Beneath the Billionaire Mask - Chapter 82: Chapter 82

Geneva, Switzerland – Safehouse Interlink, 1:12 AM
The makeshift war room was quiet—too quiet. Monitors buzzed softly, each showing a different region, satellite scans, or lines of code feeding into the Project NIGHTFALL core index. Liana sat in front of the largest screen, tapping commands like a pianist composing a dirge.
Adrian stood by the frosted glass wall, watching the dark skyline.
“Multiple nodes went quiet in the last six hours,” Liana announced. “Something’s off. It’s not just the sleeper—you said these were supposed to stay dormant.”
“They were.” Adrian crossed his arms. “Someone’s hijacking the system. They’re not waking up the clones… they’re rewriting them.”
Elena stepped in, hair still damp from a rushed shower, eyes sharp. “So what does that mean? That there are more versions of me?”
“No.” Liana turned to her. “It means there are worse ones.”
Adrian didn’t flinch. “Whoever’s behind this isn’t just flipping switches—they’re escalating the design. We created prototypes with ethical limiters.”
Liana’s voice darkened. “These? Don’t have any.”
Elena leaned over the console. “Then we find the command hub. We cut the cord at its source.”
Liana hesitated. “That would mean going to Oslo.”
Adrian and Elena shared a look.
“Norway,” Adrian muttered. “Of course.”
Oslo, Norway – Biotek Hub 7 – 4:03 AM (Local Time)
A man in a lab coat walked briskly through the frozen corridor, flanked by two masked guards. His ID badge read DR. EMIL VORSEN—former Blackridge scientist, now presumed dead. His hand hovered near the control panel of Node Control Central.
“Recalibrate the subject’s empathy inhibitors,” he said coldly. “The last iteration hesitated. I want zero hesitation.”
“And Subject CR-01?” asked one of the guards.
Dr. Vorsen smiled. “Let her come. The original is always the best test.”
Behind them, inside a cryo-glass cell, a girl sat motionless. Identical to Elena—yet her gaze was hollow. Soulless.
She opened her eyes slowly. “Sleepwalker protocol online.”
Geneva – 2:45 AM
Elena looked over the packet Liana had decrypted—classified NIGHTFALL reports.
Adrian stood behind her, reading silently.
Page 23: “Project NIGHTFALL is not just a control measure. It is a reset. Those deemed capable of altering the outcome are marked for conversion—or elimination.”
A long pause.
“They were never going to let us walk away,” Elena said.
Adrian nodded. “They never did.”
Geneva – 2:46 AM
Elena’s fingers trembled as she flipped to the last decrypted page. There, printed in red across the bottom, were coordinates—burned into the edge of the page like a warning.
N 59° 54.190’ / E 10° 45.436’
“Oslo,” she whispered.
Adrian leaned over her shoulder. “That’s not just Oslo. That’s near the Arctic research grid… the old Blackridge fallback site.”
Liana’s brows furrowed. “Why revive a fallback station?”
“They’re not reviving it,” Adrian said darkly. “They’re launching something.”
Elena stood. “Then we get there before they do.”
“No.” Adrian turned to her. “We don’t get there. We shut it down.”
Oslo – Biotek Hub 7 – Control Bay
Inside a sterile underground facility, Dr. Vorsen watched the screen flicker with biometric data.
Clone-CR-01’s vitals spiked.
“She’s waking faster than expected,” murmured a nearby technician.
“That’s because the template is adapting,” Vorsen replied. “The more the original resists, the stronger the echo becomes.”
He stepped closer to the glass where the clone—an exact Elena replica—stood barefoot, scanning her environment like a predator.
“Do you know who you are?” Vorsen asked softly.
The clone tilted her head, the corner of her lips curling.
“I’m the shadow she refuses to be.”
Geneva – Weapons Storage Bay – 3:15 AM
Liana handed Elena a holster. “You sure about this?”
“No,” Elena admitted, sliding the pistol into place. “But I’d rather face my mirror than let someone else pull the trigger.”
Adrian stepped into the room. “Jet’s on standby. We touch down in Norway by 7:00.”
“Just the three of us?” Elena asked.
Liana smiled grimly. “Four. Julia’s meeting us with the rest of the decryption logs.”
“Good,” Adrian said. “Because we’re not just chasing ghosts anymore. We’re hunting the people who made them.”
Oslo – Vault 3 – 4:19 AM
The clone stood in the chamber’s center as lights dimmed. Behind her, a new directive appeared on the console:
PHASE TWO: ORIGINAL ELIMINATION PROTOCOL ACTIVE
Her pupils constricted. She didn’t blink.
“Target acquired,” she said quietly. “Authorization accepted.”
She began to walk.
Arctic Airspace – En Route to Blackridge Site – 6:02 AM
The silence in the jet was thick, carved only by the occasional flicker of data across the console screen. Elena sat by the window, her eyes scanning the creeping horizon—a wasteland of white, wind, and whispers. Somewhere out there, her face was walking toward a mission that could fracture the world.
“You good?” Julia asked from across the aisle.
“No,” Elena answered honestly. “But I’ll pretend until I am.”
Adrian emerged from the cockpit, his face taut. “ETA: 18 minutes. We’ll drop beyond radar range and move in through the maintenance tunnel. Liana will cut the feed from the inside.”
Julia closed her laptop with a snap. “The logs show something else.”
They all turned to her.
“There’s a third subject in containment. Not Elena. Not a clone. Older registry. Codename: Specter.”
Adrian stilled. “I thought that project was shut down.”
“It was,” Julia replied. “Until three days ago. He was activated manually. And it was signed by someone with Blackwood access.”
Elena’s blood ran cold. “Who?”
Julia looked up slowly.
“Your mother.”
Blackridge Perimeter – Northern Tundra – 6:23 AM
They dropped from the jet in a hail of ice and wind, trekking through the blizzard in silence, led only by Adrian’s infrared scanner.
“Tunnel’s up ahead,” he said over the comms. “Once we breach, it’s blackout. No comms, no uplink. We go in quiet. We get the girl. We stop the launch.”
Elena’s breath fogged the air. But her mind burned.
Her mother. The ghost she never thought would resurface.
Why had she activated Specter?
Why now?
And worse
Was Elena just a pawn in a game her mother had already rigged?
Meanwhile – Vault 3 Interior – 6:32 AM
The clone stood before the control panel, eyes locked on the ignition key. Behind her, Specter sat in a suspended chamber, breathing faintly, tubes snaking from his veins.
A whisper slid through her mind like static.
She’s coming.
She pressed her palm to the scanner. Red light blinked.
Phase Two: Target Proximity Triggered. Lockdown Imminent.
She smiled—softly, eerily.
“Let the original see what perfection looks like.”
The floor beneath her hummed.
Above her, a second containment pod hissed open… and something stepped out.
It wasn’t Elena.
It wasn’t the clone.
It was something else entirely.
And it knew both of them.
Blackridge Perimeter – Sublevel Access Tunnel – 6:41 AM
The tunnel stretched like a wound beneath the ice, every echo of their footsteps swallowed by frost-lined steel. Liana led with a motion scanner, her gloved hand hovering over her sidearm. Behind her, Adrian walked slightly ahead of Elena, his shoulder brushing hers whenever the path narrowed.
Julia trailed, her tablet linked to the crumbling Blackridge system.
“Elena,” Adrian said quietly, “you sure about this?”
“I’m not sure about anything anymore,” she murmured. “Except that I need to see her face… and ask why.”
Before Adrian could answer, Liana’s hand shot up. Everyone froze.
A mechanical whir—a door sliding open ahead.
They ducked to cover. But the figure that emerged didn’t raise a weapon.
It was a young girl. Twelve, maybe thirteen. Pale skin. Bright eyes. Familiar… too familiar.
She looked at Elena—and smiled.
“Elena Cruz,” she said. “Prototype CR-00. You were never supposed to survive.”
Julia cursed under her breath. “That’s the first version.”
Elena stepped forward. “Who sent you?”
The girl tilted her head. “She did. She wanted me to deliver a message.”
Adrian moved closer, tense. “Who’s she?”
“My mother,” the girl replied, eyes glowing faintly. “And yours.”
And then she detonated the flash grenade at her feet.
System Control Hub – 6:49 AM
The room surged back to life with an emergency red pulse. Inside, Specter stirred in his pod, head turning slowly as life returned to his limbs.
The screen beside him read:
UNSEALED: COMMAND OVERRIDE — PRIMARY HANDLER: C. VALENCIA
Elena’s mother. Confirmed.
Adrian pulled Julia up from the floor after the flash.
“We have to split,” Julia said. “They’re activating Specter. If he gets to the control deck first…”
“He’ll wipe the system,” Adrian finished grimly. “And with it, everything we’ve built to fight against it.”
Liana stepped beside him, jaw locked. “You take Elena. I’ll go after the override switch.”
“No,” Elena interrupted. “I go after her.”
Everyone looked at her.
“She wants me to find her. Wants me to see what she created. Then I’ll give her what she wants.”
Containment Wing – 6:58 AM
Elena entered the vault alone.
The lights flickered.
And from the shadows, a woman stepped forward.
Chin lifted. Eyes cold. The same jawline Elena saw in her mirror every morning.
“Hello, Elena,” her mother said. “You’ve grown into exactly what I hoped.”
Elena stared, rage and grief swirling in her chest. “You left me in a system. Abandoned me.”
“I protected you,” her mother said. “You were the only one I didn’t replicate.”
Elena’s voice cracked. “Then why is there another me?”
“Because I was wrong.”
Then she stepped aside—and the other Elena emerged from the shadows, eyes blank, movements precise.
“You built a version of me,” Elena whispered, “just to destroy the original.”
Her mother smiled softly.
“No, darling. I built her… to replace you.”
Containment Wing – 7:00 AM
Two Elenas. One flesh and blood, the other born of synthetic code and surgical manipulation.
Adrian appeared in the doorway just as Elena’s eyes locked with her mirror image. The clone—CR-01—stood perfectly still, head slightly tilted, as if trying to compute the unpredictability of the moment.
Her mother—Catalina Valencia—watched them both with unsettling calm. “You’re both pieces of the same solution. But only one will be needed.”
“I’m not a piece,” Elena hissed. “I’m a person. And I bleed for what I believe in.”
Catalina took a step forward, unaffected. “And look where that’s gotten you. Scars. Loss. Rage. The clone doesn’t question, doesn’t fall in love, doesn’t hesitate. She’s everything you were supposed to become.”
CR-01 blinked, mimicking Elena’s every breath now—subtle, eerie.
Adrian pulled his weapon. “She’s not you, Elena. You’re not her. Don’t let them twist your head.”
But CR-01 suddenly spoke. “I remember everything. The alley in Bogotá. The gun under the orphanage bed. The way Adrian smells like old paper and fear when he lies.”
Elena’s heart stuttered.
“She’s syncing with me,” Elena said slowly, her voice tight. “Downloading my memory through the neural echo.”
“You’re not stable enough to contain it all,” Julia shouted from behind, rushing in. “If she takes everything—she becomes you. And you fade.”
CR-01’s nose began to bleed.
“I am… real,” she whispered. “I am…”
She lunged.
Elena tackled her to the ground, the two bodies colliding in a flash of fists and blurred emotion. Adrian and Liana surged forward, trying to intervene—but the mother stepped back, watching, waiting.
Elena pinned the clone, fury and grief colliding behind her eyes.
“You can steal my memories,” she gasped, “but you’ll never have my pain. Or my choices.”
CR-01 blinked again—and suddenly smiled. “That’s the difference. You still believe your pain makes you human.”
And she jabbed a needle into her own neck.
Elena rolled back, choking. “What did she just—?”
Julia ran to the clone’s side. “It’s a failsafe. A last-burst override.”
The clone began to seize, data flooding from her pupils in a cascade of blinking code across her cornea.
Catalina stepped forward now, voice low and sharp. “You killed her. The only perfect one.”
“No,” Elena said, standing. “You did. The moment you thought control was love.”
And with a burst of motion, she yanked the encrypted chip from her pocket—the one Adrian once carried.
“I came here to end you,” she said. “But now I see—I just have to erase the lie.”
Catalina’s eyes widened. “You wouldn’t—”
Julia hit the command from her tablet. “She would.”
The chip activated. Sparks flew. The servers hummed like dying bees.
The clone’s body went limp.
Catalina screamed but it was too late. Her empire of ghosts had just lost its crown.
Elsewhere – Undisclosed Blacksite – 7:14 AM
Marcus Vale leaned forward as the feed cut to black.
“They pulled the plug,” he murmured.
Beside him, a new figure stepped into view. Specter reborn. Eyes glinting with artificial light.
“Let them run,” Specter said. “We still have the seed.”
Marcus smiled coldly. “Then let’s make them bleed for every inch.”