Beneath the Billionaire Mask - Chapter 79: Chapter 79
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NODE-3 – Containment Level – 04:07 AM
Elena stumbled through the smoke-choked corridor, her heart pounding like a war drum. Behind her, sirens blared, lights flickered, and static crackled through every abandoned speaker. Julia and Liana were right behind her, hacking through locked bulkheads with portable override keys, but they were running out of time—and out of options.
“Where is she?” Elena shouted.
Liana scanned her tablet. “CR-01’s tracker went dark—she’s either jamming it or…”
“Or what?” Elena snapped.
Julia answered grimly. “Or she’s already been taken.”
A blast rocked the compound. The hallway trembled beneath them.
Elena gritted her teeth. “We need to find the server vault. If Marcus has access to that stasis chamber—”
“He already has it,” said a voice from the shadows.
Adrian stepped forward, one arm wrapped in gauze, gun slung at his side. He looked exhausted, blood-specked, but burning with resolve.
“He breached NODE-3 sixteen minutes ago. And he has the last Siren.”
Elena’s stomach dropped. “You mean…”
Adrian nodded grimly. “The original.”
NODE-3 Vault – Observation Room
Marcus stood before the final pod—a sleek, cylindrical chamber filled with a blue glow and laced with code etched in glass. Inside floated a woman.
Identical to Elena. But she wasn’t asleep.
Her eyes were open.
And she was smiling.
“She’s aware,” one of the techs muttered.
Marcus stepped closer. “Of course she is. She’s the only one who was built without the fail-safes.”
He pressed his hand to the panel. The chamber began to drain.
“Project VIREX wasn’t just about perfect memory. It was about creating the one who could survive everything. Torture. Betrayal. Even love.”
The woman inside didn’t flinch as the door hissed open.
She stepped out. Pale. Beautiful. Cold.
And nothing like Elena.
“Name?” Marcus asked.
The woman tilted her head. “Whatever you want it to be.”
He grinned. “You’re going to make the world burn.”
She smiled. “That’s what I was made for.”
Safehouse Echo – Emergency Comms
Back in Bogotá, Liana was patching a stream from the hacked NODE-3 feeds. A grainy image flickered on-screen—Marcus and the Siren clone disappearing into an armored vehicle.
“She’s live,” Liana breathed. “And she’s already syncing to the remote net. If she reaches full neural activation…”
“She could overwrite the real Elena,” Adrian said quietly.
“No,” Elena snapped. “She’s not me. I’m still standing. I’m still real.”
Julia looked between them. “Then we need to move. There’s a two-hour window before her integration with the Black Archive finalizes.”
Adrian turned to Elena.
“We either stop her—or she becomes you in every system on the planet.”
Remote Mountains, Undisclosed Location – 05:03 AM
The clone now dressed in a black tactical bodysuit stood atop a helipad, eyes scanning the horizon. The wind whipped her hair back, but her expression was calm. Calculated.
Marcus approached. “Ready?”
She turned to him, an eerie reflection of the woman they once tried to break.
“I was born ready,” she said.
She raised a device from her palm.
Activated the uplink.
And whispered:
“Begin overwrite protocol.”
Remote Mountains – Command Deck – 05:11 AM
The uplink device pulsed in the clone’s hand, streams of code racing across her retinas. Her breath slowed, syncing with the rhythm of the servers humming deep beneath the concrete. It had begun.
SYNCHRONIZATION PROTOCOL: PHASE 1 COMPLETE.
Identity Merge – 23%
Firewall Penetration – In Progress
She didn’t blink. Didn’t move.
“ETA until full overwrite?” Marcus asked, pacing behind her.
“Seventeen minutes,” she replied flatly. “By then, the world won’t remember her. Just me.”
“Good,” Marcus said. “Because I’m tired of watching him win.”
The clone paused, turning her head slightly. “You’re not doing this for me.”
He smirked. “No. I’m doing it because chaos is cleaner than order.”
She nodded once. “Then get ready. Chaos starts with a name. And I’m about to steal mine.”
Skies Over Colombia – Extraction Chopper – 05:12 AM
Elena gripped the side rail as the chopper banked hard toward the mountain coordinates. Her face was pale, eyes fixed on the tablet screen in Liana’s lap—watching her own face execute an identity overwrite in real-time.
“She’s hijacking the Black Archive,” Liana said. “Once she completes sync, every data trail will tag her as you—the legal identity, the biometric matches, even your father’s security clearance.”
“She’ll become me,” Elena said tightly. “Legally, digitally… and in the eyes of the people Adrian and I fought to protect.”
Adrian shifted beside her, jaw tight. “Not if we stop her.”
“How?” Julia asked from the pilot’s seat. “She’s us, but better. Faster. And Marcus has the kill codes.”
“I don’t care if she’s faster,” Elena said. “She wasn’t the one who bled for this fight.”
Liana met her gaze. “Then let’s take it back.”
Command Deck – Interior – 05:19 AM
Alarms began to flash red.
UNAUTHORIZED INTRUSION DETECTED.
Perimeter breach – East platform.
Marcus’s head snapped toward the security feed. A chopper was descending.
“They found us,” the clone said.
He turned to her. “Then finish it. Merge with the Archive.”
She stepped forward, her hand hovering above the biometric finalizer. One scan and the sync would be irreversible.
But then—
BANG.
The screen beside her exploded in sparks.
Smoke.
Shouts.
Adrian Blackwood stepped through the fire-lit doorway like a ghost returned to haunt his sins, gun raised, eyes locked on the face he loved… and now hated.
“Step away from the terminal,” he growled.
The clone tilted her head. “You wouldn’t shoot me.”
Elena stepped in behind him, her gun steady. “He won’t have to.”
For a moment, there was silence.
Three people. Two faces. One truth.
The clone smiled darkly. “What happens if I pull the trigger first?”
Elena answered coldly.
“Then I prove I’m not you.”
Command Room – 05:22 AM
The tension cracked like lightning.
And then
Gunfire.
Shattered glass.
And only one Elena remained standing when the smoke cleared.
Command Deck – 05:25 AM
The room crackled with silence.
The clone’s body lay still amid shattered circuits and blood-slicked glass, one eye wide open, staring into nothing.
Elena stood above her, gun still trembling in her hand, chest rising and falling like a wave about to crash. Adrian reached her just in time, gently placing his hand over hers, easing the weapon down.
“It’s over,” he said, voice gravel-edged and low.
“No,” Elena whispered. “It’s not.”
She crouched beside the body—her face staring back at her, mouth still curled in that cold, mocking smile even in death. For the first time, Elena saw what she could have been—what she might still become if she let vengeance write her story.
Adrian knelt beside her. “She was made in your image, but she was never you.”
She didn’t answer right away.
“She was fearless,” Elena finally said. “But empty. A program with my instincts, not my choices.”
“And that’s what makes you real,” he replied.
Liana’s voice buzzed over the comms. “The backup servers are purging. We’ve got maybe five minutes before this entire node self-destructs.”
Julia added, “We also intercepted a distress beacon Marcus triggered. If he’s alive, he won’t run far—but he’ll burn everything to stay ahead.”
Elena stood slowly, steady now. “Then we finish this. No more masks. No more ghosts.”
Adrian turned toward the terminal, inputting the override code. The Black Archive responded with a hiss and a click—final access granted.
He glanced at Elena. “Once we open this… there’s no unseeing it. The names, the betrayals, your father’s last files… Project Nightfall.”
She took a breath.
“Then open it.”
Somewhere Far Away – Undisclosed Location – 05:37 AM
Marcus sat alone in a surgical-lit room, bandaging the gash along his ribs. Blood soaked the gauze. But his smile… his smile was sharp.
A voice buzzed from a nearby console.
“Status?”
Marcus wiped blood from his hands and spoke calmly. “The prototype is gone.”
A pause.
“And the Archive?”
He glanced at the secure backup drive in his coat pocket. “Let them think they have it.”
Then he leaned back in his chair, eyes dark with hunger.
“They opened the door to Project Nightfall. Now let’s see how long they survive it.”
Black Archive – Lower Server Core – 05:41 AM
Sparks crackled from the exposed mainframe as Elena and Adrian descended into the heart of the Archive—a labyrinth of cold metal and glowing servers pulsing like veins beneath the compound.
The access terminal loomed in front of them, its surface slick with condensation. Adrian inserted the last encrypted chip from Julia.
The screen blinked to life.
AUTHORIZED USER: BLACKWOOD
DECRYPTION COMPLETE
FILE: PROJECT NIGHTFALL
DISPLAYING INITIAL INDEX…
Rows upon rows of names flickered onto the screen.
Senators. CEOs. Armed forces generals. International tech moguls.
Every one of them tied to covert operations—human replication, AI training, black-market biotech, deep-fake warfare.
And in the middle of it all—Guillermo Cruz.
Elena’s heart caught in her throat as her father’s name lit up in red, tagged with the phrase:
“PRIMARY ARCHITECT — NIGHTFALL GAMMA GATE”
“Your father wasn’t just trying to stop them,” Adrian muttered. “He was them. Until he defected.”
Elena touched the screen, trembling. Her childhood memories crashed like waves—quiet rage in her father’s eyes, locked drawers, late-night whispers behind closed doors.
Then a new alert popped up.
EXTERNAL USER ATTEMPTING REMOTE ACCESS
TRACE INITIATED
LOCATION: UNKNOWN
Adrian’s jaw tightened. “Someone’s trying to break in.”
“Marcus?” Elena asked.
“No,” Julia’s voice cut in through the comm. “This is different. The IP is cloaked beyond anything I’ve seen before. This isn’t Marcus… this is someone bigger.”
The screen went black.
Then flickered back to life.
This time with one line:
“You opened the gate. Now you’ll live with what comes through it.”
Elena’s blood ran cold. She turned to Adrian. “What the hell did we just trigger?”
Before he could answer, the lights above them surged—then died.
Darkness swallowed them.
Then a quiet, unfamiliar voice whispered through the air, neither machine nor human:
“Welcome back… Subject CR-00.”
Elena’s heart stopped.
She hadn’t spoken.
And the voice wasn’t hers.
Elena stumbled through the smoke-choked corridor, her heart pounding like a war drum. Behind her, sirens blared, lights flickered, and static crackled through every abandoned speaker. Julia and Liana were right behind her, hacking through locked bulkheads with portable override keys, but they were running out of time—and out of options.
“Where is she?” Elena shouted.
Liana scanned her tablet. “CR-01’s tracker went dark—she’s either jamming it or…”
“Or what?” Elena snapped.
Julia answered grimly. “Or she’s already been taken.”
A blast rocked the compound. The hallway trembled beneath them.
Elena gritted her teeth. “We need to find the server vault. If Marcus has access to that stasis chamber—”
“He already has it,” said a voice from the shadows.
Adrian stepped forward, one arm wrapped in gauze, gun slung at his side. He looked exhausted, blood-specked, but burning with resolve.
“He breached NODE-3 sixteen minutes ago. And he has the last Siren.”
Elena’s stomach dropped. “You mean…”
Adrian nodded grimly. “The original.”
NODE-3 Vault – Observation Room
Marcus stood before the final pod—a sleek, cylindrical chamber filled with a blue glow and laced with code etched in glass. Inside floated a woman.
Identical to Elena. But she wasn’t asleep.
Her eyes were open.
And she was smiling.
“She’s aware,” one of the techs muttered.
Marcus stepped closer. “Of course she is. She’s the only one who was built without the fail-safes.”
He pressed his hand to the panel. The chamber began to drain.
“Project VIREX wasn’t just about perfect memory. It was about creating the one who could survive everything. Torture. Betrayal. Even love.”
The woman inside didn’t flinch as the door hissed open.
She stepped out. Pale. Beautiful. Cold.
And nothing like Elena.
“Name?” Marcus asked.
The woman tilted her head. “Whatever you want it to be.”
He grinned. “You’re going to make the world burn.”
She smiled. “That’s what I was made for.”
Safehouse Echo – Emergency Comms
Back in Bogotá, Liana was patching a stream from the hacked NODE-3 feeds. A grainy image flickered on-screen—Marcus and the Siren clone disappearing into an armored vehicle.
“She’s live,” Liana breathed. “And she’s already syncing to the remote net. If she reaches full neural activation…”
“She could overwrite the real Elena,” Adrian said quietly.
“No,” Elena snapped. “She’s not me. I’m still standing. I’m still real.”
Julia looked between them. “Then we need to move. There’s a two-hour window before her integration with the Black Archive finalizes.”
Adrian turned to Elena.
“We either stop her—or she becomes you in every system on the planet.”
Remote Mountains, Undisclosed Location – 05:03 AM
The clone now dressed in a black tactical bodysuit stood atop a helipad, eyes scanning the horizon. The wind whipped her hair back, but her expression was calm. Calculated.
Marcus approached. “Ready?”
She turned to him, an eerie reflection of the woman they once tried to break.
“I was born ready,” she said.
She raised a device from her palm.
Activated the uplink.
And whispered:
“Begin overwrite protocol.”
Remote Mountains – Command Deck – 05:11 AM
The uplink device pulsed in the clone’s hand, streams of code racing across her retinas. Her breath slowed, syncing with the rhythm of the servers humming deep beneath the concrete. It had begun.
SYNCHRONIZATION PROTOCOL: PHASE 1 COMPLETE.
Identity Merge – 23%
Firewall Penetration – In Progress
She didn’t blink. Didn’t move.
“ETA until full overwrite?” Marcus asked, pacing behind her.
“Seventeen minutes,” she replied flatly. “By then, the world won’t remember her. Just me.”
“Good,” Marcus said. “Because I’m tired of watching him win.”
The clone paused, turning her head slightly. “You’re not doing this for me.”
He smirked. “No. I’m doing it because chaos is cleaner than order.”
She nodded once. “Then get ready. Chaos starts with a name. And I’m about to steal mine.”
Skies Over Colombia – Extraction Chopper – 05:12 AM
Elena gripped the side rail as the chopper banked hard toward the mountain coordinates. Her face was pale, eyes fixed on the tablet screen in Liana’s lap—watching her own face execute an identity overwrite in real-time.
“She’s hijacking the Black Archive,” Liana said. “Once she completes sync, every data trail will tag her as you—the legal identity, the biometric matches, even your father’s security clearance.”
“She’ll become me,” Elena said tightly. “Legally, digitally… and in the eyes of the people Adrian and I fought to protect.”
Adrian shifted beside her, jaw tight. “Not if we stop her.”
“How?” Julia asked from the pilot’s seat. “She’s us, but better. Faster. And Marcus has the kill codes.”
“I don’t care if she’s faster,” Elena said. “She wasn’t the one who bled for this fight.”
Liana met her gaze. “Then let’s take it back.”
Command Deck – Interior – 05:19 AM
Alarms began to flash red.
UNAUTHORIZED INTRUSION DETECTED.
Perimeter breach – East platform.
Marcus’s head snapped toward the security feed. A chopper was descending.
“They found us,” the clone said.
He turned to her. “Then finish it. Merge with the Archive.”
She stepped forward, her hand hovering above the biometric finalizer. One scan and the sync would be irreversible.
But then—
BANG.
The screen beside her exploded in sparks.
Smoke.
Shouts.
Adrian Blackwood stepped through the fire-lit doorway like a ghost returned to haunt his sins, gun raised, eyes locked on the face he loved… and now hated.
“Step away from the terminal,” he growled.
The clone tilted her head. “You wouldn’t shoot me.”
Elena stepped in behind him, her gun steady. “He won’t have to.”
For a moment, there was silence.
Three people. Two faces. One truth.
The clone smiled darkly. “What happens if I pull the trigger first?”
Elena answered coldly.
“Then I prove I’m not you.”
Command Room – 05:22 AM
The tension cracked like lightning.
And then
Gunfire.
Shattered glass.
And only one Elena remained standing when the smoke cleared.
Command Deck – 05:25 AM
The room crackled with silence.
The clone’s body lay still amid shattered circuits and blood-slicked glass, one eye wide open, staring into nothing.
Elena stood above her, gun still trembling in her hand, chest rising and falling like a wave about to crash. Adrian reached her just in time, gently placing his hand over hers, easing the weapon down.
“It’s over,” he said, voice gravel-edged and low.
“No,” Elena whispered. “It’s not.”
She crouched beside the body—her face staring back at her, mouth still curled in that cold, mocking smile even in death. For the first time, Elena saw what she could have been—what she might still become if she let vengeance write her story.
Adrian knelt beside her. “She was made in your image, but she was never you.”
She didn’t answer right away.
“She was fearless,” Elena finally said. “But empty. A program with my instincts, not my choices.”
“And that’s what makes you real,” he replied.
Liana’s voice buzzed over the comms. “The backup servers are purging. We’ve got maybe five minutes before this entire node self-destructs.”
Julia added, “We also intercepted a distress beacon Marcus triggered. If he’s alive, he won’t run far—but he’ll burn everything to stay ahead.”
Elena stood slowly, steady now. “Then we finish this. No more masks. No more ghosts.”
Adrian turned toward the terminal, inputting the override code. The Black Archive responded with a hiss and a click—final access granted.
He glanced at Elena. “Once we open this… there’s no unseeing it. The names, the betrayals, your father’s last files… Project Nightfall.”
She took a breath.
“Then open it.”
Somewhere Far Away – Undisclosed Location – 05:37 AM
Marcus sat alone in a surgical-lit room, bandaging the gash along his ribs. Blood soaked the gauze. But his smile… his smile was sharp.
A voice buzzed from a nearby console.
“Status?”
Marcus wiped blood from his hands and spoke calmly. “The prototype is gone.”
A pause.
“And the Archive?”
He glanced at the secure backup drive in his coat pocket. “Let them think they have it.”
Then he leaned back in his chair, eyes dark with hunger.
“They opened the door to Project Nightfall. Now let’s see how long they survive it.”
Black Archive – Lower Server Core – 05:41 AM
Sparks crackled from the exposed mainframe as Elena and Adrian descended into the heart of the Archive—a labyrinth of cold metal and glowing servers pulsing like veins beneath the compound.
The access terminal loomed in front of them, its surface slick with condensation. Adrian inserted the last encrypted chip from Julia.
The screen blinked to life.
AUTHORIZED USER: BLACKWOOD
DECRYPTION COMPLETE
FILE: PROJECT NIGHTFALL
DISPLAYING INITIAL INDEX…
Rows upon rows of names flickered onto the screen.
Senators. CEOs. Armed forces generals. International tech moguls.
Every one of them tied to covert operations—human replication, AI training, black-market biotech, deep-fake warfare.
And in the middle of it all—Guillermo Cruz.
Elena’s heart caught in her throat as her father’s name lit up in red, tagged with the phrase:
“PRIMARY ARCHITECT — NIGHTFALL GAMMA GATE”
“Your father wasn’t just trying to stop them,” Adrian muttered. “He was them. Until he defected.”
Elena touched the screen, trembling. Her childhood memories crashed like waves—quiet rage in her father’s eyes, locked drawers, late-night whispers behind closed doors.
Then a new alert popped up.
EXTERNAL USER ATTEMPTING REMOTE ACCESS
TRACE INITIATED
LOCATION: UNKNOWN
Adrian’s jaw tightened. “Someone’s trying to break in.”
“Marcus?” Elena asked.
“No,” Julia’s voice cut in through the comm. “This is different. The IP is cloaked beyond anything I’ve seen before. This isn’t Marcus… this is someone bigger.”
The screen went black.
Then flickered back to life.
This time with one line:
“You opened the gate. Now you’ll live with what comes through it.”
Elena’s blood ran cold. She turned to Adrian. “What the hell did we just trigger?”
Before he could answer, the lights above them surged—then died.
Darkness swallowed them.
Then a quiet, unfamiliar voice whispered through the air, neither machine nor human:
“Welcome back… Subject CR-00.”
Elena’s heart stopped.
She hadn’t spoken.
And the voice wasn’t hers.
End of Beneath the Billionaire Mask Chapter 79. Continue reading Chapter 80 or return to Beneath the Billionaire Mask book page.