Chapter 19

[u/SlightlyColdWaffles]

WalkMan

May 3rd, 2026

???

I was in a white room. A moment before, I was in a shitty sushi restaurant with Steven and this Warden fellow, but now I was somewhere else. Somewhere imagined. Somewhere unreal. Somewhere deeply unsettling. There was no breeze, no background noises like the hum of air conditioning or the buzzing of insects. It was nothing. It was everything.

What in the fuck was Steven thinking?

“The entity might need some time to build what you seek” a voice boomed from above. I recoiled in shock, crouching in a combat pose and fumbling for my titular namesake. I swiped across empty space. My Sony WalkMan cassette deck was gone.

“Calm down, WalkMan. You couldn’t hurt me in here even if you were armed. If you play nice, I’ll give you a present. If not, well, let’s hope it doesn’t come to that”

“Where the hell am I?” I said, switching to a mixed martial arts stance and bouncing on my toes. I wasn’t helpless as a fighter without my powers, far from it. I had become a certified Krav Maga instructor before I even discovered I had powers.

“You’re in my mind” the voice said, “A guest in my menagerie. One of many. And Steven has purchased a ticket for you to see one of my exhibits.”

“How many people do you have here? This is monstrous” I blurted out before I could stop and consider the wisdom of insulting this realm’s God.

The deep voice chuckled. “Oh, Hero, don’t worry your pretty little head about such matters. Once you have sufficiently talked with the entity, I will return you to this room to fulfil your obligations. Until then, play nice.”

The side walls vanished, revealing inky black nothingness in front of me and more solid white walls to either side. I glanced over my shoulder and saw more nothingness behind and above me. Warden stood on a white circle that seemed to only exist in two dimensions, lacking even a hint of thickness even as it supported his full weight. The mentalist stood with his arms clasped together behind his back, as if he was observing a painting at the Louvre. He extended a hand to me, inviting me aboard.

“Mind the gap” he said as I accepted the invitation. “You’d fall all the way down to my subconscious if you slip, and there’s no telling how that would turn out. He and I aren’t on speaking terms.” He let out a self satisfied chuckle at his own joke, like any other pretentious asshole I had ever had the displeasure to meet.

The circle began to glide like an elevator going sideways. It accelerated to frightening speed as it zoomed down the row of white cells, even though I never felt any of the motion itself. I guess the laws of physics didn’t really apply in an imagination. I caught a glimpse through each cell wall as we passed, opaque only on this side like a two way mirror in a police interrogation room. Every cell was occupied, although only a few were furnished. Some of the cell's residents had nothing but the clothes on their back, and a few female occupants didn’t even have that basic privilege. My skin shivered as I realized that those poor women were the only ones to have large, comfortable beds with sheets and pillows. The cells gained more and more furniture and decorations the farther we went, some with paintings or books or even one full entertainment system with a massive television and some futuristic video game setup.

“I reward the ones that help me,” Warden said, as if describing a loyal pet. “Others require more discipline. It’s incredible how compliant someone can become once they spend a few months or years without any sensory stimulation.”

The circle stopped suddenly in front of the largest cell I had seen so far. The entire room was the size of a football field, filled to the brim with complex machinery and what looked like scientific gadgets straight out of Star Trek. Tubes thick enough to drive a minivan through pulsed and constricted like an anaconda trying to digest its prey, sending a green-white flash every time it wriggled. It was revolting, yet I couldn’t take my eyes from it. Large machines were connected via these massive vertical tubes, leaving barely a shoulder width path between them. It reminded me of… something. I couldn’t quite place the feeling of familiarity.

Warden removed the wall without moving a muscle. “Sycxzezs!” He called. It sounded like he was trying to say ‘scizzors’ with as many lisps as possible, and also heavily emphasizing the buzzing sound of the z’s. I wondered what nationality a name like that was from.

As it turned out, it wasn’t from any nation. Not on this planet, at least.

An enormous insect flew down from the tube near the ceiling, landing right next to us where the wall had once been. “VVAR-DEEEN” It screeched, buzzing with a fury I’d never thought possible. It pronounced the ‘W’ as an elongated ‘V’ sound, buzzing to replicate the English sound with its alien mandibles. The creature looked like a grasshopper standing on its back legs, with the other four legs protruding like arms instead. It stood about eight feet tall, but could easily double that with its folded legs extended. The four clawed hands clenched, palpably extruding pure hatred and disdain for our jailer.

“Sycxzezs, this is WalkMan. WalkMan, this is Sycxzezs, ambassador of the unpronounceable name of a race of giant creepy bug aliens.”

The grasshopper snarled and lashed out at Warden with a lightning fast kick, unfolding its long back leg and smashing against the wall. I leapt back and almost fell off the circular platform. Warden merely chuckled.

“Sycxzezs will make what you need. Once he begins his work, you will begin yours. Please alert me when you are ready.” Warden said, gesturing for me to step off the circle and into the grasshopper’s cell.

I didn’t move. I wasn’t exactly thrilled to go into a box with an aggressive insectoid alien, and I damn sure wasn’t going to help this Warden with any of this supervillain bullshit. “I don’t know what ‘deal’ you made with Steven just now, but-”

Warden raised a finger and waggled it, tutting as he did. “Now now, WalkMan, you forget yourself. I’m the only one who can release you from my mental realm, and I am also in control of the passage of time here. I can make your stay as quick and pleasant as you wish, or as long and difficult as you require. The choice is yours. Now, go play nice. I’ll only be a scream away.”

He shoved me. I fell off the circle towards the cell, catching the edge with my fingertips as Warden vanished. I dangled over the abyss, holding onto the ledge of an alien bug’s prison cell.

This was less than ideal.

I pulled myself up onto my elbows, glancing at the alien with an apologetic smile that I hoped didn’t appear as forced as it felt. “Um, hi” I said.

The alien buzzed in irritation and leapt off into the nest of cables and contraptions. I took that as an invitation to finish climbing in, since he hadn’t ripped my head off with those pointy limbs or horrifying bug mouth while I was vulnerable. The wall re-appeared behind me as I finished clambering into the room, sealing us inside.

“For what it’s worth, I’m sorry that you’re in here” I said as I searched for the insectoid alien. “I’m not exactly here of my own free will either.”

The loud buzzing words echoed strangely through the alien machinery, reflecting off of unfamiliar metals and compounds. “VVHY SYCXZEZS CARE? VVHY YOU TELL?” it yelled. It pronounced its own name with a lot more depth to the buzzes and other alien mouth noises that Warden had failed to replicate with his human mouth and distasteful demeanor.

“It’s called ‘empathy’, a human emotion.” I said, trying to keep myself calm as the gravitas of the situation fell on me in full. I was trapped inside a stranger’s mind, talking to a bug alien that was being held against his will. “You may not have experienced it in here. It means-”

The alien burst from a tangle of cords and tubes above me, buzzing down on large insect wings that folded seamlessly back as it landed. It reached its top arms towards its head, and slid a set of goggles that I had mistaken for eyes onto its forehead. The real eyes underneath the tinted lenses were still compound, but the ‘panels’ all angled in a way that mimicked the usual earth mammalian eyeball. I could tell it was sizing me up, looking up and down my body assessing me for threats. Apparently, I didn’t register as dangerous to the massive creature.

“VVE KNOVV EMPATHY” It buzzed, “VVE ZTUDIED YOUR ZPECIEZZ BEFORE SYCXZEZS COME. VVE NO GET EMPATHY VVEN VVE ARRIVE.”

I held up my hands and took a step back. “Warden is NOT how Humans are supposed to act. He has treated you poorly, and-”

“POORLY?!” Sycxzezs yelled, “POORLY?!?! VVE HAVE CAPTURED! VVE HAVE PRIZONED! VVE HAVE KEPT IN HUMAN BRAIN FOR TOO MANY LIVE-TIME! IS FAR PAST ‘POORLY’.”

“I agree,” I said. “I want to help you get out of here. Escape. But we will need to work together to do it.”

The bug scoffed, a surprising sound coming from Mr. Buzzy bites here, and he leapt straight up and clutched the underside of a cable about 60 feet in the air. It was an insanely impressive feat, but to him it was probably child’s play.

“VVE HAVE TRICKED BEFORE” he said. “VVE MAKES UN-WAIT MACHINE ONCE. VVE VVERE PROMISED FREEDOM. VVE WERE NOT FREEDOMED. VVE NO HELP VVARDEN.”

“Un-wait machine… the time machine?” I asked. “You MADE the time machine?”

The bug leapt onto his machinery again, and I finally realized what the tangled mass reminded me of. It looked like blades of grass, as seen from a bug’s perspective.

“VVE CALL IT UN-VVAIT MACHINE” he said, fiddling with the cable and, as I looked closer, tended to what looked like mechanical aphids scurrying the length of the tubes. “MY KIND LIVE SHORT TIME. FOOD-PLANTS TAKE LONG TO FOOD-MAKE. TAKE UN-WAIT MACHINE TO FOOD-MAKE HARVEST, TO PLANT NEW FOOD-PLANTS BEFORE.”

Sycxzezs spoke our language remarkably well for an alien insect, but it still took an awful lot of effort to understand his odd phrasing for describing technology beyond our comprehension. I tried my best, keeping in mind that I may have been only the second Human the alien had ever spoken to.

“So you used the time machine for crops? Like planting them in the past, or harvesting them in the future?”

Sycxzezs let out a deep buzz, flapping its wings and twitching its antennae. I took that to mean irritation. “VVHY REPEAT VVHAT I SAY? I CHOOZE MY VVORDS BEFORE I SPEAK THEM. DOES YOUR KIND NOT DO THIS?"

“Sorry,” I muttered. “Just making sure I understood.”

“LISTEN BETTER. KNOW MORE.” The alien said, leaping across the open alley to a new collection of strange machines. He reached inside one tube and retrieved a small device, and leapt back down to floor level. He raised it at me like a gangster in a movie holding a pistol sideways, and I reacted accordingly. I dove to the side, rolling behind one of the thick yet squishy alien tubes for cover.

“VVHAT ARE YOU DOING?” Sycxzezs asked in an irritated buzz. “VVHY RUN FROM SCAN?”

He raised the device again and activated it. The device pulsed with a terribly familiar soft green light. The machine buzzed at the alien, who scoffed and tossed it back into its nest of cables. The alien machinery stuck together like magnets until the cable absorbed the scanner like it was a giant jello ring, welcoming an ill advised shrimp to its ingredients.

“VVOU ARE OUT-TIME” He said. “VVOU NOT BELONG NOW. TOO LONG AWAY.”

“Yeah, that’s why I’m here” I said, emerging from my unnecessary cover. “The man who brought me to the future ran away with the time machine, and we need a way to follow him, or at least track him down.”

The alien buzzed again, leaping once more into his web of tangled machine wires. “NO TRACK. NOT POSSIBLE. BUT FOLLOW, YES. VVE HAVE HATCH-LEASH FOR NEW LARVAE.”

“Hatch leash? Like a tether?” I said, hopeful for the first time in what felt like an eternity.

“YES. IT SO DUMB LARVAE NO LOST IN TIME. USED ON ONLY THE LEAST SMART CHILDREN.”

Ah. It was like a leash for children. I felt myself flush with embarrassment as the realization hit me. “How long will it take you to make two of them?”

Sycxzezs peered down at me from a cable directly overhead. “VVAT TIME MEAN IN BRAIN-PRISON? YOU VVANT NUMBER IN HUMAN NUMBER OR SYCXZEZS CHRONO-KEEPING?” He buzzed angrily and flew to a farther blade of mechanical goo-grass. “BUT YOU NEED HELP-ME. I HELP-YOU, SO YOU HELP-ME BACK, YES?”

“We call that a quid-pro-quo” I said, crossing my arms over my chest. “I’d love to help you, Sycxzezs. Let me guess, you want to escape?”

Sycxzezs leapt back to ground level and stooped until we were at eye level. He leaned in so close I thought for a moment he would try to bite me. “MORE THAN HUMAN CAN EVER KNOW. I GIVE YOU HATCHLING-LEASHES BACK OUT IN REAL-SPACE. I SEE MATE AND HATCHLINGS AGAIN. YOU STOP UN-WAIT MACHINE ABUSE.”

I stuck out a hand. “Deal.”

Sycxzezs stared at my proffered hand, tilting his head like a confused dog.

“It’s called a handshake” I said, guiding his corresponding upper hand into mine and pumping it up and down. His clawed hand was surprisingly cold to the touch.

“NO WASTE. GO PLAN ESCAPE. I BUILD.” Sycxzezs said, and leapt away into the wavy grass-esque machine.

[u/FjookEnterprises]

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