Now a quarter century ago when it had become clear that global warming was irreversible and that Climate Change was going to be a stark extinction event
with too many humans and too little time to deal with it
various programs had begun in order to
avoid a total extinction.
It had begun with the blunt sledgehammer approach of the
Euthanasia Lotteries
and then had come freezing human volunteers and shooting them off to other stars aboard the first generation of
nearly three times the speed of light
starships.
Since nobody had figured out how to unfreeze the frozen volunteers yet that was a leap of faith for those humans,who might not survive the process.
The research in unfreezing folk had led to the
Species ReAllocation Programs
where the solution to too many humans
was to transform some of them into other
critters
such as lizards and snakes.
In your case you had decided to get out of the human race whilst the terms were still favourable and a decade ago had
volunteered to be transformed into a giant
serpentess,.
The Government had been offering terms where
you spent 11-1/2 months as a giant limbless snake
and as part of the deal got to spend
2 weeks each year as a
'human'
sort of a vacation in
between working
and you were currently in 'human' form
catching up on what you'd missed for the previous 50 weeks.
As a 'human' in the Species ReAllocation Program
you carried a Species Passport as well as a
boltgun
just in case some overenthusiastic Government agent
decided to euthanize you
by mistake.
So to your surprise you saw a face you recognized from a
decade earlier
approaching you
the specialist who had guided you in your
travels of leaving the human species...