Critique: Pixel Parks Rejects: Gwen - a Skunkette's story

[hara-surya]

These are the first two scenes in a continuing storyline about Furries who were created as amusement park workers, who've retired and have to live like ordinary people. The setting is roughly 100 years in the future. At some point in the interim there was a widespread war in North America (over fresh water and refugees) leading to an EU-like confederacy of nations in modern day Canada, United States and Mexico called the North American Free Trade Zone. The story is set in a large city named New prima built near (on top of, it's a suburb) modern-day Broken Bow, Nebraska. Pixel Studios parallels Disney, but with more of a focus on Furries.

Glossary:
Bioroid - Biological Android. People assembled from biological material according to a genetic map by 3D printers and nano-machines. Because of an industry agreement they're only made to look distinctly non-human. Bioroids as "born" fully adult, but legal minors and retire by 10yo. (The people paying for their manufacture are their legal guardians, but it's a fiction to allow slave-like indentured-servitude.)

Furry - A racial slur against bioroids. The kind of slur that people say as the "F-word" in polite company.

Cruella - Someone who dates/has sex with Bioroids for the thrill of it, with no intention of making a real emotional connection. The Bioroid in question is their Fur Coat. The term applies to any gender.

 

[hara-surya]

“Hey there,” Gwen said as she peeked her head into Nick’s studio. “I got you some NewCap.”

“Oh?” He seemed genuinely surprised at the appearance of the skunk-like Bioroid standing at the rolling metal door. Unlike the night before she had on high-waist jeans and a button-up shirt tied in a mid-20th century rockabilly look which she completed with her black hair tied in a bouffant by a bandanna. He wiped the sweat from his forehead and added, “Hey, I didn’t expect to see you here.”

“You gave me your card, remember?” She held up the paper business card she’d long since scanned and filed away.

“Yeah, I did, didn’t I…” she glanced around distractedly. “You’re from the club?”

“Wildcats, yep,” She hooked her thumbs in her belt loops. “I was decidedly more naked then.”

“Yeah,” his voice dropped with embarrassment. “Look, I was really drunk and wasn’t thinking—” Gwen cocked her head to the side ready for what she knew the human was about to say, “if you want to buy something that’s great, but…”

“You said you wanted to go for coffee so I brought some to you,” Gwen said with a hint of assertiveness. “I like artists though I can’t draw to save my life. You said you work with primitive robotics and I was curious about it.”

“Well, um,” he stepped back from his workbench where a vaguely female form made of curved white plastic, black and chrome metal pipes sat hunched over with wires attached to various points. “This is it.”

“That’s a modified Synco SX-12?” Gwen asked taking a step closer.

“It’s a Synco SW-10,” he corrected and just looked at the paper cup she handed him. “It’s an older more industrial model.”

“She’s missing a ton of joint panels,” Gwen glanced around to see he’d stashed them nearby.

“It’s the look I’m going for,” he took a defensive step toward the robot.

“Looks pretty stock besides that,” Gwen took the hint and backed off.

“The programming’s as much the art as the shell,” his voice took on a decidedly nasty tone. “Look, I’m pretty busy.”

“Mind if I watch?” She asked.

“No, I, uh,” he glanced around again and Gwen put things together.

“You’re embarrassed I showed up?” She asked.

“No, just—”

“The skunkette stripper you couldn’t keep your hands off last night showed up in your real life and you’re worried someone’s going to see.” Gwen’s body control implant automatically tried to dampen her adrenaline levels, but she overrode it with another thought. “You were chatting me up like you were genuinely wanting to know me like a real person and now that I’m here you’re scared someone might find out!”

“It’s—”

“I might be 13 years old, but I’m not a child,” she shouted. “For all intents and purposes, I’m a 32-year old woman. You can treat me like an adult.”

“Nick, Who the hell are you talking to?” A skinny bald-headed human woman walked out from the door leading into the building. She had low-cut jeans over bony hips and pieces of surgical tape covering dime-sized nipples on a nearly flat chest. “Who the fuck is this walking fart?”

“She was just leaving,” Nick said to me and walked over to the woman. “Why don’t you go back in?”

She pushed him back and walked a step closer to Gwen. “Who the fuck are you?”

“I’m the ‘walking fart’ your boyfriend was trying to get a free fuck from last night at the strip club,” Gwen said as her implant attempted to damper her rising anger again. “He probably could have gotten one if he didn’t turned out to be a fur coating dick.”

“Bullshit,” she pointed her filter-less cigarette at Gwen. “He doesn’t like Furries.”

“Coulda fooled me,” Gwen fought back the urge to turn tail and soak the woman in stink. “He was hitting on two or three of us all night.”

“Nick is this true?” She whipped over to look at him who’d backed against the wall. “You want to fuck a walking carpet?”

“I was there with friends and got really drunk,” he murmured. “You know how stupid I get when I’m drunk.”

“Oh. Fuck. You.” Gwen said trying to control her trembling. She weighed whether they were worth dealing with an assault charge for spraying the two of them and instead threw her coffee at the guy and walked away.

 

[hara-surya]

“Gwen? Are you OK?” Janet asked as her roommate slammed the door. “Whoa, you reek. What happened?”

“I was so pissed off I sprayed a tree,” she said casually as she headed to the bathroom. “Fucking asshole.”

“That guy from yesterday?” Janet asked following her to the door.

“I don’t want to talk about it,” she stripped out of her ruined clothes and stepped into the shower.

“Want me to burn your clothes?” Janet asked.

“Recycle them,” she said as the rabbit-woman reached down to pick the musk damp clothes. “You know how nice and sweet he was last night? Gave me his card and all that?”

“Cruella?” Janet asked as she carried the clothes with as few fingers as possible to the chute on the wall. The nano assembler in the basement hummed with new feedstock.

“His girlfriend came out and she was gross,” Gwen said. “I’d swear she was a malnourished kid if she wasn’t so tall.”

“She was tall?” Janet asked.

“Not like crazy tall, but human tall,” Gwenn explained as she soaped her her body. “I’m kind of short.”

“Tell me about it,” Janet struggled to get up on the toilet to sit while they talked. “I had a guy tell me last night he liked Lepus because we could suck him off without having to get on our knees.”

“You’re just tiny,” Gwen said and added after a pause, “I never thought about it like that. You probably could.”

“What?”

“Suck a guy off while standing upright,” Gwen stopped lathering for a moment. “I’d actually like to see that.”

“Yeah, it’s real fun gagging on a guy’s dick while he’s trying to neck-fuck you,” Janet groaned. “So she was skinny.”

“Skinny,” Gwen continued. “Flat as a board. Bony, sunken face. Bald head.”

“Was she a Romero?” Janet suggested.

“No, she had a pallor,” Gwen said after a moment.

“New ones don’t have that problem,” Janet suggested. “They burn so many calories just staying mobile they can’t really put on weight. There’s a reason people call them zombies.”

“Maybe also because they’re literally the walking dead,” Gwen said. “Look, I don’t want to talk about it. If the guy’s fucking a corpse but he’s embarrassed about me because I have fur I don’t know what to say. Hell, if he fucks the corpse he probably fucks the robots, too.”

“Robots?” Janet asked.

“He was working on an ancient domestic robot with a female frame,” Gwen turned off the shower and turned on the dryer. “Like the ones with with bioplastic cases and giant tits that happened to have aftermarket “anatomically correct” parts made for them.”

“Probably uses hydraulic fluid for lube,” Janet added over the roar of the dryer.

“Probably fucks the robot so he can imagine he’s fucking a woman,” Gwen said.

“Nothing wrong with having a small chest,” Janet said.

“So why’d you get the big fake tits put in once you retired from Pixel?” Gwen asked as the dryer shut down and she pulled the door back.

“I never really had a flat chest,” Janet shrugged. “You did, though.”

“And there’s a reason I got Bob and Tom put in,” she juggled her breasts.

Janet didn’t want to argue. Gwen was quite literally born to play Naomi the Punk Skunk for Pixel Parks who embodied the skinny heroin chic of the late 20th century. After retiring she’d had extensive cosmetic treatments to fit a more contemporary 22nd century idea of beauty. For her part, Janet’s role was Miss Rachael, a rabbit priestess from a different cartoon property owned by Pixel, who other than being barely past a meter tall to the top of her head had pleasant curves. Both were assembled from biological components and decanted from a vat of organic soup rather than gestated from a pair of gametes and born. Their legal status ranged from second-class citizens in the North American Free Trade Zone to death-on-sight in the Most Glorious Saudi Caliphate.

“So what are you going to do about it?” Janet asked.

“Scream at the moon and move on with life?” Gwen shrugged as she rubbed a towel across her body to get the last of the dampness out.

“Wow,” Janet touched her chest with mock surprise, “has Gwen finally outgrown Naomi? Or are you planning on doing something terrible and don’t want it to appear premeditated.”

Gwen glared at Janet. “I plead the Fifth.”

“Seventh,” Janet corrected her. “You watch too many 20th century reruns.”

She rolled her eyes and tossed the towel at the smaller woman, knocking her off the toilet seat onto the floor.