Neon Dream of Organic Toys C1

The young fox gulped as a crimson red chromed out car zoomed towards her from the distance. She was perfectly camouflaged against the dirty wall, the soot and grime of the street life permanently staining her naturally light brown coat into a scruffy mess of ash and concrete grey. The rags that she wore were the same, its Biotechnica branding and green dye having been worn away long ago until the cheap nylon was the same color as everything else in this bleak and washed out world.

A flash from a particularly bright advertisement in the distance illuminated her for a moment. A more observant driver would have noticed her silhouette and slowed down but she had seen this car a few times before, usually driven by a blonde canine and a human beside her, she in a crimson dress and him in a suit, both usually very drunk by the time they entered their car. Usually they would just drive off to their destination but with construction ongoing on their normal route they, and a few dozen other cars, were forced down this detour.

She flared her nostrils and growled in jealousy at the dog, lucky enough to be the literal bitch of her human owner. Probably was allowed to sleep in his bed and be fed kibble so long as she bent over and pulled down her panties whenever he ordered her to. Bathed daily too, by the look of her long, gloriously golden yellow coat that shone in the sunlight and flowed in the wind.

All the fox knew was that she wouldn’t feel too bad for them.

She swallowed nervously, gripping the cracked plastic grip of her Slaught-O-Matic pistol until it started to creak. While its magazine had been emptied long ago it was still shaped like a firearm, just enough to scare a victim for a few moments. It wasn’t like she was a cyberpsycho out to zero anybody, not that she had the eddies to buy any augments anyways. Thankfully it was a garishly hot pink, clearly visible even in this dreary afternoon.

The fox prayed for rain so that she could wash herself for the first time in forever.

Even at this distance she could hear the supercar’s engine revving up as the vehicle began to descend down a slight hill, so subtle was the slope that many sober drivers didn’t even notice until they had to slam on the brakes to stop at the first light. A drunk driver would have zoomed right past all three lights and jumped his car straight into the river.

She was doing these gonks a favor, really.

Chloe glanced towards the line of All-Foods vending machines that were humming peacefully further down the street on the other side. With a little luck, she, her mother, and her siblings would be going to sleep with full bellies tonight.

The car zoomed past the second stoplight. It was time.

The fox straightened her back with what confidence she could muster and stepped out of her alleyway onto the cracked asphalt, raising her empty pistol towards the vehicle currently barreling down towards her. She gave the drunk driver a few more seconds to register her situation.

The car began to steer away in an attempt to simply avoid their assailant, Chloe imagined the dog with wide, panicked eyes trying desperately to get out of her way. The fox continued to walk across the road with her raised gun. It was certainly a gamble that they wouldn’t just run her over which was a real possibility in this city. Tires screeched as the dog attempted to regain control, crushing signs and hitting piles of garbage bags that splattered all over the front until finally she smashed into the vending machines with a violent and beautiful crunch.

Chloe clenched her hand into a fist as a quiet cheer of success as she watched the glorious view of dozens of Burrito XXL packs rain down from above, more food than she had ever seen in one place. She immediately sprinted towards her prize, pulling out a few shopping bags and stripping off her shirt to tie the sleeves and neck to form a sack.

The passenger side door swung open as the human accidentally pulled on the door latch in an effort to find something stable to grab. His limp body was flung out, violently tumbling down the sidewalk leaving a trail of various curses and blood, eventually coming to rest in a heap of trash with all four of his limbs pointing in very unnatural directions. The red car skidded sideways, smashing into an overflowing dumpster and pushing it across the concrete sidewalk towards the water with a soul-shaking shriek, only just barely stopping after it had peeked over the edge of the wharf.

Chloe’s mouth watered as she picked up the heavy teal packages that contained ground SCOP meat that was wrapped in a genetically modified hypercorn tortilla, only the finest from Biotechnica’s protein farms. Each one was enough to feed her for two whole days if she rationed it out properly, her latest prize would be enough to keep her family's bellies full for an entire month.

The young teen fox quickly stuffed her bags.

She yelped as a half-filled bottle smashed into the back of her head, covering her back with an acrid-stinking liquid that stung at her new wounds. The dog she had forced to crash was now stumbling her way towards her with an angry scowl and a raised fist. How exactly she had managed to land a clean hit with her only bottle despite her inebriated and possibly shell-shocked state the fox hadn’t quite figured out.

It was time to leave. Chloe scampered away into an alley, leaving only her echoing laughter of victorious euphoria and her swinging tail. Multiple plastic bags hung from each of her arms while her hands gingerly cradled her shirt that was ready to burst with how much food she had stuffed away inside.

The brick wall in front of her coughed puffs of dust as bullets whizzed by her and buried themselves in the old red clay. She ran ever faster, still giggling maniacally at her success as the first drops of the incoming storm seemed to reward her with a refreshing chill to her sweaty face. Not even the broken glass and discarded scrap that sliced at her bare paws were enough to ruin her mood.

She didn’t even bother to look up at the Trauma Team AV as it screamed above her head, flying towards the wreck she had caused.

Today was a good day.

“Momma!”

Chloe burst into her home, nearly smashing through the flimsy plastic rectangle they called their door. It was built from the remains of a shipping container, the rusted metal barely held together by the thick layers of Arasaka’s signature black paint. The floor was cardboard and plastic sheets covered the walls to keep out the rain and cold. A stolen digital sign was strapped to the ceiling to act as a light, its cracked screen still displaying the ghost image of an item long since discontinued, burnt in after many hours of showing it off to a disinterested public. On the stove was their dinner, the dented pot filled with some kind of salvaged bubbling slop that they were forced to eat.

She was met with the wide, panicked eyes of her sister and the mean end of her yellow shotgun, fully loaded with actual ammunition unlike her own firearm.

“Dammit, Clo!” Zara screamed and sighed tiredly, lowering her gun when she realized that the sopping wet, crazed, naked fox bitch who just smashed through their front door was in fact her younger sister, “Don’t fucking do that!”

“Sorry Zee!” Chloe giggled as she squeezed past her exasperated sibling who only let her through after giving the naughty fox a firm smack to the head with her fist, “But I got somethin’ too good!”

“Shit! You’re bleeding!” Zara gasped, tossing her shotgun on her bed and gingerly poking at the fresh wounds on the back of her sister’s head.

“Ah who cares!” the teen waved off her concerned sibling, “Not when I got this!”

She triumphantly dropped her heavy reward onto the table, finding great satisfaction as she watched her sister’s ears prick up at the sounds of a dull thud and the crinkle of new plastic.

“Bam!”

She tipped the sacks over and covered their table with a deluge of burritos.

Kita and Mace, the youngest pair of their family, only stared in silence. They slowly crawled out of their beds and approached the heavenly pile, their young minds unable to comprehend that this much food could exist in one place at the same time.

“What the fuck…” Zara whistled, impressed but still a bit confused.

Chloe beamed, holding out her chest and putting her hands on her hips as a victory pose.

“Clo…”

“M’yeeeeees?” she answered slowly, waiting for the praise she deserved.

“First off, put your shirt back on, you’re bare-ass naked. And second,” Zara gently grasped one of the burrito packages to inspect it, turning it over a few times in shock, “yeah it’s preem stuff but how the fuck did you pull this off?”

“Well ya’see-!” Chloe returned her shirt back onto her top, now stretched far enough that it reached her knees, “I got this drunk gonk to crash her car into some vending machines and I jacked as many as I could from the wreck!”

Zara raised an eyebrow, “You stole this from the car?”

“No, from the vending machines.”

“Oh!” she scratched her head, “Oh. So how’d you get her to crash?”

Chloe grinned and reached into the pile of burritos, pulling out her empty Slaught-O-Matic that had been buried in the pile.

“Ooooooh,” Zara hissed through clenched teeth, “Mom’s gonna be pissed.”

“Com’on, Zee!” Chloe shrugged, waving around her pistol, “I just got us enough food for a month! Is she gonna be late tonight again?”

“Yeah she says she had some extra work. And it’s not that, you know she’s gonna be mad about you making someone crash.”

“Fine, fine. Just don’t tell her about that part.”

Zara rolled herself back onto her bed, “Well shit, what the hell are we supposed to tell her, then?”

“Tell me what?”

Despite her voice being the softest of the family, it was the one everyone feared and respected.

Chloe jumped and spun around to meet face to face with her mother, making sure to hide her pistol behind her back as she did so.

Noelle stood a whole head shorter than her second daughter, dressed in nothing but her teal overalls and tattered work boots she was issued at work. She was the kind of mother that would have carved the meat off her own limbs to feed her children if she had any to spare. Usually she just gave them her portion of dinner resulting in her suffering severe malnutrition for all her life.

Her belly was round and growing fast with the latest member of the family, another unfortunate accident in her efforts to earn her whatever extra cash she could. Greying hairs on her coat, wrinkles under her eyes, and her permanently flattened ears revealed her tired, aching soul that knew nothing else. But despite the stresses of the world remnants of her youth still shone from her weary face, having gotten pregnant with Zara in her early teens she was still very often mistaken as an elder sister of their family instead of their mother.

“Well, uh… H-Hey Mom!”

“Dear, you’re bleeding!”

“Oh don’t worry about me, Mom!” Chloe laughed nervously and backed off, away from her mother’s concerned hands, “I uh, uh fell down! Yeah!”

Noelle raised an eyebrow, clearly not convinced.

A bead of sweat rolled down Chloe’s face as she felt the intense gaze of her mother burning a hole right through the facade into her soul. With only one option she inhaled through her nose, held her breath for a moment and moved off to the side to reveal what she had brought home.

“Oh my lord…” her mother whispered.

They stood there, mother in disbelief and daughter in silent prayer, hoping the shock of seeing the pile of food would dissuade her from asking too many questions.

Finally she noticed that Kita and Mace were staring at the huge pile with wide, begging eyes, “Everyone,” she said breathlessly, “pick whichever you want. We’re not sleeping tonight until our bellies are full. Zara, I’m sorry you had to make dinner on your day off but-”

“It’s fine, mom.” Zara got up and emptied the pot out the window, “It was mostly water and bad stuff from the garbage anyways.”

“Well, thank you for your effort anyways. Chloe, could you clear the table and heat up dinner?”

“Sure.” she began to pack up the burritos and turned to the cheering young twins, “Com’on guys, you heard mom. Pick one and give ‘em to me!”

“Thank you, sweetie.” Noelle reached down and pulled out one of their well-worn pans, “You’re a lifesaver for doing this but we need to have a talk after dinner.”

“Aw, mom!” she groaned and slumped her shoulders as she tore open the plastic and dropped the wraps onto the hot pan, “Do we really have to?!”

“Dear,” Noelle gently cupped her daughter’s pouting cheek with a hand to look into her eyes, “A mother knows when her little girl’s been doing some bad things. Now there are some bad things I can look away from but I need to make sure. So please,” she went in for a hug, Chloe’s ultimate weakness, “just tell me the truth.”

“Okay…” she whispered, hugging her mother back after her brown eyes had melted her soul.

“Thank you.” her mother patted her head, sat down in her chair with a relieved huff and turned to her only son with as much forced enthusiasm she could muster, “Mmmm! Something’s smelling good! What flavor did you pick, Mace?”

The kit held up the empty blue-green packaging for his mother to see.

“Nuh-uh, mister! You have to read it yourself!”

“R-Ro-s-s-sa-dooo!”

“That’s right! Rosado. Good job!” Mace’s mouth stretched into a wide grin at her praise, “Kita?”

“Or… Or-eey-gug-ee-n-al.”

“Ohr-ih-gin-ahl, deary. Original. Do you know what it means?”

Kita shook her head.

“It means regular or normal.”

“...boring?”

Noelle giggled, “Sort of. Oh!”

Chloe placed the steaming plate of burritos onto the center of the table, barely able to control herself after getting a faceful of the delicious smelling steam wafting from it. Kita immediately reached for one but Noelle softly smacked her hand.

“Well! It looks like little Miss Kita’s going to pray tonight?”

“But Mom, I dun wanna!” the young kit said with a pout.

“You must, dearest. We might be the lowest of the low but that’s no excuse to act like barbarians. I won't tolerate uncivilized behavior in this house. Now, hands together and like we practiced.”

Kita kept pouting, but obediently weaved her fingers together and closed her eyes as the others had already done. She understood little but did so anyways, mumbling her call to the heavens. Zara rolled her eyes, she doubted there was anyone up there who gave a shit about them, a lowly family of foxes living in a rusted to hell shipping container.

A merciful god would've had them killed already.

“And?” Noelle peeked one eye open at Kita, who was finishing up her prayer, “Who else do we thank for this meal tonight?”

She thought for a moment, then closed her eyes again.

“And we thank big sis Chloe for jacking the good shit for us.”

“Thanks, Kita.” Chloe muttered.

“Language, dear.” Noelle whispered sharply, although not without an amused smirk of her own.

“...Amen.”

“Amen.”

“Woo, let’s eat!” Zara cheered.

Simultaneously they picked up the hot wrap of gloriously fake cheese and synthetic meat, taking a few seconds to gaze in awe at the sheer weight and amount of actual food they held in their hands. And simultaneously they bit into their gifts, gagging and wincing at the overwhelming flavor of plastic, filler "beef", and 214% of the daily recommended serving of sodium per mouthful. Still, it didn’t come from the garbage, it wasn’t out of date, and it actually filled their bellies.

With only a single burrito and their ravenous appetite, dinner ended quickly without another word spoken. Noelle yawned and stretched, her emaciated body and stomach not used to being so full in one sitting.

“Zara, dear. Would you please ready the twins for bed? I have to talk with Chloe.”

“Yeah, I gottit, mom.”

“Thank you.” Noelle opened the door and held it, “Chloe?”

She swallowed, despite believing in her innocence being grilled by her mother was the hardest thing for her to do.

“Yeah.” She exited, followed by her mother.

The storm had arrived, its raindrops drumming the plastic over their front porch into making a soothing white noise. Each of them dragged an upturned bucket next to each other, the hollow plastic pallets they used as flooring buckling slightly as they sat down.

The teen, trying not to look towards her mother, instead stared out into the distance. Past the mud and trash, past the scrapyard they called home and the formerly bustling factories, towards the glittering towers that surrounded Corpo Plaza and the city center. She had seen a glimpse of the high life on a public television once and squinted her eyes trying to take another peek, wondering if she could see the party of suit-wearing humans and the occasional dressed up anthro lady hanging off their arms through the executive penthouse windows of the towers in the rich city center.

Despite being only 3% of the nearly eight million souls that called this city home, the humans dominated the middle and upper classes and completely conquered the ultra-wealthy class. They regularly ate real meat and fruits, danced around on perfectly flat floors made from smooth marble inlaid with gold, and listened to music played on classical instruments centuries old. She understood none of it, not even having the context to understand what a “Stratavarius” was and why it was hyped up as much as it was.

Noelle stayed silent, choosing to let Chloe have a few moments to pick her words while Chloe herself wished she was anywhere but here, hoping that the burrito in her mother’s stomach would lull her into falling asleep and forgetting about the interrogation.

“Dear?”

No luck.

Chloe sighed and mumbled, “I got them from a vending machine.”

“I know that, but how?”

The teen stared down at the polluted mud underneath the pallet floor and mumbled.

“Dear?”

“I… kinda… sorta… made someone crash their car into them.”

Her mother’s tired, defeated sigh broke her. It was the worst sound in the world.

“Chloe-”

“Mom!”

“...How?”

“How what?”

“How did you make him crash?”

And then came the hardest part. Chloe shrunk under her mother’s softly tired, yet still intense gaze. After what felt like an eternity the teen fox slowly balled up her hand into a fist, stuck out her index finger out the front and thumb towards the sky, and pointed it towards an invisible target.

“Chloe!” Noelle raised her voice angrily, “You actually-?”

She nodded, guiltily.

Her mother’s hand smacked repeatedly into the back of her head. It wasn’t the first time she had been beaten but it was certainly the first time in a while. Chloe didn’t hear what exactly her mother yelled but what actually broke her heart was just how weak her strikes were after a lifetime of torturous labor had left her muscles shredded. She only winced from how her hand was landing on the now healing wounds from the thrown beer bottle.

“You could’ve gotten hurt!”

“I know.”

“They could’ve run you over! Reported you to the NCPD and they’d be scraping your corpse off the road and-!”

“Mom! I’m not stupid! I wouldn’t have done it if there was a chance of that happening!” Chloe retorted, knowing full well that she actually had gotten lucky.

“Young lady, you will not become a common criminal mugging people at gunpoint!”

“Pu-leeze, mom! NCPD and the corpos aren’t gonna waste their time with us! ‘Sides it wasn’t even loaded anyways…” Chloe finished with a mumble.

“And what if they had guns too!?” her mother shot back, “They could have shot you dead! Legally too!”

She remembered the bullets flying past her and her guilty face betrayed the truth.

“Oh my god-!”

Noelle yelled a few more words and gave her a harder smack to the head.

“I am not-!” she suppressed a sniffle, “I am not burying another child, do you hear me?! I understand why you did this, but you cannot prey on or use other people like this!”

“It was just some gutless corpo suits! Who cares about them!?”

“They are people, Chloe. People just like you and I. You blow up a hundred vending machines? No one cares, All-Foods has thousands of those things on every corner! But getting someone personally involved? That’s when you risk their wrath! Did they get hurt?”

Chloe shrunk under Noelle’s concerned gaze as she remembered how the human’s body ragdolled down that incline, confirming her fears.

“Oh no…” she slumped, burying her head into her hands, “Chloe-!”

“I’m sorry, mom! But I didn’t have any other choice and-!”

“You’ve done wrong, dear! You hurt someone for your own gain, even if they were only collateral. No matter how high class they were, that's no excuse to involve people personally! I know why you did it, but why-!?”

Chloe shrunk into a tighter ball as she heard her mother sigh as if her very soul was deflating.

“I know we are the lowest rung of society. This is why I told you so many times to keep your head down. Bad stuff will happen, know your place and don't start fights you can't walk away from! I know the only ones below us are the germs and parasites but that’s no excuse to act like them! Do you understand me?!”

The teen stayed silent, but nodded eventually.

The final rays of the brilliant orange sunset peeked through a break in the clouds, eventually disappearing over the horizon as the pair sat silently.

“I just… wanted to give you an easier time… You come home later and later and always tired.”

Noelle reached out to her daughter, taking her hands and grasping them tightly with hers.

The dagger of guilt slid itself deeper into Chloe’s heart as she felt the rough, calloused skin on her mother’s palms. Despite her social status she maintained a lifetime of proper, honest labor, despite said labor leaving her body completely destroyed.

“I know. I appreciate it, Chloe. I really do. No matter what I said today I actually do appreciate that you’ve brought this much food on our table. We'll be able to stretch this food for months. But not like this, not when you have to risk your life and health for it. It’s my job as a mother to destroy my life for you, not the other way around. You have a future! Your health! And to throw that away just so I have an easier time-!”

“What future…” Chloe mumbled.

“I said the same thing to my mother once. She told me that no matter how bad things got, so long as you aren’t lying dead in a ditch you haven’t failed yet.”

Chloe slowly looked around her familiar surroundings.

“We're halfway there though...” she mumbled defiantly.

“I know. I know, sweetie… I know. But I have four beautiful children who are doing much better than I ever was. I know every parent says it to their child, but things really were tougher back then. When I was your age I wandered the streets without even a place to call home. And to make sure none of you ever have to live that life I will work and bleed as much as I need to.”

“And other things.” the teen softly growled without thinking, immediately regretting her words.

“That’s… That’s what I have to do to feed this family.” Noelle whispered, placing a hand on her round belly as her lips quivered, trying to keep down a sob.

“I just don’t want to see you and him… All he’s doing is giving you more mouths to feed! Docking with that creep multiple times a day for… what? A couple more eddies?! He doesn’t even own the factory! He’s not even a human!" Chloe raised her voice, stuttering her next words after many months without arguments, "You’re my mom, not some f-fucking joygirl he can bang while you’re trying to work the assembly line!”

“Language, dear!”

“No! No, fuck that!” Chloe stomped her feet and stood, teary eyes glaring straight into her mother’s, the same eyes that had witnessed the worst that this world could offer, “I don’t want to sit here while you and Zara kill yourselves for pennies! I’m… going to join the Hayriders tomorrow! I’ll bring in more eddies! I-I’ll smash every single fucking vending machine in Watson so we never go hungry! A-An-And then you won’t have to see that creep ever again!”

“You will not join that gang, young lady!” said Noelle, literally putting her foot down on that matter.

“Why not!? Lizzie’s bringing in a hundred eddies every week! Double if she gets lucky! And she’s not even that high ranked! If I do this for a year we could even afford to rent an actual flat! It’ll be in the asshole of Watson but it’s still better than living in this literal dump!”

“Chloe, I will not accept anything but honest work or at least work that doesn’t involve you getting hurt!”

“Oh please, mom!” the teen fox got on her knees and begged, “You know there’s no legit work here, even if we could work legally! You and Zara are already doing illegal jobs that pay less than the minimum, what’s the difference between that and me joining a gang!?”

“Don’t you dare compare criminal behavior to your sister’s job, she works very hard to-”

“Yeah! That’s the point!” Chloe jumped up to her feet again, waving her arms around trying desperately to make her mother see sense, “You and her agreed to work at least twelve hours a day and do ‘extra services’ for shit pay! That’s not fair! Why the fuck should either of you have to whore your-fucking-selves out!?”

“Chloe!”

She froze as her mother’s angry, raised voice snapped her out of her hysteria.

They sat in silence for a little while longer, Noelle not even able to raise her head to look at her daughter.

“Sit down.” her mother ordered, her dry, slightly raspy voice now only a feather’s width above completely inaudible, “We will not talk about this anymore, am I understood?”

Chloe remained standing, her balled up fists shaking in anger.

“Sit.” Noelle said a little more firmly.

Chloe obeyed, only then realizing what she had just said.

“Oh s-shit…” tears began to seep from the corners of her eyes, “Mom, I-I didn’t- I-I’m sorr-”

“No!” she held out an open hand to stop her stammering daughter, “No. It’s been too long since we’ve had a heart to heart. You will always be my little girl... But you are not a little girl anymore. You’re part of this family and you need the chance to speak your mind too. No, it is not fair that Zara-”

“-or you-”

She nodded, trying to suppress a lifetime of regrets, “-or… or me, should have to sell our bodies like this. But that’s what we have to do to survive.”

“And me?”

Noelle gulped, “We work hard so you won’t have to live that life. So hopefully that won’t happen. You’re doing just fine, taking care of the twins and making sure Zara and I don’t come home to a leaky roof.” she leaned forwards and patted her daughter on the head, “That’s all you need to do right now. But please, Chloe. Promise me. Promise you won’t join that gang.”

“Why not?”

Tears rolled down Noelle’s face as she was barely able to speak, “Violence breeds violence and I’ve already lost one child. So please, find something else. Anything else. Just no gangs.”

The young teen finally nodded in defeat, “...I promise.”

“Thank you.” she wiped her tears, “Come here.”

Chloe ducked down low and accepted her warm embrace. Things were bad but at least this never changed.

Noelle finally broke the silence and looked back up with a sigh, “So tell me about them… About the people you hurt. Your grandmother would insist that you go after them to apologize in person but I can’t risk it, not if you might not come back home afterwards. And I can’t do the same, not while I have children to care for.”

“So what are you going to do?”

“Pray for them.” her mother wiped her soft, broken brown eyes of its tears, “It might be cowardly and wrong to just leave it at that but the family comes first and this city doesn’t forgive. There’s nothing more you or I can do, not without risking everything. So please, just tell me.”

Chloe sighed as her mother’s trembling hands squeezed her own ever tighter.

“It was… It looked like an expensive car, red and chrome with no windows. Like an airplane that got squished from the sides. The driver was a canine. Looked like a goldie. Drunk and wore a snazzy red dress. Her human sitting next to her was wearing a black suit and-”

Noelle’s hand suddenly clenched surprisingly tight for the amount of muscles left in them. Her eyes went wide and pupils shrunk to pinpricks. Her jaw gaped in a silent gasp and trembled, every single dirty grey and white hairs on her body rose until her hide could’ve been used as a scouring pad.

“Her... Her WHAT?!” she shrieked.

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Pub: 18 Nov 2022 03:37 UTC
Edit: 13 Apr 2023 23:19 UTC
Views: 2504