“Dead in fifteen minutes?! What the duck, Dumbass?!”

“Hey,” snapped brute two, his face shifting from jovial to stern asshole in an instant. “You don’t get to talk to me like—”

“I wasn’t talking to you, dumbass! I was talking to Dumbass, dumbass!”

Brute two raised an eyebrow, pulled back his duster and placed a hand on the handle of a barbaric looking curved blade clearly fashioned out of some type of bone. “Excuse me, Earthling?”

Corporal Brute raised a feathered hand. “Captain, I don’t think he’s talking to you.”

“No?”

“No, sir. I think he might be the dumbass in question, sir.”

“What? Oh!” gasped Captain Brute, as the obvious set in. “The thought of the horrific death he has in store must have driven the dumbass Earthling nuts! He’s talking to himself like that weirdo Curculian we have to drop next.”

That conclusion he had just jumped to pissed me off, so I said, “That’s not—”

“I think I might change that bet I definitely didn’t make, Corporal. If he doesn’t snap out of it soon, dumbass here won’t make it past the first five.”

Corporal Brute shook his head. “Those bets we didn’t make are locked in by now, Captain. I just heard on the comms that they’ve already finished dropping the accused in on the far side of the moon. We've got to get this dumbass in the pod pretty soon.”

“Hmmm. I don't have a lot of money riding on this one. Shit. How much time do we have before we miss the drop window?”

“Half-hour, give or take?”

“Dammit. How do we help this guy without looking too obvious?” He snapped his fingers. “Ideas, Corporal. I need ideas. Quickly!”

I stopped listening to those two monsters right about then. It wasn’t because I wasn’t interested in what they had to say. Nope. Not at all. I was very much interested. Mostly because it felt like the two brutes were dead set on adding a few minutes to my life expectancy and that was A-OK with me. Instead, my implant, the Real Dumb Dumbass stood up and muted the conversation from somewhere deep in my mind. Though mute wasn’t the best word for it, because I could still hear. It was more like listening to the adults in Charlie Brown drone on in the background.

“Well," said Dumbass, with even more of an edge than usual. "Now that you’ve been on the receiving end of it, how does it feel?”

“What? Being completely clueless? Kept in the dark for no reason?”

“No, you moron! Being called Dumbass!”

“Oh,” I laughed. “Yeah, that doesn't bother me that much. Hey, will you turn Hanz and Franz back on? Sounds like they were about to help us out.”

“No.”

“What do you mean, no?”

“I mean no. That’s what I mean. I mean what I say. And I said no.”

"But they were about to help us."

"Eh, debatable. Maybe, but do we really want help from the very people that are trying to kill us and destroy Earth?"

"Yes! Help is help! I don't care where it comes from!"

"Yeah, but I don't want these guys' help."

"Why not?"

"Because I'm in charge here, and I said no. Now Flap, I'll only repeat this five or six more times, but that's what I mean. I mean what I say. And I said no."

“You're in charge?! It's my ducking body!"

"Partially. You're mostly made of spare parts from a dude that played Javert so bad he turned a bunch of well-behaved theater freaks into keyboard warriors."

"I'm all duck, pond dammit! Listen here, you little—”

“Do you trust me, Flap?”

“What? What the duck are you getting on about n—”

“I need you to listen to me, Flap. This is important. No games. No silly references. Your life—our lives—depend on it. Do you trust me?”

“Dumbass, that 'do you trust me' line itself is from at least three different movies I can think of, but I, uh...”

I had to think about that for a moment. Whether I trusted my implant. I thought about all the conversations Dumbass and I had shared, since the chickens had connected us in a way that no two sentient beings ever should. All that we had been through and enjoyed. A shared love of music, movies, and television. And then it hit me. I knew the answer to that question. I had all along. I knew it from the marrow of my bones all the way to the tips of the vanes on my feathers.

So I swallowed, took a deep breath, and said, “No! No ducking way! You’re—”

“That hurts, Flap. Pond, that hurts. But I don’t care because you don’t have a choice. Look around the room for me, will you?”

I rolled my eyes and relented. “Fine, what am I looking for??

“I’ll know it when I see—there! See that bag?”

“What ducking bag?”

Dumbass huffed. “Ugh. That bag over there! The black backpack! Next to the drop pod—the thing that looks like the cryonic freezing chamber from Forever Young. Here, I’ll highlight it for you.”

Right then, the bag lit up in my vision like a quest item from a video game. “Got it! Hey, you were right. That looks exactly like—”

“This is no time to be a Mel Gibson fanboy!” Dumbass shouted. “I mean, I know you’re technically Australian and all, and Mad Max is, like, the best post-apocalyptic movie series ever made, but—crap. Now I’m doing it. Flap, listen carefully, okay?”

I nodded.

“This is very important, you understand?”

I nodded again. I could tell by the way the implant talked we were in life and death mode.

“I need you to ask those two brutes if you can have that backpack.”

“Alright, that’s it." I threw my hands into the air. "We're dead. I went from having a sweet pond life to having a demented AI inside my head that’s going to get me killed. Dumbass, there’s no ducking way those two Schwarzepecker looking goons are going to give me a backpack if I—”

“Will you shut the duck up and listen for once?”

I gasped. “Well, if that ain’t the pot calling the kettle—”

“Flap, according to Trials Rule 4.708c, to ensure the fair administration of justice, each accused must be provided with, at a minimum, a suitable container to act as an inventory should they be unable to provide one themselves. If you ask, they have to give it to you, you colossal idiot! Oh, and this is important! Make sure one of them hands it to you. I need them to get close.”

“How the hell was I supposed to know that?! But fine.” I sighed and raised my hand. “Hey, um, Kentucky Fried Fascists?”

They turned to stare at me, brows furrowed at the remark.

Against my better judgment, I trusted in my AI. “Could you, um, give me that backpack?”

They exchanged a glance, then Captain Brute dropped his hand to that sickle-like blade again. He took a step forward.

Ah, shit, I thought. Might as well go big or go home. So I took a step forward to meet him. An icy chill caused the frill to raise on the top of my head. “Let's not beat around the nest, guys. I know you have to give me something to use as an inventory, so could you, like, be a dear and hand me that backpack, right there?”

They exchanged another glance. Corporal Brute raised a hand like he was about ready to flip me the bird, then cupped it around his beak and whispered something. Captain Brute nodded and relaxed. “Um, yeah. Sure, you can have it. Just pick it up.”

I winced. “Here's the thing. My... foot hurts. Cracked web. If I walk too much on it, I, uh, might not make it too long, if you catch my drift. Can you bring it to me, big guy?”

Captain Brute rolled his eyes. “Whatever. Go get him the damn bag, Corporal.”

“Sidebar, Flap. I’m going to need your permission to turn off a couple of safety features for a moment. Are you okay with that?”

“Like what, Dumbass?” I said with considerable skepticism.

“What was that?” said Corporal Brute.

“Um, nothing,” I lied. “Just talking to myself again. Going nuts and all. Do whatever you have to do, me? You got that, me?”

“Got it,” Dumbass said, excitement spilling into its voice.

Corporal Brute grabbed the bag, then walked over and shoved it into my chest. “Happy now?”

"I think so." I nodded and grabbed the bag. When my hand touched it, a description popped up in my vision.

Gallic Combat Rucksack

Rarity: Common

Capacity: Unlimited

Standard issue storage container for the Gallic Galactic Conquest, and favorite surplus good of all those stolen valor type chickens that are looking for a little unearned street cred at a discounted cost. That’s you, by the way. Upgradable.

Contents:

Bag of Chicken Feed (5)

And then the bag got sucked pixel by pixel into the palm of my hand. “What the…”

“Configuring inventory... done. Oh boy, it’s time to party. You remember that Venom knockoff Upgrade, Flap? The one with an intentionally coincidental dollar store looking Tom Hardy? ”

“I think so.” I got a bad feeling in the pit of my stomach. “You mean the one with all the unnecessary gore and the power hungry, murderous computer chip, don’t you?”

“That’s the one! Well, if any of that gore bothered you, my ducky friend, then I suggest you close your eyes because Uncle Dumbass is about to make STEM look like a toaster.”

With no warning whatsoever, my arm shot out and grabbed Corporal Brute by the neck and lifted him off the ground. I could feel his pulse slow beneath my fingertips as he let out a sick gurgle. He pleaded with me for mercy using his chicken eyes, but I just kept squeezing. A thought popped into my mind. I was literally choking the chicken. It would have been funny if I had any control over myself, but I couldn't even laugh. Then, his lids fluttered closed as I reached my other hand up and placed it on his leather trench coat. I tried to close my eyes to keep from seeing the life leave his, but another tooltip popped up.

Saurian Skin Duster

Rarity: Legendary

This desperado-themed trench coat is made from extremely rare and extremely valuable Saurian skin. It’s hard enough to buy a dinosaur any more, let alone make a coat out of one, yet here this thing is. Relax, man. It’s not real dinosaur skin. I mean, it is real dinosaur skin, it just didn’t come straight off a dinosaur. They grew it in a lab, like meat. Meant to strike fear into all those oppressed by the Gallics, this duster is can only be found on Gallic Shock Troopers and Gallic Brutes. A legendary item, this trench coat grants its wearer the Blink Skill, as well as a thirty percent damage reduction against reptiles.

The trench coat vanished into the palm of my hand just like the bag. Then, with strength I didn’t think possible, I grabbed Corporal Brute by the belt and threw him at his companion like a rag doll. But right before he made contact, Captain Brute disappeared, and the poor Corporal went careening into the wall head first. There was a sickening crunch as brain and blood squirted out and coated the wall like a Jackson Pollock painting.

I spun on a dime and found myself bill to beak with the Captain, his left hand projecting a blue shield between us as he raised that sickle-like blade above his head ready to strike.

He said, "I'm going to enjoy this," then he dug his feet in and he leapt right at me.