Neon Dream of Organic Toys C2

Chloe rolled her eyes as she listened and watched her mother continue to scream, cry, pace back and forth their little home, and sweat intensely. Fortunately only some of it was directed towards her with the majority of it just letting out the stress and worry that had plagued her heart for years.

At first it was in terror, about how humans never forgave nor forgot and that the same vindictive rage was what pushed them to become kings of the world. They would come for her, dragging her out the door kicking and screaming. She would be stuffed into the back of their car and the last image she would have of her family were their bloody chunks slowly sliding down the walls. Afterwards they’d make her suffer, healing her wounds and curing her of diseases so that she might suffer for many decades in their custody. Then they would preserve her mind and stick it into a robot so she could serve for many, many more decades. At least, that was the story she was told.

Then it was in anger, Chloe had known better than to knowingly risk a human’s life. With a mere two hundred thousand humans in a city of nearly eight million, every human was a minor celebrity in their own right regardless of their actual class and wealth. It was not uncommon to see them surrounded by their own personal cult gang wherever they went. Whether they were there as genuine followers of the human or just out to catch what luck and fortune surrounded them for themselves, she had been incredibly lucky that human had been mostly isolated. Had she struck at the wrong moment she could’ve been torn apart by his crowds of rabid followers.

Chloe sighed in relief as Noelle, her usually tired and soft spoken mother, finally fell into her bed and passed out well after midnight.

And now she wasn’t even allowed outside for the foreseeable future.

Darkness filled the inside of their home after her mother had tied a cloth over their only window and turned off the light. Chloe sighed loudly in defiance of her paranoia. She was sure they wouldn’t go after her. They were drunk out of their minds on a dark night and Trauma Team had gotten to them barely ninety seconds after the crash. There was no way they got her face or were willing to bother wasting time and money to look for her, a scraggly, homeless looking anthro holding a gun described over two-thirds of the population of this city. Pacifica alone was filled with thousands of anthros just like hers.

Despite the full, bright noon blazing upon their little stretch of home only a tiny ray of sun peered in from a rust hole in the wall, just enough that Chloe could stare at an empty burrito packaging to practice her reading.

In the distance she heard a hustle and bustle of Night City. Car horns, expletives, and the occasional NCPD siren, a normal day in the city of dreams.

“Thiamine Mononitrate…” she mumbled, bored out of her mind, “Calcium Propionate…”

She didn’t know what those things were but her mother ordered her to practice pronouncing words that she had never read before. Why exactly, she didn’t know. It wasn’t like she was ever going to attend a school, much less Arasaka Academy like she had been pushed to apply to.

The twins were gone as well, their mother had somehow managed to leave them with a family of rats they were somewhat friendly with, forced to trade a few of the burritos for their services. Usually Chloe cursed the presence of the two annoying toddlers but today she wanted nothing but. For a single moment she even missed the disagreeable task of teaching Mace and Kita to properly clean themselves after pooping, but quickly shook that thought out of her head. Anything was better than that.

The sound of distant gunshots reached her ears like any other day but her boredom increased the sensitivity of her hearing.

Chloe idly picked her nose as she continued listening, indulging on a casual fantasy about shooting up cyberpsychos as a MaxTac Enforcer, screaming around on an AV and getting dropped off in the middle of a gunfight.

The fox looked around for something, anything to do, having already finished with all her assigned chores. While there were still tasks that had to be done all of them involved her leaving their shipping container home.

The small digital clock blinked the time. Her mother wouldn’t be back for another few hours. If she was lucky, Zara would return in three.

In the distance she heard the booming digital voice of a woman seductively advertised yet another item she couldn’t afford.

“Guuuuh!”

Chloe tossed the plastic away back in the bin. She stared at the spots of rust on their ceiling, having already counted and recounted them hours ago. There were seven. Two of them were round. One was had the rough outline of a bottle. The rest were shapeless blobs that would soon leak water if they couldn’t find a big enough sheet of plastic.

She rolled onto her bed of stacked cardboard and closed her eyes. One hour later she opened them, unable to sleep. The sun had baked the inside their home with an unbearable heat. Usually she would spend the late afternoons outside, going inside only when necessary and even then leaving the door wide open to bring in fresh air.

Her ears perked up as she heard a car slowly drive down the road in front their home. She wondered if they were the mercs that her mother was expecting. It quickly drove off after a pause at the stop sign with the bullet holes.

The fox huffed, of course they weren’t. She was a nobody. There was no reason to.

She closed her eyes again, this time managing to fall into a light snooze.

Chloe groggily yelped as she was jumped by a hyperactive Kita and Mace who giggled and laughed about their fun day playing with the rat family’s own children.

“Hey Clo.” Zara tiredly yawned as she closed the door behind her.

Chloe sleepily mumbled her response, rubbing her eyes as her sister switched on the light.

“Mom says to eat dinner without her, she’s gonna be late again.”

Her stomach twisted at the thought of her mother being tossed onto a filthy mattress while an even filthier male used her like a toy, tearing off her clothes so he could enjoy her nude body. Flashes of her abuse popped into her mind as Chloe imagined what kind of torture she was going through.

Chloe gripped the handle of their dented pan til her knuckles turned white. She had witnessed it happen exactly once when one of her mother’s coworkers drunkenly visited their home one night.

The then-child was told to stay in bed and keep her eyes closed as she listened to the moans, groans, sobbing, rough slapping, and wet squelching of… something. Curiosity took hold and she slowly turned her head to peek at what momma was doing.

The unknown male was over her, slapping and hitting her butt with his hips before forcefully pulling away with an audible pop and making her yelp in pain. The stink of burning fur and the pathetic whimper of a broken woman filled their home as he put out his cigarette on her back and stuffed her gaping, despoiled holes with crumpled up bills, stumbling out a few minutes later.

If she had been just a little older, just a little more knowledgeable about sex, she would’ve taken Zara’s shotgun and made him deepthroat the barrel to swallow a hot load as retribution for forcing her mother to do the same.

He didn’t even have the decency to be a human. At least sex with a human ended pleasurably, or at least painlessly as they did not possess knots that they could tear out of their female’s sensitive holes without care. Even if it wasn’t for love a human would pay well. Even if he didn’t a human-sired pregnancy always had the chance of a human offspring which was a blessing in its own right. Being fucked by an anthro only guaranteed another fuzzball doomed to a wretched life of poverty and being gunned down one day, not even worthy of being counted as a statistic.

They ate dinner and went to sleep.

Chloe, having already slept earlier, simply laid in bed and closed her eyes. What drowsiness lulled her mind was soon erased by the horrible sound of splashing water, most likely her mother cleaning herself out after another day of spreading her legs for her coworkers to make some extra Eddies.

She slowly opened the door and entered. The foil that covered the pan crinkled as it was lifted up and the lone remaining burrito, still warm, was removed and quickly eaten. Her mother rolled into bed, sighed exactly once, and fell asleep.

Morning, the same routine. Each of them had half a burrito for breakfast, with the other half to be eaten later as lunch. Mace complained about a tummyache but he and his twin were soon dragged behind Zara and Noelle and left at the rat family’s for the day, leaving Chloe alone again.

A piercing silence replaced the voices of her family, broken only by the faint swishing of her broom as it cleared the floor. Luckily her mother had allowed her to keep the lights on that day, with bright, clear skies it would be difficult to see any light even if it managed to escape. The cloth over the window was to be left as it, no exceptions.

More gunshots. A gang war, maybe.

Make the beds but no laundry, if she was stuck inside she wouldn’t have the sun to dry them. Done and finished within an hour, with the only reason it taking this long was because Kita had wet herself again and the cheap fake wood shelf had rotted soft. Luckily they had replacements on hand.

A car slowly rumbled down the nearest road, stopping for a moment at the sign then driving off.

Chloe hated having to purify the collected rainwater as it filled up their home with unbearable humidity and then a heavy fog that clung to everything, especially since she was not allowed to open the door. They needed to, unfortunately. Rain was the cleanest source of water they had access to and even then it was still full of dust and other aerial pollutants. Using a monster of copper tubes and a large pot that was once owned by someone who had distilled his own spirits, they could at least drink water that wouldn’t put them in a coma. At least their power was hooked up to a forgotten outlet and was thus “free”. Wash and replace when done.

She slowly munched on the other half of her burrito for lunch and looked around, having run out of chores an hour ago yet again. This time she pulled out a magazine to practice her reading but the glitzy pictures distracted her from the words. It was filled with humans, suited up with little lines of silver and gold running across their faces, a method to both hide their cybernetic augments and to subtly exhibit their immense, unimaginable wealth.

And then there were the anthro ladies, standing tall and proud but still only bedroom toys and dressed up novelties of their human masters.

She stared in awe at sheep lady who had been modified to grow stripes of crimson and gold wool right out of her hide, which was then kitted into a short dress without the wool even being sheared off of her. Then there was a leopard with golden teeth and glowing pupils, dressed in strangely primitive clothing which was still clearly designer. Perhaps her owner enjoyed her more tribal past.

Even here, with the paper of the magazine creased and worn with age, and ink stained with water, Chloe could see just how different their coats appeared compared to hers. Theirs was smooth and gleaming with exotic soaps and oils, and although she had never smelled any she could imagine the sweet scent of the expensive perfumes they covered themselves with.

The fox brushed some of the fur on her arm. Instantly a cloud of dust appeared and a shower of grit rained down on the magazine. Using a few drops of rainwater she experimentally scrubbed a little patch on the back of her wrist, growling an annoyed huff after only managing to get rid of the dirt but not actually cleaning her seemingly permanently stained fur.

It had been so long since she had seen the actual color of her coat. Perhaps she really was just a grey fox.

She turned the page and stared at the advertisement filled with Kang Tao’s signature orange as they showed off their newest model firearm as of the ancient magazine’s printing.

Her ears pricked up as she heard the cheerful giggling of her siblings before they burst inside.

“Hey Clo.” Zara tiredly yawned as she closed the door behind her.

Chloe sleepily mumbled her response, tossing the magazine back into the box of reading material and pulling out the pan to start heating up dinner.

She twitched her ears as she heard the splash of water despite all her siblings having entered the home.

“Mom’s not working late tonight?”

Zara shook her head, “Nah, everyone left early…”

Chloe nodded slowly. If it wasn’t the usual gonk then her mother would have gone around looking for anyone else who was willing to pay for some fun to release the stresses of work. Some of them were nice enough that she didn’t mind too much if they laid with her mother.

“That’s pretty weird, though…” she replied, not entirely interested in the topic but eager to have a conversation after a day of tortuously silent boredom.

Zara dropped her things and began to peel her sweaty clothes off of her, “Yeah I know. Even the boss delta’d before lunch. Shit, any day we don’t have to hear him screaming at us is a good day.”

“Why’d he leave?”

Her sister huffed in relief as she was released from her musty shirt prison and shrugged, “Fuck, I dunno. One of the girls near the window said she saw a pig so… NCPD probably snooping around again, I guess. We hid for an hour but nothing really happened.”

“Did you see him?” Chloe absentmindedly asked.

“Nah, only heard his car leaving.” Zara picked up a square of cardboard and fanned herself, humming as she felt the cool wind carry away the day’s sweat, “Boss probably didn’t have a bribe ready.”

“Huh.”

Her sister put down the fan and placed one hand on her jaw and the other on her temple, twisting her neck to squeeze out a few impressively satisfying pops then repeating on the other side.

"We even left early after we finished all our shit. Oh yeah, today was a good day.”

“Hello, Chloe.” her mother’s quietly tired, but eternally happy voice followed the creak of the door opening.

“Hey, mom. Good day today?”

Noelle paused and smiled gently, “We had an easy day, yes. And you were right, not having to do extra work once in a while was really refreshing.”

“That’s… good to hear.” Chloe tried to erase the image that popped into her mind and raised the steaming pan, “I got dinner ready. We can eat whenever.”

“Thank you, dear.” Noelle turned to her youngest, “Kita, Mace, have you two washed up?”

Their mischievous giggles betrayed the truth, their mother put her hands on her hips and pretended to be angry, “No dinner until you do!”

Their little feet pattered as they raced out the door and to the outdoor wash bucket.

“Zara, dear, you have to make them wash up before entering the house!”

The eldest sister giggled nervously, “Sorry mom, I tried to hang onto them but they ran off first.”

Noelle took the rolled up smacking newspaper from the wall and gave Zara’s head a light but audible tap, “Well you get out there and make sure they wash up properly, do you hear me young lady?”

“Yes, mom…” she groaned, rolling her eyes playfully as she followed them outside.

“Thank you, dear.”

They ate dinner and went to sleep. Same as yesterday and the day before that.

Chloe, having yet again slept during the day and having yet again been barred from going out, tossed and turned for hours. It was too hot to cover herself with a blanket but too cold to go without it. Her ears itched and she thought she felt a bug crawling on her legs. But most of all, she was outright bored.

She missed seeing the sun and stars, the wind that carried the stink of sewage and pollutants, she even missed seeing the skyline of Night City’s wealthy center. The boredom strangled her, it clenched at her throat until she couldn’t take it anymore. She needed to breathe. How many days had she been stuck inside?

And she was sure her mother was just being paranoid.

Her eyes peeked open and twitched around to confirm that everyone was asleep. Living near a bridge, being able to sleep despite the noise was a necessary skill. Her mother and Zara would only wake up if they were shaken awake. The twins had once slept right through a shooting that involved bullets flying above their heads.

The damp cardboard compressed silently under Chloe’s feet, having been crushed and flattened many times before. She jumped as her hand brushed up against the table. Holding her breath as she pulled the door open, the fox turned around and readied herself to slam it shut and jump back into bed at the first sign of anyone stirring.

She held her hand up to block Zara's closed eyes from the shimmering moonlight as she slid out of the open door, taunting her with a majestic view that she could not see, not while she had yet to escape. Chloe paused, holding her breath to confirm that everyone was asleep one last time.

The plastic barely creaked under her feather light steps as the young fox closed the door and disappeared into the night.

Chloe breathed once and let her gut feeling drive for a bit. She scampered through the wastelands of Pacifica, deftly jumping through holes in fences and walls like a thread through the eye of a needle. These old paths and routes were burned into her heart from her childhood spent sneaking around and she felt more than a little warmth as her feet stepped on familiar dirt.

The young vixen dropped down inside an open storm drain which still trickled a little water to avoid the local gang of criminal trash who were busy smoking and shooting up their arms full of the latest drugs, possibly the very same kind that her mother and sister were cooking up at work. She paused, slowly raising an ear to listen for their movements before ducking inside a complex of covered culverts and drains until she eventually emerged out the side of a retaining wall.

The dark waters of the river calmly flowed out to the sea, the only indicator of its movement being the putrid grey and light yellow foam that floated on top, formed as pollutants were collected and churned as they passed through the network of drains.

She suppressed a cheer as she saw her destination, an old, burnt out car that sat on the bank which overlooked the bay. Conveniently it usually faced the moon head-on, allowing any who sat in its seat a nice view of their planet’s closest friend. And it appeared that tonight was one of those nights with no clouds or particularly bright advertisements ruining the sky.

With one final look around to confirm her security, Chloe shook the water from her feet and slid into the driver’s seat, settling into the somehow still comfortable cushions that had been sitting here since she was not even half her current height. She exhaled once and melted into the sticky synthetic leather and leaking plastic foam, relaxing for the first time in what felt like ages, enjoying the cool night air as a welcome change from the usual oven of her prison cell.

The young fox reached above her head and stretched, her short legs not even managing to hit the pedals as she felt the soothing cool of her muscles relaxing after the initial heat of stress. Somehow the moonlight felt warm and inviting, gently pushing her to close her eyes and disappear into the land of dreams. Chloe shook her head, if she fell asleep now her mother would lose her mind when she eventually made it home in the late afternoon.

Although she began to wonder what would even happen if she just… never bothered going home. Maybe her mother would be forced to forgive her if she returned a month later with the keys to their very own apartment she’d rent with the scratch earned from running with the Hayrider gang. Chloe had heard that some of those apartments had vending machines right in them.

It probably wasn’t a good idea to break into one of them but with the money she'd be earning affording food would no longer be an issue anymore. Wouldn’t her mother appreciate that she’d be able to do things lawfully and properly from now on? And wouldn’t they be able to get an actual job now that they had an actual address to give to employers?

Chloe scoffed, if only her mother understood that she was willing to sacrifice for the family just like they did. And what else was she going to do, join her mother and sister to labor away for scraps in that underground factory where she’d be leered and groped by her letch of a boss?

The teen tightened her hands into fists until they began to shake. Despite all her mother’s whining about good, honest work she still helped make substances that destroyed people’s minds. It was, at best, hypocritical.

The more rational part of her mind reminded her that her mother was only against directly hurting people and that she was doing what she needed to do in order to feed this family.

Right?

The vixen shook her head to file away that thought for later. It was too early for this much thinking. And besides, she’d have plenty of time to think once she was returned to her cell. She faced the city center and narrowed her eyes to look for a specific building with a clock projected on its side.

4:32AM

Chloe twitched in surprise and rolled her eyes, sighing as she extracted herself from the vehicle shell. She hadn’t even realized that it was already time to leave.

It only took her a few minutes to reach the open storm drain. Not wanting to walk on the carpet of broken glass and stones that layered the bottom of the drain and deciding to enjoy the limited time she had as a free fox, Chloe climbed out and stepped onto the bare, dead earth that surrounded the concrete ditch. She knew that not only the gang from earlier but everyone in this community were long gone, their late night parties having come to a close by the time the faintest orange haze ever so slightly peeked over the horizon. Anyone who’d want to rape her at this time of day would either be too sleepy and/or drunk to even walk. And that was assuming they hadn’t been knocked out properly after shooting up their arms with whatever drug was in fashion.

The nightlights that illuminated Night City’s many advertisements began to switch off.

Despite knowing she was most likely safe, the fox still maintained a brisk walk as she passed abandoned buildings and dark alleyways. This was her favorite time of day, when the heat and grime of the day before had been washed away by the refreshing chill of the early morning before anyone could ruin it.

A car rumbled nearby.

Every hair on her body rose up and stiffened into bristles as a mysterious tickle appeared out of nowhere on the back of her neck. Though she stumbled and almost smashed her face into the weed-infested concrete she somehow managed to keep walking casually until she had a chance to suddenly turn into an alleyway.

That was the same car that had been driving around her home.

Taking the opportunity, Chloe sprinted through the short alley until she reached an open area. A dead end unfortunately, but thankfully absolutely littered with garbage. Finding a suitable hiding space behind a dumpster the fox managed to squeeze herself in and cover the rest of her body with a few discarded bags, years of living in trash around allowing her to do so without a single audible crinkle.

She held her breath and froze, cursing her mother for spreading the contagion of paranoia to her. Even if it was the same car the driver was probably just some random person who just started a new job or was just passing through the road near her home. There was no reason for her to be hunted.

A young female voice with a distinctly unique accent cut through the empty morning air from the distance, “Pause here! Lemme hunt this house-gap!”

A deep sense of unease filled her stomach but she kept quiet as she thought of even more excuses. There was always a chance she was just in the wrong place at the wrong time, mercs and hired gangs were always snooping around dark alleyways. No reason to believe they were here for her, right?

She cocked her legs to ready them for a sudden exit if she needed one.

The mystery woman’s heavy, echoing stomps calmed her a bit. If the mystery person was actually on the hunt she would have been stepping much more quietly lest her prey be spooked off.

Chloe’s eyes narrowed in confusion as she walked past her dumpster. She was nearly Zara’s height, wearing dirty white hiking boots, a khaki vest and pants that would not have looked out of place in a sim-safari, and what appeared to be a short skirt formed out of the countless wires and unknown electronic equipment around that hung from her belt. Her head was covered with fluffed up light brown hair, tied neatly down the back in a ponytail. Her knees bent in the opposite way of Chloe’s and for a brief moment the fox thought that she was being pursued by a human child of all things until she walked under the last lit streetlamp.

Her long, thin tail swished and twirled in thought, short snout scrunched up in frustration as her large ears scanned the area like a chameleon’s eyes. She was some kind of primate, one of humanity’s closest cousins. But what almost forced Chloe to gasp and give away her position was her eyes.

They were large, larger than any eyes she had seen on an anthro of any kind while her pupils were only tiny black dots in the middle. And they glowed an eerie blue, the electronic traces of the highly advanced optics making her eyes appear weirdly bloodshot, clearly visible to Chloe even at a distance.

“Hey Joy! Got anything?!” a gruff, male voice called from the entrance of the alleyway.

The woman, apparently named Joy, took one last look around before yelling back.

“Negs! Square’s blank!”

She began to walk back, past Chloe’s dumpster towards her ride and partner.

Though it may have not been appropriate to comment on it at that moment, Chloe thought Joy’s distinct accent and chippy voice sounded rather charming. She was definitely not from around here.

She breathed a sigh of relief as she heard the two exchange a few more words then drive off. They weren’t looking for her or they hadn’t found her at all. Either way, she was free to leave and make some noise if she had to.

“Bleg.” she spat as she tossed away her cover, trying to get the taste of a bitter, rotten liquid that had flowed out of one of the trash bags she had accidentally punctured. She hissed and cursed as a sharp piece of metal cut her hand as she attempted to extract herself from the pile.

Her shirt was in tatters, her lower half only partially covered by a curtain formed from ribbons of cloth. Other than that she wore nothing else.

Chloe looked towards the end of the alleyway. She would have liked to make her escape through a different route just in case they could still see the entrance but she found no other way out other than an extremely risky climb on the outside of a five story building without the assistance of sunlight.

With her route home set, the teen shrugged once and began to turn when the back of her neck began to tingle once more.

“Firm mark, that’s her.”

Chloe’s ears twitched as she spun around, sensing both her whisper and the distant screech of her vehicle accelerating towards them.

Icy blue eyes peeked around the corner, glaring and illuminating the panicked young vixen.

Chloe’s blood froze, then boiled in anger towards herself at being outplayed by such a simple ruse of pretending to leave. And that she should have listened to her mother.

What an idiot she had been.

Joy’s eyes began to flash rapidly, just enough to induce a minor headache.

“Why the-”

The merc’s eyebrows narrowed in confusion.

“Tryin’ ta cook ‘er but this vixen’s got some serious brain-freeze!”

Chloe snapped out of her panic. What exactly this primate was trying to do she didn’t know, but she knew that the window to her escape was closing fast.

Somehow Joy’s already large eyes grew even larger as her target dropped to all fours and charged. With her sharp teeth bared and throat rumbling from her growl, the rush of the hunt returned Chloe to the world of her ancestors. It was a world of hardship and strength, where the weak, stupid, and unlucky were eaten alive. Where great forests of tall trees hid many dangers in the darkness and only the best lived to become legends.

Sort of like Night City.

Feral instinct took over as Chloe blitzed towards her hunter. Almost in slow motion the fox saw Joy swing out from behind the corner to block the alleyway, fumbling for something on her belt. And yet despite all the risks she continued and struck. With her maw stretched wide and launching herself from her low position, Chloe skillfully closed her jaw around the primate’s thin neck and began to bite down, stopping only until she felt the skin give to her teeth and began tasting blood.

Joy howled, loud enough to not only hurt the vixen’s ears but also to tickle her tongue with the vibrations from her victim’s throat. Joy grasped and wildly beat Chloe’s head in a futile attempt to force her away but her thin fingers were more at home swiping on a touchscreen than attempting to physically fight, much less actually win. The fox continued to bite down, showing her the same mercy that she had been shown.

It was in that moment that Chloe understood the hype around real meat.

A bullet whizzed past her head, breaking the young fox out of her bloodlust-induced trance. She relaxed, forcing the crying primate to back out of her mouth and sending her tumbling onto the cracked asphalt with a swift kick to the gut.

Chloe didn’t look back as she ran from a car, yelled at, and shot at for the second time this week. She tore through the ruined district, still running on her hands and feet, gracefully jumping over trash and debris as she looked for a way to make her way off this street. Right as she thought the car was about to catch up to her she found one of her many secret passageways.

She ducked under a rusting but still mostly intact fence and into a large, open yard, her mind so drugged up with adrenaline that she didn’t even notice their car smashing into and being stopped by the fence right after she had gone through it.

Home. That was where she needed to be. With her mother and siblings and all the burritos she could eat. Her mind had no space to think of anything else.

The morning sun began to peek out from over the horizon, illuminating the city of night with the first rays of day.

“Joy! Get back in here, you’re fucking bleeding!” The driver’s gruff, commanding voice boomed across the yard.

“BB’s got me for now!” even at a distance her voice was clearly strained and raspy, “Wheel ‘round and keep an eye on my blinker, Doug!”

Chloe heard Joy’s partner curse loudly once then floor the motor before the familiar stomping of the primate’s boots on dry dirt reached her ears. Now was the time to run.

The fox didn’t dare glance backwards, nor did she need to. More often than not she saw a flash of blue reflecting off of a particularly shiny piece of metal as she stormed through the ruined, graffiti-marked remains of a parking garage, climbing up multiple levels to wear out her wounded immediate pursuer as much as she could. Chloe blinked the tears out of her eyes as the thudding of Joy's boots taunted her with whatever future awaited her.

She slammed through the sliding doors of the empty elevator shaft that stood at the very end of the garage and flew down, its once fancy and stylish windows giving her both a good view of her destination and an escape route as all of the glass had been broken years prior. On any other day she would have screamed, wet herself, then splattered at the bottom and died an embarrassing death. But today her blood flowed with adrenaline and her mind reacted perfectly and instantly, as the instinct blessed to her by a faraway ancestor guided her to safety.

Chloe twirled in the air, expertly twisting herself so that she would not land on her face but on her hands and feet, her perfect landing only broken by the stagnant puddle at the bottom.

The familiar stink of rusting iron brought her back to her senses. Home was only one or two streets away.

And yet she still saw flashes of Joy’s glowing eyes in the puddles in front of her.

Chloe slammed into a wall as she went around a corner a little too fast and slipped. It was not until she glanced back that she realized she had slipped on her own blood. Her paws and palms were shredded from running on all fours for this long, stinging and burning from the mix of grit and oily pollutants that stuck to her bloodied skin.

The vixen hissed as she rose and continued to escape, now reduced to limping slowly as she realized just how painful it was to even walk. The sound of Joy’s boots were thankfully far away. Chloe allowed herself a moment to breath then resumed sprinting to make it home first. The logistics behind hiding in her flimsy home to escape two armed mercs unfortunately didn’t reach her mind.

She reached the end of the alleyway and jumped out into the street that bordered her scrapyard. Her eyes were blurry from her tears and battered, destroyed body in anguish with every step she took, but she had made it. She would readily accept whatever punishment her mother had in store for her. All she wanted was to lie down and sleep.

“Momma!”

The car returned and her world turned to fire.

It slammed into her side, sending her twirling through the air like a short length of rope being thrown until she bounced once and skidded to a stop on the dirt right in front of her house, lying face down barely a five second sprint away from her front door.

She tried to stand, but failed. Chloe stared backwards for a few moments before her mind realized that, just like what she had done to that human, her legs were now bent in ways that should not have been possible. The shock managed to ease the white-hot tendrils of agony into a dull throbbing that radiated from her multiple shattered bones.

Chloe watched as Zara slammed the door open, shotgun in hand. From behind she saw her mother, wide eyes and still bloodshot from lack of sleep.

It was then she realized that she had been screaming. Her sore throat stung as she let loose a hoarse, pained, but shrill scream. Not from the pain her conscious mind still hadn’t registered but from the terror of being pursued. They were right behind her but her home was just within reach. If only she could extend her arm just a little bit further she’d be home and safe and could forget about all this.

She saw Zara begin to run, only to stop as an absolutely giant boot descended from above and landed next to her shoulder, sending up little pebbles and dust in a miniature earthquake.

The dull brown synthleather boots he wore a flashed before her eyes, replaced by sterile, bright teal in the next moment. The man wearing a white visor and mask knelt beside her, scanning her face with a handheld tablet before nodding to his partner who was also wearing a white, red, and teal combat suits. He looked back upwards, pointing towards Zara and ordering her to stand back and to put her weapon down.

A dopey grin stretched across Chloe’s face as her mind tried to make sense of everything.

Trauma Team was here, they could take care of her. She was going to be fine. Everything was going to be fine. The teal and yellow hypo injector was roughly shoved against her sweaty neck. She watched as the medic’s thumb pushed down the little button, breaking the seal with a snappy hiss before a needle shot out and pierced her skin to deliver a cool, refreshing ease that filled her body but made her nose feel strangely numb.

The fox didn’t resist as she was turned onto her side, hallucinating mind trusting that the professionals knew better than she did. The medic applied another injection of Bounce Back into her neck. And then another. And then a fourth.

Chloe let out a weak, scratchy laugh as the thought of them using four whole medical injectors amused her. She must have gotten the Platinum Coverage Plan without even realizing it. The whole package, seven-minute response time or your money back, unlimited nanite stabilizers during transit, everything that she had heard in Night City’s many advertisements.

The beaten fox took the opportunity to look back at her family, feeling plenty better already after four injections of life saving fluids. She saw her sister screaming, opening and closing her mouth although her bloodied ears only heard a muffled yell. Her mother shoved the twins back inside roughly and stood next to Zara, trembling hands half reached out as if she wanted to run out and help but couldn’t.

It broke Chloe’s heart to see her mother unable to move but Trauma would shoot her dead if she interfered. They would take their client to a specialty clinic to be placed under the care of a skilled ripperdoc and when she was all better again she’d even have the option of being flown home in one of their AVs.

It was then that Zara raised her shotgun.

Time slowed to a crawl as the Trauma Medic who had been guarding Chloe reached for his holster. The horror and realization of what would come next combined with the adrenaline boosters that had come with her injections granted her one final burst of energy.

The fox grabbed a leg of his pants which were no longer teal, but a dirty dark green that now sported one bloody handprint. Chloe involuntarily growled as she fought the sharp pain in her limbs and reached out with her other hand, somehow through sheer force of will managing to hook her fingers into his right cuff.

For a split second she saw a flash of her own reflection in the polished chrome of the mean looking revolver as it was being raised and almost puked.

Her face had been plastered with the mix of the chalky dirt she had been thrown into and the blood which poured from the open wound where her left ear had once been, turning her into a grotesque, freakish parody of a Japanese Geisha, the same blood gluing down her right ear down onto her head. Her eyes were sunken and dark but her pupils had shrunk into pinpricks from the chase, making her appear almost like a rabid feral which was not helped by the fact that part of her upper lip had split open, forcing her snout into baring her dull fangs.

All she had to do was stay home.

Chloe raised her head and shrieked in absolute desperation, resting her meager strength into pulling down his heavily muscled right arm as much as she could before he could shoot her sister. She didn’t know what exactly she had screamed, only that she had screamed hard enough to spray blood all over the pig’s face.

The hallucinations about any Trauma Team medic had disappeared completely, replaced by a tall, robust pig who’s round belly slightly bulged out of his purple tactical vest and armor. He stared back with wide eyes in both shock and pity at the ragged little fox who clung to his side, too stunned to even blink out her blood.

The loud, booming roar of Zara’s shotgun broke them out of their stupor but not before a hefty slug of lead slammed into his shoulder pad.

“Motherfucker!” the pig, whom Chloe assumed was the Doug Joy had called out to earlier, howled through gritted teeth as he shoved her backwards into Joy's embrace, landing hard enough against the primate's chest to knock the air out of both of their lungs. He raised his revolver, this time without a little fox hanging off his arm, and fired back.

Zara’s body was instantly slammed into the thin sheet metal behind her as if she weighed nothing, leaving a large dent in the wall as she slowly slid down and went limp. Her shotgun was flung out of her hands, smacking Noelle in the head before dropping to the ground with a clatter.

Joy began dragging the limp Chloe backwards into the car. Even if she had any energy at this point her leg bones were now nothing but splinters. Not being able to resist or break free from her grip, Chloe cried out for her mother one last time, letting out a pathetically weak bleat that still felt like knives slicing up her aching throat with every vibration.

She watched as her mother, despite her weakness and pregnancy, immediately dropping to all fours and charging at Doug in one final act of stupid, futile, but ultimately motherly love. What exactly happened next Chloe didn’t see, only hearing her mother’s feeble yelp and a dull thud of her body landing in the dirt from inside the car.

Chloe laid across the stained fabric seats in the back of their vehicle completely still, her exhausted and collapsed mind not even realizing that she should be crying.

Joy slowly slid into the passenger’s seat, weakly slamming the door closed behind her. She glanced backwards at Chloe, her giant blue eyes flashing as she scanned their prize, making sure she was not going to die anytime soon.

The car shook suddenly and sank as Doug entered the driver’s seat. He barely fit, having to duck his head just to look out of the windshield and his sheer heft making the entire vehicle lean to the left. Joy hissed in pain as the sudden movement forced the bloody cloth she was holding against her wounded neck to move slightly.

“What a fucking mess.” Doug growled, angrily punching the steering wheel before cranking the engine back to life.

She watched through the window as the tops of the giant piles of scrap metal and trash that she had known all her life slowly slide backwards and disappear forever. The sky went dark then light again as they passed under the bridge she had spent many years hiding under. A few minutes later even the stink of open sewage stopped flowing in from the air vents as neon and brushed aluminum replaced the rust and flaking paint of the district she had once called home.

It was then Chloe began to cry.