Futurama: From little Popplers Omicronian bin Lrrrs grow

Hello everybody. My name's OldOldYorker and I'm a recovering Amyholic whose becoming hopelessly addicted to harder stuff. Though this story ain't just gonna be about those 'inferior genetic scum'.

Violet Dawn
Chapter 1: Odorous Dumb Mutants

Tomorrow wouldn't be a particularly special day for Leela. Just the same as yesterday or today.

Her birthday.

Or to be more precise the anniversary of the night she was abandoned at Cookieville Minimum Security Orphanarium.

No doubt she could expect the usual. Hand-me-downs if she was lucky, 'nearly' new from god knows where if she wasn't. Yet she was however about to get the third best birthday present she could ever have dreamed of.

'Get out of my hair!'

Her roommate was leaving.

How come even that Verminous Viridian gets adopted before me?

But not yet for good.

If only I had another eye!

The cyclops attempted to remove the latest decoration added to her hair by that less exotic alien's flexible fingers, struggling to untie her pigtail from the handrail along the top of her bus seat as the others passing her just laughed.

One in the back of my head!

Finally she freed herself from her shackles, escaping past the barred windows only to be lined up with the rest of her fellow inmates by the warden in that thick cloud of exhaust from their yellow bus. Yet as they were marched down the street even the polluted city air seemed fresh to her. She deeply inhaled that tantalizing taste of freedom as she snatched a furtive look into the newspaper vending machines. This was the first time she had seen one for real, even though she had lived up in New New York her whole life.

Virtually.

They all paused to drool on the movie posters as they entered the Odeous Cinemas Googolplex (not affiliated with Mom's Search Network).

Dawn of the Mutants, Planet of the Mutants, They Came from Out a Sewer, Brown Tide...

It would appear 2986 was going to be the best year yet for 'Subterranean Cinema' since the movie industry was saved by its timely resurrection five years ago. It was just a shame they would have to wait another five to see any of them on television.

But they were about to see that redefining film of the genre.

Violet Dawn.

True, Leela had already seen it fourteen times, but she wasn't complaining. She loved mutant movies. It wasn't just the violence which appealed. It was the whole experience. It made her life almost worth living. You could sense the benefit for weeks afterwards, the strengthened bonds among the sibling sentient species, the end to those petty rivalries. One big Earthican family united in hate and fear against those sub-humans.

Even the purple headed stepchild.

It was almost as good as a real family.

Plus it was nice not to be it for a change.

However starring in them was even better. Part of Violet Dawn had been filmed at Cookieville. And not just for its Neo-Gothic charm. The movie was partly inspired by real events almost exactly six years ago when an entirely different sort of horrible green creature shocked everyone by doing the opposite of what every orphan dreamed off and scaled, and shed scales on, the inner fence of the minimum security orphanarium. And who better to play Warden Vogel and his inmates than those orphans themselves and Calculon.

So his orphans got their fifteen minutes of fame, though after editing it was considerably less.

And with that fame came fortune. Mr. Vogel had prudently decided to save their payments for a rainy day when they were older. Old enough to use their free tickets to celebrate somebody's special day.

Flora's leaving day.

'The following movie presentation is rated NC-17.'

Without it being too obvious.

'Daa Daa Daa Daaah'

Naturally he had got all the real money.

'Daa Daa Daa Daaah'

Just in time to fund the further expansion of the bloated military orphanarium complex to deal with the ongoing effects of that last one.

'Da Da - Da Da - Da Da - Da Da - Da Da Da'

Some things never changed.

'Da Da - Da Da - Da Da - Da Daaaaah - Da!'

The ritual of the words Perl and De@n appearing on the plain red screen. That overenthusiastic jingle which all too often was the climax of the whole experience leading into what was always its lowest ebb.

This week in the Universe.

'Dateline Weehauken, New New Jersey. In the Unoccupied Territories of the West Bank of the Hudson, soldiers take to the streets firing guns with the news that yet more hired guns are to be fired by the Democratic Order Of Planets, reducing the local employment rate to a new low of four percent.' On screen some demonstrators aimed bullets at the green bullseye of the giant target, a caricature of Glab Warbucks, the new Amphibioid DOOP leader. 'Ho, Ho! Now that's what I call a twenty-one gun salute lads! Meanwhile within the DOOP headquarters hundreds of his local young fans celebrate as Playboy Private Zapp Brannigan is finally cleared of alleged technical violations of the rights of former Coproli prisoners six years ago, by showering him with gifts of their clothing.'

All but one of the girls in the cinema joined with them in their frenzy.

'U-S-E! U-S-Z!'

Even Leela.

'YOU ESS EE!'

'YOU ESS ZEE!'

But Flora's sentiments were beginning to become fashionable amongst humans, aliens, even humanoid 'aliens', although it would take Leela another fifteen years to even approach her level of disgust for Private Brannigan and that war. After the assassination of the Governor of Maine, J F Tonkin, seven years ago, the Neptunian & Areo-Terrestrial Organisation obviously had to defend itself against the Viridian Vermin of the Order of Planets, the Ether, and the entire Cosmos and their evil empress and terror profiteer Glab Warbucks.

Remember the Governor of Maine!

Though she never did quite understand why NATO focused all their efforts on the small planet of Coprol Eight, formerly more famous for its rich dark matter deposits, rather than at the heart of the Amphibiosan empire.

Remember the Governor of Maine!

And that bit at the DOOP about the mutant leader Colon Bowel profiting from the Dark Matter Oil for Food scandal seemed just a bit too much for her. Yellow Cakes! I know she's weird and all but surely Amphibioids don't eat urinal... Ewww!

Remember the Governor of Maine!

But they must have been involved.

Remember the Governor of Maine!

They had to free the Viridian people from her regime.

Remember the Governor of Maine!

They had to bring them Freedom and Democracy.

Remember the Governor of Maine!

It wasn't a War on Viridians. It was a War on Extremism.

Remember the Governor of Maine!

'It was a War on Terror,' she thought less quietly.

'It was a War on Coprol Eight!'

But it was all such a long time ago. She glanced at the transparently angry sobbing girl behind her, just as invisible as all those others, quite literally. As the green returned around her gills, and the rest of the amphibian's skin, for a fleeting moment she could almost feel sorry for that young creature of color.

Maybe it really is better to never know.

The darkness of the screen slowly gave way to a halfhearted dawn, the partly unmasked orphanarium looking like the old haunted house it was, spawning its shadow into the spooky lilac light.

'When there's no room left in the sewers, the mutants will walk the earth.' That voice that accompanied almost every movie commercial for a thousand years again parodied itself in the opening titles, while in the foreground something resembling that vile green creature she so vaguely remembered erupted from the sewer. That green skin oozing multicolored pus, her ugly Neptunian nose, those – uugh – five fingered hands.

The children enjoyed their disgust.

That furry yellow tail growing from the back of her head they were all sure was her hair, which she used to climb into the inner compound near to where that lonely alien girl had again retreated, just to prove her wrong.

Just as she'd obviously been incorrect about Warden Vogel's reaction to the ugly visitor after she ran to alert him. Leela cringed as she hid behind “that brave protector of society's most vulnerable” or rather the wooden metal creature taking the credit. The director had thought her actions to be a cute ad-lib, though in fact she had just been camera shy.

And so the invasion of Earth began. Submarines surfaced through the city's roads and its citizens enslaved (and lobotomised when ever the mutants fancied a snack). Barricaded shopping malls became filled with mindless creatures.

And Mutants.

Bert the teenage mutant turtle gloated over their failure to Duct Tape and Cover. They'd all forgotten about the toilets.

So civilisation's last remaining hope was a rag-bag militia of beatniks, dropouts and college students known as the Foxerines, led by a 'Zep Flanagan'.

They didn't stand a chance.

The monument rededicated to these defenders of Liberty, Freedom, and Democracy, these poor tired huddled former masses, was covered even more thickly with graffiti than usual, until soon there was just one.

And it was behind him.

As the credits began to roll over the image of the Statue of Liberty sinking into the surrounding sea of sewage, the sound of the mutants' final feast on Zep was soon replaced by that of the audience. Idle chat, gossip, threats:

'Get your stinking paws off me you damn dirty amphibian!'

'Shut up you freak!'

How was it even possible with these seats? 'Untie it now, Marge!'

Flora boldly and baldly did so, though not just in the way she meant, as her row quickly escaped. After being forced to give her a twenty second start by Mr. Vogel, Leela ran out of the cinema to snatch back her two hair ties.

'Keep-away! Keep-away!'

Of course they all knew better than to expect her too.

'Hey one eye, catch!'

She was getting to close. Flora threw them back towards their rightful owner, whom predictably failed to save her from scoring a goal as the red ribbons fluttered backwards into the storm drain.

That surprise present he'd left in her room six years ago. His least worst. The only one that she still had.

Had.

Leela pathetically looked into the murky water, as if she wondered whether at this late stage they might yet learn how to swim as they drowned in the stinking sump, ending their life in this world as they descended into hell. After this, Flora felt it was only right to offer her insincerest apologies, which Leela went on to accept in what she felt to be the appropriate manner.

Fred had sneaked off from the party of children waiting to board the bus, but nobody missed him. He wasn't even on the bus driver's list. But then he would hardly leave without his packet of twenty Marsboros.

As Fred Vogel left the 7^11 to complete his errand, he glanced at the row of vending machines.

'ODERINT DUM METUANT' said the New Roman Times.

'SMELLY DUMB MUTANTS' announced the New New York Post.

'ALIENS ARE ALL SPONGING ASYLUM SEEKERS. Concerns over house prices grow.' shouted the Daily E-Mail.

'ARRRGH!' screamed Flora.

Let them hate so long as they fear, thought and fought Leela.