2025-08-07 01:53:33
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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
Chapter Twenty-seven
Bobby woke up exhausted.Not just tired—drained. Like something had been siphoning the energy out of him while he slept. His limbs ached. His brain felt foggy. Even opening his eyes had taken effort.But he forced himself up.After everything with XX-66, after the twisted metallic silence of the ride home and the ice-cold message from Future Bob—"It's not over yet. The rest will come after you sooner or later."He couldn’t afford to stay in bed.The moment he opened his bedroom door, the robot stood there.Silent.Watching.Its blank face made Bobby feel like a test subject in a lab. Not even BF-85 had stared this hard. This deep.“I’m going to school,” Bobby muttered, grabbing his bag.XX-66 said nothing. But it followed him to the front door.“You’re not coming,” Bobby added. “You’ll draw too much attention.”The robot’s head tilted. Then it stepped aside, as if granting him permission.Bobby hesitated.“Just… be here when I get back.”The door clicked shut behind him.---School w
Chapter Twenty-six
For a moment, time itself seemed to stop.XX-66’s voice echoed through the empty field, each word like a blade dipped in ice:“Would you like a demonstration?”Bobby’s breath hitched. His heart pounded so loud he could barely hear anything else. Darius didn’t move—but his hand subtly inched toward the pulse gun holstered at his side.XX-66 turned fully now, its polished black body glinting beneath the moonlight.“Secondary entity identified: Darius Cross. Threat classification pending.”Its arms extended. Not a weapon, not yet—but something was shifting, humming low in its chest. Energy gathering.“Wait!” Bobby shouted, stepping in front of Darius. “Don’t.”The robot froze.A perfect stillness.“Explain,” it said.Bobby stood his ground, chest heaving. “He’s not a threat. He’s with me.”“He is not part of the protected timeline. His record diverges from Core Protocol.”“He’s trying to stop what I become!” Bobby snapped. “That should make him part of the protocol!”The lights on XX-66’
Chapter Twenty-five
Smoke still poured from the wreckage.BF-85’s shattered body lay slumped against a support beam, sparks leaking from its exposed circuits. A once-indestructible protector—reduced to a broken husk in a matter of minutes.Bobby stared, throat raw, lungs still aching from the sprint. Darius stood beside him in the tall grass, bruised and bloodied, both of them silent. Neither spoke the name. Neither said what they were thinking.BF-85 was gone.And they were alone again.At least, they thought they were.Then the air shifted.It wasn’t a sound, exactly—more like pressure. A crackle. A warping in the very fabric of reality. Darius grabbed Bobby’s arm and pulled him back.“Get down.”Before Bobby could ask why, the sky above them split—literally. A jagged seam tore open in the air like someone had unzipped time itself. And something stepped through.It wasn’t human.But it wasn’t like BF-85 either.Sleek. Angular. Razor-edged. Standing nearly eight feet tall, matte-black plating gleaming l
Chapter Twenty-four
Bobby didn’t sleep that night.He lay wide-eyed in bed, the blanket tight around him, the final message from Future Bob repeating like a siren in his skull.“It begins tomorrow.”Every hour, he checked the time.Every creak in the house made him flinch.Every shadow that passed under his door stretched too long.But morning came like it always did.---The sun shone through the blinds. Birds chirped as if time hadn’t been threatened the night before. Bobby rose from bed, moving like a ghost.He got dressed. Ate something without tasting it. Walked to the door.BF-85 was already there, waiting like a sentinel.Nothing felt different.And that made everything worse.---School passed in a blur of white noise.He didn’t hear the teachers. Didn’t notice who sat beside him in class. Didn’t laugh at the jokes that used to make him crack a smile.He kept expecting something—someone—to burst in.A Looper. Lyra. Margaret. Someone to say, “Time’s up.”But the day went on.The final bell rang.A
