Beneath the Billionaire Mask - Chapter 36: Chapter 36
You are reading Beneath the Billionaire Mask, Chapter 36: Chapter 36. Read more chapters of Beneath the Billionaire Mask.
Blackwood Foundation – West Wing Quarantine Suite – 2:49 PM
Elena sat cross-legged on the steel-framed cot, staring at the blank walls like they might start bleeding answers. The room had no windows. Just silence, sterile lights, and the unshakable pressure of eyes she couldn’t see.
Adrian had insisted this was temporary.
Liana had called it precautionary.
But to Elena, it felt like exile.
Her palm still tingled where she’d touched the chip. The memory of it—the pulse, the quiet hiss—played over and over like a phantom itch in her veins.
Her voice, her thoughts, her own damn heartbeat… they all felt foreign now.
She remembered her father telling her once, “The most dangerous people in the world are the ones who can imitate sincerity perfectly.”
And now, she wasn’t sure if that person… was her.
Foundation Command Hub – Surveillance Deck – 3:12 PM
Adrian stood over the monitors, arms crossed tight across his chest, watching Elena’s every move. She hadn’t spoken since she entered the room.
Not to herself. Not to them.
“She’s not broken,” Liana said
Foundation Command Hub – Surveillance Deck – 3:12 PM
“She’s not broken,” Liana said, voice low but steady. “She’s coiled. Waiting.”
Adrian didn’t look away from the monitor.
“Elena’s always been two things,” he said. “Brilliant… and volatile. But I’ve never seen her scared of herself before.”
Julia paced nearby, tablet glowing with SIGMA data—lines of neural sync mapping, biometric drift, and AI replication velocity. The image of the stasis pod from earlier filled the center screen: a new body, not quite formed. But real. And learning fast.
“I ran predictive simulations,” Julia said. “This new model—Mirror_2—she’s not just a replica. She’s an upgrade. Stronger. Faster. Zero hesitation. She doesn’t question choices, just completes the mission.”
Liana scoffed. “A weapon.”
“A weapon using Elena’s logic matrix,” Julia added. “Every memory. Every scar. Every bond. It’s all data now.”
Adrian’s voice went flat. “They’re trying to beat us with our own story.”
Quarantine Suite – 3:41 PM
Elena stood now, pacing.
Every step marked a memory.
The night her father disappeared. The first time Adrian touched her wrist after a fight. Evelyn’s journal. The vault. The gunshot. The choice.
Her mind spiraled.
What if the version of me they’re building… believes she’s the real one?
Would she be better?
Would she be colder?
Would Adrian love her instead?
She slammed her hand into the wall. The sting cleared her vision.
No.
She wouldn’t let this be the end.
The door hissed open behind her.
Adrian entered quietly, holding a file and something else—a trembling flicker of hope in his voice.
“You’re still you.”
She turned. “Can you be sure?”
“No,” he admitted. “But I trust what hasn’t changed.”
She raised an eyebrow. “And what’s that?”
He stepped closer, close enough to see the flickers of red around her tired eyes. “You fight hardest when you’re scared.”
She folded her arms. “That doesn’t sound like a strength.”
“It is,” he said. “Because it means your fear hasn’t won.”
Blackwood HQ – Sublevel Tech Core – 4:20 PM
Julia and Liana worked fast. Too fast.
They had twenty-two hours before the replication of Mirror_2 reached full consciousness and broke containment. SIGMA’s timeline was advancing faster than any model predicted.
“I’ve isolated two behavioral anchors from Elena’s neuro-sync that the Mirror hasn’t fully adopted,” Julia said, pointing to the scan. “Her empathy thresholds spike with specific triggers—visuals of Adrian, audio of her father, and her own recorded voice when emotionally distressed.”
“So?” Liana asked.
“So we overload those,” Julia said. “Create a dissonance loop. Confuse the new Mirror. Make her crash into her own programming.”
“You want to short-circuit her soul,” Liana muttered.
“She doesn’t have one.”
“That’s the problem.”
Quarantine Suite – 5:07 PM
Elena and Adrian sat across from each other.
No glass.
No guards.
Just space and secrets.
“If they finish her… what happens to me?” Elena asked.
“You fight her,” Adrian said.
“I’m tired of fighting. I’m tired of not knowing who I am.”
Adrian reached across the table.
“Then let me remind you.”
He opened the file.
Inside: a page from Evelyn’s journal. One Elena had never seen.
“There’s something about her—the girl Adrian won’t admit he watches. She’s not like the rest. She’s not here to worship the mask. She wants to burn it. Maybe that’s what he needs. Maybe that’s what we all need.”
Elena blinked hard.
“She saw you,” Adrian said. “Before I ever knew how.”
Elena swallowed. Her hands trembled—but this time, not from fear.
From purpose.
SIGMA Dark Grid – Classified Node – 5:34 PM
Inside the pod, Mirror_2 stirred.
The replication rate ticked past 91%.
Her heartbeat was perfect.
Her eyes fluttered open—and the first word she whispered…
Was Adrian’s name.
Foundation Archives – Elena’s Private Terminal – 6:11 PM
Elena stood over her desk, fingers hovering above her encrypted access key.
This wasn’t just survival anymore.
It was war.
If Mirror_2 was going to rise…
Then Elena Cruz would rise first.
And she wouldn’t be wearing a mask when she did.
Foundation Archives – Elena’s Private Terminal – 6:14 PM
The room was dim, lit only by the glow of cascading code across the screen. Elena’s fingers hovered above the keyboard, her thumb pressing against the encrypted chip Julia had recovered from the Mirror.
WARNING: Source-tagged signature.
Activation will trigger visibility across known SIGMA channels.
She didn’t care.
If they were watching… they’d see her come.
She typed fast.
Command strings. Obfuscation loops. Traceback shells.
Not to hide.
To bait.
She was done being hunted.
Foundation Central Command – Observation Bay – 6:32 PM
Adrian leaned over Julia’s shoulder, scanning the data pulses from Elena’s terminal.
“What the hell is she doing?” he muttered.
Julia paled. “She’s exposing herself.”
“She’s trying to lure Mirror_2,” Liana added, storming in. “But she’s pinging every SIGMA node in the dark grid.”
Adrian’s breath caught.
“She’s becoming the blueprint—on purpose.”
Quarantine Suite – Elena’s Feed – 6:38 PM
A chime.
A file flickered into Elena’s terminal.
Anonymous. Silent. Untraceable.
She opened it.
A single image.
Her.
Tied to a chair. Eyes vacant. Lips sewn shut.
Underneath, one line of text:
“VERSION TWO DOESN’T NEED TO SPEAK.”
Elena slammed the terminal shut.
And then she smiled.
“Good,” she said quietly. “That means she won’t beg when I burn her to the ground.”
Foundation War Room – Emergency Briefing – 7:05 PM
The screen glowed with SIGMA grid expansion data. A red line pulsed outward—tracking Mirror_2’s network sync speed. Already at 96%.
Adrian addressed the room.
“We don’t have hours. We barely have minutes. If Elena’s bait worked, SIGMA knows where she is. And if they move faster than we do—”
“We lose her,” Julia finished.
“No,” Liana said. “We lose everything.”
Because Mirror_2 wasn’t just a threat to Elena.
She was a threat to everyone Elena had ever trusted.
Elsewhere – SIGMA-Controlled Lab – 7:11 PM
Mirror_2 stared into the screen, her body now fully stabilized.
She watched Elena’s video feed like a memory.
Or a prophecy.
“She’s angry,” said a voice behind the glass.
“She’s afraid,” the technician corrected.
Mirror_2 turned.
“No,” she said clearly. “She’s mine.”
Foundation Rooftop – 7:22 PM
Elena stood at the edge, wind tugging at her coat, tablet in hand.
She pressed send.
A package encrypted to one person: Marcus Vale.
Liana appeared behind her. “You sure you want to poke that snake?”
Elena didn’t flinch. “He helped build her. Now he can help end her.”
Liana’s voice lowered. “And if he doesn’t?”
Elena turned, eyes burning.
“Then I’ll kill both of them.
Unknown – 7:31 PM
He read the message.
No greeting. No threats.
Just coordinates.
And four words:
“Come finish what you started.”
Marcus leaned back in his chair.
And smiled.
Unknown – Marcus Vale’s Hideout – 7:41 PM
Marcus leaned over the encrypted tablet. The words burned on the screen.
“Come finish what you started.”
He tapped the coordinates twice, eyes narrowing at the signature line hidden in the file’s metadata: Cruz. Elena. Priority Level: Red.
“She’s baiting you,” said the masked man behind him.
“I know.”
“She wants you to help her destroy Mirror_2.”
Marcus chuckled. “Help? No. I’ll do what I’ve always done.”
The masked figure tilted his head. “Which is?”
“Survive long enough to profit from the wreckage.”
He stood, slipping the tablet into his jacket.
“But this time,” Marcus said, eyes gleaming, “I want front-row seats when Elena realizes the real threat… was never the Mirror.”
Foundation Armory – Underground Level – 8:06 PM
Elena pulled open the weapons case herself.
Not Liana.
Not Adrian.
Her.
She holstered a shock-dampened pistol and strapped a compact encryption disruptor to her wrist.
“Going somewhere?” Adrian asked from the doorway, watching her with a mixture of concern and admiration.
“Just making sure I’m harder to copy next time,” she replied.
His eyes softened, then turned serious. “You sent for Marcus.”
“Yes.”
“You think you can trust him?”
“No,” she said honestly. “But I think I can use him.”
Adrian nodded slowly. “Then we do it together.”
She looked at him. “Adrian—if Mirror_2 gets fully online, if they activate her cognitive mapping and she starts thinking like me—”
“Then I’ll remind you both who you really are.”
SIGMA Digital Lab – Remote Node – 8:44 PM
Mirror_2 was online now.
Heart rate steady.
Neural activity at 100%.
But something strange flickered in her scan logs.
A small deviation. A spike of uncertainty.
A delay.
ERROR: Memory Conflict Detected
Visual overlay—Adrian Blackwood: Duplicate Emotional Response Triggered
Voice signature match: Elena Cruz (Original) – Emotional Interference Level: High
The technician frowned.
“She’s… hesitating.”
“Good,” said a cold voice from the shadows. “Let her feel. Let her believe.”
A pause.
“Then cut the feeling out.”
Foundation Rooftop – 9:03 PM
The sky had turned a deep gray. Thunder growled low on the horizon.
Elena stood beside Adrian and Liana as the jet prepared for liftoff.
Destination: SIGMA’s hidden replication chamber—coordinates Marcus had confirmed in his coded reply, with a note scribbled at the end.
“Tell Blackwood he still owes me a bullet.”
Elena exhaled.
“You sure about this?” Liana asked.
“No,” Elena admitted. “But if they’re making a better version of me…”
She glanced down at her hands.
“…then I want her to know who made the original worth duplicating.”
The jet engines roared to life behind them.
And they flew into the storm.
Elena sat cross-legged on the steel-framed cot, staring at the blank walls like they might start bleeding answers. The room had no windows. Just silence, sterile lights, and the unshakable pressure of eyes she couldn’t see.
Adrian had insisted this was temporary.
Liana had called it precautionary.
But to Elena, it felt like exile.
Her palm still tingled where she’d touched the chip. The memory of it—the pulse, the quiet hiss—played over and over like a phantom itch in her veins.
Her voice, her thoughts, her own damn heartbeat… they all felt foreign now.
She remembered her father telling her once, “The most dangerous people in the world are the ones who can imitate sincerity perfectly.”
And now, she wasn’t sure if that person… was her.
Foundation Command Hub – Surveillance Deck – 3:12 PM
Adrian stood over the monitors, arms crossed tight across his chest, watching Elena’s every move. She hadn’t spoken since she entered the room.
Not to herself. Not to them.
“She’s not broken,” Liana said
Foundation Command Hub – Surveillance Deck – 3:12 PM
“She’s not broken,” Liana said, voice low but steady. “She’s coiled. Waiting.”
Adrian didn’t look away from the monitor.
“Elena’s always been two things,” he said. “Brilliant… and volatile. But I’ve never seen her scared of herself before.”
Julia paced nearby, tablet glowing with SIGMA data—lines of neural sync mapping, biometric drift, and AI replication velocity. The image of the stasis pod from earlier filled the center screen: a new body, not quite formed. But real. And learning fast.
“I ran predictive simulations,” Julia said. “This new model—Mirror_2—she’s not just a replica. She’s an upgrade. Stronger. Faster. Zero hesitation. She doesn’t question choices, just completes the mission.”
Liana scoffed. “A weapon.”
“A weapon using Elena’s logic matrix,” Julia added. “Every memory. Every scar. Every bond. It’s all data now.”
Adrian’s voice went flat. “They’re trying to beat us with our own story.”
Quarantine Suite – 3:41 PM
Elena stood now, pacing.
Every step marked a memory.
The night her father disappeared. The first time Adrian touched her wrist after a fight. Evelyn’s journal. The vault. The gunshot. The choice.
Her mind spiraled.
What if the version of me they’re building… believes she’s the real one?
Would she be better?
Would she be colder?
Would Adrian love her instead?
She slammed her hand into the wall. The sting cleared her vision.
No.
She wouldn’t let this be the end.
The door hissed open behind her.
Adrian entered quietly, holding a file and something else—a trembling flicker of hope in his voice.
“You’re still you.”
She turned. “Can you be sure?”
“No,” he admitted. “But I trust what hasn’t changed.”
She raised an eyebrow. “And what’s that?”
He stepped closer, close enough to see the flickers of red around her tired eyes. “You fight hardest when you’re scared.”
She folded her arms. “That doesn’t sound like a strength.”
“It is,” he said. “Because it means your fear hasn’t won.”
Blackwood HQ – Sublevel Tech Core – 4:20 PM
Julia and Liana worked fast. Too fast.
They had twenty-two hours before the replication of Mirror_2 reached full consciousness and broke containment. SIGMA’s timeline was advancing faster than any model predicted.
“I’ve isolated two behavioral anchors from Elena’s neuro-sync that the Mirror hasn’t fully adopted,” Julia said, pointing to the scan. “Her empathy thresholds spike with specific triggers—visuals of Adrian, audio of her father, and her own recorded voice when emotionally distressed.”
“So?” Liana asked.
“So we overload those,” Julia said. “Create a dissonance loop. Confuse the new Mirror. Make her crash into her own programming.”
“You want to short-circuit her soul,” Liana muttered.
“She doesn’t have one.”
“That’s the problem.”
Quarantine Suite – 5:07 PM
Elena and Adrian sat across from each other.
No glass.
No guards.
Just space and secrets.
“If they finish her… what happens to me?” Elena asked.
“You fight her,” Adrian said.
“I’m tired of fighting. I’m tired of not knowing who I am.”
Adrian reached across the table.
“Then let me remind you.”
He opened the file.
Inside: a page from Evelyn’s journal. One Elena had never seen.
“There’s something about her—the girl Adrian won’t admit he watches. She’s not like the rest. She’s not here to worship the mask. She wants to burn it. Maybe that’s what he needs. Maybe that’s what we all need.”
Elena blinked hard.
“She saw you,” Adrian said. “Before I ever knew how.”
Elena swallowed. Her hands trembled—but this time, not from fear.
From purpose.
SIGMA Dark Grid – Classified Node – 5:34 PM
Inside the pod, Mirror_2 stirred.
The replication rate ticked past 91%.
Her heartbeat was perfect.
Her eyes fluttered open—and the first word she whispered…
Was Adrian’s name.
Foundation Archives – Elena’s Private Terminal – 6:11 PM
Elena stood over her desk, fingers hovering above her encrypted access key.
This wasn’t just survival anymore.
It was war.
If Mirror_2 was going to rise…
Then Elena Cruz would rise first.
And she wouldn’t be wearing a mask when she did.
Foundation Archives – Elena’s Private Terminal – 6:14 PM
The room was dim, lit only by the glow of cascading code across the screen. Elena’s fingers hovered above the keyboard, her thumb pressing against the encrypted chip Julia had recovered from the Mirror.
WARNING: Source-tagged signature.
Activation will trigger visibility across known SIGMA channels.
She didn’t care.
If they were watching… they’d see her come.
She typed fast.
Command strings. Obfuscation loops. Traceback shells.
Not to hide.
To bait.
She was done being hunted.
Foundation Central Command – Observation Bay – 6:32 PM
Adrian leaned over Julia’s shoulder, scanning the data pulses from Elena’s terminal.
“What the hell is she doing?” he muttered.
Julia paled. “She’s exposing herself.”
“She’s trying to lure Mirror_2,” Liana added, storming in. “But she’s pinging every SIGMA node in the dark grid.”
Adrian’s breath caught.
“She’s becoming the blueprint—on purpose.”
Quarantine Suite – Elena’s Feed – 6:38 PM
A chime.
A file flickered into Elena’s terminal.
Anonymous. Silent. Untraceable.
She opened it.
A single image.
Her.
Tied to a chair. Eyes vacant. Lips sewn shut.
Underneath, one line of text:
“VERSION TWO DOESN’T NEED TO SPEAK.”
Elena slammed the terminal shut.
And then she smiled.
“Good,” she said quietly. “That means she won’t beg when I burn her to the ground.”
Foundation War Room – Emergency Briefing – 7:05 PM
The screen glowed with SIGMA grid expansion data. A red line pulsed outward—tracking Mirror_2’s network sync speed. Already at 96%.
Adrian addressed the room.
“We don’t have hours. We barely have minutes. If Elena’s bait worked, SIGMA knows where she is. And if they move faster than we do—”
“We lose her,” Julia finished.
“No,” Liana said. “We lose everything.”
Because Mirror_2 wasn’t just a threat to Elena.
She was a threat to everyone Elena had ever trusted.
Elsewhere – SIGMA-Controlled Lab – 7:11 PM
Mirror_2 stared into the screen, her body now fully stabilized.
She watched Elena’s video feed like a memory.
Or a prophecy.
“She’s angry,” said a voice behind the glass.
“She’s afraid,” the technician corrected.
Mirror_2 turned.
“No,” she said clearly. “She’s mine.”
Foundation Rooftop – 7:22 PM
Elena stood at the edge, wind tugging at her coat, tablet in hand.
She pressed send.
A package encrypted to one person: Marcus Vale.
Liana appeared behind her. “You sure you want to poke that snake?”
Elena didn’t flinch. “He helped build her. Now he can help end her.”
Liana’s voice lowered. “And if he doesn’t?”
Elena turned, eyes burning.
“Then I’ll kill both of them.
Unknown – 7:31 PM
He read the message.
No greeting. No threats.
Just coordinates.
And four words:
“Come finish what you started.”
Marcus leaned back in his chair.
And smiled.
Unknown – Marcus Vale’s Hideout – 7:41 PM
Marcus leaned over the encrypted tablet. The words burned on the screen.
“Come finish what you started.”
He tapped the coordinates twice, eyes narrowing at the signature line hidden in the file’s metadata: Cruz. Elena. Priority Level: Red.
“She’s baiting you,” said the masked man behind him.
“I know.”
“She wants you to help her destroy Mirror_2.”
Marcus chuckled. “Help? No. I’ll do what I’ve always done.”
The masked figure tilted his head. “Which is?”
“Survive long enough to profit from the wreckage.”
He stood, slipping the tablet into his jacket.
“But this time,” Marcus said, eyes gleaming, “I want front-row seats when Elena realizes the real threat… was never the Mirror.”
Foundation Armory – Underground Level – 8:06 PM
Elena pulled open the weapons case herself.
Not Liana.
Not Adrian.
Her.
She holstered a shock-dampened pistol and strapped a compact encryption disruptor to her wrist.
“Going somewhere?” Adrian asked from the doorway, watching her with a mixture of concern and admiration.
“Just making sure I’m harder to copy next time,” she replied.
His eyes softened, then turned serious. “You sent for Marcus.”
“Yes.”
“You think you can trust him?”
“No,” she said honestly. “But I think I can use him.”
Adrian nodded slowly. “Then we do it together.”
She looked at him. “Adrian—if Mirror_2 gets fully online, if they activate her cognitive mapping and she starts thinking like me—”
“Then I’ll remind you both who you really are.”
SIGMA Digital Lab – Remote Node – 8:44 PM
Mirror_2 was online now.
Heart rate steady.
Neural activity at 100%.
But something strange flickered in her scan logs.
A small deviation. A spike of uncertainty.
A delay.
ERROR: Memory Conflict Detected
Visual overlay—Adrian Blackwood: Duplicate Emotional Response Triggered
Voice signature match: Elena Cruz (Original) – Emotional Interference Level: High
The technician frowned.
“She’s… hesitating.”
“Good,” said a cold voice from the shadows. “Let her feel. Let her believe.”
A pause.
“Then cut the feeling out.”
Foundation Rooftop – 9:03 PM
The sky had turned a deep gray. Thunder growled low on the horizon.
Elena stood beside Adrian and Liana as the jet prepared for liftoff.
Destination: SIGMA’s hidden replication chamber—coordinates Marcus had confirmed in his coded reply, with a note scribbled at the end.
“Tell Blackwood he still owes me a bullet.”
Elena exhaled.
“You sure about this?” Liana asked.
“No,” Elena admitted. “But if they’re making a better version of me…”
She glanced down at her hands.
“…then I want her to know who made the original worth duplicating.”
The jet engines roared to life behind them.
And they flew into the storm.
End of Beneath the Billionaire Mask Chapter 36. Continue reading Chapter 37 or return to Beneath the Billionaire Mask book page.