Beneath the Billionaire Mask - Chapter 63: Chapter 63

Undisclosed Airspace – 10,000 Feet Above Eastern Europe – 12:44 AM
The private jet cut through the clouds like a silent predator. Inside, the air was tense. Elena sat strapped in, her hand clenched tightly around the encrypted chip Julia had left behind. Across from her, Adrian stared at the satellite images Liana had uncovered.
A facility—remote, isolated, buried beneath what looked like an abandoned mining site.
“This is where they’re building them?” Elena asked.
Liana nodded. “Cloning pods, neural mapping stations… and an AI framework capable of rewriting personality profiles.”
“It’s not just your face anymore,” she added, glancing at Adrian. “It’s your memories. Your pain. Your instincts. They’re trying to distill you into a weapon.”
Adrian didn’t flinch. “Then we destroy the lab. And the program.”
“We go in loud?” Liana asked.
He shook his head. “We go in as ghosts.”
Subterranean Facility – Sector 4 – 3:07 AM
Somewhere beneath frozen ground and abandoned ruins, steel doors hissed open to reveal an operating theater of horrors. Cloning vats lined the walls, each marked with only two letters: SB – Synthetic Blackwood.
A shadow moved between the rows—calculated, efficient.
Adrian V2.
He paused beside one of the pods. A subject was stirring inside: female, sharp-featured… eerily familiar.
“Subject CR-01: Cruz. Neural imprint in progress…”
He stared at her through the glass. His voice was calm, clinical.
“Why replicate the journalist?” one of the techs asked.
V2 turned slightly. “Because Adrian Blackwood doesn’t bleed for strangers. He bleeds for her.”
The implication was chilling.
They weren’t just building copies.
They were building leverage.
Approaching the Perimeter – 3:42 AM
Dressed in blackout gear, Adrian, Elena, and Liana reached the ridge overlooking the complex. Adrian peered through thermal optics.
“Multiple heat signatures,” he muttered. “Guards. Minimal rotation. They’re not expecting us.”
Elena exhaled slowly. “You sure you’re ready to face… yourself?”
He didn’t look at her.
“I’m not facing myself,” he said. “I’m confronting what they wanted me to become.”
He loaded his weapon.
“And I plan to disappoint them.”
Inside the Complex – Main Server Hall – 4:06 AM
The trio moved like shadows, silencing guards and disabling cameras as they crept into the heart of the operation.
Elena reached the core first. The neural database towered above her, pulsing with life. A thousand lives stored. A thousand minds waiting to be rewritten.
“This is it,” Liana whispered. “The brain of the program.”
Adrian handed her the final encryption key.
“Wipe it. All of it.”
“Even your own backups?” she asked.
“Especially those.”
Liana nodded grimly and started typing.
Then the alarm screamed.
Red lights. Security override.
Doors sealed shut.
From the far end of the room… footsteps echoed.
“I’ve been expecting you,” came a voice—calm, chilling.
Adrian V2 stepped into view.
Same face. Same voice.
But no soul.
“How do you plan to kill a version of yourself that’s already let go of pain?”
Subterranean Complex – Neural Archive Hall – 4:08 AM
The lights stuttered overhead, casting shadows on steel and glass. The real Adrian stepped forward, eyes locked on the man who wore his face.
“What are you?” he demanded.
Adrian V2 tilted his head slightly, studying him with the same cold intelligence. “An answer to your weakness. Pain, guilt, loyalty—inefficient. I’m what remains when the scars are removed.”
“Then you’re not me.”
“No,” the clone said softly. “I’m what you should’ve been.”
Elena moved beside Adrian, her grip tight on the sidearm she kept holstered. “You don’t get to rewrite lives just because someone bled for theirs.”
V2’s gaze slid to her. For a second, something flickered. Recognition? Programming? Obsession?
“You’re not part of the plan,” he said. “You were never meant to be replicated.”
“Good,” Elena snapped. “Because there’s no version of me that wouldn’t pull the trigger.”
She fired.
V2 moved fast—inhumanly fast—disappearing behind a column. The bullet pinged off steel.
“He’s faster than you,” Liana muttered, ducking for cover. “Too fast.”
Adrian didn’t hesitate.
“That’s why we slow him down.”
Backup Generator Corridor – 4:12 AM
Liana sprinted through the data servers, planting EMP charges at every junction point. Sparks flared in her wake. One by one, lights flickered out. The clone’s enhanced sight would falter in blackout conditions.
Meanwhile, Adrian moved like a phantom through the darkness. He knew this facility. Hell, it was built from his stolen designs. Every vent, every blind spot—it was his.
“You can’t outrun yourself,” V2’s voice echoed through the dark. “Every move you make, I already made it cleaner.”
“You’re forgetting something,” Adrian muttered, slipping behind a pipe system.
“I bleed for real things.”
Server Hall – 4:17 AM
The two Adrians collided.
Fist met fist. Blade met bone.
It wasn’t just a fight—it was a war between instinct and evolution. The clone was stronger. More reactive. But Adrian was human. He felt everything. And he used it.
“You fight like you’re afraid of dying,” V2 hissed.
“No,” Adrian growled. “I fight like someone who still has something to live for.”
He slammed the clone against the wall hard then triggered the charge on his wristwatch.
A high-frequency burst screamed through the air.
The clone staggered, circuits in his neural framework scrambling.
Elena ran in. “EMP worked he’s slowed!”
Adrian didn’t waste a second.
He grabbed the backup drive the core of V2’s memory and crushed it under his boot.
“End of the program,” he said.
V2 collapsed to one knee, voice glitching. “You… can’t… erase me…”
“Watch me,” Adrian whispered.
And then he struck the final blow.
Surface – 5:02 AM
The facility behind them burned.
From the snowy ridge, Elena watched the fire consume the compound—along with everything it had created.
“Is it really over?” she asked.
Adrian didn’t answer for a long time.
Then he said:
“Not until every version of me every mask has been buried.”
Subterranean Complex – Backup Containment Wing – 4:26 AM
The battle left its scars. Smoke drifted down the corridor like fog in a graveyard. Blood real and synthetic streaked the floor. Adrian leaned against the wall, chest heaving, as Liana and Elena pulled open a vault sealed by biometric ID.
“Last data core,” Liana said, pointing to a central console blinking red. “This holds every recorded replication algorithm. If we wipe it… there’s no coming back.”
Adrian stared at it. “Do it.”
Elena hesitated. Her eyes locked on one specific name on the screen: Elena Cruz – Subject CR-01
Her own neural imprint alive, copied, already in use.
“Wait,” she said softly. “There’s a recording.”
The screen flickered. A video file loaded. It showed her another her strapped to a neural mapping chair, fighting restraints, eyes wild.
“If you’re seeing this… I didn’t consent. They used my voice, my memories—turned me into bait.”
The recorded Elena looked straight at the screen.
“The clone of Blackwood isn’t the threat. The real threat is what they programmed into me.”
“Into you.”
“RUN.”
The screen went black.
Liana stepped back. “They didn’t just clone you to control Adrian. They cloned you to replace you.”
Elena’s voice cracked. “They used me as the final fail-safe. If Adrian couldn’t be broken, they’d use me to break him.”
“They created love… as a weapon.”
Adrian’s fist slammed the wall. “Then we make sure that weapon never leaves this room.”
He looked to Liana.
“Delete it all. Wipe every instance. Every backup. Burn it to ash.”
Liana hit the command. One by one, the servers blinked red. Erasing. Erasing. Erasing.
But just before the final screen went dark…
A final message flashed:
PROJECT: HALO INITIATED
Replication no longer requires consent. Phase Two in motion.
Elena whispered, “What the hell is Halo?”
Adrian looked at her.
“Something worse than masks.”
Underground Corridor Escape Route Alpha 4:45 AM
The facility rumbled as automated failsafes began to engage. Lights flashed. Mechanical arms whirred. In the far distance, klaxons wailed an evacuation warning.
Adrian gritted his teeth, blood trailing down his forearm. “They’re triggering a failsafe probably to bury everything we saw.”
Liana sprinted ahead, planting a charge on the secondary exit gate. “They’d rather burn the truth than let it breathe.”
Behind them, Elena looked over her shoulder one last time. Her name still flickered on the wall screen, a terrifying reminder of what had almost replaced her.
“What if there are more of… me?” she asked softly. “Somewhere out there?”
Adrian paused, turning to face her fully. “Then we find them. And we end it. Together.”
The gate exploded open, sending smoke and sparks into the corridor.
They didn’t look back.
Extraction Point Forest Ridge 5:03 AM
The team emerged from the hidden tunnel just as a private evac chopper descended between the trees. Wind kicked up ash and pine needles, and the sky had just started to bleed hints of dawn.
“We destroyed their core,” Liana said, breathless. “But Project HALO… it’s already in motion. This was only one arm.”
Adrian nodded grimly. “Then we find the rest. Before they build something no one can stop.”
Elena looked down at the chip still in her hand. The one Julia had given her. It was warm—too warm. A final message blinked to life.
Embedded Command Active
Open Only in Event of Elena CR-01 Breach
Her heart dropped.
“They expected the clone to escape,” she said aloud.
Adrian stepped closer, steadying her. “What’s it say?”
The file decrypted.
A single sentence appeared.
She doesn’t need to know she’s not the original.
Silence dropped over them like a blade.
Elena’s hands shook. “I’m the real me. I remember everything. I feel”
Adrian took her hand. “You’re real to me. And that’s all that matters now.”
But neither of them spoke what they feared most:
What if the real Elena was already gone?
Extraction Chopper En Route to Bogotá 5:20 AM
The compound behind them was a smoldering scar on the earth. Adrian sat hunched in the corner of the chopper, his knuckles bloodied, eyes fixed on nothing. Not even the noise of the rotors could drown out the silence between them.
Elena sat across from him. She hadn’t spoken since the data screen revealed her name… and the possibility that another version of her might be out there.
“Say something,” Adrian said, his voice low. Worn.
She looked at him really looked and asked, “Would you still trust me if I wasn’t me?”
His jaw flexed. “You’re the Elena who saved me. Who challenged me. Who made me believe I could still change. That’s the only one I know. The only one I care about.”
“But what if I was just… built to be that?”
Adrian leaned forward, his voice tightening. “Then they failed. Because no program could fake the way you defy me. Or forgive me.”
Her eyes brimmed. “Then promise me something.”
“Anything.”
“If we find her the other me you don’t hesitate.”
He hesitated. “You want me to kill her?”
“I want you to choose me.”
Adrian swallowed hard. “I already did.”
Safehouse Echo 6:09 AM
Liana stared at the encrypted clone registry Julia sent over. She had cracked 70% of the code.
Adrian’s replication was one of twelve.
Elena’s replication… was one of three.
And only one had been terminated.
“One is still active,” Liana whispered.
Behind her, a new message flashed across the bottom of the screen.
REPLICATION NODE 7 ONLINE
SUBJECT CR-01: INITIATING SLEEPWALKER PROTOCOL
Liana’s heart dropped. She turned, running for the hallway.
Elena’s Room Same Time
Elena jolted upright in bed, her breath sharp. A high-pitched frequency whined in her ears, invisible to everyone else. She stumbled toward the mirror eyes dilated, skin suddenly clammy.
Her reflection blinked before she did.
Then it smiled.
And whispered, “Time to wake up.”