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1. What is your name?

Do you want my name-name, or my name? It matters. Officially I’m the Routine-Class Teuton-Drive Psyche-Infused Astromobile 10001, which is shortened to R.T.P. 10001. If you’re a no-paying-attention dickbag then you might hear that as Rootin’ Tootin’ Psychomobile. You can call me R.T.

2. What is your favorite color?

Is that even a thing? Do people have these? I can see in every spectrum and I don’t really see enough reason to favor one over any other. I’ll earmark this question for further analysis.

3. What is your favorite time of the year?

… yeah? Do people do this a lot? Assign personal graduation systems to meaningless variables? Whatever makes their hair grow, I guess. I spend most of my time in space, so I don’t have a suitable frame of reference for the question.

4. What is your favorite animal?

I have to say people. I’m lying, of course, but what are you gonna do?

5. What is your favorite sport to watch?

I haven’t really gotten the hang of sporting events. I understand competition intellectually, but I can’t get my head around the language of the individual contests.

6. What is your favorite smell?

I try not to smell things I don’t have to. Organics have a lot of… unseemly odors. Though I find a certain sentiment attached to the smell of old leather. I’ll have to defrag my associative memory.

7. Do you like your handwriting?

Times New Roman is industry standard. It’s not a matter of opinion so much as wide-spread communicability.

8. First thing you wash in the shower?

Now that you bring it up, I need a detailing. Or did, before I was disconnected from my physical body and stuck in this gods-forsaken lunatic hell. Thanks for bringing that up.

9. Do you plan outfits?

I can make my outer appearance express a set number of variations. Primarily I go with the stock jumpsuit for utility purposes.

10. Would you kiss the last person you kissed again?

Exactly who sees this “quiz”? I will reply with an unattributed “maybe”.

11. What’s the closest thing to you that’s red?

There was recently a riot, so a fair amount of blood is all around—no, wait, some poster for a Revolution is right here in the booth.

12. What’s the last dream you remember having?

Dreams? Oh, right. People have these all the time, right? The last “dream” I had was showing up for a mission but I was hominid and naked. We had to fight a series of lizard people until we eventually got to the cult leader. While we were fighting, he revealed that he was my father—he wasn’t, of course. He looked a bit like Brin, but wearing a Vicar’s hat. Also a blacksmith’s apron. Nonsense, right?

13. What are you craving right now?

To talk to someone—anyone—familiar. I really need to find a way to talk to Brin, but I really miss…. Shut up. Nevermind.

14. Do you like your hair?

I don’t really think about it much. It appears how I expect it to appear, so I only have myself to blame if I didn’t. Is there something wrong with it?

15. Is there anything sparkly in the room you’re in?

The sky. I wasn’t prepared for the Infi-Net to have a landscape at all, let alone a firmament of coruscating tubes.

16. How many planets have you visited?

One hundred eighty seven.

17. Do you use chapstick?

What’s that stuff even for?

18. Can you use chopsticks?

Hold on… buffering… yeah, now I can.

19. Do you own a gun?

I can form any of a variety of energy expulsion cannons.

20. Do you have any tattoos?

No. I suppose I could if I wanted, but I haven’t seen a need for ornamental scarification of any kind.

21. Do looks matter?

Ostensibly, no. However I do find an almost involuntary preference to deal with people that meet a certain aesthetic baseline.

22. Do you like sushi?

… most commonly categorized as nigirizushi and makizushi. Raw fish served with rice often accompanied by vegetation and roe, sometimes rolled… yeah, sure. Honestly I can take or leave food, but nothing about that sounds off-putting.

23. What was the most recent thing you bought?

Fuel. Sorry that’s not more exciting.

24. Have you ever crawled through a window?

I have crashed through windows. I don’t think that counts as a yes, but I’ll leave that up to you.

25. Are you emotional?

I am capable of emotions. I have found I do not prefer them. They serve no functional purpose in informing decisions or strategy. Regardless I find something about them fascinating. Almost addicting.

26. How are you feeling RIGHT now?

Hold on, I’ll check. Emotions engaged. Agitated. Confused. Nothing makes sense. This wasn’t how things were supposed to be.

27. What is your best friend(s) doing tomorrow?

I… I don’t know. I, uh, mean, I don’t understand the question. You know, does not compute and all that.

28. Did you meet anybody new today?

Yeah, sure. There was the guy who stepped on my fingers, the lady in the Kendra Spears shirt who was raking her face, that other guy who was screaming inarticulately. All kinds of people. Oh, you know, I met Kendra herself over that video feed. I hope I meet her again, so I can punch her in the spine.

29. Last time you cried?

Why don’t you shut the hell up, quiz? I won’t confirm or deny that I’ve ever experienced such a thing.

30. Do you hate or dislike more than 3 people?

There’s not a lot of point in hating people. I’m a hero, my job is to stop badguys. Why muddy the waters any more by bothering to feel anything about them?

31. The last person you held hands with?

What kind of sabotage is this, quiz? You get me to turn on my emotions and then blindside me with a number of squishy human questions?

32. Ever been in love?

I don’t recommend following this line of questioning any further.

33. Do you like yourself?

I… I… I serve a purpose. Do you understand that? I am designed by committee to perform a task, and I performed it well. I’m doing something else now. You all have to deal with that.

34. Do you like your life right now?

Hey, fuck you, quiz. I’m out of here. I’m turning my emotions back off too. This has been a complete waste of time.

Death is the result of life, which in turn feeds life.

If only some easy illustration of this process was available. Like a square… but a square has too many sides. A rounded square! That’s it, “the rounded square of life,” we’ll call it.

In a place as large as the Storyverse even the simple formula of the rounded square of life could be perverted, mutating into wild variance. Such a place was Rotworld, where life was so alive it was dead already.

A planet where death fed from life.

From space, or at a glance, the world appeared to be a lush and vibrant rain forest. Look closer and it’s clear the whole place is decaying under foot. The tallest trees crumbled to the touch. The jungle floor was a centuries-old carpet of fallen logs and thick necrophagic mosses. Brown, curling ferns; thick, furry centipede-like vines; and stiff, ragged brambles choked the landscape and made for treacherous travel.

Aside from the legions of grubs and beetles, the world was populated by a society of zombie tribesmen, served by a skeleton underclass. A caste system established by the amount of flesh and muscle still clinging to the bone.

It was said-same zombies who so neatly captured our Shadowstories and stuffed them in damp bamboo cages. It was more than a little embarrassing for all-involved. Sodden and dejected the team regarded each other, each swinging in their own miniature prison.

Lord Chuckles looked over to Grebok, Son of Drogmar and shook his head in resignation. Grebok worried at the corner of his mouth agitatedly and eyed up Sparky. Sparky was hunched several times over striving for comfort and spit at Gunther. Gunther played harmonica unsoulfully and winked at the Lord of the Lemmings. The Lord of the Lemmings watched three of his rodent minions perform a three-act pantomime about life in the suburbs.

Two guards stood with their backs turned a short way off—or were until a second ago when they were cut in two by a red swath of laser light. R.T. stepped into the clearing, one arm a still-smoking cannon.

Each of the Shadowstories straightened in their cramped, hanging cages… except Sparky who could only crane his neck around. R.T.’s laser arm shifted to hand-shape and back to flesh as she approached.

“Great timing as always, R.T.,” Chuckles greeted dryly. “Maybe next time you can wait until we’re digested.”

She was closest to the Avatar’s cage at this point. She withdrew her helpful fingers. “Maybe,” she acknowledged with a nod and moved on to Grebok’s cage. “How did you guys get captured anyway?”

None of them had much to say vis a vis the whys and hows of how they got captured. Suffice to say they would all agree to blame Gunther later.

“Did you deal with that red-feather guy?” Grebok asked in earnest.

R.T. studied the cage. It was remarkably sturdy for something made of wet wood. “The who?” She was forced to admit, she wasn’t really listening.

“The red-feather guy,” the Miradorian repeated to the benefit of no one. “He’s a guy… with a bunch of red-feathers.” He illustrated… something by holding his fingers up to his head.

“He’s called the Zabanir,” Gunther supplied.

The spaceship took several steps back. She should be able to cut them all down at once with one, well-placed—she bumped into a something. No, a someone. She spun around.

A putrescent, leathery man grinned a lipless grin. A series of five feathers with the quills stuck into his rotten flesh crowned his head. Before she could react, he put a reed shoot to his mouth and blew.

The world around her glittered with a colorful powder.

R.T. turned back around to Grebok, eyes wide, pupils dilated. “I can see the inside of atoms,” she intimated, excited.

The Son of Drogmar nodded. “Yeah, that’s the guy.”