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The question, forever asked:

Was he one of them, or wasn’t he?

The Lord of the Lemmings had always helped them before.

But they didn’t understand him. He spoke in riddle and rhyme. He communicated in half-truths and madness. They saw themselves as heroes, but he believed he was—or would one day become—a god.

He was a riddle wrapped in an enigma, slathered with mustard, and eaten on rye.

•••

Above their heads, the weird white clouds of Planet Friendmonger drifted in herky-jerky fits and starts.

Grebok lunged in for a hug, and was not really surprised when his arms enclosed the Lord of the Lemming’s cloak, but found no tangible body—the cowl looked down with twinkling eyes as Grebok’s arms met each other, as if the inky robe was filled with nothing at all.

Also, the Lemming Man did not return the hug. A white, razor-edged smile did emerge from the darkness of the cowl, however, before receding back to black.

“You need to eat more, Lemming Man,” Grebok said with a wink, then elbowed Chuckles in the ribs. “See what I did there, LC? Because he’s not just skinny, he’s, y’know, non-existent. Boom. Funny.”

“I give that joke a C+,” Chuckles said.

Grebok shrugged. It was better than he did at the Naval Academy. “I’ll take it.”

“Jennifer! Nancy!” Sparky snapped. “If you two are done flicking each other’s dick-tips, maybe we could seek some wisdom from our old pal?” He cleared his throat and downgraded his hope: “Or, at least something wisdom-flavored?”

“Hitler!” Gunther yelled, grinning with green teeth. Everyone ignored him.

“Help us out, Lemming Man,” the Avatar said. “We don’t know where we are. We don’t know what this place is. I’m happy we have pants, this time—“

“Truth,” Grebok mumbled, looking down and confirming that on this adventure he did, indeed, have pants.

“—but, pants or no pants, I’m tired of this shit. Tubes and black goo, minotaurs and washing machines, that shithead robot with the shovel head and the stupid little bluebird that keeps telling me mundane things about its day. Plus, I apparently don’t have any friends, and ol’ Greb-head over there is romantically interdiscombobulated with our spaceship who we haven’t seen—“

The creepy woman’s voice drifted from the sky: “Relationship change to: It’s Complicated!”

Grebok frowned, while Chuckles ignored it. “—and Gunther over there hasn’t been right since this whole thing began. I think it’s really messing with his gourd.”

“PEOPLE FROM NORWAY ARE FATTIES,” Gunther yelled in all caps. He followed it up with: “I’m looking for a fuck partner to fuck! Space AIDS!”

“There he goes with Space AIDS again,” Grebok said, shaking his head. “I mean, wow. Chuckles is right. It’s done a number on him. You can help us out, right, Lemming Man?” He sidled up next to the floating black cloak. “You can get us out of here. Maybe? Kinda? Sorta?”

Something moved underneath the Lord of the Lemmings’ cloak. Like ripples from a pebble strike on pondwater.

They looked to him expectantly.

Once more, he grinned.

Note: he didn’t say yes.

He only smiled.

•••

Denthead was pretty sure he was out of a job.

He shuffled across the berber carpet of the 37th floor of HappyCo’s Acquisitions Department on HappyTron. A Styrofoam cup—a black smile emblazoned upon its side with two glee-filled button eyes—tumbled in front of him, blown by a wind whistling in through broken windows. Reams of dot matrix printouts sat hooked on chairs and cubicle corners, fluttering like forgotten banners from a fallen kingdom.

Most everybody was gone.

The computers were dark.

Fluorescent lights overhead flickered and spit sparks.

Outside, a holo-sign that once advertised the brand new Choco-Mirth Moon Shake at the Cosmic Paisley Wormhole McHappy’s was now coruscating between darkness and a heavily pixilated image of somebody’s grandparents having sex over a kitchen sink full of dirty dishes. Sometimes, the old man had a Zebra’s head placed over his own. Other times, the old lady was given colorful red clown shoes.

Denthead found a pile of black, star-glittered smudge.

He shrugged. His head was built for this. Hunkering down, he kicked forward and used his Scum-Bot scraper skull to push free the goo. He hit resistance though, about halfway through.

It was a corpse. The pale face—a man, not smiling, a big no-no here on HappyTron—peered out from underneath the shimmering sludge.

“Hrm,” he grunted, a mechanized wheeze.

He tottered over to a computer, and plugged in a cable pulled from a supernumerary nipple on his side. He took a few minutes, watched the digital feed from the security cameras (everything cast in a gauzy rose-glow, for black and white was too harsh for the eyes of HappyCo employees).

“Interesting.”

Most gave in to their fates. They sat at their PCs, numb, slack-jawed, moving naught but fingers to click, or eyes to follow a cursor or Infi-Net web video. When the time came, they willingly submitted to the black coils roping around their necks and into their mouths, pulling them bodily in through the slots and drives—literally uploading them, body and soul, to the Infi-Net.

Others, a rare few, fought back.

Black tendrils lashed. Some were pulled in. Others were choked, left for dead. Like that body, over there.

Denthead unplugged, turned, and—

—faced a shadowy chicken with a briefcase.

The Scum-Bot lost his footing, and tumbled over an office chair.

“The hacker prevails,” the Lowman Brown hen—Diana, if you’ll recall—said with a chuckle.

Denthead stood. “Can’t you clear your throat or something? You scared the fluid out of my bladderhose.”

“Apologies,” Diana said, sounding like she didn’t mean it. She set the black case down.

Denthead shuddered.

“Is that what I think it is?”

The chicken said nothing.

“Is it time to get paid? I did the work. I sent those poor knuckleheads to the far-flung corners of Friendmonger, though I gotta say, I don’t feel comfortable. I don’t know what you’re up to, but this is some wacky business. I thought I knew how to game the system.”

The chicken popped the lid of the briefcase. Denthead got closer. He felt equal parts sick and excited—he knew he’d done bad things, but maybe he didn’t understand the breadth, the depth; maybe some virtue existed beneath these layers of madness, and all for a HyLon Processor…

Except, the case was not home to a HyLon Processor.

It was home to an Uzi.

The chicken snatched it up, laughed, and started firing.

•••

Again, something moved under the Lemming  Man’s robes.

This time, accompanied by noises.

A faint whirring. Then, a sound like a carrier signal, a modem connecting. Followed by a staccato series of tones.

“Can’t help you, yet,” the Lord of the Lemmings mumbled. “I played in the glade with pretty maids! But then I prayed for braids of jade, and an answer came while I laid in the shade—time, the answer said, for a very serious upgrade.”

The heroes stared at him. Each blinked. Even Gunther was silent.

Finally, the Avatar of Good broke the silence. “Nope, sorry, didn’t get that, can you reword it for us sane people?”

His robe fluttered open.

A glint of chrome. Bright, LCD eyes. The sonic whine of a dental drill, and the growl of a saw.

“What the—“

Sparky couldn’t finish his sentence. Something bowled out of the darkness of the Lemming Man’s robes, and attached to the Wonder Weasel’s muzzle.

Chuckles found himself on his ass, something biting into his shoulder.

Grebok swatted at the air—but caught a flash of blinking LCD eyes in his peripheral vision, and howled as a metal gremlin attached itself to his neck and burrowed under his jerkin.

Gunther screamed something about dirty Lithuanians, a scream that was swiftly silenced.

•••

The Uzi chattered. Denthead felt bullets ricochet off his scum-shovel of a head, while others punched clean through the metal. He extended his arms, pistoned his fingers, and leapt over a cubicle wall.

More chickens. Coming in through the windows.

These, with black masks and tidy white suits. Each hen with her own Uzi. Barking bullets.

Denthead pumped his squat legs left, then right, knocking over a desk, a copier, a bubbling water cooler whose fluoridated water shined blue. Bullets stitched across his back. Ping! Pang! Pong! One punched through the flexor joint of his right leg, rendering it useless. Another drilled through the center of his head, clean through his processor, and—

static

dead pixels

sparks

steam

synaptic network firing all at once

—he tumbled through an open window, plummeting from the 37th floor.

•••

As the heroes screamed, swarmed by a flock of Cyber-Lemmings, the Lord of the Lemmings booped some buttons on his nifty touchscreen watch.

A face concealed in shadow—a woman’s face—stared back from his wrist.

“Phase One is almost complete,” she said, her words distorted into a sluggish, warbling nightmare voice. “How goes Phase Two?”

“Phase Two is poop-de-doo!” he chirped.

He was met with silence.

The woman’s face shifted uncomfortably, looking this way, and that.

“I’m sorry?” she finally said. “What?”

“It—it’s going just fine,” he said, straining to answer with normalcy. “They are receiving their upgrades as we speak.”

“Good. Head on back to base, then.”

He waggled his fingers, then turned to the screaming heroes before disappearing in a puff  of 1s and 0s, black and oily, like crow feathers.

The heroes?

They kept on screaming.

Grebok’s fist shot out like it was on rails.

Teeth ground and cracked in the jaw of Rorg, an ork’kin he dared to eat paste in second grade. Grebok forgot the incident soon after. Apparently, Rorg hadn’t.

They were in the mountains of Friendmonger now and the road grew more perilous. Friendship rings formed clans and factions out here in the wild.

Lord Chuckles head-butted one of Rorg’s grabbier buddies but came away equally staggered by the exchange. “Gah! What do you have under your skull? Another skull?”

The hard-headed cretin curled his fat lips into what was probably a cruel smile. It looked more like a pig with gas, a mowhawk, and a tribal tattoo. “R’rerek Hardskull,” the creature introduced himself. He pointed a stubby, calloused finger to another tattoo on his chest, where his name was written upside down, presumably in case he forgot it.

Chuckles kicked him hard enough to smear the ink. A roar of air escaped the foe as he collapsed to his knees, desperately trying to get his lungs to take air back after a messy breakup.

“R’rerek Ironlung more like it!” the Avatar shouted. He looked around to see if anyone heard that. Grebok was busy fighting that first ork’kin, Sparky was entangled with some elf-broads (they were dudes), and Gunther was picking his butt and sniffing his fingers. More genius wasted, Chuckles thought, frowning.

“Orcs are gay. You guys are teh fail,” Gunther opined from his seat. He turned to focus in on the weasel’s fight. “Yeah, tear her dress! Let’s see some boobage! Make them lez out!” Sparky looked over at the office geek in repulsed confusion. Which earned him a kick to the ribs, much to the office geek’s apparent delight. “Hawhaw, fagger.”

Sparky weaved in and out of the two elves. They were feisty little guys, but he didn’t just stick “wonder weasel” after his name for no reason. His back leg kicked the legs out from under one, while the other got a nasty bite on the shoulder.

Grebok ducked an incoming blow. “Rorg still called Paste-Eater in my village. No one marry Paste-Eater!” his assailant cried, indignant.

The Son of Drogmar threw an uppercut, and followed through with an elbow to Rorg’s exposed throat. Lastly he put a kick into his side that sent the heavy beast stumbling downhill. He bowled over the gasping R’rerek and in turn the still-standing elf.

Sparky scuttled out of the lumbering path of the paste-eater and made a break for higher ground.

“You look like a giant ape pecker!” Gunther heckled from the sidelines. “Wonder weiner!”

As their enemies writhed around in an awkward pile of green and porcelain flesh, the Shadowstories took their opportunity to make their egress. Lord Chuckles looked out from the mountain path to see what progress they’d made. Precious little, was the report.

Gunther followed with a slow lope. “You guys should all shower together. Because of how gay you are. Mirror-door sucks. It’s a stupid name for a planet. Darkblackshadow is a cooler name. That’s the name of my level 900 Wizard Dragon Knight King Rogue. He’s really awesome. He can wield three weapons at the same time, and… and….” He continued talking after this, but everyone tuned him out at roughly the same time.

“Man, fuck this place.” Grebok silently vowed he wouldn’t accept any more friend requests. He didn’t even know who half the people staking a claim to his acquaintance were anymore. He was still puzzling over who the Goddess Bl’art was

“New friend request.”

Grebok turned tiredly. They all squinted at the shadowy silhouette of this latest applicant: Tall. Cowled? Caped! “The lemming man!” He announced, already forgetting his vow.

“Friendship confirmed.”

“Fuck yeah, friendship confirmed. Finally, someone I actually—no. No. Come on, no.” Grebok backpedaled into Sparky.

“Fuck’s your problem?” Sparky growled.

“Death.” Grebok uttered like a curse (not invectively, like damn, shit, or godsblood; more like the kind of curse old gypsy women were always accused of).

Sure enough, the tall shrouded figure that faded into view, carried an overlarge scythe like the reaper of legend. In a dramatic show he slipped the hood from his head.

One by one, the Shadowstories gasped in anticipatory horror, only to find themselves slightly disappointed. They expected a perpetually grinning skull with glowing eyes, or some rotted zombie face, or maybe some Edvard Munch’s The Scream shit. Not… this.

It was a little known fact that Death looked like Jason Priestley. The personification of the inevitable end sighed, knowing what would come next.

“You know you look like—” Sparky started but was cut off by an upraised hand. It wasn’t even a skeletal hand. It was fleshy and mannish (and slightly girlish), like Jason Priestley would have.

“Yeah. Yeah I know,” Death nodded, “Jason Priestley, right?”

The giant weasel shook his head at first, but stopped, “Yeah. Yeah, I guess a little.”

Chuckles stepped forward, again reaching for a sword that wasn’t there. When his hands closed around nothing he attempted to look innocuous.

“Why do you want to be my friend?” Grebok took mighty umbrage behind his bolder companion.

“Oh, I’m everyone’s friend. Eventually.” Death smiled, all proud of himself.

Lord Chuckles rolled his eyes. “Yes, yes, very clever.”

“You like that?” If Death had a horn, he’d be tooting it.

“Get on with it, what are you doing here?” Chuckles waved his arms in all directions to make sure he got it all.

“No one’s dying out there anymore. Everyone’s here,” he mimicked the Avatar’s spastic flailing. “So, Death comes to the Infi-Net.” He presented himself with a flourish. The response was underwhelming. “Bah, you don’t know,” he dismissed.

Grebok inched his way further up the path. “I ain’t dead, you got that?”

“No, but that guy is.” Death pointed down the path to R’rerek.

Sparky cuffed Chuckles in the back of the head. The Avatar shrugged unapologetically.

“You didn’t do it actually. Congenital heart failure,” Death supplied, ever-helpful.

“Death is a tool! Metal Death rulezzz!” Gunther threw some sort of faux-metal hand gesture.

The Son of Drogmar stopped inching away. “Wait, how can he die? Is anyone even really alive around here?”

“They are now, Bunky. I just said that, even.” Death cinched up his adorable unshaven face at the Miradorian. “Not your sharpest knife, is he?”

“He’s street smart,” Chuckles exaggerated.

“Good luck with that.” Death started down the path toward the dead ork’kin.

They all stood around for another couple seconds. “Sooooo…?” Sparky gave voice to everyone’s impregnated expectation.

Jason Priestley turned back to them. “Oh yeah, you’re free to go… for now.” He winked. “Am I right?”

Gunther gave Death the finger, then with both hands, then made both fingers into little laser pistols, then made little “pew, pew, pew” noises.

Sparky grabbed the increasingly smelly office nerd by the collar and drug him up the path. “Gidoffa me, homo! Go lick ferret sack!” he kicked, and shrieked.

Not for the first time, Sparky found himself put off by Gunther’s newfound officiousness, but at the same time probably respected him more.

“I hate that guy,” Grebok mumbled to himself, half-turning to look back down the path.

Death was looking right at him. He waved at Grebok with R’rerek’s limp hand. “See you soon, Grebok.” He supplied a comical falsetto voice for the dead ork’kin.

Grebok shivered and quickly rounded the path toward the peak.

Chuckles caught up and clapped him on the shoulder reassuringly. He even thought better of a Don’t worry, you’ll probably die from robot-gonorrhea. joke. He was a good friend, he concluded.

They continued upward but it wasn’t long before they stopped short again.

Death stood in front of them on the path again. His hood once more hiding his pretty head.

Grebok freaked out a bit. “What? What do you want, man?” He rolled up his sleeves and invited confrontation. “You wanna do this? Let’s do this! You’ll never take me alive!” He was nigh hysterical.

The gaunt, shrouded figure, shrugged. “If this is a bad time, I can come back later.”

“L-lemming man?” Chuckles asked hesitantly. He looked back down the path as if somehow he had passed them along the way.

Sparky sniffed the air. “Yeah, that’s him.”

The Lord of the Lemmings waved spritely.