectoid.

Jia distracted herself by attempting to figure out the individuals at the bar. The sectoid sat in the middle of the group and seemed to be the life of the group. He was animated and very talkative with a raspy voice, which was both a surprise and not; talking with a mouth was still somewhat of a novelty for them, and many were quite chatty when they felt comfortable. For him to apparently dominate the group dynamic was unexpected however. 

Jia's focus broke when the barkeep swept across her field of view and set a drink onto the table. It was bright orange and in a shallow conical glass. The rim was lined with a dusting of white crystals, which a flick of her tongue confirmed to be salt.

"Thank you," she whispered, relieved to break the silence.

The barkeep nodded and promptly left, though not before reaching across the table to take two empty glasses that had been hidden behind the napkin dispenser.

"No Remy?" Zach's head dropped. He laughed while staring at his lap for a moment. "Dumb question. Can't bring a kid to a bar. Brightest eyes I've seen for a long time, like -- like LEDs or something. Cute kid, really."

He paused for another sip of his beer. He was rambling. Was he nervous? Why? Was this a date?

"So," Jia said, suddenly uncomfortable, "is this your bar? I mean -- not your bar but, you know, the department's? There are a lot of officers on the walls."

"The precinct adopted the place," said Zach. "This hole-in-the-wall was two weeks from shutting down before somebody waltzed in here after work looking for a cheap drink -- their usual place was closed for renovations. The rest is history." Another pull of his drink. It was half gone now. "These are all graduation photos since then. Mine's actually just above you, right there."

He pointed, and Jia followed his finger. Up on the wall was a portrait of a stoic young man, his grey uniform neat and pressed. The eyes were different, though. All of the other portraits had newly-graduated police officers with eyes bright and full of promise.

Zach's appeared tired.

"Yeah," he wearily said after another long sip, "that's me."

Again there was that nagging feeling, like an actual itch she could scratch at atop her head. Her honed intuition told her she was missing something, and that she couldn't tell what -- that's what bothered her so much.

Before she could ask any questions, Zach asked first, "So what is it you do?"

"I'm a teacher," Jia slowly said, as if he should already know. The sentiment was not lost on him.

"Believe it or not, the city does not have detailed files on its residents, alien or human. ADVENT's ways are over with," he laughed. "But a teacher! You must be good with kids. Remy's in good hands. Humans don't mind?"

Jia interlocked her fingers, resisting the impulse to cross her arms. Instead it traveled down to the tip of her tail, which began to curl around the table leg. "Mind what?"

"Meaning no offense, first and foremost. I'm just saying there's a lot of people in 31 and they're not all so accepting. You don't ever get any pushback from parents, or even the kids themselves?"

His deferential tone put her well enough at ease again. Satisfied it was simple curiosity, she replied, "There was some, at first. Younger children were especially wary of me in my first weeks, a couple months after war's end. The detention center's social classes had nothing on interacting with children. I guess when they realized I wasn't going to eat anybody, they calmed down."

"People still believe that nonsense?"

She dismissed his shock with a wave of her hand. "They're children. They think there are monsters under their beds, waiting to eat them. I didn't take it personally."

"Yeah," Zach snorted, quietly adding, "they do have quite the imagination."

There was something on the edge of his voice, something that told her he might have more ti say. She sat awkwardly quiet while waiting for whatever it was he had to say. He returned her silence, staring into his drink and slowly nodding. His eyes flicked to the group sitting at the bar.

"Not to be nosey -- how'd you end up in the city?"

Nobody's business was her normal answer whenever someone tried to pry. But if she was going to ask her own questions then it was only right to answer his.

He felt her hesitation. "Sorry, I -- this is new to me. I don't know what questions I should or shouldn't ask."

"Youre fine," Jia smiled. "I was in the middle of a firefight. A few kilometers from the city, if memory serves. It was a small resistance band emboldened by XCOM's string of victories." Jia paused, using a finger to precariously balance her drink on the edge of its base. "The psionic network went down and it was like a curtain fell. I suddenly didn't know what I was doing, like I'd just woken up from a nightmare."

Zach silently motioned for another drink.

"The rest of us felt the same, save for one of my sisters and our unit commander, a hybrid. They continued to fire while asking the rest of us what was wrong, why weren't we shooting. There was a moment of utter silence, nobody shooting, no rounds overhead, and the two of our group still enslaved by the Elders awaiting our answer.

"I don't know how they guessed we had been freed. Maybe the Elders had a failsafe in the conditioning, some hint that might have tipped off a slave that control had been broken in another. When none of us could answer, they started shooting us. So we starting shooting back."

"Jesus," Zach sighed.

"They each killed one before we could kill them. The resistance cell opened fire again and one of the hybrids I was with began shouting in ADVENT that we surrendered."

"And the resistance bought it?"

Jia offered a weak smile. "Surrender was not a word ADVENT forces ever offered before. The Elders compelled their forces to fight to the death. Laying down our arms and coming into the open with our hands in the air was enough to convince the humans something was different. They captured us and transferred us to the City 31 prison, which at the time was being used to house ADVENT arrested in the city after the network's fall. Eventually ownership passed from the resistance to Shrike, and then the city council offered options for rehabilitation. I jumped at the chance; no way was I spending any longer than needed behind bars after finally being free of the Elders."

Zach loosed a low whistle, staring thoughtfully into his amber drink. He timidly took a sip, suddenly looking sorry he had asked.

"Don't feel bad, I don't mind that you asked. What's happened, happened." Getting to know someone else should include their past, Jia thought. Suti knew, and Jia knew Suti's past, comparatively plain as it was. "What about -- uh, you? What was your life like before 31?" She suddenly realized she didn't know for sure how old he was. She guessed late twenties at the most. "Er, City 31, I mean."

"Ah, me? Nothing -- nothing too exciting." Zach swallowed loudly even without having taken a drink. "Grew up in City 29. Got some rebellious thoughts in my head in my teenage years and managed to befriend a smuggler, who shipped me to a resistance camp. At my request, I mean, I wasn't kidnapped or anything."

Jia perked up, her interest piqued. Though his willingness to don the department's uniform clesrly indicated him to be a defender, She hadn't pegged someone like Zach as a fighter. The humans that got along easily with aliens or believed they used to be slaves tended to be former city folk, but he had left the city early. To have ended up with resistance and still turned out as he had...

"You fought in the war?

He shifted in his seat, rolling his shoulders as if to better bear a load. "Sort of."

Sort of? How does one sort of fight in a war? Did he maybe squeeze a few triggers? Did he possibly take a few lives? Did he perhaps throw a few bombs? How can anyone say sort of? You fought or you didn't. 

"What does--"

"Can I ask you a very personal question?" he blurted, cutting her off. "About back then, I mean."

Jia's mouth hung open, still poised to finish her question, but no sound came out. Instead, she watched his eyes sweep across the officers sitting at the bar before they stopped to focus on just one.

He took a long pull of his drink, nearly finishing half of it in one go. "When you were -- before the psionic network went down, when you were still a slave -- what did that feel like?"

Dread's icy touch crept up Jia's spine as her memories of ADVENT control resurfaced. Personal indeed. Why would a human care about that? Still, his curiosity made her curious.

"It was intensely..." She stumbled for words, sliding a finger across the ridge of her glass. Salt crystals tumbled into the drink. "Empty. Utterly empty. Imagine someone shouting something into a vacant building and hearing the echo come back forever and ever, until whatever the voice ordered was done. And you just wait and wait, and keep waiting until the voice comes again and commands something new."

She hastily picked up her glass and tipped it back. The alcohol was mostly drowned out by a fruity sweetness.

"Was there even a you in this building?" asked Zach.

"It's more like I was the building. Empty except for that echo. The extent of my free will, if you could even call it that, stopped at deciding moment to moment things. If the Elders commanded that I assault a position, they typically weren't dictating individual targets or tactics. In the absence of a ranking officer, I would choose when and how to advance, who to fire upon and when -- things like that."

"Never retreat?"

Jia laughed dryly. "Never. They didn't care. One slave fell, another was ready to take its place."

Moments she wished lost to time flashed in her eyes. Sisters cut down by bullets and XCOM's plasma, hybrids all but vaporized in roadside bombs, mutons rammed and ground to pulp beneath human tanks in the early days of the invasion. Despite the total lack of any sort of camaraderie in ADVENT's ranks, the sheer violence of it all would still keep her from sleep on a semi-regular basis.

"What was it like when you weren't fighting?"

Jia snapped back to the present. She stared at the table, trying to think of another metaphor. "You don't have to tell your lungs to breath or your heart to beat. The body knows how to maintain itself. It was the same for us. ADVENT was the body, we were the organs. When not on a mission, we just... existed. We fed ourselves, we slept, we washed and molted. Our upkeep was only to be ready for the next mission. It wasn't for our own benefit."

"Was there--" Zach cut himself off completely, pursing his lips and running a hand over his brow, as if to smooth the wrinkles out. His hand was shaking near imperceptibly, but the clinking ice in his drinking glass made it clear. He opened his mouth and tripped over his words again, as though afraid of the answer. "Was there any chance to fight it?"

"The psionic control?"

"Yeah."

Jia shook her head. "I've never heard of any species resisting the psionic network, except for a handful of hybrids. Even then, I'd say their cases would classify more as technical defects than sheer force of will. Their chips burnt out or some ones and zeroes got flipped -- I'm not well-read on the matter."

That information seemed to draw a long sigh of relief out of Zach. His drink stopped shaking, so he brought it to his lips.

"But I've heard stories," Jia continued, "that people could resist the psionic influence from non-network sources, like a sectoid. Even heard of one human -- XCOM, go figure -- that managed to resist Elder control. But that was from a friend of a friend of a friend... actually they were all more like acquaintances, really, I don't have a lot of, um... I mean, the last person is a friend but the rest..."

Vaguely aware she was beginning to ramble, she clammed up before anything too embarrassing came out, clasping her hands together as her eyes swept over the table.

There was a long moment of silence, so uncomfortably tangible that it felt like another, unwelcome guest had joined them at their tiny table, threatening to crowd them out of their seats.

Zach stared into his drink as he had for much of the night so far. Now his shoulders were slumped, his eyes tired and glazed over. His posture slackened more and more into a slouch with each passing moment, like a wilting plant in dire need of sunlight or water.

Jia felt compelled to ask, "Are you all right? Zach?"

He perked up in an instant, his back straight and his eyes bright and alert. "Yeah, all good. Sorry, didn't mean to zone out on you. What you said just had me thinking about something."

Something lurked beneath his words. His stress response permeated the air still. Part of her wanted to press the matter--

"Oh!" Jia yelped, suddenly feeling her phone vibrate in her bag. The jingling ring tone came a moment later and told her it was Suti. Suti was the only one with a unique ringtone. "Excuse me," she said to Zach, "but it's my friend, she's watching my daughter."

"By all means," Zach leaned back into his chair, nursing his beer.

With a flick of Jia's finger, Suti's face filled the screen. "What's wrong? Is everything okay? How's Remy?"

Suti grinned sheepishly. "She's mildly upset," she said closer to the phone to be heard over the crying. "I was reading her fable book, the one about the mouse and the lion, and she starts wailing for no reason at all. I even turned on the TV but she's not having it!"

"Did you do a squeaky voice when reading the mouse's lines?"

"What? No."

"She likes a squeaky voice."

"You didn't put 'do a squeaky voice' in your instructions."

"Sorry."

Suti rolled her eyes, but then laughed. "Can't believe I'm about to do this," she said, putting on a smile. "Remy!" Her voice sounded like something out of a cartoon. Right before Suti hung up, the background crying almost instantly turned into a cheery little giggle.

"Kids, huh?" Zach said, snickering as Jia put her phone away. She nodded, but he just kept on snickering.

"What?" asked Jia.

"It's just weird to me. For all either of us knows, you and I are from opposite ends of the universe, and kids are somehow the same. Funny voices, bright colors, toys -- it never occurred to me they'd be universal constants."

An emptiness behind his words invited a question Jia wasn't certain she was allowed to ask. The pervasive scent of stress receded though, and the barest hint of a smile seemed to grant permission. 

She wouldn't ask outright, however. He had obviously avoided the topic for a reason. "Are you any good at funny voices?" 

He nodded, smiling at some memory replaying in his head. He pushed what remained of his drink aside and fished his wallet from his pocket. It flipped open to reveal a string of photos; some had a pair, a woman and a young girl, and others were just of the little girl.

The woman was a curly-haired redhead with dazzlingly green eyes, a smattering of freckles across her smiling face, and a tiny gap between her front upper teeth. The child was a spitting image, unmistakably her daughter.

"Irish," Jia confidently stated. 

Zach snorted with laughter, the pungent scent of alcohol wafting across the table. "That obvious, huh? Gee, wonder what gave it away."

"Not to be a downer, but -- when the British Isles were decimated by the invasion, the refugees made their new homes in ADVENT's European mainland cities. When the gene clinics opened up, a lot of people stopped by for a particular set of gene expressions." Jia nodded at the photo. "Ones that would make them look like her: red hair, green eyes, freckles."

"Yeah, red hair wasn't too common before then. But Myrna was born that way. 'As Irish as the sun is bright', she used to say."

"And the little one?"

"Nóra." He flipped his wallet around to stare at the pictures for a long moment. He reluctantly put it away. "Not to brag, but I was pretty good at imitating accents and making funny voices. Nóra's favorite was 'Jack and the Beanstalk', and I read the voice of the giant like I was Sean Connery."

Jia shook her head. "Who?"

"Fee-fi-fo-fum, I shmell the blood of an Englishman!" Zach cried in a thick accent, faking pounding his fists on the table. "An actor, pre-invasion. Lots of movies. Everybody knew his accent -- so I'm told, anyway. The resistance camp had some old DVDs. I wonder what happened to him?"

The question hung in the air, and he mulled it over while sloshing his beer around in the glass.

In an attempt to excuse herself from filling the silence, Jia decided to try her drink. Though room temperature by now, the taste was exquisite. It was sweet, but saved by the alcohol from being too sweet. She swiped her forked tongue along the rim for the salt; sweet and salty was good.

"Yeah," Zach continued, "most nights every week, everybody not on watch would gather around the projector. Somebody would pick out a movie, and we'd all come to agreement based on which choice got the least amount of moaning and grumbling." He paused to softly laugh. "Nóra would be on my lap, but out like a light before the opening credits finished."

He zoned out again, slouched and staring as if he could see through the table, the floor, the Earth itself.

"Your wife and daughter?"

"Girlfriend and daughter."

A moment's hesitation, but Jia's curiosity won out in the end. "What happened?"

The faint smile that had graced Zach's face while lost in happy memories, was now gone, wiped clean, his face a blank slate like his soul had been eviscerated.

Guilt immediately ate at Jia's conscience. Part of her rebuked her own curiosity; why did she always succumb to it? Wasn't she stronger than it? Didn't she know better? Then again, hadn't these memories all been leading to this question? Was she not supposed to have asked it? After all, the answer was always the same regardless of who you asked: the war happened.

"Hey," he mumbled, dejectedly pushing aside an empty glass, "without being rude -- could I have some time to myself? Maybe we pick this up again another day? I'm sure Remy's missing you."

Jia was no social butterfly, but she could tell when she was being politely excused. He'd opened the figurative door and was waiting for her to step out. Mildly stung with offense, she quickly squashed the feeling. This was his bar, in a sense -- his and his coworkers' bar. They may as well have hung family photos on the walls.

"Of course," Jia whispered as she gathered herself to leave. "I -- I'm sorry, I shouldn't have asked."

"Don't be sorry. I'm not upset with you. And hey," he reached out, tenderly touching her arm, "text me, would you? Just let me know you got home safe."

The sudden touch surprised her. Children were a touchy-feely bunch, and being a teacher and new parent had made her no stranger to the physical sensation. But his touch was different; soft but desperate, stricken with grief. It emptied her out, like she was a freshly shed skin and only her own sadness could rush in and fill the space.

"Sure," Jia said, eyeing the empty glass on the table, "and you do the same, okay?"

Zach smiled. "You bet. Thanks for this. For talking with me."

Smiling back felt good for Jia. There was no fake courtesy, formal pleasantries, there wasn't any keeping of appearances to make a human less afraid. It was genuine gratitude she heard in Zach's voice and saw on his face. It wasn't often she got to see such eager emotion thrown her way.

As Jia left, the cheer inside her seemed to dull under the chill she felt slithering past the officers at the bar. Relative to how chatty they had been earlier throughout the evening, they were now conspicuously quiet and still with Jia nearby. The activity grew as the distance between them and Jia grew, and only fully resumed once she had reached her hand around the cold, steely door handle.

Outside was brisk. She hadn't anticipated needing a coat. After using her phone to call a cab, she pulled up the collar of her blouse before crossing her arms, then watched the cars pass by.

The sound of the door opening echoed down the alleyway. She spun to look. The sectoid officer that had been sitting at the bar jogged out to meet her with a friendly wave.

"Hey," he said.

"I'm just waiting for my cab," Jia said, immediately defensive. Cops didn't normally run up to meet-and-greet with aliens on night-darkened streets. To have another non-human hassling her bothered her a little more than usual.

"Yeah, yeah, that's fine -- no, I get it. You're fine," he quickly stammered. He tapped the placard on his right breast. "Will Szymanski. I just wanted to talk a moment about Calloway."

Jia watched him hastily adjust the psi-damper on his collar. She had heard they could be quite irritating. "Why not talk to him? Isn't he still in there?"

"Yeah, he is, but he doesn't much like me, or anyone, really. I've tried, but -- well, it's not important. I'm just wondering what's up between you two?"

"Prying awfully hard for just having met me."

"It's not that. I'm not trying to -- look, we've been coworkers for three years. I've never seen him with anybody, and it worries me. So I'm just surprised is all, that he would bring someone to the bar, especially a non-human."

Jia considered the sectoid for a moment before looking up and down the street, wishing her cab would show to save her from this conversation.

"We met in a park when he -- well, first we met when he dropped off my daughter's egg, and again when he -- I mean, the park is where he asked to talk. That was a few days ago."

Will the sectoid cop nodded thoughtfully, observing the tip of his black boot tapping against the sidewalk. "I see."

Much to Jia's relief, a pair of headlights swung by close to the curb, a solid-blue car behind them.

"I'm sorry," said Jia, pulling the door open, "but I need to get going."

"Of course," Will replied without looking up. He turned back for the bar and said over his shoulder, "Have a good night."

Apart from the rumbling tires and the rush of passing cars, a heavy silence filled the cab, one that allowed worrying new questions to run around Jia's head. Someone that Zach didn't even like was worried about him? Did Zach not like him personally or was their some prejudice involved? Why would this Will care to involve himself either way? Did Zach really have no friends?

Jia rolled her eyes at her own thoughts. It wasn't as if she was much better off in that regard. Suti was the only person she called friend. Best and only friend.

Closer to home, the cab passed by a familiar man, still sitting in front of the hardware store, still holding his cardboard sign, still wearing that dirty old combat jacket. Jia sighed and looked down at her phone to order him a delivery from Burger Palace, as she always felt compelled to do -- a Number Two Special.

Jia sighed. Maybe this homeless man was her friend too, only neither of them knew it yet.

Home welcomed her. After paying her fare, slithering into the building, and impatiently waiting for the elevator to spit her out, her hand rested on the door handle to her apartment.

It opened up before she could turn the handle. Suti waited, all smiles and infectious energy.

"Fun night?" she wryly asked.

"It wasn't a date." Jia set her bag on the counter and collapsed across her couch. "More like a therapy session. He really just wanted to talk. He's got some baggage. Understandable baggage, I mean."

"Everybody does. We're only four years past a global war. What happened, exactly?"

Jia filled Suti in how the night had gone. At the end of it, Suti huffed indignantly.

"He invited you out and then kicked you out?" Suti scrunched her face up into an ugly grimace. "That's kind of messed up. Kind of really messed up."

"I mean -- was it? It was like it was his bar. They had cop pictures all over the walls. If someone invites you to their home, isn't it their right to kindly tell you when the visit is over?"

"Come on, Jia. It's weird. Imagine you telling me 'okay, you've been here long enough' after calling me over."

"You always know to leave before you get too annoying."

Suti stuck her tongue out through a smile. "Is he handsome?"

Jia hadn't considered the idea. Humans weren't unattractive but it wasn't as if she was head over heels for them. Hair was a funny thing, though. It looked fuzzy or flowing, short or long, and came in so many different colors. And Zach's hair had looked nice...

"He wasn't a chryssalid, that's for sure," said Jia, to which Suti laughed. Jia took a moment to fire off a text to Zach and was oddly disappointed when there was no reply. "Where's Remy?"

"Fast asleep!"

"Oh," said Jia, disappointed. "How was she?"

"An absolute joy, that's how. She's adorable. You were dead-on, by the way. She woke up after you left and immediately wanted to play. She'd bring me one toy, we'd play for a bit, and then she'd bring me another like she was showing off her collection. She had dinner and went right back to playing, then I read to her, and played some more. She's absolutely drained, Jia. She'll sleep the whole night, guaranteed."

Jia held her hands up, and Suti slithered over to pull her off the couch. They went to the bedroom and cracked the door open just a little. In the dim white glow of a nearby night light, they saw Remy half-buried in a pile of blankets, her little frame rising and falling with each breath.

"See? Aunt Suti knows what she's doing."

"She sure does." Jia softly closed the door. "Thank you."

"Anytime."

They ended up in the kitchen,  where Jia began to root through the freezer for a microwave dinner.

"Have you eaten yet?" she asked Suti.

"Nah, I was so caught up in Remy's antics."

"I've got plenty here. Anything you'd like?"

Suti thought for a moment, peeking over Jia's shoulder to see into the freezer. "What's that sim-chicken one? Chicken marsala? I'll take that one."

Jia closed her eyes, suddenly regretting even having asked. The last chicken marsala, her favorite...

...Seemed so insignificant in light of the fact she had someone to share a meal with at all. Someone she could entrust her daughter to, someone who was welcome into her home at any hour.

Not everyone had someone like that.

"You know," Jia grabbed Suti's dinner, and a box of microwave dumplings for herself, "Remy and I are lucky to have you around, Suti. I know all of us throw around the word 'sister' with abandon but with you? I mean it in every sense of the word."

"Aw, Jia. I love you too."

Chapter Text

When Jia stirred and began to open her eyes, she expected morning. She waited for sunlight to pour through the window to momentarily blind her, for pigeons to coo as they flitted from one apartment rooftop to the next, for the honking hustle and bustle of the city's morning commute to pierce the quiet.

So when she saw nothing but darkness, there was confusion at first. Her eyes adjusted to the haze of slumber interrupted and she saw the reason why. A pair of wide open eyes waited to meet her own.

"Remy, no," said Jia, rolling over to face away from her daughter. "Bed. No play."

The little one was undeterred. She slithered to the edge of the bed, grabbed two handfuls of blanket, and carefully swung herself over the edge, using her tail to feel that the floor was still there. After lowering herself to the floor, the hunt began. Which toy would entice her favorite person to play?

There was a hollow plastic ball with different shapes inside that rattled as it rolled across the floor; too heavy for her to lug onto the bed. There was another toy, made of different colored rings arranged by size on a peg; too many pieces. Maybe one of the books would work, but coiling around a hard square shape was awkward and uncomfortable.

Remy settled on a stuffed fish, a fuzzy blue thing with white stripes that always dazzled her whenever she laid eyes on it. She coiled once around it, climbed the bed, and pulled it up behind her with her tail.

Soft fuzz pushed against Jia's face, momentarily occluding her slitted nostrils. She pulled back, sighed, and slowly sat upright while suppressing the urge to flare her hood as menacingly large as possible. Remy bounced with anticipation, her eyes wide and her little hands balled into fists around the fish.

"I cannot wait for the day," groaned Jia, taking the stuffed fish from Remy's grasp, "for you to be able to talk, so I know exactly what you want and you can understand exactly why I say no."

Remy cocked her head.

"But until that time," Jia sighed. The utter lack of enthusiasm with which she tossed the fish off the bed went unnoticed by the little viper, who hurried off after it and then dragged it back to Jia. It wasn't long before Jia began to receive and throw the fish with her eyes closed, stealing whatever semblance of sleep she could.

The too-early game of fetch went on for only a few minutes before Remy became distracted. The lack of a toy in Jia's hand perplexed her enough that she opened her eyes.

Remy waited at the door, anxiously glancing at it, then Jia, then back. She began to whine, a sound Jia knew would soon grow into full-on crying if she didn't figure out quick what her daughter wanted. The bouncing, swaying, twisting behavior was something familiar, something she'd seen before...

Jia's eyes went wide. "Oh my gosh, are you saying you have to use the bathroom? Is that what you're telling me?"

Remy only whined in response.

"Okay, okay! Wow! And here I thought toilet training would be hard. By all means, please."

Jia opened the door and followed the little viper into the bathroom. The wind left her sails when Remy completely ignored the toilet in favor of Menace's litterbox in the corner.

"Whatever. I'm not even mad. Asking is a step up at least."

After a quick wash in the sink, the two of them were off to bed once again. But Remy had yet more plans, even cradled as she was in her mother's arms.

"What now?" Jia watched Remy stetch her arms out in the opposite direction. Jia spun around and cautiously inched forward, using Remy as a divining rod; the further they got from whatever the little viper wanted, the more she'd whine. Eventually they found themselves in front of the fridge.

"You had dinner. How can you still be hungry? You must've eaten half my freezer." Jia took one hand away to open the fridge, leaving Remy to support herself by coiling around the other arm. She watched with pointed interest as Jia rummaged around food and drink. 

Jia's hand hovered over for a moment over every item. She noted Remy's reaction to each. Apples, green beans, type-40s garnered no interest. But when her hand rested over the carton of almond milk--

"This?" She felt the constriction around her arm as Remy used both hands to reach out as if she was about to grab the milk herself.

"Fine. Then back to bed."

Jia noted the time on the microwave. Three in the morning. She groaned, like every action was only pain and agony. Opening the cupboard was pain. Grabbing a bottle was pain. Pouring the milk was pain. Leaning on the counter as her daughter downed it all? Pain.

Part of her harbored some dark thoughts that she would squash the moment they reared their ugly heads. Why me? What was I thinking? At first it was about money but it must've been because I was stupid. Sleep deprivation, however, made it harder to separate the unwanted thoughts from the rest.

There were brief flashes in her mind of a life without any little viper wearing her down. Peaceful nights that led to uninterrupted sleep. No hatchling to draw attention from people that claimed not to be racist. No mess of toys and snacks littering her apartment.

Jia shook herself awake to regain control of her head, and all the darkness inside evaporated. She turned her tired gaze to Remy and her empty bottle.

"You done?"

Remy answered by thrusting herself into Jia's chest, which seemed to warm the larger viper as well as any blanket. She begrudgingly held onto her annoyance for all of two seconds before even that melted away.

"You think you're so cute? That you've got me wrapped around you little fingers? That you can do whatever you want, whenever you want?"

Jia looked around at the mess that was her apartment. There were the scattered books and toys, pieces of snack food littering the couch, and the empty bottle of milk that Jia had woken up at who-knows-when in the morning to make. Not to mention the other bottles still waiting in the sink 

"Well, whatever," said Jia, carrying Remy towards the bedroom. "Back to bed, and no more waking up. I need some sleep if I'm going to clean this place up tomorrow."

She placed Remy gently into the pile of blankets in her crib; the little one made no protests and already seemed to be dozing off as she lazily made herself comfortable. Before Jia had even turned around, Remy was already asleep. 

Jia waited; the warmth of Remy's presence against her chest somehow grew as she looked at her daughter sleeping peacefully in her crib. All the sleepless nights, all the irritation of Remy's tantrums, the picky eating alongside the voracious appetite -- something deep inside of Jia simply told her it would all be worth it.

After collapsing onto her bed, Jia bundled herself up in her sheets and blanket as though it were a cold winter morning. She reached for her phone. The lack of any new text messages brought a frown to her face. Worry began to gnaw at her, but it couldn't overpower her tiredness. Jia dozed off in record time, the phone still in her hand.

And when she awoke what felt like moments later, it was still there. 

"Please tell me it's not morning already."

As if in reply, the alarm on her phone chirped, as it always did at seven-thirty. Jia groaned. After dismissing the alarm, she listened to the sound of something shuffling across the floor. She didn't even wonder for a second what it was.

Jia watched through squinted eyes as first, one little green hand appeared, then another. After a moment there came a tail that seemed a little fatter than before, now that Jia was paying attention. It was scary how quickly Remy seemed to be growing.

At long last there came the little viper's head, her light green eyes finally cresting the bedcovers, her pupils razor sharp and fixated on her mother. There was no toy clutched in her hands or wrapped in her tail. It was only Remy.

"What," Jia started with feigned impatience before feeling powerless to stop the smile creeping across her face, "are you looking at?"

The little viper stretched out her jaw with a yawn before clambering up fully onto the bed. She pushed aside Jia's arms to snuggle against her chest, where she coiled up.

The bigger viper laid stunned for a moment. Warmth blossomed from within, spreading from her chest and leaving her brimming with energy -- energy she kept suppressed to leave little Remy undisturbed.

Jia gathered all of herself onto the bed, curling her body like a wall circling precious treasure.

"I love you," Jia whispered. She had been saying it more and more, and it always felt easier than the last time. Despite the ease, it curiously seemed to carry more and more weight with every utterance. 

Remy sighed, and both vipers were content to let the morning stretch for a couple hours more.

It may have been longer had the silence not been pierced by Jia's phone. 

"Hello?" Jia yawned. She wondered why the ringing went on, then tapped the screen without looking. "Hello?"

"Hi! This is Walter with the City Council Viper Adoption Inititiative. I'm looking for Jia Smith, is she available?"

Jia checked the phone number and noticed it was an unknown number. One that she had been filtering for a couple of weeks now. "Uh, speaking."

"Good morning, Miss Smith. We've been trying to get in touch with you for a couple weeks now. We were hoping we could count on you to attend the second parental meeting."

She swallowed. "Second meeting?"

"We reached out to you several times but never heard back."

Jia's tongue seemed to swell in her mouth. "Oh," she replied with a trembling voice.

Walter easily picked up on her fear. "Not to worry, Miss Smith. The meetings are not mandatory but we strongly encourage our new Viper mothers to attend. Your little one is welcome along as well."

"Sure, that sounds okay. When and where is this thing?"

"Today, City Hall, B-wing, room 105. Right next to the vending machines."

"Oh. What time?"

"Ten o'clock."

The clock on Jia's phone said nine. "Like, at night?"

"I'm afraid not, Miss Smith."

What did strongly encouraged mean? ADVENT had strongly encouraged many things, often at the business end of a gun or the claws and talons of their many beasts. Under their reign, strongly encouraged had only been a euphemism for do it or die.

And to that end, what did the city council mean then? Would they arrest Jia? Take Remy away? What would happen? Would Remy be give to someone else? The idea froze Jia stiff.

"We'll be there," Jia sternly said.

"Excellent, I'll mark you down then. Have a great day, Miss Smith. Bye-bye."

One hour.

Jia slithered out of bed, tossing her phone down onto the blanket before racing into the bathroom. Her dextrous hands a blur, she clutched a rag of scale polish in one fist and her toothbrush in the other, readying herself in what must have been record time. With a final glance into the mirror, she deemed herself satisfactory and then flew into her closet. She pulled one of her usual outfits off its hangar -- a black skirt and white blouse with a grey tail sleeve.

She checked her phone again. Nine-oh-eight; she was certain she'd never been ready faster to do anything. The bus ride alone would probably take twenty minutes so there was time to--

Remy yawned and lazily looked about, perhaps wondering what the commotion was or where he warmth had disappeared to.

"Remy -- Remy, come on. We've got to get you ready."

The little viper refused to budge, seemingly digging deeper into the blankets. She defiantly glared over the edge of her pillowy fortress.

"No, please don't do this now." Jia grabbed one of her daughter's t-shirts from the closet. "We really don't have time for one of your tantrums. Please, please just let me put this on you."

The two of them squared off, sizing up each other's options. Jia, despite dwarfing her daughter in every way, had learned how slippery and lightning quick she could be. Remy's tail whipped out behind her, slapping the bedcovers over and over, ready to act like a spring in any direction.

Jia barely recoiled, preparing to lunge. Remy read the move and bolted.

"Remy, no!"

The little viper moved fast as light, an emerald streak that zipped from one end of the bed to the other before Jia could cover the distance. While her mother reoriented, Remy took the opportunity to slide down onto the floor. A second lunging grab missed as she disappeared under the bed. Jia bent down to stare, determination and building anger rendering her pupils to razor-thin slits.

It was all a game to Remy, who hissed, giggled, and burbled as she deftly dodged her mother's grasping hands and tail-tip. Twice she literally weaved through Jia's fingers, who was afraid to grab her too strongly for fear of hurting the little viper.

Remy made a break for the open bedroom door. Jia reared up from beneath the bed, grabbed a loose shirt she'd left on the floor, quickly balled it up, and flung it. It unfurled midair, draping over its target like a net. Remy squealed and thrashed as she giggled, entangling herself even more.

Jia advanced on her prey, so much anger inside weighing her down that she swore she could hear her own scales pressing onto the floor as she slithered. She whipped the shirt off, hooked her hands beneath Remy's arms, and lifted her into the air for a mean glare.

Yell! Shout! Scream! You're angry, let her know it!

Remy shrieked with laughter. She spread her arms wide and strained against her mother's hands, whose grip relaxed just enough to see what the little viper was attempting. With less restraint, Remy leaned against and embraced Jia's entire face, out of breath but still trying to laugh.

Jia sighed as her hot blood cooled. She spied her phone on the bed from the corner of her eye. Remy's antics had only cost five minutes. Even if it had been more -- so what? Why would she be upset? So she'd be a little late because she had the audacity to let her child act like a child.

"We'll get this shirt on you," said Jia, nuzzling Remy's chest, "get some food in your belly, and be on our way. Can we do that?"

Remy saw her mother pointing at the shirt and reflexively thrust her arms skyward to make it easier. Now fully dressed, and after a quick stop by the litterbox--

"Please stop using the litterbox, I beg of you."

--and an even quicker wash-up in the sink, Jia grabbed a waffle from the freezer, toasted it, and gave it to Remy for her to snack on while she happily sat coiled up in the front-hangong hood of Jia's jacket worn backwards.

The bus ride was uneventful thanks to the waffle Remy kept nibbling on. Once or twice Jia swore she had heard the beginnings of a word in her daughter's seemingly random squeaks, hisses, and giggles, but the little one wouldn't ever repeat it despite Jia's coaxing and encouragement.

As the bus pulled away after spitting them out in front of city hall, Jia quickly glanced at her phone before rushing inside; ten minutes late wasn't so bad, was it? 

Jia slithered up to the front desk. "I'm looking for the parents meeting thing? For vipers, I mean. Something about vending machines," she said, suddenly feeling a little scatterbrained. 

"B-wing, room 105," the receptionist said, pointing down the hall to the left. "Down that way, door at the end of the second hallway on the right. Next to the vending machines."

"Thank you."

The carpet hissed beneath Jia's scales as she slid along, taking note of emergency exits and unfamiliar faces as she passed. There humans, mutons, sectoids, hybrids-- about the only thing she hadnt seen wandering the halls dressed in a suit or blouse was a chryssalid or berserker. Or a gatekeeper. Her tongue lashed out periodically, just like Remy's; for a government building, there was remarkably little stress in the air.

Wait, scratch that. One door had human stress pouring from beneath it like a river. The door flew open as Jia approached and an andromedon stomped out, hunched over and balling its fists as it plodded along. Jia gave it as wide a berth as she could in the hallway, while Remy looked on in utter amazement. She retreated into her hood when the andromedon's hydraulics and gas exchangers hissed angrily. 

"Don't see them too often outside their sanctuary," Jia whispered to Remy, beyond earshot of the hulking mechanical suit and its organic occupant. As she passed the office with the busted door, she noted an exasperated human inside, clinging to the bridge of his nose and asking for maintenance by phone.

Jia turned the second corner. The carpeted floor ended and was replaced by white tile, and the vertical tan-and-white wallpaper that dominated the main hallway became smooth white brick. The same yellow lights repeated above, giving the corridor an early morning glow that reminded Jia of a few of her classrooms.

She grabbed hold of the doorknob at the end and took a breath, preparing for many eyes to be staring at her late arrival.

But inside, there were only two other vipers and a human waiting.

"Welcome!" The human woman smiled and approached Jia for a handshake. "Welcome, Miss Smith, so good to see you again."

"Bo?" Jia shook hands, looking a little puzzled at her case-worker's appearance. "How do you remember me? I look the same as them," Jia motioned to the other two vipers sitting in their seats.

"On the surface, many of you and your sisters look alike, but all of you act and sound different. You, for example, tend to carry yourself somewhat rigidly, and you have a lovely accent that tells me you spent much of your wartime in Europe. You said you're a French teacher, if I recall?"

I'm not rigid -- am I? "Uh, yes. Yes, that's right."

"Don't look so impressed, dear," Bo scoffed, "I get it wrong just as much as I get it right. Set your little one..."

"Remy," said Jia.

"Remy! Oh, precious name," Bo cooed, offering her finger to the hatchling like a minature handshake. Remy eyed it warily, still munching on the last bit of her waffle. "Go ahead and set Miss Remy down, the room's all child-proofed. Refreshments are over there and toys are over there."

Jia looked away from the table of food and drinks -- honey crackers and artificial fruit juices, her tongue told her -- and only now noticed the veritable pile of toys at the other end of the room. There were enough stuffed animals to swim through, stacking blocks of all shapes, sizes, and colors, electronic noisemakers and interactive books. The moment Jia placed her on the ground, Remy made for the toys like a shot.

She hesitated for a moment, though. The two hatchlings already playing regarded Remy for a moment, and all three flicked their tongues out to register the others. Afterwards it was like they'd been friends since the moment they hatched. All three climbed and tumbled over the toys.

Jia relaxed. "Is this everybody?"

Bo laughed. "Heaven's no. Hardly anybody that's got a newborn is on time. People run late, so we'll give them a bit to show up."

Each of the adult vipers offered a timid hello or wave. In the center of the room were large beanbag chairs arranged in a circle. Jia coiled herself up on the one furthest from the other vipers and quietly waited, her eyes darting every so often to the other occupants in the room. Bo busied herself with papers and cleaning, but the vipers only sat and fidgeted occasionally. 

Over the next twenty minutes, more and more vipers found the meeting. Bo would greet them and then the hatchling would disappear into the toys with the others.

The hatchlings were all the same of course, but Jia noted the parents were from many different batches and walks of life. Some were former soldiers like Jia -- there was even that same viper with the hole in her hood, from Jia's first visit to the adoption office -- and others were late-war modifications that never saw widespread use before the war's end; some people called them adders and pythons, but they were still vipers, all things considered.

Before long each beanbag was occupied by a silent and pensive viper, and the mountain of toys at the other end of the room was covered by a teeming carpet of laughing, shrieking hatchlings.

Bo pulled up a metal chair to the circle of beanbags. "Good morning everyone," she said as she took her seat. "Glad to see everyone here. I'm sure you'll notice some new faces are with us this time. If you weren't here last time, would you mind just telling everyone your name and the name of your daughter?"

Nobody uttered a word. There were nervous glances and flickering tongues all around.

"Jia. My daughter is Remy."

"I'm Pewitt and my daughter is Yula."

"My name is Katerina. Over there is Josefina, but she answers to Josie too."

Bo beamed. "Gorgeous names. If you don't remember me, I'm your caseworker that helped you start this whole adventure. My name is Bohdana -- or Bo -- and for you new ladies, full disclosure -- I have three children and four grandchildren. Please dont hesitate to ask me anything at any point."

The new vipers nodded.

"Great. To recap our last meeting, I took some general care questions. Notable was our discussion of diet..."

Bo talked and talked, and most of the vipers seemed to actually listen. But Jia found that her attention would always wander to the hatchlings, happily oblivious to whatever nonsense the adults were talking about. They all looked exactly alike and yet, Jia found herself drawn to Remy. Bo was right; it was possible to tell who was who based on how they carried themselves. Some of the hatchlings were shy and reserved, preferring to play on their own with a stuffed animal or lose themselves in the pictures of a book. Others were unrelentingly social and attempted to insert themselves into others' playtime, regardless of if they were welcome out not.

It also helped that each hatchling had a different pattern of white that striped their back. 

Remy appeared rather social, tunneling into the stuffed animals and popping up to present whatever she found to show her sisters. She was enjoying herself. Until another hatchling snatched her latest find from her hands, and Remy squealed frustratedly.

Jia bolted upright. "Hey!"

Bo stopped abruptly. The other vipers stared wide-eyed. The children paid no mind though.

"Miss Smith?"

Venom-rush tensed her jaw. She didn't care about embarrassment now. "Another one just -- she just took it from Remy! Right out of her hands!"

Everyone turned to look at the hatchlings. Two were apparently squabbling. Jia shifted just a little, meaning to get up to console Remy, but Bo took notice.

"Just wait," she said, urging Jia back into her seat. "Give them a chance."

They watched as the other hatchling grabbed another toy -- same color but a fish instead of a horse -- and offered it to Remy, who grabbed it with a laugh.

"What you just saw was negotiation. Despite the inability so far to use words, they still comprehend more than you know. In exchange for one thing, they'll offer another. Your little girls, just over two months old, are displaying behavior that human children don't show until two or three years old."

"Why can't they talk yet?" asked another viper. "Aren't human children making attempts to communicate by that age? "

Bo nodded. "Human babies start saying single, simple words at twelve to eighteen months. We're not exactly sure why hatchlings are displaying some advanced behaviors and not others. All we have are hypotheses. Right now the leading theory is the sounds they're hearing -- you know, human languages -- are too difficult for them to replicate given the shape of their mouths. It is an undeniable fact that all vipers are linguistically gifted, but you all were grown at an accelerated rate. Your brains, and the region within that controls language, were fully or near fully developed by the time language was forced upon you. Your daughters will have to learn through experience."

"How can we do that?" asked a different viper.

"Talk!" Bo laughed. "Talk to them, show and tell them things, get in their faces so they can see how your mouth moves. Theyll get it on their own. And they'll have it reinforced in school, when we get that ironed out."

"Do they talk before they know words?"

"They absolutely do. Human children, I mean. My grandson used to call trucks 'tee-tops'. Vocabulary comes later." Bo noted the viper's puzzled look. "What makes you ask?"

"Vriti," said the viper, beckoning. One of the hatchlings took notice and wandered over, warily eyeing all of the adults. "Can you tell me what this is?"

Vriti's mother produced her phone from her shirt pocket. The little viper pointed and excitedly said, "Podo!"

Bo clapped, genuine joy spread all over her face. The vipers were a different story, Jia included. Many tightened their coils, appearing to shrink into their beanbag chairs while their heads sank.

"Can she do it again? With mine?" Bo held out her phone towards Vriti.

"Podo."

"Oh my goodness, isn't that amazing!"

Remy could probably do that, Jia fumed. Maybe I'm a bad teacher. I'm not good enough. I'm holding her back. I'm--

"It is important, ladies," Bo cautioned, "to understand that every child is different. While genetics will ensure they look near identical -- save for these gorgeous white patterns they all have -- each will be different up here," she tapped her head, then her chest, "and in here. What one knows now might take another months or years. That one of them can speak now and others can't doesn't mean anything."

Vriti's mother waited a beat, aware of the indignation the other vipers felt and hoping Bo would break the silence. She didn't. "So what should I do? That's normal behavior?"

"Yes! Let her use that word as much as she wants, but I want you to use the real word. If she asks for 'podo', reply with something like 'you want my phone? Okay, I'll get you my phone'," said Bo. She watched with a smile as little Vriti bolted back to the other hatchlings. 

"There is one thing I wanted to touch on," added Bo, subtly eyeing Jia. "How many of you have been frustrated with your daughter since becoming a parent? How many of you have questioned -- even if just in passing-- your decision to become a parent? If you've ever been on the verge of shouting, snapping, feeling like you could just scream so loudly it'd bust every window in the city -- show of hands, please."

Every viper looked nervously at the others. Some found their attention drawn to their daughters on the other side of the room.

One hand slowly rose. Others soon followed. Before long, every hand was in the air. Bo looked around, nodded approvingly, and then held her hand up to everyone's surprise.

"Before, you were used to a full night's sleep, regular eating times, the privilege of decompressing in your homes alone or with friends or significant others. 

"Parenting is an unimaginable change. You never know how it will disrupt your life until it happens. You have every right to be angry, regretful, frustrated, upset. But you are also adults. You have the advantage of emotional stability and regulation. You can feel these things without taking it out on your daughter, who feels these same emotions but doesnt know how to regulate them herself. All she knows is that when she starts crying, you are there for her.

"And it will get better with time. Soon their sleeping patterns will become more like yours. Soon they'll know how to open the fridge on their own. Yet new frustrations will arise; soon they'll know how to talk back, how to undermine your rules, how to act how they want. You'll still have to be there to steer them towards becoming a better person. Your job is never done."

Bo fell silent and observed everyone else. Each of the new mothers seemed oblivious to the world, lost in thoughts provoked by her message. After a long moment to allow them to digest these new permissions and warnings, Bo continued.

"Are there any questions anyone else may have?"

"Why are they green?" one of the new arrivals blurted. Pewitt, Jia realized.

"We don't know for sure. Some think they were meant to be a regional modification. We're aware of limited numbers of such vipers. For example, an ADVENT facility in the New Arctic was responsible for white and other light-colored vipers. We think ADVENT wanted your little girls to be tropical hunter-killers, given that they were found in the remains of the Amazon Rainforest. There would have been nothing out there but human settlements trying to remain off-grid, so to speak."

"Are they venomous?"

"How exactly is the city planning to school them?"

"They won't have to undergo social education at a detainment center, will they?"

Most of the various questions and their replies were lost on Jia. She spent the rest of the meeting feeling her doubt turn her venom-rush into a churn, a turbulent whitewater that seemed to nearly rumble in her skull, slowly pushing her towards a headache. 

What am I doing wrong? I read to you, I talk to you. Bo says you all are different but why does it feel like I'm doing something wrong? All of you started the exact same -- maybe Bo's just trying to make us feel better. So if it's not that I'm not doing something, then it has to be that I'm not doing enough. I need to read more and talk more. Or maybe I'm reading and talking about wrong things? Are the children's books not complex enough? Am I not talking on your level? Am I not--

"Miss Smith?"

Jia whipped her head up. All of the other vipers and their daughters were gone. One last hatchling was still playing in the stuffed animals all by her lonesome. A flick of Jia's tongue assured her it was in fact Remy.

"I am so sorry, I must have -- I'm sorry, I don't normally do that. Zone out, I mean. I was just thinking. A lot." Jia checked her phone. "How long have I been sitting here?"

Bo shrugged. "A couple of minutes. I thought you were just letting your girl get her fill of playtime." She sat down in the chair beside Jia. "What are you thinking about? Anything related to what we were discussing?"

Jia kept silent.

"Maybe about the fact Vriti could talk?"

"That obvious?" Jia huffed.

"Please. The way all of you tightened up like a rope around a boat dock post -- wow! Even Vriti's mother didn't have time to feel proud of her kid, she got tense because everyone else got tense!"

Shame nibbled at Jia. She wouldn't want anyone to take away anything from Remy's achievements. "I didn't think about that."

"Miss Smith, let tell you a short story. I'm a mother and a grandmother. My sister and I had our firstborns only a week apart. Everything one child did, we'd immediately compare to the other. Whose kid talked first, walked first, could count first. It's not healthy. Every time my son reached a milestone first, my sister thought she was doing something wrong. Every time my niece did something first, I thought I was doing something wrong. And you know who suffers the most?"

Jia shook her head.

"The children. Why didn't he take his first steps sooner? Why didn't he talk sooner? I was so concerned with what my niece was doing, I nearly forgot to celebrate the things my son was doing."

Bo reached out to gently rub Jia's shoudler. Remy, seemingly aware that someone besides her was touching her mother, emerged from the pile of stuffed animals to wander over. She glanced at both adults before zeroing in on Bo's hand resting on Jia's shoulder. After a moment, Remy imitated the gesture, laying both hands on the part of Jia's tail closest to her. 

"Just be happy with how they are," said Bo, glowing as she and Jia shared a laugh. "They find their own way in their own time. Help them when they need it."

Relief washed over Jia, escaping past her lips as a long sigh.

"Thanks, Bo. I didn't know I needed to hear that."

"Don't mention it, dear."

The two said their goodbyes. Jia beckoned for Remy, who was loathe to leave all the toys behind. She cried and cried, clutching the blue fish she had received in trade earlier.

"It's not yours, Remy. You need to leave it." 

Remy was implacable. She cried harder, her tone fast approaching that of the shrill cicada-like sound that accompanied a full-blown tantrum. Her hands gripped the plush 

Jia waited for Bo to say or do something, but the human wasn't even paying attention.

"Hang on." Jia grabbed a snack and a juice box from the refreshment table. "See these? Hungry? Thirsty?"

Remy dropped the plush and immediately forgot about it. She zipped over to snatch the snacks from her mother. While she tore into the cracker packaging with her little needle-like teeth, Jia scooped her up into her jacket's hood.

"See?" Now Bo was looking. "You're learning too."

Jia smiled. Bo gave a little wave. Remy returned it as she stuffed her face.

Cars whizzed by out at the bus stop, horns sometimes blaring. Interestingly, Remy would track the more brightly colored cars with her eyes, taking a bite first before watching the traffic. While waiting, Jia checked her phone again. Still there was no text from Zach. The emptiness carved out inside her by worry began to cave in beneath anger's growing pressure.

"You know, I sent him a text I got home safe. Why couldn't he do the same? I wanted to know he got home all right. He seemed like a drinker, you know? There were two empty glasses before I had even sat at the table."

Remy looked up at her, blinking while chewing a mouthful of cracker. She whined and held up the juice box, the cover of which Jia punctured with her claw.

"Oh, wait." 

In her bag was the contact card Zach had given her that day at the park. She dialed the personal number he had scrawled onto it. Unsurprisingly, the call went to voicemail, but that was full. She tried the other number on the card, the one for his work desk. That went to voicemail too, though she refrained from leaving one.

"Maybe he doesn't want to see me. I'm not sure I'd want to either if..."

Jia paused. "You don't think one of my sisters was responsible for his -- no, no. Why would he even bother talking to me in the first place then?"

Doubt swirled in her mind. Something was wrong. Instead of putting it away, her phone waited in her hand as though her body already knew her decision before she had even made it. She decided to try one more number.

It only rang once. "You've reached the City 31 Police Department. If this is an emergency, please hang up and call 911. Otherwise, remain on the line and someone will assist you in just a--"

The recording was cut off, replaced by a real person. "Hello, 31 PD front desk. How may I help you?"

"I'm looking for an Officer Calloway. Zach Calloway. Uh, Zachary? Zach."

"One moment please." The line clicked, then rang five times. "It would seem he's not available at the moment. If you'd like to leave a message--"

Jia panicked for a heartbeat. "Wait, wait. Is there a Will there? Will Szymanski."

"One moment please."

The line clicked again. It only rang twice before a familiar, buzzy little voice replied, "Officer William Szymanski here. To whom am I speaking?"

"Will! Er, Officer Szymanksi. Sorry. This is Jia Smith. You spoke to me about Zach outside that cop bar."

"Of course. How can I help you?"

"I'm--" Jia stumbled over her words before deciding there was no other way to say it. "I'm worried. About Zach, I mean. We asked each other to text just to say we got home safely. I did, but he never got back to me. I haven't heard from or seen him since that night."

"Oh my. Hang on a second."

Will's voice shouted something to someone, but Jia couldnt make out exactly what was happening. Some different voices rose above the office din to shout back and she heard a few words like bender, vacation, and sick.

"For the love of..." Will's voice had shrunk to a whisper. There came the sound of tapping, like fingers against a desk. "Miss Smith, I'm afraid he's taken some time off for personal reasons and nobody is avilable at the moment to check on him. I never felt like you wanted to cause him any trouble back at the bar, but I can't just hand out the home addresses of my fellow officers to any citizen. I'd lose my job."

Jia frowned. "I understand."

"But," Will added, "you just reminded me I have a mailer I need sent out to him. You know -- legal stuff, so it has to be printed instead of emailed. Let me just get this envelope addressed before I forget."

A desk drawer opened. The tiny click of a pen. Then came scribbling.

"31st Street, Sirius Apartments," Will muttered, barely loud enough for Jia to hear, "suite 330. Yeah, that should be right. Sorry to interrupt our conversation like that. I'm sorry, but I can't help you Miss Smith." He allowed for a long pause. "Do you understand, Miss Smith?"

"Yes. I understand. Sorry to have bothered you, Officer Szymanski."

"No bother at all. Let me know if you hear from him before I do."

"Of course. Thanks again."

The line went dead, and Jia quickly called one more number.

"Hey!"

"Suti, I need a huge favor."

"Name it."

"Can you watch Remy for a little while? I need--"

"Yes!"

Chapter Text

Leaving Remy with Suti had been a little easier, though something had seemed different with Suti this time around. She had been thrilled to be able to watch Remy again, that much had been clear over the phone, but still -- there had been an unmistakable pep inside her. Jia hadn't the time to ask about it, however.

Maybe she found a job, Jia wondered. Something she'll actually enjoy.

Jia got up from her seat while the bus decelerated, the momentum causing her to sway like a leaf as the vehicle rolled to a complete stop. She slithered off onto the sidewalk and scanned the block to get her bearings.

Behind her and across the street was a mini-mart and car charging station; through the window she could see a muton manning the register while a human mopped the floor.

A pair of sectoids exited an adjacent apartment building, chatting noisily while a passing trio of vipers shied away from the center of the sidewalk to allow the sectoids to pass.

Another human crossed the street, meeting up to greet a human and viper waiting on the opposite corner. A mixed group of hybrids and humans waved at them from the other streetcorner.

The area didn't seem too human-centric. The distribution appeared fairly even in fact. The air wasn't rank with animosity or disgust, scents she knew acutely well from her city patrols in Europe, what felt like so long ago and not long enough. After letting out a breath she'd held tight in her chest, Jia allowed herself to relax a little.

She turned her attention to the sign just a few meters from the bus stop. There was a gray oval with the words Sirius Apartments emblazoned upon it in some sort of faux gold lettering. The first 'i' was topped by a four-pointed star, its rays reaching to the ends of the sign. It looked fancy enough at a glance. Together with the clean sidewalk and trimmed shrubs out front, it gave every appearance of a pretty nice place to call home.

Inside was no different. The doors automatically parted, admitting entrance to an inner lobby with white tile floors. Each corner of the room had plant with broad, healthy green leaves that seemed to glisten beneath the fluorescent lights above. To the immediate right was a black desk with a woman behind it.

"May I help you?"

"Oh," Jia stuttered, unprepared to deal with a security guard -- though only for a moment. She fetched the card with Zach's info from her bag and handed it over. "I'm looking for a Zachary Calloway, suite 330. He's expecting me."

The security guard, looking quite professional in her spotless and unwrinkled navy-blue uniform, gave the card a once-over. She tapped a button on the tablet in front of her.

"Mister Calloway? There's a, uh--"

"Jia Smith."

"There's a Jia Smith here for you."

They both waited in uncomfortable silence.

"Maybe he's on another of his benders?" Jia offered with a sheepish shrug.

The guard let out a mirthless laugh. "Sounds like you know him well enough. Head on through. Take the left elevator to the third floor."

The guard tapped her tablet once more, and a second glass door split open at the other side of the room. Beyond it was the elevator, all polished chrome, white lights, and a blood red carpet. Jia pressed the third floor button and patiently waited for the doors to close while the guard eyed her with a minimal amount of interest.

As Jia ascended, the dull, soft music did nothing to distract her. This was a nice place; was a cop paid so well they could afford it? Why did such an apartment even exist outside of Renova Heights? Or maybe the city was trying to sequester their protectors, keep them from those who might do them harm? Jia momentarily wondered if she should have pursued being a police officer, but the mere thought of having to deal with guns and death turned her off hard enough to twist her stomach into knots, and the tip of her tail lightly slapped the carpet. The same aversion had caused her to spurn the city's encouragement of a surgical career.

She exited the elevator at the third floor, and finding there was only one way for her to go, she followed the the same red carpet down the hall. Suite 300, 301, 302 -- Jia picked up the pace just a bit, afraid that the longer she took to find Zach's door, the more of a chance the tiny voice inside her head telling her to turn back would win out.

Everything was just as immaculate as the lobby. A plush carpet kept Jia's tail sleeve from hitching as she slithered, and the white walls had a faint diamond pattern that kept the place from looking too plain. Every dozen or so meters was a brushed metal table with a copper planter housing a little shrub. Jia's tongue flickered curiously nearby each one; they were all fake, but convincing.

Jia's darting tongue did detect something more interesting, however. The pungent scent of alcohol grew more potent as she approached her intended destination. It was worryingly familiar. Though it all smelled like fetid garbage water to her in passing, the acute sense of smell her tongue afforded told her it was a very specific scent of garbage water. The same, perhaps, as the kind Zach had been drinking at the bar.

She stopped. The door to suite 330 loomed large despite the viper's impressive stature. 

I could turn away right now. How easy it would be. Just turn around, don't breathe a word to the security guard -- I don't owe her one. None of this is my business. I don't care. Go home, see Remy, brush off Suti's questions. I don't care.

Jia gently rapped her knuckles against the door. There came no reply after a moment and she did it again. Still it was silent. 

However, she detected a change in the stench of alcohol. Nearly imperceptible even to her, it was as though the scent receded for a moment before washing beneath the door again, like a river lapping at the shore. Something inside was moving, altering the airflow of the room.

On a whim, Jia turned the doorknob. It was unlocked, and she allowed herself in.

The air grew rank with alcohol, crashing against her nose and tongue. She kept her mouth tightly sealed as she scanned the apartment.

It was a mess, much like her own. Only instead of toys and crayon-marked papers and snack crumbs, there were empty beer bottles everywhere. Bottles on the counters. Bottles on the table. Bottles scattered about across the floor and furniture. There must have been dozens all strewn about. Every single one was empty. Some of the labels were faded and peeling, others had cracks spiderwebbing through the glass.

Scowling, Jia picked one up to read the label: Sarrow's Lager, nine percent by volume. Brewed and distilled in Renova Heights since war's end.

Again there was that ebbing airflow that signaled movement. Her tongue darted last her lips by reflex before she quickly drew it back inside. Something stirred at the opposite end of the room.

Zach laid sprawled across the couch, buried partly beneath a disheveled blanket. Gone was his sharp and dignified uniform, replaced with a wrinkled, plain white t-shirt and sweatpants with one leg hiked up to the knee. One arm hung over the edge, his fingertips just grazing the surface of yet another empty bottle. His other arm laid atop the blanket across his chest, cellphone in hand.

Jia made to wake him, but she stopped the moment her tail nudged a bottle, causing it to clink against another. She frowned.

Jia had never considered herself a busy-body, as humans sometimes called it. She wasn't nosey, nor concerned with the lives of others beyond simple courtesies that many humans often spurned from her entirely. So it was with considerable confusion when she found certain impulses difficult to control.

She rummaged through the bottom cabinets of what appeared to be the kitchen. She found a box of garbage bags beside a wastebasket full of empty microwave dinner boxes. One by one, Jia quietly collected each bottle. In short order, the room was mostly clear of misplaced glass and the garbage bag, now full, waited by the door. She tried to convince herself she had only done so to ease the stench.

The apartment as a whole was still a mess. There were papers strewn across what appeared to be the dining table; Jia tried to act as if she just happened to see them as she innocently looked for more beer bottles. Several were bills indicating his accounts were up up to date and in good standing, which Jia found surprising. Television shows had told her the stereotypical drunkard's life was usually a mess.

Stop looking through his things.

JIa's inner voice fell on deaf ears. Curiosity drove her on, something she'd not really felt for another person beside her new daughter, or Suti. A moment later and she realized there were a couple other people she wondered about. There was Cassidy, the woman that had helped to calm Remy down in the store a month or so back. Bo had shown herself to be genuine and warm when Jia had first pegged her as just a fake bureaucrat begrudgingly serving aliens. Even that homeless, jobless, apparently racist man for whom Jia sometimes bought a meal, unbeknownst to him; she felt something.

Why couldn't she pin it down? What did she feel? Why did she feel it?

A low buzzing drew Jia's attention to the phone in Zach's hand. The screen lit up with a text notification. Then, to Jia's worried surprise -- she was breaking and entering, after all -- Zach stirred. He groaned some nonsense, tapped his thumb against his phone three times, and a message began to play.

It didn't surprise her too much. After all, there were actions so automatic that Jia's body did them with almost no input whatsoever in the stupor of barely conscious sleeplessness: unlocking her phone, brushing her teeth, using the microwave.

There came a woman's melodious voice, an Irish accent clear as day. She sounded happy, laughing to herself over the sounds of a busy kitchen full of chopping and clanking and noisy fires. She mentioned they had managed to acquire apples from a passing trader, then exhuberantly added they'd bartered for orange seeds as well. The camp's spirits had never been higher, and there'd be a feast when all the patrols came back for the night.

Guilt twisted Jia's insides. She'd barely heard anything and still felt it had been too much. Nothing would have been better, more relieving than to simply leave at that moment. The tangle of someone else's life seemed cast over like a net and no matter how much she struggled, no matter how much she wanted out...

"Zachary," whispered Jia, gently shaking his shoulder. Beneath her grip, cold sweat soaked through his shirt. 

He mumbled unintelligibly, fruitlessly thumbing his phone before giving up.

"Zach."

Jia reached out, laying a hesitant hand on his shoulder. He only stirred once she shook him.

His eyes barely opened beyond slits before he clamped them shut with a frown that wrinkled his whole face. Groans rumbled in his throat as his empty hand groped about blindly. His fingers brushed an empty bottle and he immediately seized it, brought it to his lips, then sighed in disappointment before dropping it again. There was a moment of sheer panic in his previously lazy motion as his empty hand grasped nothing and flew to his pockets. Relief washed over him when both hands clutched his phone.

"Zach?"

Both hands rose to his temples, rubbing with circular motions before a single hand pinched the bridge of his nose. His eyes finally opened -- barely a squint but open nonetheless -- and he sat upright, swaying in place while his eyes drifted about the room. It took a moment for them to find Jia patiently waiting.

"What," he grumbled, rubbing his eyes, "are you doing here? How are you doing here?"

"I--," Jia hesitated, recalling how comically surreptitious William had been in supplying Zack's address. She couldn't think of any lie convincing enough, but she didn't want to throw William under the--

"Fucking William. Always fucking meddling." 

Venom dribbled out with each slurred word, seemingly poisoning the air itself. Discomfort gnawed at her more than before.

"I'm sorry. I was worried. You never texted me back to say you got home okay, and William helped me when nobody could get a hold of you," said Jia.

Zach swung his legs off the couch. He took a moment to make sure his balance was up to the task, then slowly stood up. "That fucking sectoid can't leave me alone. Really fucking tired of it."

"He wanted to check on you but work kept him."

"He's not my goddamn partner."

He lumbered about his apartment, checking countertops and scanning the floor as he went. He paused at the dining table to gather the scattered papers and envelopes, but it seemed like busy work, as if he really meant to do something else. He moved on, sometimes getting on his hands and knees to check beneath the table or couch. Confused, he stood and then saw the garbage bag waiting by his front door. Two and two took a little longer to come together in his state, but it still happened.

"Did you clean up my place?" Jia averted his eyes and said nothing. He shook his head. There was a flush to his face but Jia didnt know if it was shame or his hangover.

With Jia silently watching his every move, Zach ambled over to the kitchen sink. He grabbed a glass without looking, filled it with water, and gulped it down. Twice more he did this, gasping loudly each time.

Suddenly feeling small and out if place, Jia still asked, "Is it that bad to have someone care about you just a little?"

"I don't need a sectoid on my back."

"What? Why?"

"Probably reads my mind every second of every day."

A voice, much quieter as of late, now suddenly boomed in Jia's mind: Validation! Vindication! See? Humans won't ever trust us!

"He has a psi-damper. They all do."

"I don't care," Zach said, flinging open a cabinet. A pill container rattled in his grasp. In one swift motion, he popped it open, shook out two nondescript tablets, and swallowed them dry. "Never know if the damn things are working or even if they're strong enough. You got any idea how strong they are? Sectoids, I mean. They can make you do anything. How does anyone know they can't overpower those dampers?"

Zach shuffled out of the kitchen. He passed by a picture of his girlfriend and daughter, glaring at it for a moment. He set his jaw and quickly flipped the frame face-down onto the counter.

Pieces began to fall into place, like broken bones setting unnaturally into usable but painful shapes. A lump traveled a considerable distance from Jia's stomach before solidifying in her throat.

Jia swallowed and slithered far, far outside of her comfort zone, well beyond the borders that marked her life as separate from everybody else's.

"Do you want to keep talking? Pick up where we left off at the bar?"

A derisive laugh slipped past his lips. "You really want to do this?"

Vacant eyes stared straight ahead as his hands gripped the edge of the counter, white-knuckled and shaking. He stood that way for some long moments, but Jia knew better than to ask again.

Gears turned inside his head. His vision would focus for a moment and then zone out again, as if a decision had been made before he'd mentally shrink away from it. He heaved a great sigh but otherwise remained silent.

"I was a slave for my whole life. I know exactly what it's like," said Jia.

"You don't know shit," he spat.

Her blood suddenly boiled. "I know better than you. By many, many magnitudes."

She paused, anticipating his defense. He offered none. She went on.

"I can't tell you how many people I--," she looked down for a moment at her hands, then tightly folded them together, "how many people these hands killed. I honestly can't even begin to fathom the actual number. To feel like a passenger in your own body, not knowing what these people had done, not even knowing what I was doing wrong, not understanding that there could be a something called wrong.

"Each of those memories -- their faces, their screams -- locked away in a little box that I never knew existed until I was free. The Elders are gone and that box pops open and buries me. I still have nightmares. Nightmares about things I didn't do, about things that this body had done before I was me."

Zach snorted, an angry smirk dashed across his face. "That's the difference, isn't it?"

Jia kept silent.

"I existed before. Everything I was had been in my head when that bug-eyed fuck filled my brain, and it wasn't enough. None of it mattered."

"That's not how--"

"You had it easy," he cut her off.

Venom-rush drowned out all else in Jia's head, like standing beneath a roaring waterfall threatening to push her beneath the surface. She rose up involuntarily, her pupils narrowed to razor edges.

"You, a passenger in your body not knowing anything right or wrong or whatever. Then there's me, screaming inside my own head so hard and for so long that I wished my brain could've told my body to pass out. I was weak. I could've resisted it."

"Nobody can," Jia said softly. To her credit, she kept her swelling indignation in check. "Even psionics can fall victim to other psionics. The human I mentioned, it was just a rumor. An XCOM soldier with who-knows-what tech might have been in their head."

Zach sneered. "It's easy, isn't it? To imagine resistance is impossible because you were controlled from the moment you were hatched. Not even bothering to pound your fists against a wall because you never knew of anything beyond it."

He met her gaze dead-on for the first time since she'd entered his apartment. "I felt that wall. I could feel it flex and buckle every time I threw myself at it but I couldn't break it."

His voice faltered and his eyes watered. "You killed who knows how many and you get a happily ever after with a little girl. I killed two people and they were the only ones who ever mattered to me."

Jia shot up so fast she nearly slammed her head into the ceiling. "Oh, like life is so easy for me? I got off easy, is that it? 'Lucky Jia, born a mindless slave, never knew what she was doing' -- fucking spare me. You think I only killed soldiers? Resistance? You think I was a soldier always fighting other soldiers, huh?"

Gut-wrenching memories bubbled to the surface, a crimson, gory froth rising from mental waters that had been comparatively calm before. Jia squeezed her eyes shut to try and will it all away. It didn't work. It never did.

Zach's head sank, his angry grimace cracking for a moment. Jia's tacit admission was no surprise but still left him unnerved.

Her fiery rage was suddenly snuffed, as if it had finally burnt a hole through her mind and everything else had collapsed atop of the flames, snuffing it out and leaving a chilling void. For the first time in her life, she wondered what it would be like to cry, if it was as cathartic as humans claimed.

"I thought -- when you called me a slave, I thought -- you know, wow. Someone that sees me. Someone that knows old me wasn't actually me-me. Someone that was kind to me right from the start. But I was just a--" she stumbled, looking for the right words, "--I don't know what. Just someone to validate your self-pity? To measure your trauma against mine?"

Remy's cheerful face and silly antics flashed in her mind. Suti's remarkable wisdom and always-relevent advice warmed her heart. Now more than ever, she wanted them both in arm's reach.

"This was a mistake," whimpered Jia, tossing her bag over her shoulder. "Pain isn't a competition. Nobody wins by saying their life was harder. There are professionals all across the city. I hope you get the help you need."

Zach kept his glassy-eyed stare trained on the kitchen counter. He otherwise remained unnaturally frozen, making Jia wonder if he had even heard her. She didn't bother asking nor care to repeat herself, and she swiftly exited.

Jia waited at the bus stop, hollow and beaten, wishing she were home. Her throat tight, her hood drooping, she tried to replay the last hour in her head. It only worsened her sudden fatigue and she tried to put it from her mind entirely. She just cleared her mind of thought because anything else was simply too much effort.

An empty gaze stared back at her in the bus's window as the world went by. Everything was transparent, like she could see to the horizon through the concrete, glass, and rebar, and through the people most of all. The bus passed by that homeless man still holding his sign -- Jia didn't even notice.

Her subconscious was in control, a kind of autopilot that guided Jia off the bus at the correct stop. Her every motion slow and deliberate, like a sanitation android doing its monotonous work, she slithered into an elevator and seemed surprised for a moment when it spat her out in a place she recognized. She slid her key into her door and nearly fell into her apartment.

Remy's head whipped around. She squealed and zipped towards her mother, eagerly clawing at the edge of her jacket in an effort to be picked up.

"Jia!" Suti cheerily said before seeing her friend's face. She shifted gears immediately, rushing over to scoop Remy into a one-armed carry. She offered the other to Jia, who latched on and offered no resistance as she was led to the couch, onto which she promptly collapsed.

"What happened?" Suti asked, bouncing Remy in her arm to try and distract the hatchling. 

Jia lazily turned onto her back before reaching for her daughter. The little viper flowed like liquid from Suti to her mother's embrace. She nuzzled hard against Jia's hood. The tiniest bit of energy sparked within Jia's chest, and she used it to give Suti the rundown.

"Oh man," Suti groaned. "I'm -- I'm sorry. I shouldn't have pushed you into this."

"None of this is your fault," Jia said, gently grabbing her friend's hand. "Don't worry about it."

Suti hesitated as Jia squeezed her hand. "What about you? If you don't mind me asking, that is."

"I'm okay, I guess."

"No, I mean getting the help you need. When's the last time you saw your shrink?"

Jia groaned. "I've been doing fine."

"You can lie to yourself but I know better," quipped Suti. Jia chuckled. "You seem different. Remy's been so great for you but something is still off. I worry about you, is all."

"When's the last time you saw your shrink?"

"It's been almost half a year. In my defense, I've never held a gun in my life. My baggage probably isn't half as heavy as yours."

Jia sighed. Remy slithered across Jia's neck to curl up in the other side of Jia's hood. A fluffy weight bounded up onto Jia's chest, purring as her fingers stroked through his fur. It was nice to see Menace acting more boldly, like his usual self before Remy came along.

"If you think I should," said Jia, squeezing Suti's hand again, "I guess I'll make an appointment."

"Thank you."

"Love you, sister."

"I love you too. Stay there and cuddle with your babies, I'll make you something to eat."