Beneath the Billionaire Mask - Chapter 72: Chapter 72
You are reading Beneath the Billionaire Mask, Chapter 72: Chapter 72. Read more chapters of Beneath the Billionaire Mask.
Unknown Location – Nightfall Command Bunker – 1:03 AM
He moved like a man born again.
The steel walls of the command chamber reflected the gaunt lines of Guillermo Cruz’s face—aged, hardened, but unmistakably alive. Wires ran from his wrist into a mobile interface cuff, syncing with the humming servers behind him. Each pulse from the system echoed through the floor like a heartbeat resurrected.
His breath fogged the cold glass in front of him. Dozens of screens displayed surveillance footage, bioscans, satellite intercepts. Every subject tracked. Every asset labeled. And in the center feed—
Adrian Blackwood.
“You look tired, my son,” he murmured, tapping the screen gently. “So close to becoming me… and still trying so hard not to be.”
He turned toward the center console.
A red file blinked.
ACTIVE CONTINGENCY: SLEEPWALKER.
PHASE II: ASCENT.
KEY STATUS: CR-01 — Activated.
CRUZ LEGACY — RECLAMATION PENDING.
He opened a drawer and removed a worn, black dossier stamped with a silver insignia: a broken crown.
Beneath it: NIGHTFALL PROTOCOL.
Guillermo opened it, flipping past a photo of Elena Cruz. One of Adrian. Then Julia. Then one of himself… years ago, with a forged death certificate stapled to the bottom corner.
“They forgot one thing,” he whispered. “You can’t kill a ghost if it becomes the machine.”
Berlin – Safehouse Echo – Same Time
Adrian stared out the frosted window, fists clenched. The knowledge that his father was alive twisted inside him like a blade.
Elena joined him quietly, arms crossed. “You okay?”
“No.”
“Same.”
They stood in silence.
Then Adrian turned, voice low. “I spent my whole life undoing his mess. Building something clean from the filth. And it turns out… the filth was still alive.”
“He’s coming for you,” she said.
Adrian shook his head. “No. He’s coming for us.”
A door opened. Liana walked in, holding a new data chip. “Julia cracked the clone’s last memory dump.”
She handed it to Adrian.
“It’s a location,” she said. “One we missed.”
He slid the chip into the console.
Coordinates flashed.
Adrian’s breath hitched. “That’s… where he died.”
Julia stepped forward from behind her sister. “No. That’s where he pretended to.”
Cut to: Nightfall Bunker – Operations Room
Guillermo Cruz stood before a room of masked operatives—twelve in total, each with a different emblem stitched into their uniforms. Legion officers. Remnants from the original Cruz network.
He raised a hand. Silence fell.
“The world thinks I died with my sins. But I’m not done building.”
He looked directly into the camera.
“I’m coming to reclaim everything they stole.”
Berlin – Safehouse Echo – Command Room – 1:27 AM
The room was thick with tension as the coordinates rendered on the screen. A hollow red dot blinked on a remote stretch of land deep in the mountains of Austria.
Liana frowned. “That’s where the original Nightfall servers were believed to be destroyed.”
“They weren’t,” Adrian said coldly. “He just went underground. Burned his name, buried the evidence—and left the world chasing ghosts.”
Julia tapped a few keys and pulled up thermal satellite data. “There’s heat activity beneath the surface. Faint… but active. Someone’s still down there.”
“Or something,” Elena muttered.
Adrian’s mind raced. He had spent his entire adult life dissecting his father’s empire, eliminating ties, dismantling weaponized AI programs and dismantling replication efforts. But now, it seemed Guillermo had been one step ahead—again.
“You said the clone called it ‘Sleepwalker’,” Elena said. “What does that mean?”
Liana replied grimly. “It’s a neural overwrite protocol. A backdoor command in Cruz’s prototype clones. It hijacks identity, erases current memory, and installs a new mission profile.”
Julia’s voice cracked. “It turns you into someone else.”
Elena flinched. “So he could wake a version of me… and turn her into something I’m not?”
Adrian turned toward her. “No. He could wake a version of you… and make her think you’re the threat.”
A heavy silence fell.
Then Julia whispered, “There might already be one out there.”
Austria – Abandoned Arclight Valley – 2:02 AM
Beneath the crust of the frozen earth, the once-abandoned Arclight Facility hummed to life. Hydraulic doors hissed open as warm vapor surged through mechanical ducts, reawakening systems dormant for nearly a decade.
A woman stood before a full-length mirror in the chamber marked CR-01. Her hair—identical to Elena’s. Her build, her face, her voice. But her eyes…
Dead calm.
She adjusted a black tactical coat and pulled up the hood.
Behind her, another pod opened—this time revealing a second figure. Taller. Male. The data label on the side of his tank flickered: BLACKWOOD VARIANT.
She turned to him as his eyes fluttered open.
Her voice was a chilling echo of Elena’s, laced with precision and devoid of warmth.
“Time to wake up.”
Berlin – Safehouse Echo – Same Time
Adrian jolted upright from the console. He’d been staring at the feed so long, he hadn’t realized his knuckles were white from gripping the edge of the desk.
Elena came over, her voice softer now. “You don’t have to face this alone.”
He looked up at her, vulnerable in a way only she had ever seen. “He made me believe I was broken. Now I realize I was just… a draft.”
She touched his face gently. “Then let’s finish the rewrite.”
A new alarm blinked on-screen—an intercepted broadcast, scrambled but tagged by Julia’s decryption protocols.
Incoming Message: NODE 7
Origin: NIGHTFALL COMMS ARRAY
Subject: PROJECT VIREX – REBOOTING
Liana whispered, “He’s turning everything back on…”
Adrian’s eyes narrowed.
“Then we shut it all down for good.”
Vienna – Classified Network Hub – 3:03 AM
The scrambled feed came from a surveillance node routed through Vienna’s deepest archival grid. The file Julia had intercepted was now decrypting faster than expected—until it hit a locked frame marked “INFERNUM.”
She leaned in, frowning. “This isn’t just Nightfall tech. This is something Cruz buried even deeper.”
Adrian appeared behind her. “Can you break it?”
“I can try… but something’s wrong. The encryption doesn’t look like Cruz’s design. It looks—newer.”
“You’re saying he’s still updating the code?”
“No,” Julia said slowly. “I’m saying someone else is.”
Just then, the file burst open, not with code—but with footage.
Black and white. Grainy. A long hallway. Empty. Then…
A man stepped into the frame.
No timestamp. No metadata. Just his face.
And it was Guillermo Cruz.
Elena gasped. “That can’t be live.”
“It isn’t,” Julia said, her voice cracking. “It’s not Cruz.”
Adrian stepped closer. The man on the screen looked exactly like his father… only younger. Faster. Unscarred. Wearing a mask in one hand and a biometric glove in the other.
“I don’t believe it…” Liana whispered. “He made a backup. Not just of the files… of himself.”
“Clone?” Elena asked, her voice barely above a whisper.
“No,” Adrian said darkly. “Something worse.”
On the screen, the man stared straight into the camera, as if aware of their presence through time itself.
And then he spoke.
“They built Adrian to fix the past. But they built me… to own the future.”
Static exploded across the screen. The signal died.
Berlin – Command Room – Same Time
Adrian turned from the screen, eyes full of fire. “He’s not just a copy.”
Liana nodded grimly. “He’s Cruz’s contingency.”
Elena clenched her fists. “And now he’s activated.”
Julia’s terminal lit up again.
ALERT: PROJECT VIREX – PHASE II COMMENCING
TARGET IDENTIFIED: CR-01 — TERMINATE ORIGINAL
All eyes turned to Elena.
She went still.
And whispered, “They’re coming for me.”
Safehouse Echo – Control Room – 3:29 AM
The silence that followed the message felt like the breath before an avalanche.
Elena’s face drained of color. “They don’t want me silenced. They want me erased.”
Liana was already moving, snapping into action. “We need to relocate. Now. If they’ve activated VIREX Phase II, they’ll dispatch extraction or execution protocols.”
Julia’s fingers flew across her keyboard. “I’m shutting down external signals and encrypting our coordinates. But we’re not going anywhere until I trace the source of that command.”
Adrian placed a hand on Elena’s shoulder. “This is my fight.”
She shook her head. “No. This is what they designed me for. I’m the key.”
“You’re a person,” he said firmly. “Not a prototype.”
She looked at him—really looked—and something inside her hardened. “Then let’s burn the whole lab down. Data, replicas, backups. Everything.”
Julia’s screen blinked again. Another message.
CODE RED: NODE 7 IS ON THE MOVE
ASSET: CR-01 — ACTIVE
DISPATCH STATUS: INFIELD. PROXIMITY – 320KM.
Liana swore. “She’s close.”
Adrian’s voice dropped. “The other Elena.”
Elena stepped back, spine rigid. “Then we finish this before she finishes me.”
Unknown Location – 3:37 AM
Rain pattered on cold asphalt. A figure stepped out of a sleek black car, eyes scanning the crumbling warehouse district with surgical precision. She wore Elena’s face—but there was no fire behind the eyes. Only algorithm.
CR-01 tilted her head, listening to the device in her ear.
A voice—distorted, mechanical—filtered in.
“Initiate synchronization. Replace. Assimilate.”
CR-01 blinked once.
And smiled.
Safehouse Echo – Armory – 3:43 AM
Adrian zipped up a tactical vest, checking his sidearm. “We’ll intercept at the bridge. Liana, you flank from the ridge. Julia, keep the comms dark.”
Elena was silent, then turned toward him. “What if I hesitate?”
He stepped forward, taking her hand.
“Then I’ll remind you which one is real.”
Cliffside Approach – 4:01 AM
Fog thickened like breath on glass. The world was quiet—too quiet—as two silhouettes stood opposite one another.
Elena. And the perfect reflection of herself.
Same face. Same voice.
But only one heart beating in defiance.
CR-01’s lips parted. “You should run.”
Elena raised her gun. “I don’t run from shadows.”
CR-01 cocked her head. “Neither do I.”
Two triggers. One truth.
And a final question echoing beneath the silence:
What if the only way to win… is to become the thing you fear most?
He moved like a man born again.
The steel walls of the command chamber reflected the gaunt lines of Guillermo Cruz’s face—aged, hardened, but unmistakably alive. Wires ran from his wrist into a mobile interface cuff, syncing with the humming servers behind him. Each pulse from the system echoed through the floor like a heartbeat resurrected.
His breath fogged the cold glass in front of him. Dozens of screens displayed surveillance footage, bioscans, satellite intercepts. Every subject tracked. Every asset labeled. And in the center feed—
Adrian Blackwood.
“You look tired, my son,” he murmured, tapping the screen gently. “So close to becoming me… and still trying so hard not to be.”
He turned toward the center console.
A red file blinked.
ACTIVE CONTINGENCY: SLEEPWALKER.
PHASE II: ASCENT.
KEY STATUS: CR-01 — Activated.
CRUZ LEGACY — RECLAMATION PENDING.
He opened a drawer and removed a worn, black dossier stamped with a silver insignia: a broken crown.
Beneath it: NIGHTFALL PROTOCOL.
Guillermo opened it, flipping past a photo of Elena Cruz. One of Adrian. Then Julia. Then one of himself… years ago, with a forged death certificate stapled to the bottom corner.
“They forgot one thing,” he whispered. “You can’t kill a ghost if it becomes the machine.”
Berlin – Safehouse Echo – Same Time
Adrian stared out the frosted window, fists clenched. The knowledge that his father was alive twisted inside him like a blade.
Elena joined him quietly, arms crossed. “You okay?”
“No.”
“Same.”
They stood in silence.
Then Adrian turned, voice low. “I spent my whole life undoing his mess. Building something clean from the filth. And it turns out… the filth was still alive.”
“He’s coming for you,” she said.
Adrian shook his head. “No. He’s coming for us.”
A door opened. Liana walked in, holding a new data chip. “Julia cracked the clone’s last memory dump.”
She handed it to Adrian.
“It’s a location,” she said. “One we missed.”
He slid the chip into the console.
Coordinates flashed.
Adrian’s breath hitched. “That’s… where he died.”
Julia stepped forward from behind her sister. “No. That’s where he pretended to.”
Cut to: Nightfall Bunker – Operations Room
Guillermo Cruz stood before a room of masked operatives—twelve in total, each with a different emblem stitched into their uniforms. Legion officers. Remnants from the original Cruz network.
He raised a hand. Silence fell.
“The world thinks I died with my sins. But I’m not done building.”
He looked directly into the camera.
“I’m coming to reclaim everything they stole.”
Berlin – Safehouse Echo – Command Room – 1:27 AM
The room was thick with tension as the coordinates rendered on the screen. A hollow red dot blinked on a remote stretch of land deep in the mountains of Austria.
Liana frowned. “That’s where the original Nightfall servers were believed to be destroyed.”
“They weren’t,” Adrian said coldly. “He just went underground. Burned his name, buried the evidence—and left the world chasing ghosts.”
Julia tapped a few keys and pulled up thermal satellite data. “There’s heat activity beneath the surface. Faint… but active. Someone’s still down there.”
“Or something,” Elena muttered.
Adrian’s mind raced. He had spent his entire adult life dissecting his father’s empire, eliminating ties, dismantling weaponized AI programs and dismantling replication efforts. But now, it seemed Guillermo had been one step ahead—again.
“You said the clone called it ‘Sleepwalker’,” Elena said. “What does that mean?”
Liana replied grimly. “It’s a neural overwrite protocol. A backdoor command in Cruz’s prototype clones. It hijacks identity, erases current memory, and installs a new mission profile.”
Julia’s voice cracked. “It turns you into someone else.”
Elena flinched. “So he could wake a version of me… and turn her into something I’m not?”
Adrian turned toward her. “No. He could wake a version of you… and make her think you’re the threat.”
A heavy silence fell.
Then Julia whispered, “There might already be one out there.”
Austria – Abandoned Arclight Valley – 2:02 AM
Beneath the crust of the frozen earth, the once-abandoned Arclight Facility hummed to life. Hydraulic doors hissed open as warm vapor surged through mechanical ducts, reawakening systems dormant for nearly a decade.
A woman stood before a full-length mirror in the chamber marked CR-01. Her hair—identical to Elena’s. Her build, her face, her voice. But her eyes…
Dead calm.
She adjusted a black tactical coat and pulled up the hood.
Behind her, another pod opened—this time revealing a second figure. Taller. Male. The data label on the side of his tank flickered: BLACKWOOD VARIANT.
She turned to him as his eyes fluttered open.
Her voice was a chilling echo of Elena’s, laced with precision and devoid of warmth.
“Time to wake up.”
Berlin – Safehouse Echo – Same Time
Adrian jolted upright from the console. He’d been staring at the feed so long, he hadn’t realized his knuckles were white from gripping the edge of the desk.
Elena came over, her voice softer now. “You don’t have to face this alone.”
He looked up at her, vulnerable in a way only she had ever seen. “He made me believe I was broken. Now I realize I was just… a draft.”
She touched his face gently. “Then let’s finish the rewrite.”
A new alarm blinked on-screen—an intercepted broadcast, scrambled but tagged by Julia’s decryption protocols.
Incoming Message: NODE 7
Origin: NIGHTFALL COMMS ARRAY
Subject: PROJECT VIREX – REBOOTING
Liana whispered, “He’s turning everything back on…”
Adrian’s eyes narrowed.
“Then we shut it all down for good.”
Vienna – Classified Network Hub – 3:03 AM
The scrambled feed came from a surveillance node routed through Vienna’s deepest archival grid. The file Julia had intercepted was now decrypting faster than expected—until it hit a locked frame marked “INFERNUM.”
She leaned in, frowning. “This isn’t just Nightfall tech. This is something Cruz buried even deeper.”
Adrian appeared behind her. “Can you break it?”
“I can try… but something’s wrong. The encryption doesn’t look like Cruz’s design. It looks—newer.”
“You’re saying he’s still updating the code?”
“No,” Julia said slowly. “I’m saying someone else is.”
Just then, the file burst open, not with code—but with footage.
Black and white. Grainy. A long hallway. Empty. Then…
A man stepped into the frame.
No timestamp. No metadata. Just his face.
And it was Guillermo Cruz.
Elena gasped. “That can’t be live.”
“It isn’t,” Julia said, her voice cracking. “It’s not Cruz.”
Adrian stepped closer. The man on the screen looked exactly like his father… only younger. Faster. Unscarred. Wearing a mask in one hand and a biometric glove in the other.
“I don’t believe it…” Liana whispered. “He made a backup. Not just of the files… of himself.”
“Clone?” Elena asked, her voice barely above a whisper.
“No,” Adrian said darkly. “Something worse.”
On the screen, the man stared straight into the camera, as if aware of their presence through time itself.
And then he spoke.
“They built Adrian to fix the past. But they built me… to own the future.”
Static exploded across the screen. The signal died.
Berlin – Command Room – Same Time
Adrian turned from the screen, eyes full of fire. “He’s not just a copy.”
Liana nodded grimly. “He’s Cruz’s contingency.”
Elena clenched her fists. “And now he’s activated.”
Julia’s terminal lit up again.
ALERT: PROJECT VIREX – PHASE II COMMENCING
TARGET IDENTIFIED: CR-01 — TERMINATE ORIGINAL
All eyes turned to Elena.
She went still.
And whispered, “They’re coming for me.”
Safehouse Echo – Control Room – 3:29 AM
The silence that followed the message felt like the breath before an avalanche.
Elena’s face drained of color. “They don’t want me silenced. They want me erased.”
Liana was already moving, snapping into action. “We need to relocate. Now. If they’ve activated VIREX Phase II, they’ll dispatch extraction or execution protocols.”
Julia’s fingers flew across her keyboard. “I’m shutting down external signals and encrypting our coordinates. But we’re not going anywhere until I trace the source of that command.”
Adrian placed a hand on Elena’s shoulder. “This is my fight.”
She shook her head. “No. This is what they designed me for. I’m the key.”
“You’re a person,” he said firmly. “Not a prototype.”
She looked at him—really looked—and something inside her hardened. “Then let’s burn the whole lab down. Data, replicas, backups. Everything.”
Julia’s screen blinked again. Another message.
CODE RED: NODE 7 IS ON THE MOVE
ASSET: CR-01 — ACTIVE
DISPATCH STATUS: INFIELD. PROXIMITY – 320KM.
Liana swore. “She’s close.”
Adrian’s voice dropped. “The other Elena.”
Elena stepped back, spine rigid. “Then we finish this before she finishes me.”
Unknown Location – 3:37 AM
Rain pattered on cold asphalt. A figure stepped out of a sleek black car, eyes scanning the crumbling warehouse district with surgical precision. She wore Elena’s face—but there was no fire behind the eyes. Only algorithm.
CR-01 tilted her head, listening to the device in her ear.
A voice—distorted, mechanical—filtered in.
“Initiate synchronization. Replace. Assimilate.”
CR-01 blinked once.
And smiled.
Safehouse Echo – Armory – 3:43 AM
Adrian zipped up a tactical vest, checking his sidearm. “We’ll intercept at the bridge. Liana, you flank from the ridge. Julia, keep the comms dark.”
Elena was silent, then turned toward him. “What if I hesitate?”
He stepped forward, taking her hand.
“Then I’ll remind you which one is real.”
Cliffside Approach – 4:01 AM
Fog thickened like breath on glass. The world was quiet—too quiet—as two silhouettes stood opposite one another.
Elena. And the perfect reflection of herself.
Same face. Same voice.
But only one heart beating in defiance.
CR-01’s lips parted. “You should run.”
Elena raised her gun. “I don’t run from shadows.”
CR-01 cocked her head. “Neither do I.”
Two triggers. One truth.
And a final question echoing beneath the silence:
What if the only way to win… is to become the thing you fear most?
End of Beneath the Billionaire Mask Chapter 72. Continue reading Chapter 73 or return to Beneath the Billionaire Mask book page.