Rise of the Body Quackers - Part 3

Part 3: Fowl Air

Starmaster appeared in a hallway outside the BADGE HQ science department, not wanting to disrupt the efforts of the technicians working within, or their experiments. Using his telepathic ability, he sought out the mind of Dr. Henderson. Fortunately, she seemed to be in a meeting in a conference room with two individuals Starmaster knew well.

“So, have you made any further progress on your Project Dreamcatcher since you temporarily stepped down while your bun is safely baking?” Dr. Henderson asked.

Krystal Fae reclined in her chair, alleviating some pressure on her back as she touched her growing midsection. A steaming cup of tea, hints of lemon and mint scenting the air as it steeped, sat before her alongside a binder of notes. “I’ve done some simulations with several engine configurations and have had encouraging results. We may be getting close to building a prototype at the start of the new year.”

Alan Marcus, aka Catalyst, sat beside her and nodded. When Starmaster knocked on the door to the room, Catalyst stood and moved to open it. Before he reached it, the knob turned and Starmaster walked in. “No fair using TK. What rush?”

“I’m sorry to interrupt you three,” Starmaster began. He explained the situation at the Antarctic base to the group. He held up the transport cooler holding the object found by the expedition. “They hoped you might be able to figure out what this is.”

“We’ll do our best. Krystal. Alan. Do you mind assisting us?” Dr. Henderson asked.

The two super-powered scientists nodded, and together they all moved into secure examination lab.

)>)>)>)*>

The plane departed the base after an hour of searching. Chained Angel and Infinite Tempest remained behind to continue to search further into the Antarctic terrain.

Agent Leslie couldn’t help but to feel slightly useless, not being able to find the missing crew, but a nagging headache dampened her limited telepathic abilities. Her head pounded like she was trapped in a room with dozens of people all singing Happy Birthday in different languages at the same time, over and over.

After several hours of flight, they entered North American airspace and began their journey to New Amsterdam. The pilot worked hard, maintaining their course, but for some reason, tiny mechanical alarms kept triggering from internal subsystems in the aircraft’s ventilation mechanics.

“This is so odd,” the pilot said as he tapped a gauge on the dashboard. “There it goes again. It’s reporting blockage in duct Alpha 9. Then it goes away.”

“Did something get trapped in there? A goose or pigeon caught in the intake vent?” Agent Leslie knew of several aircraft vs bird accidents that happened during flights.

The pilot shook his head. “No. We haven’t hit anything. Why don’t you see if you can get the maintenance drone online and have it search through the vents to see what’s going on.”

“Can do,” Agent Leslie said as she pulled a computer keyboard onto her lap. She activated the small eight-legged robotic drone located in the planes cargo bay and sent it into the nearest air duct. Its metallic legs tapped at the aluminum like a dozen birds pecking at a glass window. Even all the way up in the cockpit, Agent Leslie could hear the faint staccato echoes of the drone’s movement reverberating from the vent in the ceiling.

)>)>)>)*>

Using the modifications to the implant that allowed him to hear, Catalyst ultrasonically scanned the contents of the container after they removed it. Beneath the dense ice, an unusual discovery was made. “Duck.”

After years of fighting villains, Starmaster immediately dipped his head expecting an attack.

“No,” Catalyst snorted as he released a single laugh, then pointed at the object on the titanium tray. “It duck.”

“Don’t you mean a penguin? How did a duck ever survive in that climate?” Starmaster asked.

“Not normal duck. Still showing diminished cellular activity. Faint heartbeat.” Catalyst brought up a digital display and showed them the vital signs he could pick up with his scan.

“You’re not going to believe this,” Doctor Henderson said from a different lab station. A gas chromatograph displayed a series of chemical peaks on its screen. “There are indications of extraterrestrial particulates in the ice surrounding it.”

“A space duck? Is Strange Quark’s trying to pull one of his pranks or something on us.” Krystal Fae said with wide eyes. “If there weren’t missing people involved, I wouldn’t put it past him.”

“Let me see what I can sense from it,” Starmaster said. “It might be sentient, like Zen and PainGUIN and their species.” Starmaster sent his consciousness into the Mindscape and tried to connect with the creature on the table.

A bright red eye opened and glowed with an eerie energy from the duck’s body beneath the rime of ice. The entire crystal seemed to come alive with unholy power.

)>)>)>)*>

After turning a corner in the ventilation duct, the drone registered an unusual sound present. Agent Leslie turned on the drone’s microphone to hear what it did.

Quack. Quack. Quack. Quack. Quack. Quack. It wasn’t the sound of one duck calling. It was multiple duck voices at the same time, a chorus of duck voices quacking in perfect unison.

“Whaaaaat?” Agent Leslie switched the feed over to the pilot’s headset as a chill ran up her spine. “It sounds like an entire flock of –”

“Mother Ducker!! How the f$#^ did we get a bunch of mother-quaking ducks on my mother-ducking plane?!” The pilot flipped on the autopilot and unbuckled his harness, readying to enter the main body of the plane.

Agent Leslie switched the security camera to the passenger section, where the BADGE agents with her traveled. Instead of finding them in their seats, she saw the chamber full of body-shaped shells with openings where ducks were emerging. “My god. The people back there are turning into ducks. The people are DUCKS!”

Suddenly, all the duck’s eyes flared red. The ducks stopped milling about and began eating everything around them. Clothing left over the fragmented shells. Seat cushions. Backpacks. The metal frames. Some even took bites out of the hull of the plane itself.

Louder alarms began to sound, filling the cockpit with a fury of angry alerts. “We’re getting major system failure alerts. We’re going down.” The pilot tapped some buttons and connected with BADGE HQ. “Aircraft in distress. We’re going down over New Amsterdam State Park. Repeat. We’re going down hard and fast…”