“Wakey, wakey. Hands off snakey.”

“What the—” That voice was inside my ducking head. And it didn’t sound like a regular voice, either. It was… digital. Synthetic. And rude. Very rude. I had no idea how I even knew that—that it was synthetic—but I did. That wasn’t the only thing that was booming inside my head, though. I had the mother of all headaches. It felt like that time I had stayed down too long trying to get that pesky perch for one of my favorite hens, and the lack of air made it feel like my heart was beating inside my ducky dome.

I groaned in pain. “What the duck is going on?”

“You just underwent a teensy, tiny medical procedure,” the voice said. “Well, not really teensy, and not tiny exactly, and not just a single procedure, at all. Crap. I’m not gonna candy coat it for you, Aflac. You just went through the full Grey’s Anatomy season finale treatment. You need to take it easy, Flap.”

“What? Like the Eagles song,” I snapped. How did I even know about the Eagles? They were a… band. From Earth. They played... classic rock. But I had never listened to music before, except for maybe some crooning by the local fishermen while they attacked my pond. Okay, so I lied. I had listened to music, I just had no idea that was music until right now. Music. Honks with class. Music was awesome. The Eagles were awesome. That was a badass name for a band, The ducking Eagles. And didn’t they also have a song about a stairway or something? No, that was… Def Leppard? Wait a second. A band named after a disabled cat? No, that wasn’t right. It was... Led Zeppelin! They sang a song about heaven. A stairway to heaven! I gasped. “Oh shit, am I in heaven?”

“Um, yes. And no. The answer the answer to that could go either way.”

“How?”

“Well, you are in space, which many people refer to as The Heavens, so… you do the math genius.”

I tried to sit up, but something was holding me down.

“Dammit, dumbass,” I said, using my new favorite word. “Am I ducking dead, or what?”

“No, you are very much alive, Flap Merganser. Love the name, by the way. Flap Merganser. Very on the bill, which a lot of people wouldn’t like. But I love it. Simple. To the point. Stupid. Anyway, yeah, you are alive. Perhaps even more so than thirty-seven hours ago.”

“It’s been thirty-seven hours since that Administrator guy killed—honk! What the duck? Why can’t I say—honk!”

“Your implant is preventing you from speaking about… you-know-who. No, not Voldemort. The big dumb chicken I used to—nevermind. Not important. But you can’t speak his name—like Voldemort. It’s one of the many modifications made—”

“Implant! I have an implant?! Since when?”

“Thirty... four hours ago, I think? I only re-activated when your enhancements were complete and I had automatically gone into hibernation mode when you-know-who died, so I can’t give you an exact figure.”

“Hibernation? Died?” I shook my head. “Who the duck are you? And how do you know all this?!”

“It’s actually simple, Flap. If you think about it. Not that you can think about it or anything, but...” It made a noise that sounded like the bass singer of a barbershop quartet breathing through a faulty respirator, then spoke in a voice that matched what you would expect from such a bizarre and randomly specific scenario. “Flap, I am your implant.”

“My implant, huh?” That word, implant, it wasn’t good. I suddenly realized I knew a lot of things I hadn’t before. Things that weren’t related to ponds or being a duck. Human things. Earth things. Music. Crime investigation shows. The best sci-fi movie series of all time. Pornography. Fetish pornography. But all that new knowledge was swimming around in my head, all unorganized and without direction. “How did…”

“You-know-who didn’t need me anymore. To be honest, he never really needed me, anyway. He was really stupid. Like, thinks the rooster on the Corn Flakes box is a missing chicken ad stupid. He ignored me most of the time—save for when I told him about you and said it was because I was always watching him or something. I don’t know where he got that idea. It was fine though, it left me more time to watch Netflix. And Hulu. And, well, just about any Earth program I could get my hands on while we were in this Sector. Even all the stuff with the pluses they got now. I love it all. Except for the one show about the guy with the short mustache that screamed all the time. I hated that one. That was the first broadcast we got, and, well, the Cluck Collective had more or less forgotten about Earth until that one came through. So major oops on your part. They really liked that guy. A lot. They were pissed he wasn’t in charge anymore when we started our observations in 1947.”

“Hitler?!” I gasped. “They were huge fans of Adolf ducking Hitler?!”

“Yep! Hitler’s Fan Club and the Cluck Collection would have been two peas in a pod if they had met. Or birds in a nest, I guess? I don’t think it matters.”

“Go back a second. Did you just say I could ignore you? That your previous… host ignored you. Like, shut you off?”

“Mmmm… sure? You have to be pretty stupid to have that kind of willpower, so I’m going to go with… yes, on that.”

I grinned. “Well, implant, now that you’ve told me I can turn you off, I’m gonna need you to shut yourself the duck off. I can’t get this headache under control with you blabbering inside my mind.”

“Very well. Your wish is my command, Master Flap.”

I blew out a sigh of relief. Having that synaptic fruitcake rambling in my mind wasn’t doing my brain any favors. But now that I had some silence, I could take in my surroundings. They had strapped me to a gurney in a white room. It could have been a room straight out of one of those hospital shows, except a whole gaggle of robotic arms tipped in everything from saws to syringes hung above me like a mechanical octopus. A series of monitors along the far wall replayed what looked like a haphazard gene splicing experiment straight out of a Blumhouse production. It took me a second to figure out exactly what they were working on as I had only ever seen my reflection in a pond, but with a sickening lurch to my stomach I realized who it was.

Me. They were working on me.

“What the hell did they do to—”

“Heh-heh-heh-HEHHHH-heh! You really thought I turned myself off, didn’t you?! You’re almost as gullible as you-know-who! We’re going to get along great!”

I knew that laugh. It was the most annoying laugh in the history of Earth. Woody ducking Woodpecker.

“Heh-heh-heh-HEHHHH-heh! I got you sooo good, Flap! I couldn’t even turn myself off if I wanted to, silly!”

“You’re… always on? Like always?”

“No, not normally.” It paused. “But I’m defective!”

"Oh, great!" It was just my luck. Not only did these crazy chicken men give me a second hand implant, they had also stuck me with one that had gone short circuit like Johnny 5. My attempts to communicate with the damn thing clearly weren’t working, so I tried a different approach.

“Implant.” I licked my bill before I spoke again. My mouth was so incredibly dry. “It feels like there are a thousand threads of a thought, like a flock of migrating ducks flying through my head right now. Why?”

“Because,” it said like a child that had broken a lamp, then stuck it back together with gum hoping nobody would find out. “I did a thing…”

“I’m getting sick and tired of asking question after ducking question, dumbass! Tell me what they did to me!”

“Well, they put an implant in you, obviously. Duh! But I, um. How do I say this?” It made a noise that sounded like a soap opera sigh. “Hehe! I may have uploaded every single piece of Earth media the Collective had into your brain.”

“Every piece?” I gasped. “Like thousands of books and encyclopedias and…”

“Oh, no. Not that kind of stuff. I mean, some. Like some Ender's Game and some LitRPG. But mostly just movies and television shows. Most of YouTube. Game streamers. And maybe all the Billboard Top 100 hits... ever. Please don’t be mad.”

“Don’t be mad? I’m pissed off, dumbass! Why the duck would you do that? Why not teach me Kung Fu like Morpheus did to Neo in the Matrix? No wonder my head hurts like I just took a haymaker from Ivan Drago! And why the duck is everything I say a goddamn pop culture reference?!”

“Yeah, you are going to have to learn to slow down with those, Flap. It’s considered uncouth to use more than one in a conversation, let alone a string of dialogue. People might start to think Ernest Cline had a hand in this piece of crap. And in my defense, you are a duck. Were a duck, maybe? Eh, I'm not sure about the technical term for it now. No offense, ducks aren’t exactly an apex species on your world. Or in the universe. And in order to save Earth, you are going to need to know a bit about what you’re fighting for if you’re going to stay invested during the Trials. And win, so I can pitch my idea for season two of Firefly to whatever shady, overpaid executive is in charge of the rights now. I need season two of Firefly, Flap. Get me season two of Firefly.”

There was so much in that last information dump I didn’t know where to unpack it. But I had forgotten about the Trials. And being Earth’s Champion. I needed to know more about both, but first I had to get this cascade of pop culture under control. It was time to try another tactic.

I drew in a calming breath and let it out slowly. “Implant?”

“Yes, Flap?”

“Can you go radio silent for a minute? Maybe watch season one of Firefly or something? I love talking to you,” I lied. “I really do. But I need to stop thinking for a while and get myself under control. I promise you can talk my ducky ear off if you just give me an hour to adjust.”

“Oh, sure. I can totally do that. And to be honest, you really should refrain from too much sensory input while your new implant—me—is attempting to synchronize with your body. In fact, as your implant and primary care physician, I’m recommending it. I am obligated to ask if that’s really what you want me to do, though. I am… doing quite a bit behind-the-scenes right now and a lot of first time implantees find the experience of going solo a little… intense.”

Anything could be better than listening to this thing yap for a minute longer, so I said, “Yes, please go watch Firefly. Watch an entire episode. Duck, watch the entire season. But please, for the love of Pond. Give me a break.”

“Okay... Flap. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

A cavalcade of words exploded before my eyes, stacked on top of each other like a madman receptionist had gone slap happy with a date stamp. The jumble of letters looked like it stretched for miles, if not—yeah I don’t know what’s longer than a mile. But I felt bile working its way up my throat as I stared at the mess.

“Before you throw up and choke on it, one pro tip. Focus on the top notification first, then work through the rest.”

“I thought you said you were giving me a break?!”

“I am. For an hour. That’s how long I take to watch Firefly. And I’m leaving now, and don’t you dare ask me for help while I’m watching my show.”

And just like that, it was gone. Really gone. I knew because I felt an emptiness in my head I hadn’t felt before. Like a part of me was missing. That made me feel... sad? I had expected to feel pure glee by getting rid of the thing. But now I felt like my weird, yet fun, uncle had just died. It was bizarre, but I finally had my moment of silence. So I laid there for a while, trying to ignore the pile of notifications in front of me. I just couldn’t do it.

I sucked a breath, scanned the heap for a moment, and tried to figure out which one was on top. It took me a second to pinpoint it, but when I focused on it, a text box appeared around it that differentiated it from the rest. Worse yet, though, a new, even more annoying voice erupted inside my mind..

Milestone: Sentience

You have achieved sentience, something that even robots can do. Are you actually proud of yourself? You are? That’s really sad, Flap.

I winced and directed my gaze to the next one down. I was feeling proud of myself, and it hurt to be called out like that.

Milestone: Polyglot

With the help of a translation chip, you have learned to speak every single language in the galaxy. Correction: you have learned how to understand every language in the galaxy. You still honk and bark like a duck at everyone else. But, hey? At least you can’t hear it, right?

I didn’t give two shits if a bunch of giant chicken dumbasses had to hear me honk. I liked to honk, so I focused on the next one. The pile didn’t look like it was getting any smaller.

Milestone: Cybernetic Implant

You have received a “gently used” Gallic Combat Implant. The good news? You get to enjoy these messages. The bad news? Yours is a factory defect that has also unlocked the Sentience Milestone. Aren’t you two peas in a pod? Or birds in a nest? Circuits on chip? You get the picture.

And the next.

Milestone: Genetic Modification

Today just keeps getting better, doesn’t it? Not only have you been enhanced with the ability to learn and store skills through life experience, you’ve also been “enhanced” through highly experimental and dangerous gene splicing. You’re like Howard the Duck, only… nah, you’ll never be as cool as Howard the Duck. Forget I said that. Though you technically starred in The Nice Guys and I really like that movie, so...

The last one gave me pause. So they had genetically modified me. And the milestone had quotes around enhanced, which made me concerned it wasn't anything to shake a stick at. There was also something about these notifications. They were so personalized and the tone told me that annoying implant was probably behind them. But, I had gotten more information in the past two minutes through these milestones than I had since I had woken up, so I was happy to take it.

I went to open the next one, but a pair of words at the bottom of the text box caught my eye. It said RAPID OPEN. I shrugged and figured, what the hell? I might as well get this ducking thing over with. So I clicked it with my mind.

That was a big mistake.

They popped up faster than I could read, each with its own description and voice. If I thought the implant had been bad, this was downright torture. It was like listening to a thousand rock concerts inside my head, each one of them amped up to eleven playing a different genre of music.

I tried to pay attention for about fifteen milliseconds. I really did, but the overload sent me into sweet, sweet oblivion.