Duck.quackpre -

Duck tilted his head. Quack-pre?

He tried it out loud. “Quack... pre?”

A holographic blueprint shimmered into the air above the pond. It showed Duck’s own brain, but crisscrossed with glowing lines of code. It showed his webbed feet turning into gyroscopic stabilizers. It showed his beak becoming a sonic resonator. duck.quackpre

“Do the first part only,” Reginald said, stepping back onto the dock. “Quack.”

Duck was horrified. He didn’t want to be compiled . He wanted to eat a snail. Duck tilted his head

Duck, with nothing left to lose, took a breath and let out a single, perfect, trembling quack.

“I found a rock!” Duck quacked desperately. “It said ‘quackpre’ and now the sky is turning me into a—a machine!” “Quack

“You read the wrong syllable,” Reginald said.