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"They're closing in," Central's voice crackled over the neural link. "Whatever you decide, do it quickly."
Decker leaned against one of the empty safes, and shuffled in his usual brooding way until he reached his ideal slouch and the trenchcoat draped with sufficient drama. He glanced at Xu from under his hat. "You ever think it would end like this?"
Xu only peered down. "The goose is a surprise."
Decker snorted. The goose returned Xu's stare with blank admonishment from his perch on the unconscious Enforcer's helmet.
"Strange," Xu remarked, "Seeing him so quiet."
"If he's quiet, we really are screwed." Decker's entire body sagged. "Call me a hypocrite, I miss roast chicken… but I don't want to see the little shit die."
"Oh, I'm sure he'll slip through like he always does." Xu stood next to Decker. "I'm more concerned about us."
There wasn't much room. Decker lifted his arm to let Xu close, and put his hand on his shoulder as if there were nowhere else for it. They huddled like two sleepy owls, sullen in the over-bright lights of the safe room.
"Do you really have nothing but an empty disruptor?"
"Nothing but a burned cloak and a whisky bottle," said Decker. "I frisked the other guard, no dice. Can't even offer you a last cigarette, some fink flushed them down the jet's head."
"Hhhonk!"
The neural link lit up in excited guard gabbling. Decker swore.
"Don't hold it against him," Xu said, kindly as ever. "It's physically impossible to honk in a whisper."
"You're still taking the goose's side?"
"Knowing something is not taking a side," Xu said in the tersely polite tone recognisable now as a lover's spat. "Perhaps if you did some research, the goose wouldn't be living in your head on a nigh-daily basis."
"He lives in my hat, there's a difference and I'm paying the dry cleaning bill. It's not that he's smart. He knows too much."
"Brian. A goose saw you discretely walking in the direction of my room and, I quote verbatim, 'honked suggestively'."
"It was pitch black, I almost pissed myself—"
"Suppose he understands human sociology to even draw the necessary conclusions and that anyone who matters cares. Who is he going to tell? The corps? Incognita? How? Interpretive dance like a bee, perhaps? Graphic honking?"
"Central's got a way, I'm telling you." This line of argument was also familiar, and Decker sounded more and more unhinged each iteration. "I bet he's got something on her too and that's the only reason she keeps him around—"
"It's all over in a few minutes," Xu snapped. "Was keeping on the down-low from a goose worth it?"
Decker spluttered to a halt.
The goose stopped pacing up and down the Enforcer's back, swiveled his head sideways and peered at Decker, expectantly.
"What?" Decker glared back, his entire face red. "Don't play coy with me. For all I know, you were the one who gave Incognita the idea."
"Honk?"
"You heard me." Decker bristled like a hungry guard dog. "You have Central wrapped around your wing, you crapped in my hat, Xu's only nice to you for some reason and now you're giving me those beady little sad eyes when all our—our gooses are cooked?"
"Geese."
"Shut up, Xu—"
"No," Xu said, very reasonably, "You shut up. If you're having your once in a lifetime moment of emotional honesty while you still can, don't waste it being mad at an animal that thinks it's fun."
"You got any better ideas we got time for, pointdext—"
Xu grabbed Decker by the collar, and awkwardly, pointedly kissed him.
"Oh." Decker, somehow, turned redder. He gave the goose the side eye.
The goose, keenly aware of the time constraints but deigning to be considerate just this once, stepped plap-plap in place on the Enforcer's formerly shining armour and turned himself around. He bore with heroic patience the unmistakable disgusting sounds of those gross caruncal-esque 'lips' rubbing together. The hunting call of a security guard from two rooms down thankfully cut them off, and then Xu whispered something low and urgent, muffled against the collar of Decker's coat, that the goose couldn't catch. He craned his neck back to listen closely.
"Ah, hell." Decker sounded like he was... emoting? "I love you too, Tony, I—"
"HONK." At last! The goose ran in a circle, stretched his magnificent wings to their full span before them as if in celebration, and let the stolen neural disruptor he stashed under wing minutes ago clatter to the ground.
The two men dislodged from each other's arms and blinked at him.
Xu figured it out first. He was intelligent after all, for a human. He adjusted his cap, fixed his tie and said, with feeling," 仆街."
"Told you." Decker knelt to pick up the disruptor, as close to eye level as he usually ever got with the goose, and bared his teeth in what the goose understood was called a 'grin'. "You're lucky I'm in such a good mood, bluebird."
There may have been the faintest glint of a threat in those eerie forward-facing eyes, but the goose wasn't that great at the subtleties of human emotions and couldn't be bothered figuring it out, not when there were so many other opportunities for havoc approaching. Unconcerned and now unencumbered by concealed equipment or long-outstanding items on the to-do list, he flapped his wings, picked up speed and took off down the corridor, feet plapping loudly.
Central, who had held her breath for an unreasonable time, let it out in a long, pained sigh. From the jet, she opened a private channel with her star agent.
"I don't know if what you said about improved morale was worth sitting through that, but you haven't steered me wrong yet."
"Honk!"