TWENTY-FIVE

I had never been on a slide before—no piece of human child’s playground equipment could compare to the thrill of flight in my opinion. Yet despite my innate prejudice towards all things non-duck, I had to admit that zipping down a slope at breakneck speeds with the wind flowing through your feathers, whipping your frill around it was a character defining feature in an anime was a close second. And I would have enjoyed it more, too, if there wasn’t the whole threat of imminent doom in the form of a stone path waiting for me at the bottom..

I used the word threat because I wasn’t one hundred percent on whether it would kill me or not. This whole augmented magical space duck thing was still relatively new. So I pushed the thought aside and focused on what I did know: that my initial reaction to being weightless might just have been the thing to save my life.

Once the world dropped out from under me, my avian instincts kicked in and I flapped my wings like an ornithopter on Arrakis. I didn’t manage to generate any lift, per se, but the flapping did cause this weird gyroscopic effect that kept me from toppling over and sliding down face first.

The moment I had bought myself also gave me time to come up with what many would call a bright idea.

A quick glance at my HUD showed me my blink skill was charged and ready to activate. So, I turned my head around to face the capstone of the pyramid and focused on the platform. With a deep breath, I closed my eyes and triggered the teleport.

I felt a momentary pause to my momentum, then I thudded down and the downward slide continued. The only thing I had accomplished was to delay the inevitable and move myself a dozen meters farther up the slide. As luck would have it, I had another one of those bright ideas: to repeat the move as many times as I needed to until I made it to the top. But boneheaded reality set it when the most annoying alert I had ever seen popped up next to a little emoji of a duck that looked suspiciously like myself slapping its head.

You are doing that too much. Try again in 2 minutes.

“What the duck!” I gasped. “Nobody said anything about a dogdamn timer!” I knew the skill bar was charged by absorbing kinetic energy, and there was no mistake that my downward motion was making it in spades. It had to be some kind of mistake. So I focused and activated the skill again.

You are doing that too much. Try again in 4 minutes.

And again.

You are doing that too much. Try again in 6 minutes.

And again.

You are doing that too much. Try again in 8 minutes.

“Smooth moves, genius,” my implant said, it’s voice echoing out from my shield bracer in another first. “You know there’s a use timer, right? It’d be game breaking if you could just teleport whenever your downy ass pleased. Only rich chickens can afford mods like that. ”

“Well, I ducking do now, Dumbass! Thanks for the heads up, by the way.” I pushed aside my anger and thought for a moment. “Okay, how about this? You said the entire universe is a simulation, right? So… simulate me out of this.”

“Yeah… sorry. It doesn’t work quite like that.”

“I’m calling bullshit on that one. You said your sole purpose is to manipulate the simulation for me, right?”

“Uh, duh.”

“And aren’t you manipulating the simulation when you do all this video game crap for me?”

Dumbass snorted. “Obviously, Earth moron.”

“Then as far as I’m concerned, the universe is a dogdamn anime and you’re Akira Toriyama. And as my spiritual guide or whatever the duck you’re calling yourself now, I need you to draw me some damn Dragon Balls and ask Shenron to get me out of this!”

Dumbass hesitated for a second. And let me rind you that when you’re sliding towards the ground at Larry Enticer speeds, a second is a very, very, long time. Plus, the friction from the slide felt like it was starting to cook my backside, and nobody likes overcooked duck.

“Okay,” it finally said. “I have an idea. I’m going to need to take over for a minute if that’s okay? Also, not sure I can do much for our Curculian friend.”

"Ha!" I gasped as I glanced down at the Curculian. Weevul had tucked himself into his trademark ball and was rolling down the slope as if the whole thing were a minor inconvenience. His shell was practically indestructible, after all. “I knew you thought of him as a friend! And he seems to have everything under control, Dumbass. Or… at least I hope he does.” I closed my eyes. “Go ahead. The body is yours, Mark! Make that wish!”

With a sudden snap that cause my spine to crack from tail to skull, I rolled over onto my left side right, easing the burn on my ass, but sending a shower of sparks out from my bracer as if the metal of the armor was pressed up against a grinding wheel. Right before my legs were about to crash into the stone below my bracer activated, pushing the energy of my shield out in the form of a single glowing rod about three inches across.

If you’re having trouble getting your head around what my demented AI just did, let me paint a picture for you. You know those hydraulic rams stunt men use to flip over cars in movies and television shows? Well, my implant pretty much turned my shield into one of those.

The sudden explosion of force sent my body tumbling end over end, spinning so fast I threw up what little of that nasty chicken feed I had been able to choke down for lunch in a spiral of vomit. My arms and legs kicked and spun randomly until the spinning stopped, and then my body drove feet first into the wet sand as the base of the pyramid, like a cliff diver that missed the water and went sinking into the muck of the bank.

Weevil hit a second later, bouncing off the stone path with a noise that reminded me of a basketball getting slammed into pavement, then he landed right next to me, sending a cascade of the oatmeal-like soup right into my mouth. I spit it out with a retch.

Weevul blinked his wall of eyes several times as he took my state in. “Oops. Weevul very sorry, Flap. Misjudged landing, ya? But no need to be sad! Look!" He held up a handle full of what looked suspiciously like partially chewed chicken feed glued together with yellow bile. "Weevul saved your lunch. You want?"

I help up a feathered hand and suppressed a turn in my stomach. "I'm good."

"You mind?"

"What?" I said absentmindedly. "Nah, have it at it, pal."

My absentmindedness turned into instant regret as I watched the giant bug shove the partially digested mass into his mouth and savor it like a kid that just got exactly what he wanted at the candy store. And then I threw up again.

“Gross," I groaned. "Well, I may have just puked my guts out but at least I’m not a pancake right?”

“Oh, ya. Totally.” Weevul nodded as it sifted through the sand, picking out my latest chunks of barf. “Um, what is this pancake?”

“A pancake, my friend,” I said, as the oatmeal-like mass bubbled around me. “Is the most magical—hey! Dumbass! Why the hell am I sinking?”

“Because…” the AI said. “Now, don’t freak out, but I may have accidentally landed you into a, um, pit of quicksand.”

“Quicksand?! Are you ducking kidding--” I managed to get out, as it filled my mouth and I disappeared below the surface.