2025-08-19 02:12:06
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Chapter Thirty-three
The strangers closed in.Their shadows lengthened across the gravel yard, stretching toward Bobby and Darius like claws.The tall man in the coat kept his hands raised, palms outward. His tone was calm, even reassuring, but his eyes never blinked.“We don’t want trouble,” he said.Bobby didn’t believe it for a second.He’d seen Loopers wear masks before, literally and otherwise. They’d passed for teachers, neighbors, friendly faces who lingered just long enough to cut him down.These strangers didn’t need glowing cracks or masks. There was something in their stillness—too precise, too sharp—that made Bobby’s skin crawl.Darius noticed it too. He adjusted his grip on the pulse gun, keeping it half-raised despite his injuries. His voice was a rasp, low but steady.“You’ve already found us,” he said. “So what now?”The man tilted his head slightly. “Now, we finish this.”---The others moved forward.Not with the uneven shuffle of scavengers, not with the cautious gait of survivors—but w
Chapter Thirty-two
The smell of ozone hung in the air.Bobby’s ears rang with a shrill whine as the glow from XX-66’s blast faded. He blinked through the haze, searching—hoping—that what he saw wasn’t real.But it was.Lyra lay sprawled on the cracked tiles of the subway platform, smoke curling off her chest where the blast had burned straight through. Her body twitched once, twice, then stilled.Her knife clattered from her limp hand.“LYRA!” Bobby’s scream tore from his throat. He dropped to his knees beside her, fingers trembling as he reached for her shoulders. “No, no, no—please—”Her eyes fluttered, just barely. She focused on him with effort, lips parting.“Bobby…” Her voice was faint, broken. “Don’t… let him… win.”Her hand brushed his wrist. Then it fell, limp, as her gaze unfocused.Gone.The platform suddenly felt too big, too empty.Bobby’s chest collapsed inward. He couldn’t breathe. His mind screamed that there had to be a way back, a way to undo this, but the truth was staring at him.Lyr
Chapter Thirty-one
The subway tunnels became their world.For three days, Bobby, Lyra, and Darius lived in the dark beneath the city. The abandoned station smelled of damp rust and mold, the air thick and heavy, but it was the only place they could vanish.They lit no fires. Spoke only when necessary. Ate sparingly from whatever food Bobby had stuffed in his backpack, supplemented by stale crackers Darius had stashed.Every sound echoed too loudly. Every shadow looked like it could peel open to reveal a faceless machine stepping through.But XX-66 did not come.Not yet.---Bobby spent those days watching the others more than sleeping.Darius tried to hide how bad his injuries were, but the mottled bruises across his chest told the truth. His ribs had cracked like snapped branches; every breath made him wince.Lyra’s wound was no better. She’d managed to stop the bleeding, but the gash in her side was deep, and she burned with fever at night, shivering beneath the torn jacket she used as a blanket.Bobb
Chapter Thirty
The air was thick with smoke and static, the aftertaste of ozone clinging to Bobby’s tongue. His ears rang from the chaos of the last few minutes—the capture, the fight, Lyra’s shocking return. But the only thing that mattered now was the gleaming black shadow standing in front of them.XX-66.It loomed over the cracked concrete floor of the warehouse, its obsidian plating gleaming in fractured beams of moonlight, faceless except for that eerie blue ring of light circling across its polished visor. Beside it, were four other robots that seemed much like BF-85. Darius had his pulse gun raised. Lyra had positioned herself between Bobby and the machine, her breathing ragged, one hand clutching her side.And Bobby… Bobby couldn’t even breathe.He had been yanked around too many times in too few days. First, Lyra was an enemy. Then she was dead. Now she was alive—alive and pulling him away from XX-66 like she had always been on his side.None of it made sense.“Move,” XX-66 said, voice a
Chapter Twenty-nine
Bobby’s breath caught in his throat.He stared at the woman on his porch, unable to speak, unable to think. His brain felt like it had short-circuited.“Lyra?” he whispered.She smiled. “Took you long enough.”He stumbled back a step, his hands shaking. “No. No, that’s not possible. Bob said—he said you were dead.”“Clearly,” she said, stepping over the threshold like a casual visitor, “he was wrong.”Behind her, XX-66 didn’t move. It just stood there, silent and still, as if the appearance of someone it had supposedly helped destroy meant nothing.“Why—why didn’t it stop you?” Bobby asked, voice hoarse.Lyra’s eyes flicked to the robot. “Because it was told not to.”Bobby’s heart skipped. “Told… by who?”“You know who.”Her voice dropped. Soft, almost sad. But underneath—steel.“Bob.”The world tilted sideways. Bobby gripped the edge of the doorway to keep from falling.“No. No, he said he killed you.”Lyra tilted her head. “He lied.”A dozen thoughts scrambled through Bobby’s mind.
Chapter Twenty-eight
Bobby didn’t move for a long time.He stood in the alley long after the Echo Looper had vanished, after the last of the blue glow had dissolved into the night air, after XX-66 retracted its arm with a smooth click of metal and stepped silently aside.The words still echoed.“It’s far from over. Just you wait and see. You will definitely be killed sooner or later.”They clung to his thoughts like oil in water, impossible to separate, impossible to ignore. The man had been dead the second he stepped into that alley—erased from time—but his words lived on.Bobby’s fists trembled. Not with fear. Not completely.With pressure.With the weight of too many questions and not enough answers.XX-66 didn’t speak. It simply turned, scanning the area, as if Bobby’s reaction wasn’t even part of the equation. As if the robot had completed a task and was now waiting for the next directive.But Bobby couldn’t just move on.That Looper hadn’t been just threatening him—he’d sounded sure. Certain. Like h
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