Beneath the Billionaire Mask - Chapter 87: Chapter 87
You are reading Beneath the Billionaire Mask, Chapter 87: Chapter 87. Read more chapters of Beneath the Billionaire Mask.
Piedra Ciega — Black Vault Subsector (Reopened Node) — 4:44 PM
The walls still smelled like smoke and rusted secrets.
Julia moved carefully, flashlight slicing through darkness. This part of the vault hadn’t been accessed since Cruz locked it behind a biometric firewall—one that recognized only two signatures: Adrian Blackwood and Elena Cruz.
But today, it opened for someone else.
For her.
She slipped a flash drive into the core interface. The ancient server whirred to life like something waking from a long coma.
Lines of code blinked. Then folders emerged. Hundreds of them.
PROJECT: NIGHTFALL
REPLICATION PROTOCOLS
SUBJECT FILES — BLACKWOOD LINE
EXTRACTION: MOTH/NODE/CR-ROOT
Julia clicked the last one—and gasped.
Inside were DNA strands, AI behavioral simulations, neural response maps. But not just of Adrian.
Or Elena.
There were seven other names.
Seven versions of the truth.
Safehouse Echo – Surveillance Room – 5:03 PM
“Elena,” Liana called. “You need to see this.”
Elena crossed the room just as Adrian walked in behind her. The screen was split into four quadrants—each showing recent surveillance intercepts pulled from deep-web fragments.
All four showed replicas in motion.
One boarding a private plane in Geneva.
Another slinking through market crowds in Lagos.
A third hacking a biotech terminal in Seoul.
And the last… walking calmly through the ruins of Elena’s old apartment in Madrid.
She clutched Adrian’s arm. “They’re not dormant anymore.”
“No,” he said. “They’re active. And they’re following a plan.”
Andean Facility – Deep Core Level – Same Time
Marcus stood before the four awakening agents, his voice laced with eerie calm.
“Nightfall wasn’t meant to control the world. It was meant to mirror it. Improve it. Rewrite it.”
He paced slowly, eyes glowing under low light.
“One clone failed. One fell in love. But the rest of you… you were built to obey. To finish what they couldn’t.”
A screen lit up behind him showing one target:
SUBJECT CRUZ, ELENA — Status: COMPROMISED
TERMINATION APPROVED
And another beside it:
SUBJECT BLACKWOOD, ADRIAN — Status: REVERSE ASSIMILATION INITIATED
“Kill them,” Marcus whispered. “Or become them.”
The four stepped forward.
Bogotá Safehouse – Armory – 5:17 PM
Elena loaded her pistol, sliding a tracker onto her wrist. Adrian pulled open a hidden drawer and revealed something she hadn’t seen before—a pulse disruptor with her initials engraved on the grip.
“You had this made for me?”
Adrian nodded. “Before I knew if you’d stay.”
She met his gaze. “You don’t run from family.”
He paused, voice quiet. “They’re not after the vault anymore, Elena. They’re after us.”
“And we make our stand,” she said, locking eyes with him, “together.”
He slipped the pulse disruptor into her holster.
“Then let’s give them something to remember.”
Safehouse Echo – Hidden Corridor – 5:24 PM
Adrian slammed the wall panel shut, sealing off the armory as backup power buzzed into life. His eyes flicked to the new tactical map uploaded from Julia’s side. Four blinking dots. All red. All moving.
“They’re converging,” he muttered.
Elena glanced over his shoulder. “Then we don’t wait. We cut them off before they reach Bogotá.”
Adrian didn’t answer immediately. He was staring at one of the signals—marked CR-01b—tracking too close. Too familiar.
“You recognize it,” Elena said.
His voice was gravel. “I remember the rhythm. Her pace. Her habits. That… that’s you.”
“No,” she whispered. “That’s her.”
He turned toward her. “Are you ready for that kind of confrontation?”
“I’m not afraid of her.”
“You should be,” he said. “Because if Marcus unlocked her the way he designed—you’ll be facing the part of yourself that was never meant to be kind.”
Geneva – Private Airstrip – 11:09 PM (Local Time)
The jet touched down on silent tarmac. A man in a crisp black suit waited by the runway, holding a briefcase handcuffed to his wrist.
Inside: a portable clone suppression kit.
Outside: CR-03, Elena’s variant, stepped out—poised, cold, beautiful in a brutal kind of way. She didn’t blink at the armed escort. She walked past them, stopping only once.
“Where is Blackwood?”
“In Bogotá,” the agent said.
CR-03 smiled. “Then Bogotá is no longer safe.”
She climbed into the armored vehicle, phone already transmitting:
“Converge. Execute protocol: Severance.”
Bogotá – Underground Archive Vault – 6:12 PM
Julia crouched beneath the server stack, heart pounding. Lines of live-feed visuals danced across her monitor. Four versions of Elena. All operational. All hostile. Except maybe… one.
Her fingers flew across the keyboard, isolating metadata.
“Adrian,” she whispered into the comms. “Listen carefully. I think one of the clones isn’t attacking. She’s… stalling the others.”
Adrian’s voice came through, tight. “What do you mean?”
“She hesitated. On a kill command. And she redirected her trace ping—toward you. Like she wanted you to find her.”
Adrian paused. “You’re saying one of them might be… trying to defect?”
“Or she’s playing us,” Julia said. “But either way, she’s not moving like the others.”
Elena’s voice cut in. “What if it’s her conscience?”
Julia swallowed. “Or what’s left of it.”
Elsewhere – Unknown Location – 6:15 PM
CR-01b stood in a candlelit cathedral ruin, her hands bloodied, her eyes locked on a child’s drawing nailed to the wall.
A sketch of a masked man holding a woman’s hand.
She didn’t know why she couldn’t stop staring at it.
Then she whispered: “What am I becoming?”
Behind her, Marcus’s voice echoed off the stone.
“You’re becoming free.”
She didn’t turn.
“I remember things I shouldn’t,” she said. “I feel things I’m not supposed to feel.”
He stepped closer, voice oily. “It’s not feeling, my dear. It’s program decay. You’re glitching.”
CR-01b reached into her coat and touched the pulse emitter Julia once built for Elena.
“I think it’s called memory.”
And for the first time, she turned against her mission.
Safehouse Echo – Main Room – 6:31 PM
Liana bolted through the doors, holding a piece of decrypted data. “The CR units are broadcasting a second layer code. A sleeper contingency.”
Elena looked up. “For what?”
“For what happens after they fail.”
Adrian moved beside them, jaw tightening. “Marcus knew this was a suicide run.”
Julia’s voice broke through again. “It’s not just about eliminating you two. It’s about activating the next wave.”
Elena’s eyes narrowed. “You’re saying this is just… phase one?”
Liana nodded, her voice grim. “And the real program hasn’t even started.”
The lights flickered.
Then the safehouse comms system blinked to life with an automated broadcast:
SLEEPWALKER PROTOCOL — 40% COMPLETE
REPLICATION CELL 04 UNLOCKING WORLDWIDE
Adrian and Elena locked eyes.
And he said only one word:
“Run.”
Secret Tunnel beneath Safehouse Echo – 6:36 PM
The emergency lights cast the narrow tunnel in a blood-red hue as Elena ran beside Adrian, every footstep echoing louder than the last. Liana followed closely behind, clutching the encrypted core Julia had extracted. It pulsed in her arms like a heart of code and secrets.
“Where the hell does this lead?” Elena demanded, ducking under a rusted beam.
Adrian tapped the wall panel. “Old cartel exit routes. It’ll buy us time—if they haven’t already mapped it.”
“And if they have?” Liana asked, panting.
Adrian didn’t answer. His silence was louder than an explosion.
Behind them, the sound of grinding metal erupted.
The safehouse vault door had been breached.
Adrian’s comm crackled to life with Julia’s distorted voice:
“Adrian… they’re not just after you anymore.”
“What do you mean?” he growled.
“The data… it doesn’t just contain replication blueprints. It’s also linked to Project Orpheus. The one your father buried in Zurich.”
Adrian froze mid-stride.
Elena’s eyes widened. “Project Orpheus? I thought that was a myth—just rumors.”
“It was supposed to be,” Adrian said. “Until now.”
Zurich – Blackwood Family Estate Archives – Same Time
A steel vault hissed open. CR-03 stepped inside, eyes scanning rows of frozen chambers, each with biometric signatures. The air was glacial. The silence, reverent.
She moved to Vault 7.
A biometric scan later, the frost-covered screen came alive.
SUBJECT: BLACKWOOD, ADRIAN II
STATUS: SUSPENDED
VITAL SIGNS: STABLE
PROGRAMMING: INCOMPLETE
She placed a gloved hand on the glass. “You were never meant to awaken without the trigger. But it’s time.”
Behind her, the agent who’d escorted her earlier lowered his weapon.
“You’re sure about this?” he asked.
She didn’t look back. “Initiate thaw. Now.”
Tunnel Exit – Bogotá – 6:52 PM
The trio burst out through a concealed hatch behind a butcher’s market. Adrian hoisted the gate shut and locked it with a magnetic seal.
“What now?” Liana asked, her voice shaking.
“We vanish,” Elena said. “We disappear and regroup. Julia needs time to break the next layer.”
“No,” Adrian said firmly. “We don’t run. We go to Zurich.”
Elena’s head whipped toward him. “Zurich? That’s suicide.”
“No,” he said again, slower. “That’s home.”
Geneva – Blackwood International HQ – 7:10 PM
Julia stood alone on the rooftop, the city sprawled beneath her. The clouds had thickened. Lightning cracked through the sky.
On her tablet, a final file finished decrypting. It wasn’t part of the clone archive. It wasn’t part of the vigilante program.
It was a message. A recorded log.
Adrian’s father. Eyes dark. Voice broken.
“If anyone ever finds this… I failed. Not because of my enemies. But because of what I tried to resurrect from my son’s DNA.”
Julia blinked.
“Not just clones. Not just weapons. But memory-built consciousness. If even one survives, it could override the real Adrian.”
Then the final words chilled her blood:
“Kill it before it becomes him.”
Zurich – Blackwood Family Estate Archives – 7:25 PM
The frost hissed as Vault 7’s chamber fully unlocked. Mist curled like phantoms across the floor as CR-03 stepped back, eyes never leaving the glass.
Inside, a man lay suspended in cryostasis.
Identical to Adrian.
But this version bore something different. A scar running from temple to jaw—stark, surgical, deliberate. Like a reminder. Or a warning.
CR-03 removed her mask. Her resemblance to Elena was flawless—but colder. Sharper.
She leaned in and whispered to the glass, “The world already has one of you. But you… you were made to erase him.”
She reached out and keyed in the override.
INITIATING MEMORY SYNC PROTOCOL
SUBJECT: ADRIAN II
AWAKENING SEQUENCE – 73%
Suddenly—
A voice echoed from the shadows of the archive:
“You don’t get to wake ghosts without asking permission.”
CR-03 spun around. A figure emerged—drenched in rain, dressed in black, armed.
Julia.
“You’re not authorized to be here,” CR-03 said, her tone perfectly flat.
Julia’s jaw was set. “Neither are you.”
“You’re too late,” CR-03 smirked. “He’s coming back. And your version? Your original? He won’t survive what’s next.”
Julia’s finger twitched over the detonator clasped in her palm. “Then we both lose.”
She pressed it.
Outside Zurich – En Route – 7:43 PM
In a stolen vehicle hurtling toward the Swiss Alps, Adrian’s knuckles whitened around the steering wheel.
Elena stared at the encrypted data on Liana’s screen. “This is it, isn’t it? The original Adrian… the first consciousness.”
“No,” Adrian muttered. “That version died the day I chose a different life. If they’re trying to bring him back… they’re not resurrecting me. They’re manufacturing a weapon.”
“But it has your memories,” Liana whispered.
Adrian’s eyes stayed fixed on the road. “Then I’ll destroy them.”
Elena placed a hand over his. “We do it together.”
Suddenly, Liana gasped. “Guys… the Zurich signal just went dark.”
Elena’s pulse jumped. “What?”
“The vault…” Liana looked up, horror creeping into her voice. “Someone detonated it.”
Zurich – Archives – 7:45 PM
Smoke filled the corridors. Steel buckled under the pressure of the blast. CR-03 stumbled out, half her suit charred, coughing blood.
Julia lay motionless on the floor, the archive’s emergency strobe flickering across her face.
A blinking red light on the cryo-chamber said:
SYSTEM INTERFACE FAILED
MEMORY UPLOAD – INCOMPLETE
DNA SYNC – 92%
The glass began to crack.
From inside, a hand slammed against it.
Then… it curled into a fist.
The walls still smelled like smoke and rusted secrets.
Julia moved carefully, flashlight slicing through darkness. This part of the vault hadn’t been accessed since Cruz locked it behind a biometric firewall—one that recognized only two signatures: Adrian Blackwood and Elena Cruz.
But today, it opened for someone else.
For her.
She slipped a flash drive into the core interface. The ancient server whirred to life like something waking from a long coma.
Lines of code blinked. Then folders emerged. Hundreds of them.
PROJECT: NIGHTFALL
REPLICATION PROTOCOLS
SUBJECT FILES — BLACKWOOD LINE
EXTRACTION: MOTH/NODE/CR-ROOT
Julia clicked the last one—and gasped.
Inside were DNA strands, AI behavioral simulations, neural response maps. But not just of Adrian.
Or Elena.
There were seven other names.
Seven versions of the truth.
Safehouse Echo – Surveillance Room – 5:03 PM
“Elena,” Liana called. “You need to see this.”
Elena crossed the room just as Adrian walked in behind her. The screen was split into four quadrants—each showing recent surveillance intercepts pulled from deep-web fragments.
All four showed replicas in motion.
One boarding a private plane in Geneva.
Another slinking through market crowds in Lagos.
A third hacking a biotech terminal in Seoul.
And the last… walking calmly through the ruins of Elena’s old apartment in Madrid.
She clutched Adrian’s arm. “They’re not dormant anymore.”
“No,” he said. “They’re active. And they’re following a plan.”
Andean Facility – Deep Core Level – Same Time
Marcus stood before the four awakening agents, his voice laced with eerie calm.
“Nightfall wasn’t meant to control the world. It was meant to mirror it. Improve it. Rewrite it.”
He paced slowly, eyes glowing under low light.
“One clone failed. One fell in love. But the rest of you… you were built to obey. To finish what they couldn’t.”
A screen lit up behind him showing one target:
SUBJECT CRUZ, ELENA — Status: COMPROMISED
TERMINATION APPROVED
And another beside it:
SUBJECT BLACKWOOD, ADRIAN — Status: REVERSE ASSIMILATION INITIATED
“Kill them,” Marcus whispered. “Or become them.”
The four stepped forward.
Bogotá Safehouse – Armory – 5:17 PM
Elena loaded her pistol, sliding a tracker onto her wrist. Adrian pulled open a hidden drawer and revealed something she hadn’t seen before—a pulse disruptor with her initials engraved on the grip.
“You had this made for me?”
Adrian nodded. “Before I knew if you’d stay.”
She met his gaze. “You don’t run from family.”
He paused, voice quiet. “They’re not after the vault anymore, Elena. They’re after us.”
“And we make our stand,” she said, locking eyes with him, “together.”
He slipped the pulse disruptor into her holster.
“Then let’s give them something to remember.”
Safehouse Echo – Hidden Corridor – 5:24 PM
Adrian slammed the wall panel shut, sealing off the armory as backup power buzzed into life. His eyes flicked to the new tactical map uploaded from Julia’s side. Four blinking dots. All red. All moving.
“They’re converging,” he muttered.
Elena glanced over his shoulder. “Then we don’t wait. We cut them off before they reach Bogotá.”
Adrian didn’t answer immediately. He was staring at one of the signals—marked CR-01b—tracking too close. Too familiar.
“You recognize it,” Elena said.
His voice was gravel. “I remember the rhythm. Her pace. Her habits. That… that’s you.”
“No,” she whispered. “That’s her.”
He turned toward her. “Are you ready for that kind of confrontation?”
“I’m not afraid of her.”
“You should be,” he said. “Because if Marcus unlocked her the way he designed—you’ll be facing the part of yourself that was never meant to be kind.”
Geneva – Private Airstrip – 11:09 PM (Local Time)
The jet touched down on silent tarmac. A man in a crisp black suit waited by the runway, holding a briefcase handcuffed to his wrist.
Inside: a portable clone suppression kit.
Outside: CR-03, Elena’s variant, stepped out—poised, cold, beautiful in a brutal kind of way. She didn’t blink at the armed escort. She walked past them, stopping only once.
“Where is Blackwood?”
“In Bogotá,” the agent said.
CR-03 smiled. “Then Bogotá is no longer safe.”
She climbed into the armored vehicle, phone already transmitting:
“Converge. Execute protocol: Severance.”
Bogotá – Underground Archive Vault – 6:12 PM
Julia crouched beneath the server stack, heart pounding. Lines of live-feed visuals danced across her monitor. Four versions of Elena. All operational. All hostile. Except maybe… one.
Her fingers flew across the keyboard, isolating metadata.
“Adrian,” she whispered into the comms. “Listen carefully. I think one of the clones isn’t attacking. She’s… stalling the others.”
Adrian’s voice came through, tight. “What do you mean?”
“She hesitated. On a kill command. And she redirected her trace ping—toward you. Like she wanted you to find her.”
Adrian paused. “You’re saying one of them might be… trying to defect?”
“Or she’s playing us,” Julia said. “But either way, she’s not moving like the others.”
Elena’s voice cut in. “What if it’s her conscience?”
Julia swallowed. “Or what’s left of it.”
Elsewhere – Unknown Location – 6:15 PM
CR-01b stood in a candlelit cathedral ruin, her hands bloodied, her eyes locked on a child’s drawing nailed to the wall.
A sketch of a masked man holding a woman’s hand.
She didn’t know why she couldn’t stop staring at it.
Then she whispered: “What am I becoming?”
Behind her, Marcus’s voice echoed off the stone.
“You’re becoming free.”
She didn’t turn.
“I remember things I shouldn’t,” she said. “I feel things I’m not supposed to feel.”
He stepped closer, voice oily. “It’s not feeling, my dear. It’s program decay. You’re glitching.”
CR-01b reached into her coat and touched the pulse emitter Julia once built for Elena.
“I think it’s called memory.”
And for the first time, she turned against her mission.
Safehouse Echo – Main Room – 6:31 PM
Liana bolted through the doors, holding a piece of decrypted data. “The CR units are broadcasting a second layer code. A sleeper contingency.”
Elena looked up. “For what?”
“For what happens after they fail.”
Adrian moved beside them, jaw tightening. “Marcus knew this was a suicide run.”
Julia’s voice broke through again. “It’s not just about eliminating you two. It’s about activating the next wave.”
Elena’s eyes narrowed. “You’re saying this is just… phase one?”
Liana nodded, her voice grim. “And the real program hasn’t even started.”
The lights flickered.
Then the safehouse comms system blinked to life with an automated broadcast:
SLEEPWALKER PROTOCOL — 40% COMPLETE
REPLICATION CELL 04 UNLOCKING WORLDWIDE
Adrian and Elena locked eyes.
And he said only one word:
“Run.”
Secret Tunnel beneath Safehouse Echo – 6:36 PM
The emergency lights cast the narrow tunnel in a blood-red hue as Elena ran beside Adrian, every footstep echoing louder than the last. Liana followed closely behind, clutching the encrypted core Julia had extracted. It pulsed in her arms like a heart of code and secrets.
“Where the hell does this lead?” Elena demanded, ducking under a rusted beam.
Adrian tapped the wall panel. “Old cartel exit routes. It’ll buy us time—if they haven’t already mapped it.”
“And if they have?” Liana asked, panting.
Adrian didn’t answer. His silence was louder than an explosion.
Behind them, the sound of grinding metal erupted.
The safehouse vault door had been breached.
Adrian’s comm crackled to life with Julia’s distorted voice:
“Adrian… they’re not just after you anymore.”
“What do you mean?” he growled.
“The data… it doesn’t just contain replication blueprints. It’s also linked to Project Orpheus. The one your father buried in Zurich.”
Adrian froze mid-stride.
Elena’s eyes widened. “Project Orpheus? I thought that was a myth—just rumors.”
“It was supposed to be,” Adrian said. “Until now.”
Zurich – Blackwood Family Estate Archives – Same Time
A steel vault hissed open. CR-03 stepped inside, eyes scanning rows of frozen chambers, each with biometric signatures. The air was glacial. The silence, reverent.
She moved to Vault 7.
A biometric scan later, the frost-covered screen came alive.
SUBJECT: BLACKWOOD, ADRIAN II
STATUS: SUSPENDED
VITAL SIGNS: STABLE
PROGRAMMING: INCOMPLETE
She placed a gloved hand on the glass. “You were never meant to awaken without the trigger. But it’s time.”
Behind her, the agent who’d escorted her earlier lowered his weapon.
“You’re sure about this?” he asked.
She didn’t look back. “Initiate thaw. Now.”
Tunnel Exit – Bogotá – 6:52 PM
The trio burst out through a concealed hatch behind a butcher’s market. Adrian hoisted the gate shut and locked it with a magnetic seal.
“What now?” Liana asked, her voice shaking.
“We vanish,” Elena said. “We disappear and regroup. Julia needs time to break the next layer.”
“No,” Adrian said firmly. “We don’t run. We go to Zurich.”
Elena’s head whipped toward him. “Zurich? That’s suicide.”
“No,” he said again, slower. “That’s home.”
Geneva – Blackwood International HQ – 7:10 PM
Julia stood alone on the rooftop, the city sprawled beneath her. The clouds had thickened. Lightning cracked through the sky.
On her tablet, a final file finished decrypting. It wasn’t part of the clone archive. It wasn’t part of the vigilante program.
It was a message. A recorded log.
Adrian’s father. Eyes dark. Voice broken.
“If anyone ever finds this… I failed. Not because of my enemies. But because of what I tried to resurrect from my son’s DNA.”
Julia blinked.
“Not just clones. Not just weapons. But memory-built consciousness. If even one survives, it could override the real Adrian.”
Then the final words chilled her blood:
“Kill it before it becomes him.”
Zurich – Blackwood Family Estate Archives – 7:25 PM
The frost hissed as Vault 7’s chamber fully unlocked. Mist curled like phantoms across the floor as CR-03 stepped back, eyes never leaving the glass.
Inside, a man lay suspended in cryostasis.
Identical to Adrian.
But this version bore something different. A scar running from temple to jaw—stark, surgical, deliberate. Like a reminder. Or a warning.
CR-03 removed her mask. Her resemblance to Elena was flawless—but colder. Sharper.
She leaned in and whispered to the glass, “The world already has one of you. But you… you were made to erase him.”
She reached out and keyed in the override.
INITIATING MEMORY SYNC PROTOCOL
SUBJECT: ADRIAN II
AWAKENING SEQUENCE – 73%
Suddenly—
A voice echoed from the shadows of the archive:
“You don’t get to wake ghosts without asking permission.”
CR-03 spun around. A figure emerged—drenched in rain, dressed in black, armed.
Julia.
“You’re not authorized to be here,” CR-03 said, her tone perfectly flat.
Julia’s jaw was set. “Neither are you.”
“You’re too late,” CR-03 smirked. “He’s coming back. And your version? Your original? He won’t survive what’s next.”
Julia’s finger twitched over the detonator clasped in her palm. “Then we both lose.”
She pressed it.
Outside Zurich – En Route – 7:43 PM
In a stolen vehicle hurtling toward the Swiss Alps, Adrian’s knuckles whitened around the steering wheel.
Elena stared at the encrypted data on Liana’s screen. “This is it, isn’t it? The original Adrian… the first consciousness.”
“No,” Adrian muttered. “That version died the day I chose a different life. If they’re trying to bring him back… they’re not resurrecting me. They’re manufacturing a weapon.”
“But it has your memories,” Liana whispered.
Adrian’s eyes stayed fixed on the road. “Then I’ll destroy them.”
Elena placed a hand over his. “We do it together.”
Suddenly, Liana gasped. “Guys… the Zurich signal just went dark.”
Elena’s pulse jumped. “What?”
“The vault…” Liana looked up, horror creeping into her voice. “Someone detonated it.”
Zurich – Archives – 7:45 PM
Smoke filled the corridors. Steel buckled under the pressure of the blast. CR-03 stumbled out, half her suit charred, coughing blood.
Julia lay motionless on the floor, the archive’s emergency strobe flickering across her face.
A blinking red light on the cryo-chamber said:
SYSTEM INTERFACE FAILED
MEMORY UPLOAD – INCOMPLETE
DNA SYNC – 92%
The glass began to crack.
From inside, a hand slammed against it.
Then… it curled into a fist.
End of Beneath the Billionaire Mask Chapter 87. Continue reading Chapter 88 or return to Beneath the Billionaire Mask book page.