Future Bob

Chapter Four

The phone vibrated again in Bobby’s trembling hand, as if impatient.

“Took you long enough. We don’t have much time. – B”

He read it three times. Four. Each time his throat grew tighter.

"Took you long enough."

So Future Bob had been waiting.

"We don’t have much time."

Which meant something worse was coming. Or maybe... it was already here. Bobby didn’t move. He gazed at the screen as if the text itself might transform into something with hands and strangle him.

Then the screen flickered. Just once. Barely noticeable. Like a blink. And then—it was gone. The message disappeared. No notification. No history. No trace in the inbox. Gone, like a whisper in fog.

---

He spent the next hour trying to retrieve it—scanning system logs, poking through cache directories. But the phone was too old, too basic. It didn’t even keep temp files without root access. And Bobby wasn’t about to root his one working connection to the future and risk bricking it.

He eventually gave up on the search and sat there, gazing at the message he had recorded in his notebook.

“Took you long enough. We don’t have much time. – B”

“Okay,” he muttered to himself, pen in hand. “If this is really from Future Me, why cryptic? Why not a full explanation? Coordinates? A voice message, anything?”

He scrawled possibilities on the page:

Limited bandwidth through time?

Risk of being intercepted?

Future Me doesn’t trust Present Me?

He circled that last one. And then underlined it.

“Would I trust me?” he asked the silence. “If I knew what I’d become?”

He didn’t like the answer.

---

The day went by like a fever dream. He remained inside, only opening the door to get soda and instant noodles from the kitchen. His parents didn’t ask questions. They rarely did.

He kept the phone in sight at all times, watching for another message, another flicker, a signal. But nothing came.

Bobby did the only thing he could think of as the sun started to sink past the rooftops outside and cast long shadows across his posters and monitors.

He prepared.

He opened his notebook and sketched out a rudimentary antenna—based on the designs of old ham radios but modified with a few scavenged parts from his closet: a broken drone propeller, copper wiring, a few salvaged capacitors. If Future Bob could send data through some temporal echo, then maybe Bobby could improve his reception.

He soldered until his fingers ached. Wired until his head throbbed.

By midnight, he had a Frankenstein setup duct-taped to the inside of his closet door—ugly, buzzing faintly, and probably a fire hazard. But it worked. Sort of.

The rig hummed with the sound of a sleeping animal. For being mounted inside a temporary signal cradle, the cheap phone remained strangely silent.

Bobby switched off the lights and went straight to bed. He gazed at the screen glowing softly across the room.

He whispered one thing before sleep took him.

“Send more.”

---

He woke to the buzz at 3:47 AM. The sound startled him. He hurried to his feet, almost tripping over a tangle of wires, and grabbed the phone

One new message. No number. No timestamp. Just a single line:

“Don't look outside.”

Bobby blinked. Then, reflexively—he looked outside. What he saw nearly stopped his heart.

At the end of the block, illuminated by the orange halo of a flickering streetlamp… stood the man. Tall. Black. Bald. Tactical coat. Impossibly still. Watching.

Bobby wondered how long he had been there as he quickly descended to the floor, his heart pounding in his chest and his breathing unsteady.

Then the phone buzzed again.

“I said don’t look.”

A third message followed instantly:

“Now he knows you’re home.”

Bobby grabbed the nearest blanket and covered the window. Then he killed the lights. Shut off the antenna. Unplugged everything.

When there was no knock or boot hitting the door, he convinced himself it was okay to breathe. He had been seated in the dark for too long. However, he did not sleep again.

---

By sunrise, Bobby had made a decision. If Future Bob wasn’t going to give him answers, he’d get them himself. He needed to understand how this all worked. How the messages came through. Why the man was after him. And, most importantly, what Future Bob was trying to stop—or start.

So, he started digging. Not literally. Digitally.

He spent hours searching everything he could about time-based data signals, quantum broadcasting, retrocausal messaging. He dove deep into rabbit holes of abandoned forums, academic papers, obscure YouTube lectures with 32 views and a single like. But still couldn't find anything helpful.

---

By mid-afternoon, Bobby needed air.

He hadn’t left the house in over a day. Every muscle ached.

He put on a hoodie, kept the phone in his front pocket, and walked. Not far. Just in the vicinity of the neighborhood. After crossing the cul-de-sac. Across the playground that's dried out and the tennis courts that've never been used.

He ended up behind middle school, occupying the rusty bleachers and watching clouds roll in like dirty cotton.

Wet asphalt and rain that never came were the smell of the wind.

He commenced typing questions after opening the notes app. Rapid-fire:

How far in the future is Bob from?

What caused the split?

Why messages and not physical intervention?

Who is the man?

Why do I need to be alive?

But the phone stayed quiet.

No new alerts. No blinking messages.

Just the stillness, and the helplessness of being in the dark.

---

After that, he wandered for a while. Looped through back streets. Down past the edge of Jefferson Drive, toward the train tracks where stray dogs sometimes roamed.

He wasn’t going anywhere specific. Just moving. As if the fear couldn't be prevented by movement alone.

He ended up at the drainage ditch behind the abandoned service station, which is one of the places adults warn children to stay away from.

Like bruises, graffiti stuck to the walls. The slope was filled with crushed cans. Bobby climbed down without hesitation and hid in the tunnel, half curious and half oblivious.

There was a smell of mildew and old rain inside. He found a patch that was dry, sat down, pulled out the phone again, but he couldn't find anything. The more he stared at the screen, the more useless it felt.

Whatever was coming… it wasn’t going to be solved through a touchscreen.

---

The sky became darker by the time he climbed back out. Heavy clouds and streetlights that blinked on early made evening creep in.

He opted for the shortcut to his neighbourhood, which is behind the pawn shop and bakery, which always smelled of burnt sugar.

As he stepped into the alley, something felt off. Still. Too still. No humming AC units. No cars passing. Then—movement. A shape. At the far end.

Bobby's breath trembled. He was there. The man. Standing on the edge of the alley. Facing him.

Closer now. No streetlamp. There is only a faint blue twilight. But unmistakable. He turned to run again but this time, he slipped. A trash bin slammed behind him, and he hit the pavement hard, scraping his elbow.

He scrambled up and sprinted away -- through the gate that was located behind the bakery, across someone's backyard, and jumped over a fence. He kept going. He didn't even glance back

His feet was hurting, his lungs screamed, his hoodie flapped against his arms.

He passed through an empty parking lot. Down a path between trees. Under a rusted chain. And into the old storm tunnel beneath the park—the particular one where he used to challenge friends to crawl through in second grade.

He ducked inside, heart pounding, chest heaving. Darkness swallowed him completely. He crept deeper, water trickling beneath his shoes.

He Stopped. Listened. Nothing. Just the sound of a leaking pipe dripping and his own panicked breath.

He leaned against the tunnel wall, trying to stay quiet. Trying to be still. Trying to disappear.

Then—

A shadow. It moved across the entrance like a curtain of smoke.

He held his breath. Footsteps followed. Deliberate. Measured.

Bobby turned immediately and ran deeper into the tunnel, slipping once, hands grazing the cold concrete as he sprinted forward. There was a ladder up ahead—he remembered from years ago—that it leads to a rusted-out maintenance hatch.

He reached it, started to climb. Halfway up, he was caught. A hand grabbed his ankle firmly. Strong. Unyielding.

Bobby tried to pull out of his hold, he kicked, tried to scream, but the man's grip was strong and he was already pulling him down. He slipped from the rung and hit the tunnel floor with a thud that knocked the air from his lungs.

In the darkness, the man's shape overshadowed him. Closer than ever.

He reached for Bobby’s hoodie—gripping it like a lifeline. Bobby stared up into his eyes. And for the first time… the man spoke.

“Stop running,” he said, with a deep and cold voice deep and cold. "I'm here to stop you before it's too late.”