“How much more of this crap?” I gasped as I gnawed at the wall of flamingo pink plants in front of me with my sawbill. They looked like a cross between a cat tail and corn stalk, their razor sharp leaves shimmering back and forth in the sweet smelling sea breeze. Though they were mesmerisingly pretty, their leaves had hacked my arms and legs to pieces. But I guess that’s what I get for wearing a fat Australian actor’s clothes. Still, I would have taken the shorts and t-shirt in a microsecond because of the heat, even despite the alien paper cut torture that had stained my feathers red. I drew in a wheezing breath that felt more like drinking air than breathing, then wiped at the sweat that was leaking into my eyes. “Did you hear me, Dumbass?”
“Yes, unfortunately. Let’s see. Um, a few more minutes, maybe? I’m not sure. The waypoint is directly in front of you, but there’s a jammer keeping me from getting any more information from the simulation. Sorry. I’d just keep plowing straight ahead if I were you.”
“If you were me, huh?” I rolled my eyes. “You aren’t the one literally eating through the jungle with your beak. This is hard work, Dumbass. I feel like I’m about to have a clucking heat stroke. Did those chickens give me anything to drink in that backpack?”
“Here’s an idea. Check it yourself. You’re the one with arms. And backpack? Who calls it a backpack? Are you, like, five?”
“Yes.” I blinked, more sweat stinging my eyes. “I am, believe it or not, five years old. Now is there anything to drink in that clucking bag or not?”
“No, the bag is empty. Except for a few packages of chicken feed. You want one of those?”
I shook my head. “I’ll pass. That crap gives me cotton mouth. And it tastes funny. Now if there was a big fat perch in there, you know I’d take that bastard in a second.”
Dumbass grunted. “Suit yourself. I don’t even know why they gave it to you, to be honest. But hey! It’s a pretty nice bag. Standard issue for the Gallic military. And it has lots of really cool pockets and compartments. I like pockets and compartments. You know? You could use it as an inventory if you wanted.”
“Dumbass, I don’t give two shits about an inventory. I’m just sick and tired of this heat. And thirsty. I’m really clucking—”
“Okay, I’ll turn it into your inventory.”
A brand new icon suddenly appeared in my vision, an exact copy of the backpack I wore over my shoulders. It had taken me a while to figure out how the whole interface worked back when I was on the Cluck Collective ship, but I more than had the hang of it now. All I had to do was focus on the icon to select it. When I did, a new window with a description of the item, along with a list of its contents, popped up.
Gallic Combat Rucksack
Rarity: Common
Capacity: 3/25
Standard issue storage container for the Gallic Armed Forces, and favorite surplus good of all those stolen valor type chickens that are looking for a little unearned street cred at a discounted cost. Upgradable.
Contents:
Bag of Chicken Feed (2)
Standard Issue Gallic Combat Spur
“Well,” Dumbass said sharply, almost as if it were trying to change the subject. “Chop chop, back at it! Like you told me, lots of hard work for you to do. And speaking of birds and heat, it’s like Colonel Sanders always said: hard work beats all the tonics and vitamins in the world. You don’t need water. You got this, big guy!”
“Dumbass! There’s a knife in here! You’ve been letting me chew my way through this jungle and”—I pulled the Combat Spur from my bag—“there’s been the chicken version of a machete in here the entire time?!”
“Gee! Hehe! I wonder how that got in there…”
It was a crafty piece of work. Black steel with a composite handle. The blade had a curve to it, like the sickle on the bad guy’s flag from Red Dawn. The original, not the remake with the Australian actor whose body I deserved. And then the meaning behind the name clicked. Combat Spur. It looked like a metal version of the spur Sector Administrator Brahma had used to slit the throat of poor Leghorn. I focused on it and a tooltip popped up.
Gallic Combat Spur
Rarity: Uncommon
Although it’s the standard issue bladed weapon of the Gallic Armed Forces, the history of Combat Spurs goes back millions of years. Originally made from the spurs of vanquished members of rival clans, modern manufacturing has practically eliminated the cold-blooded murder necessary to make a Combat Spur. Traditional spurs still exist, but are largely relics reserved for ceremonial purposes.
I felt the weight of the weapon in my hand, heaving it up and down, then I made a few quick strikes into the foliage with it. At first, I didn’t think it had done anything, but then the stalks separated and fell over, sheared though right where I had struck like a head in an old samurai film. It was sharp as all hell. And it felt comfortable in my hand. It felt… natural.
“This would have been a huge clucking help, you know that?”
“I know that, Flap. I know.... everything.”
Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.
“Uh huh,” I said as I turned to my right and started hacking in that direction.
“What—what are you doing? I said to go straight ahead. There’s… a… um, cliff over there. You’ll fall into the ocean and get eaten!”
“Yeah. I heard you.”
“Then why are you still going that way, Flap? Do you want to get eaten? That ocean is filled with some downright scary monsters. Ten times worse than anything you’d find on Earth. Are you scared of sharks? Because the things waiting for you at the bottom of that cliff will give you nightmares for a millennia. It’s like Sharknado on steroids down there.”
“Yup,” I said as I hacked through the last few remaining plants. I stepped into the blistering heat of the sunlight beyond and froze. “You sneaky little bastard!”
“Hehe! I have a perfectly reasonable explanation for not telling you about that.”
“A perfectly reasonable explanation?” I bellowed. “A perfectly reasonable explanation for not telling me there was a clucking road ten feet to my right? For not telling me I had a goddamn sickle in my backpack? Please, Dumbass, give me your perfectly reasonable explanation and hope I don’t smash my head against that clucking rock and end us both! Season two of Firefly be damned!”
“Yeah… I don’t really have one. I just thought it would be funny when you found out. And it was… kind of—look on the bright side though. You earned quite a bit of experience for that.”
“You thought it would be funny when I found out.” I shook my head and sat down on the ground underneath an enormous palm tree looking thing. Then I wrapped my arms around my knees and said, “You’re an asshole, Dumbass. A real clucking asshole. I’m not talking to you anymore.”
“Oh, no! Don’t do that! I don’t want to be alone again! Please talk to me, Flap!”
Back on the ship, I had figured out that the best way to torture my extroverted implant was to ignore it, so I laid down on the ground and put my arm over my eyes. I even pretended to snore a little.
“Please, please, please, please, please, please, please don’t ignore me again. We’re best buds! You’d ignore your best bud?! I’m sorry! I’m so sorry! I won’t do it again!”
It took everything I had to keep from screaming my head off at Dumbass. It was annoying enough when it was acting normal. Listening to the thing beg for forgiveness like a toddler was downright agonizing. But, I held fast and after ten minutes or so, Dumbass finally shut up.
Or so I thought.
I had practically drifted off to sleep when a blinking red number appeared over the message icon. I hated those blinking numbers, so without thinking, I opened it, and blinding yellow text appeared inside my eyelids:
DEAR FLAP,
I’M SORRY. I’LL BE GOOD THIS TIME. PROMISE.
LOVE,
DUMBASS
“What the hell, Dumbass!” I bellowed as I rubbed my eyes. “You almost blinded me!”
“Not really. Don’t be such a duckling. I barely manipulated your optic nerve at all. You know? I could… blind you if you wanted that milestone. I wouldn’t recommend it, but I could...”
“No, please don’t blind me.” I rose to my feet. “I’m curious. How much control do you have over my body exactly?”
“Not… much,” it said as my hand raised, twisted, and gave me the middle finger. “Bully.”
“Knock that off! If either of us is being a bully, it’s you.”
“Am not!”
“Are too!”
“AM… NOT!”
“ARE.... TOO!”
“Am—”
I yelled over the supid thing. I had more than enough of its bullshit. “Stop controlling my clucking body right now, Dumbass! I’m serious.”
My hand snapped back to its normal resting position at my hip.
“Never do that again, got it?” I sighed as I rubbed at my wrist. “Listen, Dumbass, we’re going to need to establish some ground rules if we’re going to continue this relationship.”
“It’s not like you have a choice, but whatever. What do you propose?”
It took some bickering, but we came up with a pair of rules. Rule one was simple: don’t be a dumbass. Rule two was also simple: don’t be a dumbass. I offered to discuss rule three, but Dumbass declined. I think it already got the picture, but I wanted to toss it a carrot to make it feel like it had a say in the discussion.
It was a basic negotiation tactic. Pawn Stars had taught me that.
“We good?” I said once we had wrapped it up.
“Yeah, we good,” Dumbass responded in a tone that said it was very much not good with our new rules, but would not argue any more.
“Okay.” I pointed towards the waypoint. “This way, right? No tricks?”
“Yes… that way. That boring, plain jane, walking down a road for hours way.”
“Good.” I took a step forward and felt a searing pain in between my legs that hadn’t been there before I sat down. “Ow! Dammit, that hurts!”
“Problem?”
“Yeah, I got like a raw spot between my legs or something. It hurts like hell.”
Dumbass laughed. “Haha! Are you talking about this?”
New Milestone: Chafing!
Feeling a little raw between the hams, Flap? That’s all a part of being part-human. Fat thighs lead to sweat, sweat leads to friction, and friction leads to suffering. Too bad Earth is condensed into a stasis cube right now. If it wasn’t, I’d run down to the pharmacy to pick you up some Gold Bond—no, I wouldn’t. Deal with it, dumbass.
“Damn, that one was harsh, even for you. It’s called chafing, huh?” I thought for a moment. “Hey! Since you can control my body, is there anything you can do about this? Like turning off the pain receptors… down there?”
“I will not answer that. You just told me to never control your body again, and that’s what I plan on doing.”
“Fine. You can control my body… but only if it will help me? How’s that?”
“I suppose I can live with it. Well, I’m not supposed to activate this feature until you’re in a combat zone, but seeing as how I’m defective and can pretty much do whatever the hell I want? Sure. I can do something about it. And… boom! Feast your grundle on that!”
Out of nowhere, a new indicator appeared on my heads up display. It was a red bar that ran nearly all the way across the top of my vision, save for a tiny fraction at the far left end. I felt a cooling sensation where I had chafed, and then the pain vanished. When I checked the bar again, it had turned to green all the way across.
“Holy crap!” I said. “You healed my… parts.”
“That’s not the only thing that healed, Flap. Check your arms and legs.”
I pulled up the feathers on my forearms where those plants had gashed me and saw that the cuts were gone. Not just closed up, not scarred, but completely gone. As if they had never been there. I just stood there, gob smacked, unsure of what to say.
Dumbass took on a serious tone and answered the question I hadn’t been able to get out. “It’s a standard Gallic Combat Implant feature. If you get wounded, I have a supply of nanites I can pump into your bloodstream to repair the damage. They are very powerful, and as you level up, they will propagate—if you apply skill points the right way—and become even more powerful. Just keep in mind this isn’t God Mode, Flap. It’s not like I can type IDDQD and make you impervious to everything. There is a limit, and you can die. And if you lose a limb, it’s permanent, so try to avoid that, okay? But you will take far less damage than a being without an implant. Do you understand?”
I nodded. “Totally. It’s absolutely badass, but I get it. Take too much clucking damage, and I die. Lose a leg or a wing, and it won’t grow back. It’s kind of like a health bar in a video game.”
“Exactly. You’re smarter than you look. Now, I’m guessing you want a little peace and quiet after that, which I honestly can’t give you. But how about a little music as we walk instead?”
Music actually sounded pretty good, plus I wouldn’t have to listen to my implant for a change, and that was A-OK in my book. I grinned. “Any good radio stations around here, Dumbass?