Future Bob

Chapter Five

Bobby couldn't speak. The man’s grip on his hoodie was firm and unyielding, difficult for him to break free. It was not violent but it didn’t feel optional. His breath was shallow as if air couldn't help him further.

“Stop running,” the man said again.

His voice had a low, measured quality and a mysterious weight, as though it had been used to giving orders and having them obeyed. He didn’t shout. Didn’t move aggressively. Just held Bobby there, on the cold concrete floor of the storm tunnel, as if waiting for the rest of the world to catch up.

“I’m… I’m not who...who you think,” Bobby stammered, throat sore.

The man's eyes were steady, focused and calculating, but not vicious, his eyes shone in the tunnel's darkness.

“You’re Bobby Stokes,” he said flatly.

Bobby's jaw jerked. Before the man could say anything further, a faint voice echoed down the tunnel.

“Who’s over there?”

The man turned his head slightly, eyes narrowing.

Upon hearing the voice, he released Bobby and stepped backward into the darkness. “Mark my words. I’ll come for you again and next time, I won’t hesitate to kill you,” he said with a cold voice.

Then—gone.

No sound of footsteps. No echo. Just absence. It was as if the tunnel had consumed him.

Bobby's heart sounded like a drum that had gone insane as he remained frozen and breathless. The last word, the one that resonated harder than the others, was:

Kill.

Why? Why would he want to kill him? What had Bobby done—or would do—that made him a target?

His body finally obeyed. He swung backwards, shaking his legs as he attempted to stand, and then stumbled towards the voice that had been heard. It turned out that an elderly man was jogging his dog through the park near the drainage system.

“You alright, kid?” the man asked.

Bobby nodded stiffly, lying with his eyes. “Yeah. I’m fine. Just… tripped.”

He didn’t go straight home. He wandered through side streets and empty sidewalks for an hour. His mind was consumed by the man's still eyes and penetrating cold voice.

---

When he finally returned home, he closed the door and locked it. Then—dashed to his room, breathing shallowly, and slumping into his chair as if it was a lifeboat.

The phone buzzed. He nearly dropped it. One new message. No contact. No timestamp. Just one line:

“Don’t trust anyone. Not even them.” – B

His fingers trembled as he read it. Not even them? Who was “them”?

Another message followed:

“They’ll lie. They’ll come pretending to help you. Friends. Family. Teachers. Cops. None of them can stop what’s coming. You have to trap him before he resets the timeline.”

Bobby’s mind reeled. Reset the timeline? What did that mean?

A third message:

“His name is Darius Cross. He’s a fragment—sent back to erase you before the loop begins. If he kills you now, the future changes. You must build a trap. You have the tools. I left the plan buried in your old science fair notebook. Page 47. You’ll know it when you see it.”

Bobby threw himself at the bookshelf, pulling out the battered, spiral-bound notebook filled with scribbles and blueprints from last year’s failed science fair idea.

He turned to page 47.

There, under messy sketches of a homemade electromagnetic coil and scribbled formulas, were strange notes—ones he didn’t remember writing:

“Entropy loop = feedback cage?”

“Temporal bait: emotionally charged object??”

“Reversed phase polarity to disrupt quantum echoes—capture window < 13 seconds.”

It read like a madman’s brainstorming—but it was in his handwriting.

Future Bob had been planning this for a while.

He read it again. Slower. Then again.

A plan started to form.

---

He spent the rest of the night collecting parts—rummaging through junk drawers, old devices, scavenging resistors, wires, anything copper or magnetic. He dismantled an old microwave and retrieved the magnetron. Took off the antenna from a remote-controlled drone that was broken. His room seemed like a battlefield between RadioShack and chaos theory.

The trap—if it worked—would act like a localized time snare. Based on feedback interference and microwave amplification, it would temporarily disorient or freeze anything synchronized with a shifted timeline signature.

Like Cross.

Bobby didn’t know how he knew that.

But deep down, he did.

The hardest part would be the bait.

He needed an object emotionally tied to himself—something that pulsed with his memory, his presence. Something that would call Darius Cross toward it.

He opened his desk drawer and gazed at the cracked phone.

The one that had first received the warning.

His fingers hovered over it. That thing had felt like death in his hand—but it was also the start of everything.

He wrapped it in a coil of copper wire, taped it to a battery pack, and wired it into the trap’s core.

---

By morning, he was exhausted. But the rig was ready. At least... ready enough.

He had chosen a spot: the far end of the storm tunnel, where water dripped and no light reached. A perfect place to hide something… or someone.

He stuffed the components into a duffel bag and waited until nightfall. He knew Cross would come again.

---

The next evening, the trap was set. He wired it behind an old maintenance panel. His cracked phone was the bait and was placed on a milk crate in the center of the tunnel, emitting a faint glow. He connected a copper trigger wire to a handheld switch in his jacket. All he had to do was close the circuit.

He backed away, hiding behind a corner where the shadows ate everything. And he waited. His heart was beating so loud—to the extent he feared that it might give him away.

The phone sat there. Flickering. Calling. Time passed. Then… footsteps. Slow. Deliberate. Echoing against the concrete. Bobby’s breath caught. A figure made its way through the tunnel—tall, sharp, and indisputable.

Darius Cross.

He strolled with purpose, his eyes fixed on the phone as if it was whispering secrets only his ears could pick. With each step he took, the air grew heavier. His coat swung behind him like it was partly a shadow of himself. One footstep. Then another. He stepped closer. Then closer—five steps away.

Bobby’s thumb hovered over the switch. Please work, he begged in silence. Please freeze him.

Cross paused. His head turned slightly. He sniffed the air—slowly. Then… smiled. A cold, quiet smile. He took one more step. Just one.

Bobby pressed the switch. And then—

CRACK.

The tunnel exploded in white-blue sparks as the copper coil burst with static. The phone let out a mechanical whine. Light bent inward like something had folded space.

Darius Cross froze. Mid-step. Mid-breath. His limbs shook violently—then held. Trapped. For now. But Bobby knew it wouldn’t last.

Cross’s eyes slowly turned in Bobby’s direction. Even paralyzed… he was watching. And then, impossibly—He moved.