Beneath the Billionaire Mask - Chapter 41: Chapter 41
You are reading Beneath the Billionaire Mask, Chapter 41: Chapter 41. Read more chapters of Beneath the Billionaire Mask.
Safehouse Bravo – Abuja, Nigeria – 9:02 AM
Elena watched Mara sleep under sterile white sheets, monitors ticking softly behind her.
Her breathing was even. Calm.
But the chip embedded near her spinal stem pulsed once every 15 seconds—a reminder that her body wasn’t entirely her own.
“She’s stabilizing,” the medic said quietly. “Physically, she’s adapting faster than any baseline child we’ve ever seen.”
“She’s not a baseline child,” Elena replied.
Adrian leaned in the doorway. “No messages from SIGMA. No trace of activity.”
“That’s what worries me,” Elena said. “They’re not panicking. Which means… this was always part of the plan.”
Adrian crossed his arms. “You think she was meant to find us?”
“No. I think she was meant to lead us somewhere.”
SIGMA Shadow Site – Unknown Coordinates – 10:44 AM
In a glass room beneath a mountain, another Elena stood.
Older. Hardened. Hair in a tight braid. A jagged scar curved from her temple to her cheekbone.
She was alone—except for a mirror across from her.
But she wasn’t looking at herself.
She was watching Elena Cruz.
Watching her talk to Mara.
Watching her try to parent the weapon she herself never got to become.
“Subject ARGENT-01 remains emotionally unstable,” a voice behind her said.
“She’s emotionally human,” the older Elena replied. “That’s her weakness. And mine. But not Mara’s.”
She touched the screen with one gloved finger.
“Activate Echo Protocol.”
Safehouse Bravo – Surveillance Room – 11:13 AM
Julia’s voice came through the intercom, urgent.
“Elena—get in here.”
She and Adrian rushed to the main screen.
A security breach alert flashed red across three terminals.
INBOUND SIGNAL – UNTRACEABLE
SOURCE: ECHO-LINE
CONTENT: AUDIO ONLY
Then the voice came through the speakers.
Familiar.
Wrong.
Older.
“Hello, Elena.
I thought you might want to meet the version of yourself that didn’t flinch.
You have three hours. Come alone. Or Mara wakes up as something else.”
Static.
Silence.
Mara stirred in the next room.
Elena’s chest went cold.
“She’s real,” she whispered. “They made a future me.”
Adrian’s jaw clenched. “What do you want to do?”
She turned to him, gaze steel-sharp.
“Finish the fight.”
SIGMA Echo Facility – Outer Perimeter – 2:47 PM
The air in the desert was dry, sharp, uninviting.
A private extraction jet had dropped Elena miles from the location Julia triangulated.
No Adrian. No Liana. No earpiece.
Just her.
And a silver keycard sent in a black envelope, with no name—only the emblem of an eye split down the center. SIGMA’s new mark.
A silent camera scanned her face as she approached the outer gate.
It clicked open with a hiss, like something exhaling.
Elena stepped inside.
The doors sealed behind her.
Echo Facility – Central Chamber – 3:03 PM
The room looked like an interrogation cell.
Bright lights. Concrete floors.
And one chair—occupied.
She sat cross-legged, in all black. Combat boots. Tactical gloves. A datapad in her lap.
Elena stared. And for the first time… she saw it clearly.
Her.
Years older. Skin taut with scars. Eyes devoid of doubt. No softness.
The woman looked up and smiled faintly. “Took you long enough.”
Elena didn’t move. “How long have you been alive?”
“I never died,” the woman said. “I just changed.”
She stood slowly. Moved like a soldier.
“My designation is ECHO. You’re ARGENT. I was supposed to be you, ten years later. But SIGMA didn’t wait. They rewrote the clock. Made me now.”
Elena swallowed. “You were a backup?”
“No,” ECHO said. “I was the replacement plan. You failed one too many missions. You fell in love. You got weak. I got better.”
Observation Deck – Moments Later
They stood above a room filled with children.
Not babies. Clones. In various stages of growth.
Some asleep. Some reading. Some training with weighted gloves.
“This is what SIGMA’s been building?” Elena asked.
“No,” ECHO said. “This is what you were supposed to lead.”
She handed Elena a tablet.
Dozens of files. All tagged:
SEED: CRUZ-LINE
STATUS: INDOCTRINATION
PSYCH PROFILING: IN PROGRESS
“They don’t need a spy anymore,” ECHO said. “They need a queen.”
Elena’s voice cracked. “Why show me this?”
“Because I don’t want to fight you.”
Elena turned, stunned.
“I want you to choose,” ECHO continued. “Step in. Lead this. Guide them. And SIGMA gives you the freedom to rewrite what they couldn’t. You stop running. You stop hiding. And you win.”
Elena stared at the children again.
They looked like her.
Talked like her.
But none of them felt like her.
“You don’t win by replacing the world,” she said. “You win by saving it.”
Echo Facility – Lower Chamber – 3:38 PM
Alarms blared.
Julia’s voice exploded in Elena’s emergency comm: “We tracked the facility and breached the firewalls. SIGMA is deploying a mind-burn protocol on every child—except Mara. They’re covering their tracks!”
ECHO didn’t flinch.
“This was always a test,” she said. “And you failed it.”
Elena’s hand flew to her sidearm.
“I’m not letting you burn their lives away just to erase your own sins.”
“They’re not lives yet. They’re replicas.”
“They’re mine.”
The shot rang out.
Not from Elena.
From one of the children behind the glass—watching. Protecting.
ECHO staggered backward.
Not dead. But bleeding.
Elena rushed to the console, slamming in the override key from the card she’d been given.
ABORT_MINDWIPE?
Y/N
She hit Y.
The lights dimmed.
The alarms silenced.
The children blinked.
Still alive.
Still… hers.
Safehouse Bravo – Later That Night
Adrian held Mara in his arms as she drifted off.
Elena stood at the window, watching the stars over the Nigerian skyline.
“She wasn’t stronger than me,” she said quietly.
Adrian stepped beside her. “No.”
“She was just faster to surrender.”
He looked at her. “What happens now?”
Elena took a deep breath.
“We build. We protect them. And when the last version of me tries again…”
She turned.
“I’ll be ready.”
Echo Facility – Holding Chamber – 3:52 PM
The alarms finally faded into a tense hum.
Glass cells retracted into the floor, releasing a dozen children. Boys and girls. Teenagers. Every one of them with eyes far too knowing for their age.
Elena stepped forward, wary.
Some of them recoiled.
But one—tall, no older than fifteen—held his ground.
“You’re not the same,” he said.
Elena met his gaze. “No. I’m the original.”
He tilted his head. “Then why do I feel like I’ve known you forever?”
Because they shared something deeper than memory.
They shared design.
She turned back toward ECHO, who knelt against the wall, hand pressed to her bleeding side. Still alive.
Still dangerous.
“I underestimated them,” ECHO muttered. “They’re not clean copies. They’re wild data. Organic. Erratic.”
Elena crouched in front of her.
“That’s what makes them human.”
ECHO coughed. “SIGMA will rebuild this. You know that. You can save them now, but the code—it’s already seeded.”
“I’m not trying to erase the code,” Elena said. “I’m going to rewrite it.”
ECHO managed a faint smile. “You always did like impossible missions.”
Echo Facility – Data Core – 4:18 PM
Julia’s voice came in through the network.
“I’ve cracked the architecture. The whole Seedline framework is built on a neural pattern based on your earliest childhood traumas, Elena. Your grief, your guilt… SIGMA turned them into syntax.”
“Then let’s corrupt it.”
Elena plugged in her own encrypted data key.
DATA INJECTION READY
INSERT OVERRIDE SEQUENCE
She typed.
Line by line.
She wrote hope.
She wrote choice.
She wrote names.
The last entry:
DESIGNATION: MARA CRUZ
STATUS: UNBOUND
Echo Facility – Launch Bay – 4:46 PM
Adrian arrived just as the self-destruct countdown was authorized.
Ten minutes until the entire facility burned itself from the earth.
The children filed into the evac transport—silent, confused, but watching Elena like she was a lighthouse in the middle of their storm.
Mara ran to her, wrapped small arms around her waist.
“Is it over?”
Elena hugged her tight. “Not yet. But we’re not alone anymore.”
Adrian stepped beside them. “There’s a world waiting. And it has no idea what’s coming.”
Elena looked back at the complex one last time.
She whispered, “Let the masks burn.”
Then climbed aboard.
Somewhere Else – SIGMA Contingency Server – 5:13 PM
A dormant program blinked to life.
FILE_RESTORATION: INCOMPLETE
ECHO: OFFLINE
CRUZ-LINE: DEFECTED
NEXT PROTOCOL: INITIATE VIREX
A digital face formed on the screen.
Not Elena.
Not ECHO.
Something new.
And watching.
Extraction Transport – En Route to Safe Zone Theta – 6:07 PM
The silence inside the aircraft was thick with unanswered questions. The children—her shadows—sat buckled in, their eyes wide and watchful. Some whispered among themselves. Others stared blankly out the windows, as though expecting the sky to turn against them.
Mara sat beside Elena, one hand wrapped tightly around the scarf she’d taken from Instance_03. Her legs didn’t swing this time. She just watched.
“I remember her,” Mara said suddenly.
Elena turned. “ECHO?”
“No. The one before her. The one with kind hands… before they changed her.” She looked down. “I think they tried to do the same to me.”
Adrian, across the aisle, leaned forward. “And?”
Mara met his eyes. “They failed.”
Safe Zone Theta – Temporary Shelter – 8:13 PM
They set up base inside a secure villa far from any traceable SIGMA tech—scrubbed, scanned, and swept for interference.
Liana arrived with crates of encrypted tablets, medical kits, and the beginnings of a new digital firewall. Julia stood beside her, watching the Cruz-Line quietly.
“They’re not just copies,” she said.
“No,” Liana agreed. “They’re a generation.”
Julia narrowed her eyes. “Do we tell them everything?”
“They already know enough to be dangerous.”
“Then maybe we train them to be dangerous for the right reasons.”
Private Room – Elena’s Quarters – 9:47 PM
She sat on the edge of the bed, rubbing a scar behind her ear—a tiny reminder of who she used to be.
The person who ran.
Who trusted the wrong people.
Who believed in masks instead of mirrors.
Adrian entered quietly.
“They’re asking about names,” he said.
She raised her brows.
“They don’t want designations. They want names they choose. Like Mara.”
A faint smile tugged at Elena’s lips.
“Then we give them that.”
He sat beside her. “You realize what this means, right? You’re not just a spy anymore. Not even just a soldier.”
She nodded slowly.
“I’m a leader now. Of a war I never asked for… but one I’m ready to finish.”
Unknown Location – Abandoned SIGMA Satellite Node – 11:11 PM
Dust danced in shafts of moonlight.
A flicker of power buzzed through a console long thought dead.
A new file decrypted itself line by line. One name at the top.
PRIMARY TRIGGER: MARA CRUZ
A soft chime.
SUBROUTINE: VIREX - GHOST CODE DETECTED
CONDITION: AWAKENING
Elena watched Mara sleep under sterile white sheets, monitors ticking softly behind her.
Her breathing was even. Calm.
But the chip embedded near her spinal stem pulsed once every 15 seconds—a reminder that her body wasn’t entirely her own.
“She’s stabilizing,” the medic said quietly. “Physically, she’s adapting faster than any baseline child we’ve ever seen.”
“She’s not a baseline child,” Elena replied.
Adrian leaned in the doorway. “No messages from SIGMA. No trace of activity.”
“That’s what worries me,” Elena said. “They’re not panicking. Which means… this was always part of the plan.”
Adrian crossed his arms. “You think she was meant to find us?”
“No. I think she was meant to lead us somewhere.”
SIGMA Shadow Site – Unknown Coordinates – 10:44 AM
In a glass room beneath a mountain, another Elena stood.
Older. Hardened. Hair in a tight braid. A jagged scar curved from her temple to her cheekbone.
She was alone—except for a mirror across from her.
But she wasn’t looking at herself.
She was watching Elena Cruz.
Watching her talk to Mara.
Watching her try to parent the weapon she herself never got to become.
“Subject ARGENT-01 remains emotionally unstable,” a voice behind her said.
“She’s emotionally human,” the older Elena replied. “That’s her weakness. And mine. But not Mara’s.”
She touched the screen with one gloved finger.
“Activate Echo Protocol.”
Safehouse Bravo – Surveillance Room – 11:13 AM
Julia’s voice came through the intercom, urgent.
“Elena—get in here.”
She and Adrian rushed to the main screen.
A security breach alert flashed red across three terminals.
INBOUND SIGNAL – UNTRACEABLE
SOURCE: ECHO-LINE
CONTENT: AUDIO ONLY
Then the voice came through the speakers.
Familiar.
Wrong.
Older.
“Hello, Elena.
I thought you might want to meet the version of yourself that didn’t flinch.
You have three hours. Come alone. Or Mara wakes up as something else.”
Static.
Silence.
Mara stirred in the next room.
Elena’s chest went cold.
“She’s real,” she whispered. “They made a future me.”
Adrian’s jaw clenched. “What do you want to do?”
She turned to him, gaze steel-sharp.
“Finish the fight.”
SIGMA Echo Facility – Outer Perimeter – 2:47 PM
The air in the desert was dry, sharp, uninviting.
A private extraction jet had dropped Elena miles from the location Julia triangulated.
No Adrian. No Liana. No earpiece.
Just her.
And a silver keycard sent in a black envelope, with no name—only the emblem of an eye split down the center. SIGMA’s new mark.
A silent camera scanned her face as she approached the outer gate.
It clicked open with a hiss, like something exhaling.
Elena stepped inside.
The doors sealed behind her.
Echo Facility – Central Chamber – 3:03 PM
The room looked like an interrogation cell.
Bright lights. Concrete floors.
And one chair—occupied.
She sat cross-legged, in all black. Combat boots. Tactical gloves. A datapad in her lap.
Elena stared. And for the first time… she saw it clearly.
Her.
Years older. Skin taut with scars. Eyes devoid of doubt. No softness.
The woman looked up and smiled faintly. “Took you long enough.”
Elena didn’t move. “How long have you been alive?”
“I never died,” the woman said. “I just changed.”
She stood slowly. Moved like a soldier.
“My designation is ECHO. You’re ARGENT. I was supposed to be you, ten years later. But SIGMA didn’t wait. They rewrote the clock. Made me now.”
Elena swallowed. “You were a backup?”
“No,” ECHO said. “I was the replacement plan. You failed one too many missions. You fell in love. You got weak. I got better.”
Observation Deck – Moments Later
They stood above a room filled with children.
Not babies. Clones. In various stages of growth.
Some asleep. Some reading. Some training with weighted gloves.
“This is what SIGMA’s been building?” Elena asked.
“No,” ECHO said. “This is what you were supposed to lead.”
She handed Elena a tablet.
Dozens of files. All tagged:
SEED: CRUZ-LINE
STATUS: INDOCTRINATION
PSYCH PROFILING: IN PROGRESS
“They don’t need a spy anymore,” ECHO said. “They need a queen.”
Elena’s voice cracked. “Why show me this?”
“Because I don’t want to fight you.”
Elena turned, stunned.
“I want you to choose,” ECHO continued. “Step in. Lead this. Guide them. And SIGMA gives you the freedom to rewrite what they couldn’t. You stop running. You stop hiding. And you win.”
Elena stared at the children again.
They looked like her.
Talked like her.
But none of them felt like her.
“You don’t win by replacing the world,” she said. “You win by saving it.”
Echo Facility – Lower Chamber – 3:38 PM
Alarms blared.
Julia’s voice exploded in Elena’s emergency comm: “We tracked the facility and breached the firewalls. SIGMA is deploying a mind-burn protocol on every child—except Mara. They’re covering their tracks!”
ECHO didn’t flinch.
“This was always a test,” she said. “And you failed it.”
Elena’s hand flew to her sidearm.
“I’m not letting you burn their lives away just to erase your own sins.”
“They’re not lives yet. They’re replicas.”
“They’re mine.”
The shot rang out.
Not from Elena.
From one of the children behind the glass—watching. Protecting.
ECHO staggered backward.
Not dead. But bleeding.
Elena rushed to the console, slamming in the override key from the card she’d been given.
ABORT_MINDWIPE?
Y/N
She hit Y.
The lights dimmed.
The alarms silenced.
The children blinked.
Still alive.
Still… hers.
Safehouse Bravo – Later That Night
Adrian held Mara in his arms as she drifted off.
Elena stood at the window, watching the stars over the Nigerian skyline.
“She wasn’t stronger than me,” she said quietly.
Adrian stepped beside her. “No.”
“She was just faster to surrender.”
He looked at her. “What happens now?”
Elena took a deep breath.
“We build. We protect them. And when the last version of me tries again…”
She turned.
“I’ll be ready.”
Echo Facility – Holding Chamber – 3:52 PM
The alarms finally faded into a tense hum.
Glass cells retracted into the floor, releasing a dozen children. Boys and girls. Teenagers. Every one of them with eyes far too knowing for their age.
Elena stepped forward, wary.
Some of them recoiled.
But one—tall, no older than fifteen—held his ground.
“You’re not the same,” he said.
Elena met his gaze. “No. I’m the original.”
He tilted his head. “Then why do I feel like I’ve known you forever?”
Because they shared something deeper than memory.
They shared design.
She turned back toward ECHO, who knelt against the wall, hand pressed to her bleeding side. Still alive.
Still dangerous.
“I underestimated them,” ECHO muttered. “They’re not clean copies. They’re wild data. Organic. Erratic.”
Elena crouched in front of her.
“That’s what makes them human.”
ECHO coughed. “SIGMA will rebuild this. You know that. You can save them now, but the code—it’s already seeded.”
“I’m not trying to erase the code,” Elena said. “I’m going to rewrite it.”
ECHO managed a faint smile. “You always did like impossible missions.”
Echo Facility – Data Core – 4:18 PM
Julia’s voice came in through the network.
“I’ve cracked the architecture. The whole Seedline framework is built on a neural pattern based on your earliest childhood traumas, Elena. Your grief, your guilt… SIGMA turned them into syntax.”
“Then let’s corrupt it.”
Elena plugged in her own encrypted data key.
DATA INJECTION READY
INSERT OVERRIDE SEQUENCE
She typed.
Line by line.
She wrote hope.
She wrote choice.
She wrote names.
The last entry:
DESIGNATION: MARA CRUZ
STATUS: UNBOUND
Echo Facility – Launch Bay – 4:46 PM
Adrian arrived just as the self-destruct countdown was authorized.
Ten minutes until the entire facility burned itself from the earth.
The children filed into the evac transport—silent, confused, but watching Elena like she was a lighthouse in the middle of their storm.
Mara ran to her, wrapped small arms around her waist.
“Is it over?”
Elena hugged her tight. “Not yet. But we’re not alone anymore.”
Adrian stepped beside them. “There’s a world waiting. And it has no idea what’s coming.”
Elena looked back at the complex one last time.
She whispered, “Let the masks burn.”
Then climbed aboard.
Somewhere Else – SIGMA Contingency Server – 5:13 PM
A dormant program blinked to life.
FILE_RESTORATION: INCOMPLETE
ECHO: OFFLINE
CRUZ-LINE: DEFECTED
NEXT PROTOCOL: INITIATE VIREX
A digital face formed on the screen.
Not Elena.
Not ECHO.
Something new.
And watching.
Extraction Transport – En Route to Safe Zone Theta – 6:07 PM
The silence inside the aircraft was thick with unanswered questions. The children—her shadows—sat buckled in, their eyes wide and watchful. Some whispered among themselves. Others stared blankly out the windows, as though expecting the sky to turn against them.
Mara sat beside Elena, one hand wrapped tightly around the scarf she’d taken from Instance_03. Her legs didn’t swing this time. She just watched.
“I remember her,” Mara said suddenly.
Elena turned. “ECHO?”
“No. The one before her. The one with kind hands… before they changed her.” She looked down. “I think they tried to do the same to me.”
Adrian, across the aisle, leaned forward. “And?”
Mara met his eyes. “They failed.”
Safe Zone Theta – Temporary Shelter – 8:13 PM
They set up base inside a secure villa far from any traceable SIGMA tech—scrubbed, scanned, and swept for interference.
Liana arrived with crates of encrypted tablets, medical kits, and the beginnings of a new digital firewall. Julia stood beside her, watching the Cruz-Line quietly.
“They’re not just copies,” she said.
“No,” Liana agreed. “They’re a generation.”
Julia narrowed her eyes. “Do we tell them everything?”
“They already know enough to be dangerous.”
“Then maybe we train them to be dangerous for the right reasons.”
Private Room – Elena’s Quarters – 9:47 PM
She sat on the edge of the bed, rubbing a scar behind her ear—a tiny reminder of who she used to be.
The person who ran.
Who trusted the wrong people.
Who believed in masks instead of mirrors.
Adrian entered quietly.
“They’re asking about names,” he said.
She raised her brows.
“They don’t want designations. They want names they choose. Like Mara.”
A faint smile tugged at Elena’s lips.
“Then we give them that.”
He sat beside her. “You realize what this means, right? You’re not just a spy anymore. Not even just a soldier.”
She nodded slowly.
“I’m a leader now. Of a war I never asked for… but one I’m ready to finish.”
Unknown Location – Abandoned SIGMA Satellite Node – 11:11 PM
Dust danced in shafts of moonlight.
A flicker of power buzzed through a console long thought dead.
A new file decrypted itself line by line. One name at the top.
PRIMARY TRIGGER: MARA CRUZ
A soft chime.
SUBROUTINE: VIREX - GHOST CODE DETECTED
CONDITION: AWAKENING
End of Beneath the Billionaire Mask Chapter 41. Continue reading Chapter 42 or return to Beneath the Billionaire Mask book page.