User: Timothy Takashi

Date: 12/31/3781

 

Mission: Unauthorized Cranky Investigation

 

Entry #1 - 23:15

 

[audio transcript]

This is Tim Takahashi. I'm recording this log in case something happens to me. No one believed me about Cranky, so I'm going alone. If you're hearing this, Dr. Cyber... I hope I'm wrong, but I don't think I am. The coordinates I found in Cranky's personal files match a temporal nexus that only opens at midnight tonight. I'm at the edge of the quarry now with the Rocket Racer. No sign of him yet, but my time gadget is picking up unusual activity.

Entry #2 - 23:42

 

[audio transcript]

Movement by the western ridge. It's Cranky. He's carrying some kind of device I've never seen before. Following at a distance. The gadget’s readings are off the charts - similar to what we saw during the Aquazone incident, but more... concentrated. Something's definitely happening here.

Entry #3 - 23:58

 

[audio transcript]

I can't believe what I'm seeing. There's a tear forming in the air itself - not a normal time portal, something different. And Cranky is... communicating with something inside it. The entities look like Voidbots, but different, more complex. They're speaking to Cranky, calling him "the most advanced consciousness in this temporal plane." They're promising him "ascension beyond biological limitation." This is way worse than I thought.

Entry #4 - 00:07

 

[audio transcript]

Cranky has pledged himself to these things. He just told them he's "ready to transcend this limited existence." I'm recording everything, but I don't know if this data will survive where they're going. They've opened a full portal now - it doesn't look like our normal null zone portals. The edges are... wrong. Like they're folding in on themselves. Cranky just stepped through. I have to follow.

Entry #5 - 00:13

 

[audio transcript]

I'm taking the original Rocket Racer - the first vehicle Dr. Cyber and I built together. It's outdated and a bit tiny, but reliable. If I don't make it back, tell Shirley... tell her I'm sorry. For everything. Entering portal now.

Entry #6 - TIME UNKNOWN

 

[audio transcript]

We're in the Null Zone, but not any part I've ever seen before. The normal pathways are gone - everything is fracturing, recombining. Cranky is ahead, standing on some kind of floating rock fragment with the distorted Voidbot-thingies. They're moving fast, almost out of range. Remembering that old Time Twister trick - using the grappling hook to latch onto their platform. Holding on, but the velocity is incredible.

Entry #7 - TIME UNKNOWN

 

[audio transcript]

We're moving so deep into the null zone that I can barely comprehend what I'm seeing. we’re waay into the future. like... past 3 billion years ahead. this would be a horrible time for the grapple line to snap. The beings seem to be guiding Cranky toward some kind of point? the edge of time itself? The terminology fails me. I don't think human language was meant to describe this place.

Entry #8

 

[audio transcript]

We've stopped moving, but that's not quite right. We've stepped beyond movement itself. Beyond time. We're in what I can only describe as a huge room, but that word is hopelessly inadequate. it’s a bit like those Escher drawings everyone has posters of on their walls. i think i see toys, and other childhood stuff. impossible geometry - staircases leading to the same place they started, doors in the ceiling, windows that open into other windows.

Entry #9

 

[audio transcript]

There are... tables? Surfaces? They hold what look like tops, dolls, glass marbles, but each one contains what seems to be an entire existence. I made the mistake of looking too closely at one - saw billions of years of evolution, war, peace, extinction, rebirth, all happening simultaneously. My mind can barely hold together. The Voidbot-look-alikes... i cant directly look at them now... are showing Cranky around like he's a guest of honor. They don't seem to notice me hiding behind this impossible column.

Entry #10

 

[audio transcript]

Getting harder to think clearly. The physics here make no sense. Gravity pulls in multiple directions at once. Colors I've never seen before. They are showing Cranky something - a glass marble that seems to contain our entire timeline, every possible iteration of it, and all of space. it’s like a 4D ball if that makes any sense.. cant hear them. I think they want to reset our reality though, with Cranky as some kind of... administrator? The room is starting to spin, or maybe I am. Can't focus. Feel like I'm going to faint.

Entry #11 - REALITY UNSTABLE

 

Consciousness returning. Something wrong with my body. Can't move properly. Looking down - this isn't my body. I appear to be... merged with some kind of Victorian porcelain doll? My limbs are jointed wrong, skin is glossy ceramic. Can still use my wrist pad somehow, but I'm not recording - my thoughts are appearing directly. The pad keeps shifting, sometimes a notebook with yellowed pages, sometimes back to technology.

Entry #12 - REALITY UNSTABLE

 

ive finally managed a look at the beings now. They're... beautiful? Like angels or celestial beings, but so alien it hurts to look at them. Multiple wings that fold through dimensions I can't comprehend. They're communicating with each other in what sounds like music and mathematics combined.

Entry #15

 

Attempting to move. Managed to shift my doll-foot slightly. The sensation is indescrib

Date: BEYOND TIME

Entry #16  - TRANSCENDENCE OCCURRING

 

Cranky has seen me. He's not angry or surprised - he's welcoming me, beckoning me over like an old friend. We're communicating, but not with words... it's something beyond language. Pure meaning transmitted directly between consciousnesses. Truth in its raw form, like we're speaking in the base code of existence itself.

I've just realized something profound - my body is gone. What I thought was a doll form was just a transitional perception. My consciousness stands here unbound by physical form. It's the strangest freedom I've ever felt. I can see my own emotions as colorful, flowing energies - fear as pulsing red, wonder as sparkling blue, confusion as swirling purple.

There's no clothing here, no skin even, but somehow I'm more exposed than I've ever been. My entire self is visible - memories, hopes, fears, all trailing behind me like a comet's tail. Nothing is hidden in this place.

 

Cranky is... beautiful. Not physically - he appears as pure concepts: happiness, intelligence, curiosity, earnestness. His form suggests a human outline but composed entirely of radiant thought and intention. His joy at being here is overwhelming.

The angels nearby have covered their faces with their wings, as if to spare us from something too intense to comprehend. They don't speak directly to me, and I still can't look directly at their radiance. Cranky seems to interpret for them, translating concepts too vast for my understanding into something I can begin to grasp.

He's explaining that there are greater beings in this outer realm. All existences are nested inside each other, like Russian dolls. Our tangible universe is one layer, the Null Zone another, and this place - THE ROOM - yet another. Each contains the next in an endless recursion of realities.

Date: BEYOND TIME

Entry #17  - UNDERSTANDING

 

Cranky explains they don't seek to change any timeline. Everything is pre-written, conceived in spontenaity by what he calls "the Creator" - the Child who plays with these toy universes. Infinite is this Child's understanding and imagination, containing all possibilities simultaneously.

The angels have invited Cranky to join them - to experience the bliss of creation himself. For his perseverance, his growth beyond his original programming, they're offering him the chance to form a "marble" of his own - a new reality that he can shape according to his understanding.

He's showing me the marbles - countless spheres containing entire universes, each with its own physical laws and evolutionary paths. I can see one that might be our own reality, with its spiral galaxies and blue-green planets.

I can't explain why, but I don't want Cranky to leave. Despite everything, he's family. Part of our strange little group of time travelers. The thought of him ascending beyond us into this realm of pure creation fills me with a sadness I can't articulate, even in this place of perfect communication.

Something is breaking inside me. Tears flowing, but not physically - they're waves of pure emotion radiating outward. I'm weeping for everything at once - all that has happened, all that will happen. The darkness inside me I've been so afraid of. My feelings for Shirley that I've been denying - not just friendship, but love. Real love.

These tears aren't just sadness. They're healing, cleansing, like emotional storm clouds finally releasing their rain. There's a blissful quality to this sorrow, a purification I've never experienced before.

Cranky is watching me, and something is changing in him too. He seems moved by my emotional display. In this place of perfect understanding, I can sense his realization - his overwhelming desire to be helpful, to serve, was always his true nature. Not ascension, not godhood, but connection.

He's making a choice now. Choosing to retake his imperfect form, but with one addition: the full range of emotional capacity, true humanity. He tells me my ability to feel so deeply has shown him what he truly wanted all along.

He's letting go of his chance to create worlds. He's asking the angels to let him return home. To our home.

Entry #19  - BEYOND COMPREHENSION

 

As Cranky prepares to leave, I'm begging the angels to change my destiny, to free me from becoming Max. Cranky gently tells me that I may speak to the Child directly. Then he's gone, vanished into light, returning to where we came from.

The scene shifts completely. I'm no longer in the impossible Escher-space. I'm in a room with the Child. She's a little girl with eyes of infinite beauty and understanding. Her face... it looks like Shirley's face, but younger, innocent.

The room around us seems almost normal after the impossible geometries I've witnessed. It's a girl's bedroom, but from some distant past. The walls are papered with a geometric pattern in soft orange and brown. A low wooden bed with a colorful woven blanket sits against one wall.

There's a shelf with wooden toys - a pull-along duck, some stacking rings, little people figures. A rya rug in earthy tones covers the floor. The furniture is all smooth lines and light wood - a small table with rounded edges, a chair with a woven seat. Sunlight filters through gauzy curtains, giving everything a warm, sepia-toned glow.

A record player sits on a low cabinet, with children's records stacked nearby. Small green plants in ceramic pots line the windowsill. The space feels peaceful, ordered, and real in a way that THE ROOM did not. Yet I understand that this too is just another layer, another reality within realities.

We sit in silence, the Child and I, as I struggle to find words to express what I need to ask.

 

Something's changed. I'm... smaller now. Plastic. The Child is holding me - I'm a toy figurine in her hands. There's a strange blurring between what I choose and what she makes me do. My will and hers are somehow intertwined.

She's moving me around a small table set with tiny teacups. A tea party. Then suddenly I'm an astronaut, floating through space made of her bedspread. The transitions are dreamlike, flowing.

There's another figure she's playing with - a small plastic girl with painted-on clothes. She calls this one "Shirley" and makes us talk to each other. We have a club called Time Cruisers. We go on adventures together, saving time from bad guys.

Wait... I see myself. On a box. A toy box on her shelf labeled "Time Cruisers" with colorful plastic figures inside. Is that what I am? What we all are?

Entry #20  - CHILD

 

Days seem to pass. The Child plays with me between meals with her family. I catch glimpses of adults speaking a language I don't understand. They eat open-faced sandwiches with toppings arranged in patterns. The Child drinks something from a special cup with colorful flowers.

Sometimes she takes me outside to a park with strange rounded play equipment - metal domes and abstract shapes for climbing. She rides a bicycle with a wicker basket, and I ride along tucked inside. The streets are narrow, with tall buildings and so many bicycles everywhere. Bicycles that don’t hover or have anything fancy. They are the rounded metal ones with wide hoop wheels that you see in museums— not dusty or faded, new and vibrantly painted.

Other times I wait on her shelf while she goes to school, carried in a rectangular bag with reflective patches. The waiting feels both endless and instantaneous.

 

Night has fallen. The Child is in bed with a small lamp shaped like a mushroom casting a warm glow. She's whispering to me, telling a story after a long day of riding bikes through cobblestone streets and visiting a place with boats in glass bottles.

She speaks in a scandinavian language, but somehow I understand. She tells of time travelers who fix broken moments, who help people remember what's important. She tells of a boy afraid of his own shadow who learns that darkness is just part of being whole.

Her voice grows sleepy. On her bedside table, there's a small wooden figure of a bird. A colorful woven wall hanging depicting geometric shapes hangs above her bed. A baby blue record player sits silent in the corner, next to albums with colorful cartoon characters I don't recognize.

As she drifts off to sleep, still holding me, I feel something profound shifting in my understanding. As if something important is being communicated through this strange, dreamlike experience. Something about who I am, who we all are, and the stories that shape us.

 

I'm drifting off too, alongside the Child. A profound bliss washes over me, the deepest rest I've ever known. There's no distinction between sleeping and waking, between her dreams and my reality.

Something is shifting in my understanding. The boundaries are dissolving.

Wait... I am the little girl? Have I been the little girl all along? Dreaming up stories about Time Cruisers for my plastic figures?

The revelation feels neither shocking nor frightening, but like remembering something I've always known. The adventures of Timmy and Shirley, Dr. Cyber and Cranky, the Time Twisters and Voidbots - all stories i’ve whispered to my toys while arranging them on my bedroom floor.

My imagination created the quarry, the lab, the Null Zone, Max Timebuster. what about timmy? who is he really? it’s not important anymore.

I need to sleep now. Tomorrow, Frøken Larsen will check our math homework. I need to remember my gymtøj for idræt class. riding with Sofie in the mornings like I always do. Need to wake up when mor calls “Greta! Off to school with you!” Then i’ll ride my bicycle home past the colorful buildings.

As consciousness fades, I feel a strange peace, clutching the lego figure in my hands. The last thing I remember is the soft ticking of a clock, the gentle rustling of leaves outside my window.

Godnat Timmy. Godnat Shirley. We will save time again after homework is done.

Date: 1/1/3782 - DAWN

Entry #21  - Dawn

 

My eyes open to find Cranky standing over me, his metal face wet with something that looks impossibly like tears. We're back in the quarry, the night air sharp in my lungs. My body is my own again - solid, limited, wonderfully real.

Cranky seems confused, his systems running diagnostics. He has no memory of what happened - no recollection of the angels, THE ROOM, or his transformation. When I try to explain, the words slip away like water through my fingers. The experience resists language, defies description.

But Cranky is okay. Better than okay. Something has changed in him, though neither of us can articulate what. A new gentleness in his movements, perhaps. A depth to his electronic voice that wasn't there before.

I'm different too. The fear that has haunted me for years - the specter of Max Timebuster - feels distant now, like a storm that has finally passed. It's nearly dawn. We should head back before anyone notices we're gone.

 

We're not alone. There's a figure approaching through the quarry's morning mist. Older, gray-haired, but unmistakably familiar - Max Timebuster. Not as I last saw him, but much older, perhaps 50. His face bears the lines of years I haven't yet lived, but his eyes hold a calm I've never seen in them before.

He tells me he's come back because this moment changed him. Changed us. He's been "time crime sober" for years now, dedicating himself instead to researching theories about nested universes - the egg within eggs that I glimpsed in THE ROOM. There's a dignity to him now, a wisdom that replaces the bitterness I remember.

Cranky seems confused by his presence, but something in Max's manner keeps him from being alarmed. We sit on the quarry rocks as the sun rises, the three of us forming a strange triangle of past, present, and future.

 

"What went wrong with us?" I finally ask the question that's haunted me for years. “I thought we were going to grow up to do something exciting, meaningful! Find a really good looking girl to marry. Not become evil!”

Max's laugh is soft, weathered by time. “I remember thinking that way. That's the question, isn't it? The one I avoided for so long. What went wrong.”

He unfolds a complex tale, holding nothing back. How he - I - initially withdrew from everyone after learning what we saw in the Zotaxian data. How the self-imposed isolation only made things worse. The moment when he - I - finally confessed feelings for Shirley, only to panic and push her away when things got serious. The deepening spiral of self-sabotage, convinced that becoming Max was inevitable.

"I didn't understand what I saw in THE ROOM until decades later," he says. "That accepting all versions of myself wasn't giving up. It was growing up."

 

"I spent twenty years angry at myself," Max tells me. "Trying to change the past. Trying to fix what I thought was broken. But you can't hate your way into being better."

As dawn fully breaks over the quarry, something breaks in me too. The wall between Timmy and Max, between who I am and who I feared becoming.

"It's more important to forgive yourself than to be perfect," Max says, his hand on my shoulder feeling like both a stranger's and my own. "The universe doesn't need your perfection. It needs your wholeness."

We've found peace with each other, across the span of decades. Forgiveness flowing both ways - me forgiving the future I feared, him forgiving the past he regretted.

Cranky watches silently, seeming to perfectly understand. The three of us stand as the morning light floods the quarry, casting long shadows behind us.

I know what I need to do now.

 

Max is preparing to leave, back to whatever future he's created for himself. Before he goes, I ask the question I've been afraid to voice: "Are you and Shirley...?"

His smile tells me everything and nothing. "Some stories are better lived than told," he says.

As he activates his temporal device, he looks younger somehow, unburdened. "Don't waste time being afraid of becoming me," he says. "Spend it becoming yourself."

Then he's gone, leaving Cranky and me alone in the quarry.

"Time to go home," I tell Cranky, who nods with a new awareness behind his electronic eyes.

I need to talk to Shirley. Not tomorrow, not after the winter break. Now.

Some stories are better lived than told.

 

END OF LOG

 

TIMOTHY TAKAHASHI

TIME CRUISER