As far as tires go, Quentin isn’t anything special. Its casing is made of tough rubber, black, with not a spec of color on it. Its well within standard height and weight, and while it is getting on in years, its treads still hold strong. Sure, they’ve started to fade here and there, with here being significantly more noticeable than there, but that’s not enough to keep Quentin from rolling. One might be able to make out the raised characters detailing Quentin’s stats on its sides, but wear and tear have beaten those down as well. There might have once been a brand name on Quentin somewhere, but it’s gone now.

Still, despite all the apparent abuse Quentin must have endured in the past, the tire is in relatively good shape. No leaks, no holes, no rot, no bubbles. Quentin may be used, but it was obviously cared for somewhat. Or lucky. Probably lucky.

Ever steady, ever true, Quentin only speeds up as it gains traction. It learns at a rapid pace, so long as the subject is building on its existing knowledge. Quentin, more than anything else, is determined. Goals, tasks, people...once something grabs Quentin’s attention, it’s difficult to distract it. The tire rolls down whatever path it decides upon without veering in the slightest.

This dedication, however, can also be seen as sheer stubbornness or even obsessiveness on Quentin’s part. And that’s quite fair. After all, it isn’t likely to rotate on whatever decision it’s come to settle upon, and braking is out of the question. Quentin cares more for accomplishing its goal than it does its own safety. If victory or satisfaction requires putting itself in harm’s way, so be it.

The tire is dreadfully quiet, no matter the setting or group size. We’ve chalked it up to it simply being shy. Or focused. Or...well...it just doesn’t speak much. Or at all. It IS a tire.

It’s selfish, jealous, and greedy, not to mention that there is a bit of a sadistic streak to the rubber wheel, though. It seems to take joy in seeing others in pain, or simply having a bad time. That’s not to say that Quentin is cruel, though. It doesn’t prolong the suffering. It much prefers pops of pain to marathons of misery.

The future doesn’t matter to it, only the now.

Quentin might have lived a short, fulfilling life dragging carloads of people to and fro across the harsh Californian desert, were it not for the infamous Massacre of ‘98 and the following March on Hollywood. But as it stands, both events DID happen, and as history unfolded, sentient tires earned their freedom and their rights as American citizens. No longer would humanity profit off the broken rims of tirekind. Every tire, no matter what brand it was, would be free to chase the American Dream.

Skip some decades and we get to Quentin: average everytire working alongside three others lugging around a fancy smancy eco-friendly car. Yuck. It wasn’t glamorous work, but it paid the bills and on good months even got it the latest issue of Tire Review magazine. Was it what its people had fought against so long ago? Perhaps. But did they have to juggle insurance, a mortgage, and soul-crushing student loans? No, so they could get bent.

It was on yet another routine hauling job when Quentin finally “awoke.” Its crew had been cut off but this obnoxious eighteen-wheeler crew, with not even so much as a turn signal. Quentin was jolted by the sudden, panicky application of the brakes. Embarrassed and enraged, Quentin shaked. It shaked and shaked and vibrated and shaked...then the popping began. First it was one of the rear ones, but the rest followed shortly behind. One by one, the members of the eighteen wheeler meet a swift and sudden end.

Quentin, horrified at the thought of the consequences of its actions, immediately left the crew and fled into the wilderness. For thirty days and thirty nights, Quentin rolled about far from civilization. Desert, to plain, to forest, to ocean, Quentin saw the world in its natural beauty and fell in love.

Along the way, the tire tested its newfound abilities, pushing itself to its limits and exploring the new opportunities. Unfortunately, all Quentin could find itself capable of was harming things around it.

Quentin was crushed. Ultimately, it moved to end it all, to roll off a cliff and to its doom. And it might have succeeded, were it not for the tire to chance upon an abandoned radio on the way to the cliff. Playing on the radio was an ad for the superproject, The Promise. There, Quentin would either be reformed into an agent of good, or ejected into the sun.

It was win/win.

So Quentin returned to civilization, turned itself in to the authorities, and made its case before a jury of its peers.

Quentin was sentenced to death by lethal injection. Ballpoint pen. Go figure.

Cerebral

Quentin was “gifted” with very potent, very powerful psychic abilities. Chief among them was the ability to remotely detonate anything within its sight. This was primarily used for popping other tires or exploding the heads of living creatures. While other applications may have existed for Quentin’s power, it is dead, so we’ll never know.

Quentin’s ability was limited by its sight. The tire had to concentrate quite intensely for its power to work. Against a single target, this was practically a guaranteed kill. However, the second that multiple targets come into the picture, it’s a whole new ballgame. Quentin’s only going to get one of them, unless the targets all stand around scratching their asses and smelling their fingers. Maybe it would have grown to overcome this glaring weakness, but alas, we’ll never know. Dead tire is dead.