Beneath the Billionaire Mask - Chapter 40: Chapter 40
You are reading Beneath the Billionaire Mask, Chapter 40: Chapter 40. Read more chapters of Beneath the Billionaire Mask.
Foundation HQ – Rooftop – 5:31 PM
Rain started to fall.
Thin, icy needles cutting through the dusk.
Adrian stood over the body. Gun still warm. Heart still colder.
Elena leaned against the railing, bloodied, shaking, her eyes locked on the unmoving mirror of herself.
“She’s dead,” she said flatly.
Adrian didn’t answer.
Because they both knew the truth.
She wasn’t dead. Not fully.
Just… deactivated.
And even in death, she looked too much like Elena to bury cleanly.
Liana’s voice crackled through the comms. “Transport’s inbound. We’ll scrub the footage. Make this disappear.”
Elena whispered, “They tried to erase me with my own face.”
Adrian turned to her slowly. “And failed.”
She looked down at her hands—blood from both of them on her palms.
“Did they?”
Foundation HQ – Deep Vault – 6:22 PM
Julia tapped the encrypted file again. “She was Instance 02. But the architecture goes further.”
She flipped the display.
SIM-PROJECT: NIGHTFALL
ACTIVE INSTANCES: 6
TERMINATED: 3
REMAINING: 3
PRIMARY: UNKNOWN
Liana stepped forward. “What does that mean?”
“It means SIGMA didn’t stop at Mirror_2,” Julia said, voice taut. “There are three more.”
“Where are they?”
“Hidden. Masked. One might already be embedded.”
Adrian’s voice was low. “Embedded where?”
Julia hesitated.
Then turned the screen one last time.
SITE INTEGRATION LOG:
NYC – CONFIRMED
LAGOS – IN TRANSIT
OSLO – PENDING ACTIVATION
Elena’s pulse spiked.
“They’re spreading us.”
“Not us,” Adrian corrected. “You.”
Unknown Location – Lagos, Nigeria – 2:03 AM (Local Time)
A hotel elevator dinged.
A woman stepped out, heels silent on the marble floor. Black sunglasses. Black gloves. Red lipstick that matched the emergency glow strip under her coat.
She stopped at room 703. Slid a silver keycard into the lock.
Inside: a case.
Inside the case: a passport… and a mirror.
She smiled at her reflection.
Not Elena.
Not quite.
INSTANCE_03 – ONLINE.
Foundation HQ – Elena’s Quarters – 7:01 PM
Elena stared out the window as the lights of New York glittered below.
“Three more of me,” she said. “Somewhere out there.”
Adrian sat on the couch, elbows on knees, watching her carefully.
“You’re not them.”
“But I could’ve been.”
She turned to face him, her voice barely audible.
“What if I start thinking like them?”
He stood, walked to her, and placed a hand on her cheek.
“Then I’ll remind you who you are.”
Her eyes glistened. “And if one day I forget?”
His voice was steady.
“Then we burn the whole system down.”
Foundation HQ – War Room – 7:44 PM
Julia’s fingers flew across the keyboard, decrypting the last SIGMA transmission intercepted by satellite triangulation.
A pulse, disguised as static.
Three bursts. Four-second delay. Then a data spike.
Not random. Coordinated.
She enhanced the waveform. The pattern emerged like teeth through smoke.
A voice, barely audible:
“They only remember the version that survives.”
Adrian stiffened. “That’s not just SIGMA’s activation code.”
“No,” Julia said grimly. “It’s their motto.”
She hit enter.
The screen blinked.
GLOBAL ACTIVATION: PHASE II – INITIATED
NEXT TARGET: LAGOS
DEPLOYMENT: LIVE IN 18:47:09
Elena exhaled sharply.
“I need to go.”
“You just fought a mirror of yourself,” Liana snapped. “You’re still bleeding.”
“And Lagos is next. I won’t let another version of me take someone else’s life,” Elena replied, voice steel.
She turned to Adrian. “Come with me.”
He hesitated for half a second. Then nodded.
“Always.”
Private Jet – En Route to Lagos – 2:15 AM (Local Time)
Elena barely slept.
When she closed her eyes, she saw her again.
Not Mirror_2.
Not the child she used to be.
Not even her reflection.
Just… the version she feared becoming.
Cold. Calculating. Controlled.
“Do you think I’ll ever stop running from myself?” she asked softly.
Adrian sat across from her, reading the decrypted blueprints of SIGMA’s Nigerian installation.
He looked up. Met her eyes.
“You’re not running. You’re rewriting.”
Lagos, Nigeria – Arrival Hub – 4:09 AM
Heat met them like a slap.
The streets were already waking—sirens in the distance, traffic murmuring beneath the chaos of early morning.
Elena pulled her hood low, a shadow among shadows.
Julia’s voice crackled through her comms.
“We have local contacts tailing suspected safehouses. Instance_03 was spotted entering a secure hotel on Victoria Island. You’ve got four hours until full activation. Maybe less.”
Adrian checked the loaded tranquilizer gun strapped to his chest.
“I’m not killing another one of you,” he said.
Elena nodded. “That makes two of us.”
But in her gut… she wasn’t sure that would be enough.
Lagos – Secure Hotel – 5:01 AM
They breached the suite.
Too quiet.
No signs of panic. No signs of resistance.
Until the door to the bedroom creaked open—
And a young girl stepped out.
Maybe thirteen. Pale. Silent.
Behind her, a familiar face emerged.
Instance_03.
Not in heels. Not in sunglasses.
But in a long black dress. Barefoot.
“You’re early,” she said.
Elena’s voice caught. “You have a child with you?”
“Not mine,” Instance_03 replied coolly. “Just my mirror.”
Elena frowned.
Then froze.
The child had her eyes.
Her movement.
Her stillness.
Adrian swore. “They built a fail-safe in flesh.”
Julia’s voice came through the comms, breathless.
“Elena, get out of there. That’s not just an instance.”
“That’s a seed.”
Lagos – Secure Hotel – 5:04 AM
The room thickened with silence.
The girl stared at Elena—not afraid.
Just… familiar.
Too familiar.
Instance_03 didn’t flinch. “She’s not a hostage. She’s the beginning.”
“A clone?” Adrian asked, voice tight.
Instance_03 smiled faintly. “A fragment. Unshaped. Ready to imprint. SIGMA grew her from my neural base, but she was designed to mimic the real you. The way you walk. Think. Trust. Feel.”
Elena’s heart clenched. “She’s not me.”
“She will be—once she watches you long enough.”
Adrian moved forward, gun lowered but tense. “You’re creating replicas.”
“No,” Instance_03 said, gaze sharpening. “I’m raising successors. You tried to tear SIGMA down. I came here to ensure it survives. Not through computers. Through children. Through shadows.”
She turned to the girl.
“Show her.”
The girl stepped forward—and spoke.
“Elena Cruz. Born July 14. Codename: ARGENT. Primary threat classification: emotional anomaly.”
Elena froze.
She wasn’t just mimicking.
She was reporting.
“You’ve turned her into a living surveillance system,” Elena whispered.
“She’s your reflection… only smaller. More obedient. And far easier to replicate.”
Instance_03 opened a briefcase on the bed.
Inside: four more vials.
Each marked with Elena’s DNA code.
PROJECT: SEEDLINE.
Outside – Surveillance Van – 5:11 AM
Julia and Liana watched the feed go static.
“Signal’s jammed,” Liana said.
“She’ll have to make a call,” Julia muttered. “Either destroy the program—or protect the only innocent thing left in that room.”
Inside – Secure Hotel – 5:12 AM
Elena’s fingers hovered over the detonator in her palm.
SIGMA’s Seedline was mapped to this suite. The servers beneath it, buried below the floor. With one press, the entire substructure would collapse.
She stared at the girl again.
Her.
But not her.
“I don’t want to hurt you,” Elena said quietly.
“I know,” the girl replied.
Instance_03 smirked. “That’s what makes you weak.”
Elena’s voice hardened.
“No. That’s what makes me human.”
And then—gunshot.
But not from Adrian.
The girl had fired.
At Instance_03.
The woman staggered back, blinking in shock, a perfect crimson bloom spreading on her chest.
The child looked at Elena.
“I watched you,” she said. “And I chose.”
Foundation HQ – Remote Link – 5:19 AM
Julia stared at the feed, stunned. “She shot her.”
Liana leaned closer. “She rejected her programming.”
“No,” Julia whispered. “She rewrote it.”
Lagos – Secure Hotel – 5:21 AM
Instance_03 collapsed.
Dead.
Elena dropped to one knee, taking the girl’s hand gently.
“What’s your name?” she asked.
The girl shrugged. “They never gave me one.”
Elena hesitated.
Then said, “How about… Mara?”
The girl nodded slowly. “Mara.”
Adrian exhaled beside her. “That’s one hell of a turn.”
But Elena wasn’t smiling.
Because she knew.
If there was one seed…
There were more.
SIGMA Blacksite – Unknown Coordinates – 6:02 AM
The message hit the mainframe like a virus.
SEEDLINE_03 – LOST
REASSESSING CANDIDATE VIABILITY
INITIATE BACKUP: PHASE DELTA
TARGET: MARA CRUZ
And in the shadows—
another face smiled.
One that hadn’t been seen yet.
But looked just like Elena.
Lagos – Secure Hotel – 5:29 AM
Rain tapped softly against the shattered windows.
Mara sat quietly on the edge of the bed, fingers curled around the pistol she’d dropped. Her legs dangled. She didn’t swing them.
She was too still.
Too aware.
Too much like Elena.
Adrian patched the signal through to Foundation HQ. “Extraction team en route. We’ll need medical, cybernetics, and full-level containment support.”
Julia’s voice crackled: “Containment? You’re not bringing her in as a threat—”
“We don’t know what she is,” Elena cut in, voice low but calm.
Mara looked up. “You think I’m broken?”
“No,” Elena said, kneeling in front of her. “I think you’re unfinished. And that makes you dangerous… to them. Not to me.”
Mara’s gaze shifted toward the body of Instance_03. Then back to Elena.
“I picked you,” she said. “Because you hesitated.”
Elena blinked. “That made me worthy?”
“No. That made you mine.”
Extraction Van – En Route to Safehouse Bravo – 6:03 AM
Elena sat beside Mara, watching the child sleep with one hand clenched around a folded piece of fabric—Instance_03’s scarf.
Adrian leaned close. “You saw the retinal scan logs.”
“I did.”
“They tried to implant a trigger sequence.”
“And it didn’t take,” Elena replied.
“You’re sure?”
Elena looked down at Mara’s face.
“No,” she said honestly. “But if it ever does… I’ll be ready.”
He frowned. “To fight her?”
“To protect her.”
Even if that meant protecting her from herself.
Unknown SIGMA Node – Offline Memory Storage – 6:47 AM
A synthetic voice crackled through the dark:
“Primary instance compromised. Delta seed extracted. Seedline unstable.”
A machine paused.
“Permission to activate contingency?”
A second voice replied. One Elena had never heard before.
And yet, it still sounded like her.
“Permission granted.”
On the screen, a face flickered into view—older, colder, marked by a scar down the cheek.
Another version.
Another shadow.
But not a child.
Not a mirror.
This one… was grown.
And awake.
Rain started to fall.
Thin, icy needles cutting through the dusk.
Adrian stood over the body. Gun still warm. Heart still colder.
Elena leaned against the railing, bloodied, shaking, her eyes locked on the unmoving mirror of herself.
“She’s dead,” she said flatly.
Adrian didn’t answer.
Because they both knew the truth.
She wasn’t dead. Not fully.
Just… deactivated.
And even in death, she looked too much like Elena to bury cleanly.
Liana’s voice crackled through the comms. “Transport’s inbound. We’ll scrub the footage. Make this disappear.”
Elena whispered, “They tried to erase me with my own face.”
Adrian turned to her slowly. “And failed.”
She looked down at her hands—blood from both of them on her palms.
“Did they?”
Foundation HQ – Deep Vault – 6:22 PM
Julia tapped the encrypted file again. “She was Instance 02. But the architecture goes further.”
She flipped the display.
SIM-PROJECT: NIGHTFALL
ACTIVE INSTANCES: 6
TERMINATED: 3
REMAINING: 3
PRIMARY: UNKNOWN
Liana stepped forward. “What does that mean?”
“It means SIGMA didn’t stop at Mirror_2,” Julia said, voice taut. “There are three more.”
“Where are they?”
“Hidden. Masked. One might already be embedded.”
Adrian’s voice was low. “Embedded where?”
Julia hesitated.
Then turned the screen one last time.
SITE INTEGRATION LOG:
NYC – CONFIRMED
LAGOS – IN TRANSIT
OSLO – PENDING ACTIVATION
Elena’s pulse spiked.
“They’re spreading us.”
“Not us,” Adrian corrected. “You.”
Unknown Location – Lagos, Nigeria – 2:03 AM (Local Time)
A hotel elevator dinged.
A woman stepped out, heels silent on the marble floor. Black sunglasses. Black gloves. Red lipstick that matched the emergency glow strip under her coat.
She stopped at room 703. Slid a silver keycard into the lock.
Inside: a case.
Inside the case: a passport… and a mirror.
She smiled at her reflection.
Not Elena.
Not quite.
INSTANCE_03 – ONLINE.
Foundation HQ – Elena’s Quarters – 7:01 PM
Elena stared out the window as the lights of New York glittered below.
“Three more of me,” she said. “Somewhere out there.”
Adrian sat on the couch, elbows on knees, watching her carefully.
“You’re not them.”
“But I could’ve been.”
She turned to face him, her voice barely audible.
“What if I start thinking like them?”
He stood, walked to her, and placed a hand on her cheek.
“Then I’ll remind you who you are.”
Her eyes glistened. “And if one day I forget?”
His voice was steady.
“Then we burn the whole system down.”
Foundation HQ – War Room – 7:44 PM
Julia’s fingers flew across the keyboard, decrypting the last SIGMA transmission intercepted by satellite triangulation.
A pulse, disguised as static.
Three bursts. Four-second delay. Then a data spike.
Not random. Coordinated.
She enhanced the waveform. The pattern emerged like teeth through smoke.
A voice, barely audible:
“They only remember the version that survives.”
Adrian stiffened. “That’s not just SIGMA’s activation code.”
“No,” Julia said grimly. “It’s their motto.”
She hit enter.
The screen blinked.
GLOBAL ACTIVATION: PHASE II – INITIATED
NEXT TARGET: LAGOS
DEPLOYMENT: LIVE IN 18:47:09
Elena exhaled sharply.
“I need to go.”
“You just fought a mirror of yourself,” Liana snapped. “You’re still bleeding.”
“And Lagos is next. I won’t let another version of me take someone else’s life,” Elena replied, voice steel.
She turned to Adrian. “Come with me.”
He hesitated for half a second. Then nodded.
“Always.”
Private Jet – En Route to Lagos – 2:15 AM (Local Time)
Elena barely slept.
When she closed her eyes, she saw her again.
Not Mirror_2.
Not the child she used to be.
Not even her reflection.
Just… the version she feared becoming.
Cold. Calculating. Controlled.
“Do you think I’ll ever stop running from myself?” she asked softly.
Adrian sat across from her, reading the decrypted blueprints of SIGMA’s Nigerian installation.
He looked up. Met her eyes.
“You’re not running. You’re rewriting.”
Lagos, Nigeria – Arrival Hub – 4:09 AM
Heat met them like a slap.
The streets were already waking—sirens in the distance, traffic murmuring beneath the chaos of early morning.
Elena pulled her hood low, a shadow among shadows.
Julia’s voice crackled through her comms.
“We have local contacts tailing suspected safehouses. Instance_03 was spotted entering a secure hotel on Victoria Island. You’ve got four hours until full activation. Maybe less.”
Adrian checked the loaded tranquilizer gun strapped to his chest.
“I’m not killing another one of you,” he said.
Elena nodded. “That makes two of us.”
But in her gut… she wasn’t sure that would be enough.
Lagos – Secure Hotel – 5:01 AM
They breached the suite.
Too quiet.
No signs of panic. No signs of resistance.
Until the door to the bedroom creaked open—
And a young girl stepped out.
Maybe thirteen. Pale. Silent.
Behind her, a familiar face emerged.
Instance_03.
Not in heels. Not in sunglasses.
But in a long black dress. Barefoot.
“You’re early,” she said.
Elena’s voice caught. “You have a child with you?”
“Not mine,” Instance_03 replied coolly. “Just my mirror.”
Elena frowned.
Then froze.
The child had her eyes.
Her movement.
Her stillness.
Adrian swore. “They built a fail-safe in flesh.”
Julia’s voice came through the comms, breathless.
“Elena, get out of there. That’s not just an instance.”
“That’s a seed.”
Lagos – Secure Hotel – 5:04 AM
The room thickened with silence.
The girl stared at Elena—not afraid.
Just… familiar.
Too familiar.
Instance_03 didn’t flinch. “She’s not a hostage. She’s the beginning.”
“A clone?” Adrian asked, voice tight.
Instance_03 smiled faintly. “A fragment. Unshaped. Ready to imprint. SIGMA grew her from my neural base, but she was designed to mimic the real you. The way you walk. Think. Trust. Feel.”
Elena’s heart clenched. “She’s not me.”
“She will be—once she watches you long enough.”
Adrian moved forward, gun lowered but tense. “You’re creating replicas.”
“No,” Instance_03 said, gaze sharpening. “I’m raising successors. You tried to tear SIGMA down. I came here to ensure it survives. Not through computers. Through children. Through shadows.”
She turned to the girl.
“Show her.”
The girl stepped forward—and spoke.
“Elena Cruz. Born July 14. Codename: ARGENT. Primary threat classification: emotional anomaly.”
Elena froze.
She wasn’t just mimicking.
She was reporting.
“You’ve turned her into a living surveillance system,” Elena whispered.
“She’s your reflection… only smaller. More obedient. And far easier to replicate.”
Instance_03 opened a briefcase on the bed.
Inside: four more vials.
Each marked with Elena’s DNA code.
PROJECT: SEEDLINE.
Outside – Surveillance Van – 5:11 AM
Julia and Liana watched the feed go static.
“Signal’s jammed,” Liana said.
“She’ll have to make a call,” Julia muttered. “Either destroy the program—or protect the only innocent thing left in that room.”
Inside – Secure Hotel – 5:12 AM
Elena’s fingers hovered over the detonator in her palm.
SIGMA’s Seedline was mapped to this suite. The servers beneath it, buried below the floor. With one press, the entire substructure would collapse.
She stared at the girl again.
Her.
But not her.
“I don’t want to hurt you,” Elena said quietly.
“I know,” the girl replied.
Instance_03 smirked. “That’s what makes you weak.”
Elena’s voice hardened.
“No. That’s what makes me human.”
And then—gunshot.
But not from Adrian.
The girl had fired.
At Instance_03.
The woman staggered back, blinking in shock, a perfect crimson bloom spreading on her chest.
The child looked at Elena.
“I watched you,” she said. “And I chose.”
Foundation HQ – Remote Link – 5:19 AM
Julia stared at the feed, stunned. “She shot her.”
Liana leaned closer. “She rejected her programming.”
“No,” Julia whispered. “She rewrote it.”
Lagos – Secure Hotel – 5:21 AM
Instance_03 collapsed.
Dead.
Elena dropped to one knee, taking the girl’s hand gently.
“What’s your name?” she asked.
The girl shrugged. “They never gave me one.”
Elena hesitated.
Then said, “How about… Mara?”
The girl nodded slowly. “Mara.”
Adrian exhaled beside her. “That’s one hell of a turn.”
But Elena wasn’t smiling.
Because she knew.
If there was one seed…
There were more.
SIGMA Blacksite – Unknown Coordinates – 6:02 AM
The message hit the mainframe like a virus.
SEEDLINE_03 – LOST
REASSESSING CANDIDATE VIABILITY
INITIATE BACKUP: PHASE DELTA
TARGET: MARA CRUZ
And in the shadows—
another face smiled.
One that hadn’t been seen yet.
But looked just like Elena.
Lagos – Secure Hotel – 5:29 AM
Rain tapped softly against the shattered windows.
Mara sat quietly on the edge of the bed, fingers curled around the pistol she’d dropped. Her legs dangled. She didn’t swing them.
She was too still.
Too aware.
Too much like Elena.
Adrian patched the signal through to Foundation HQ. “Extraction team en route. We’ll need medical, cybernetics, and full-level containment support.”
Julia’s voice crackled: “Containment? You’re not bringing her in as a threat—”
“We don’t know what she is,” Elena cut in, voice low but calm.
Mara looked up. “You think I’m broken?”
“No,” Elena said, kneeling in front of her. “I think you’re unfinished. And that makes you dangerous… to them. Not to me.”
Mara’s gaze shifted toward the body of Instance_03. Then back to Elena.
“I picked you,” she said. “Because you hesitated.”
Elena blinked. “That made me worthy?”
“No. That made you mine.”
Extraction Van – En Route to Safehouse Bravo – 6:03 AM
Elena sat beside Mara, watching the child sleep with one hand clenched around a folded piece of fabric—Instance_03’s scarf.
Adrian leaned close. “You saw the retinal scan logs.”
“I did.”
“They tried to implant a trigger sequence.”
“And it didn’t take,” Elena replied.
“You’re sure?”
Elena looked down at Mara’s face.
“No,” she said honestly. “But if it ever does… I’ll be ready.”
He frowned. “To fight her?”
“To protect her.”
Even if that meant protecting her from herself.
Unknown SIGMA Node – Offline Memory Storage – 6:47 AM
A synthetic voice crackled through the dark:
“Primary instance compromised. Delta seed extracted. Seedline unstable.”
A machine paused.
“Permission to activate contingency?”
A second voice replied. One Elena had never heard before.
And yet, it still sounded like her.
“Permission granted.”
On the screen, a face flickered into view—older, colder, marked by a scar down the cheek.
Another version.
Another shadow.
But not a child.
Not a mirror.
This one… was grown.
And awake.
End of Beneath the Billionaire Mask Chapter 40. Continue reading Chapter 41 or return to Beneath the Billionaire Mask book page.