Boredom, as it always did, got the better of him.

“Man, what’s the worst that could happen?” he muttered, plugging it into his cracked 9mm-stained laptop.

The USB stick lay on the floor, cracked and smoking.

When CJ opened his eyes, he was back on his couch. The beer was warm. The sun was setting. Sweet was yelling about his car.

Outside, a single, stray feather drifted past the window. And for just a second, the shadow of a turkey glided over Grove Street.

“It was never about the jetpack, man,” the Truth-Turkey gobbled, flapping its wings. “It was about the tryptophan. The great sleep. The eternal nap of consciousness.”

The screen flickered. A single line of green text appeared: REPLACING PEDESTRIAN MODEL: ALL. SOURCE: MELEAGRIS GALLOPAVO. INITIATING… GOBBLE.

“You picked the wrong house, fool!” the turkey squawked in a garbled, low-pitched version of Smoke’s voice. “I’m gonna have two number nines, a number nine large, and a side of your kneecaps!”