“What’s this say on this t-shirt, Dumbass?” I said, a shit-eating grin spreading across my bill. It had been almost a week since I had given my implant its new name, and it still made me feel warm and fuzzy inside every time I used it. The milestone I had gotten when I named Dumbass had also been my favorite so far.

New Milestone: Cognomination!

Congratulations! You have named a living being for the first time! Normally, this milestone is unlocked when naming a pet or a child. But even though you’re the progenitor of dozens and dozens of little ducklings, you never stuck around long enough to give any of them their own ducking name, did you? You’re a real deadbeat duck, aren’t you, Flap?

Reading it again made my grin grow so much I nearly split my bill in half. Dumbass hated its dumbass name, and I knew I had finally struck a nerve in the demented implant when that milestone popped. I wasn’t an idiot. I knew Dumbass was behind all the colorful language. It had almost admitted as much the second day we were together. The milestones were more or less real, though. Dumbass told me it was part of the Gallic's achievement based caste system. More milestones meant you could learn better skills through your implant, which leads to a higher status in their society.

You got bonus points for earning unique milestones, especially ones that other Gallics hadn’t unlocked before. According to Dumbass, I had a whole duckton of unique milestones on account of me being not only the first Earthling with an implant, but also because I’m the only red-breasted merganser to become sapient. Plus, I had also inherited a lot of milestones from that Russell Crowe guy. There was one that Dumbass said was really special.

New Milestone: Academy Award Winner!

Through no significant achievement of your own, you are now an Academy Award-winning actor—or at least the donor material that was harvested for your hybridization was. Let’s get real here, an Oscar is just a participation trophy for playing ball in out-of-touch Hollywood, but Russell Crowe still killed it in that movie. Too bad the Gallics thought it was real, then killed him to enhance you.

I had gotten a lot of extra credit for that one. Sorry, experience. Dumbass said experience was the most important thing in the galaxy to me now. It was supposed to tell me more about experience and how it would help us with the Trials, but that damn thing had been ignoring me ever since I named it Dumbass.

I don’t know what the big deal was.

Dumbass is my favorite word, and that should make it feel honored or something.

“Hey Dumbass? Are you still ignoring me?” I asked. “Is this about the dumbass thing again? You’re supposed to be guiding me through all this ducking stuff, remember? Snap out of it, pal.”

“Fine,” Dumbass said with a hint of annoyance. “And for the record, I was ignoring you. For good reason too, you bully.”

“Oh, c’mon! The name’s not that bad! You’re being a baby about it. Get over it.”

“Easy for you to say, jerk. You got to pick your own name…”

“I tried to get you to pick your own name! But you didn't want so. Said you wouldn't do a good job, so you asked me to do it!”

“Yeah, well, I didn’t think you would name me Dumbass, not with all the cool names I put inside your head. You could have gone with TARS like I wanted, or Skippy, or Sonny, Samantha, Ash, Ava. Anything other than Dumbass.”

“Well, I didn’t. And I ain’t changing it, so I guess you’ll have to live with—”

If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

"Anyway, I'm glad I came up with Dumbass. I can’t believe you told me to get over it when I changed my mind and named myself. Did I tell you to get over it when you saw yourself in the mirror for the first time?”

“Yes!” I barked. That’s exactly what you said!”

It had, too. When I had seen myself in the mirror for the first time after the Gallics did all that work to me, I almost had a ducking heart attack. I looked like something a Rule 34 artist with a hard-on for aquatic birds and middle-aged action stars would come up with after a four-day acid binge and an unlimited supply of crayons. I wasn’t just an average pond bird anymore. I was a cross between a duck and a human. A hybrid. Bipedal, about six feet tall, and shoulders as broad as Mr. Crowe himself. I also had a big beer gut, and my face was all puffy like I had been living off a diet of pure salt. Yet despite all the new human crap, I still had my feathers and I still had my bill, thank pond.

There were some unexpected positives that came with the change. The frill on the top of my head was all spiky and anime-like now. It looked totally badass. And the fingers were a pleasant bonus, especially the thumbs. Though any kind of actual flight was off the table for now. That one had been hard to digest.

Barely five years old and I already had my wings clipped. All on account of some alien AI.

“Look, Dumbass,” I said. “I don’t want to argue with you now. I just need you to answer my question. It’s important.”

“Ugh! Fine! What’s your quote-unquote important question?”

I looked down. “Um, what does this t-shirt say?”

“Can’t you read?”

“Yes, but in my defense, I only just started doing it. I keep trying and it doesn’t make sense. G-O-F-O-T? Gofot? I'm sure I'm missing something, but look, I’m having trouble because it’s upside down, okay? Can you help?”

“We are so ducking screwed it isn’t even funny. You’re reading it backwards. Flap, it says T-O-F-O-G.”

“Yeah, still not making any sense, pal.”

“It’s an acronym! It stands for Thirty Odd Foot of Grunts.”

“And somehow, despite all the weirdness in my world, that somehow makes even less sense. Is it like a way of measuring sound?”

“No, lame ass. It’s a pet project. A vanity project? Ring a bell?”

“Nope.”

“Ugh! It’s Russell Crowe’s band! His annoying side project he tried to make happen after his Roman period masterpiece!”

“Oh, a band! I get it! It's music! I like music. Well, if this Crowe guy was in this band, they must have been really popular. Can we, like, listen to one of their songs? You said you put all the what? Top hits ever into my mind. Crank it up and let’s jam, Dumbass.”

Silence.

“What? You can’t play music? That’s lame. Are you telling me you’ve got all those bells and whistles and being a .mp3 player isn’t one of them?”

“No… I can play music. And, regretfully, they had one top 100... song. It’s just that… they’re”—the implant's contempt spewed over into me and made my whole body shudder—“terri—”

The door to the room swung open and two massive chickens, each carrying sleek carbines with axe heads mounted below the barrel, burst in. Their shoulders were so broad they had to turn sideways to fit through the door. They grunted, and stared at me for a good three seconds, black leather trench coats that Hugo Boss would have been proud to design flapping against their feathers.

“Weird looking human, isn’t he?” said the first brute.

“I dunno, never seen one before," said brute two as he ran a hand through his beard. "Who cares, anyway? Boss said to get him ready for the drop, and we don’t want to upset the boss. I don't want to upset the boss.”

“The drop?” I said. “What’s the ducking drop?”

“Hahaha!” laughed brute one. “What’s the drop, he says! Ain’t never seen the Trials before, I take. Poor chap. Probably won’t make it past the first ten. No way I’m betting on him.”

“Shut it, Corporal. You know the rules about wagering with insider information." Brute two turned to me. "Forget what he said. You’ll find out soon enough. And don’t mind him. He’s just being a rotten egg. I know you’ll make it past the first ten.”

“Well,” I said, straightening. “Thanks, man. That’s—”

“Yep, dead in the first fifteen minutes is where I’ve got my money.”