Beneath the Billionaire Mask - Chapter 93: Chapter 93

Location: Bolivia – Perimeter Outskirts – 6:45 AM
The sunrise bled through the clouds like bruised gold. A red haze drifted in the wind—dust from the imploded Tunguska Node, carried halfway across the continent.
Adrian stood at the cliff’s edge, hands in his pockets, staring out into the open plains. The morning was quiet, unnaturally so. Birds had stopped singing. The world itself seemed to hold its breath.
Behind him, Elena approached, wrapped in a weather-worn tactical jacket. Her boots crunched lightly over the gravel.
“They’ll come looking for us,” she said softly.
“I know,” Adrian replied.
“You’re not going to run?”
“I’ve done enough running for two lifetimes.”
He turned to her—eyes older, quieter. “It’s strange. I thought shutting down the protocol would feel like the end. But now it just feels like a reset button. One we can’t afford to press again.”
Elena glanced at the dust rising in the east. “Do you think the others got out?”
“I made sure of it,” he said. “Liana has the fallback system. Mason took the fragments to a black site. CR-00… she went dark.”
“By choice?”
“She said she wanted to find her own version of freedom.”
Elena nodded slowly. “Do you think there are more like her out there?”
Adrian didn’t answer immediately. Then: “I know there are.”
A beat of silence passed. Then a subtle vibration buzzed in Elena’s coat pocket. She pulled out a burner phone—only one contact programmed into it.
The screen flashed:
UNKNOWN NODE DETECTED
SYNC REQUEST: SUBJECT CR-03
Elena’s pulse jumped. “Another version.”
Adrian stepped closer. “Don’t respond.”
“I wasn’t going to.” She slid the phone shut.
Then, softly: “But I need to know.”
He met her gaze. “And if it’s not like CR-00? If it’s hostile?”
“Then we make sure this time… we finish what they started.”
Location: Somewhere in Eastern Europe – Underground Lab – Unknown Time
A monitor flickered in a dim chamber, showing a real-time map. Glowing red dots—three of them—flashed across South America.
A figure leaned forward in the shadows. Female. Thin gloves. Silver eyes.
“Two terminated,” she whispered. “One unaccounted for.”
She typed in a string of numbers.
INITIATE: PHASE II
TARGETS: BLACKWOOD, CRUZ
RELEASE: CR-03
Her lips curled into a smile.
“Time to wake up the next ghost.”
Location: Bolivia – Safehouse Ridge – 7:13 AM
The kettle whistled on the rusted burner, breaking the morning hush.
Inside the cabin, Elena stood by the sink, absently watching steam curl toward the cracked ceiling. Her fingers trembled as she poured hot water over dried leaves. She wasn’t sure if it was from the cold—or the weight of the message that came through.
Adrian entered quietly, a fresh cut across his cheek, bandaged from the night’s pursuit.
“Did you sleep?” he asked, his voice rough.
Elena gave a small smile. “You’re one to talk.”
He reached into the side drawer and retrieved the black notebook—the one they’d used to track clone activations, node sites, and field coordinates. There were only two unchecked boxes left.
She noticed.
“Only two more sites?”
He nodded. “If the data from Julia’s deadman drive is accurate. The one in Prague might already be offline. Which means…”
“Only one more active subject.” Elena’s voice dropped. “CR-03.”
Adrian didn’t respond immediately. He thumbed the edge of the page, eyes distant. Then quietly: “We always knew it would come down to her.”
Elena crossed her arms. “Why her? What makes CR-03 different?”
Adrian finally looked at her. “Because she was never meant to be found. She was the prototype for the failed line. The one they buried—literally. No upgrades. No social mimicry protocol. Just pure… obedience.”
“And if someone wakes her up?”
“She won’t think. She’ll only follow orders.”
Elena swallowed. “And you think those orders involve us.”
“No,” he said. “I think they start with us.”
A sudden knock on the door broke the tension.
Both reached for their weapons in unison.
Three taps. A pause. Then two more.
Liana’s code.
Adrian opened the door. She stepped in fast, hood up, laptop bag slung over her shoulder.
“They’ve activated her,” Liana said breathlessly. “CR-03 is online. But it gets worse.”
She pulled up her tablet and laid it flat. A 3D blueprint loaded: a replica of a face.
Elena stared at it, chilled. “That’s… me.”
Liana’s eyes were grim. “No. That’s what she used to look like. She’s been altered. Augmented. Her neural net has residual bleed-over from your memory sync.”
Adrian frowned. “Which means?”
“She doesn’t just look like Elena,” Liana said. “She remembers being Elena.”
Location: Zurich – Private Research Facility – Unknown Time
A figure sat cross-legged in a sterile white room, strapped to biometric tethers. Silver cables ran into her spine, eyes glassy but alert.
On the other side of the glass, two men watched silently.
“She’s stabilized,” one said. “But her directive hasn’t aligned.”
“She’s confused,” the other muttered. “We gave her Elena Cruz’s profile, but she’s beginning to question the memories.”
“Override it.”
A third voice—female, clipped—spoke over the intercom.
“No.”
They turned.
“She needs to believe it,” the woman said. “Make her think Adrian betrayed her. Make her want to destroy him. That’s the only way she’ll go through with it.”
Inside the white room, CR-03 tilted her head.
“…Adrian?” she whispered, to no one.
Zurich – Private Research Facility – Holding Chamber
CR-03 sat motionless on the medical cot, her gaze fixed on the far wall as fragmented memories buzzed like static in her skull. A lemon-laced breeze. A crooked smile. A voice whispering “Choose me.”
None of it made sense. And yet… it all felt real.
A tablet screen on the wall flickered to life, displaying an image: Adrian Blackwood, profile dossier glowing beneath his sharp, unyielding eyes.
“He betrayed you,” the voice spoke softly through the intercom. “He replaced you.”
Another image appeared beside Adrian’s: Elena Cruz. Smiling. Alive.
Living your life.
“They erased you. Buried you. Then gave her your face, your name, your purpose. He chose her. Not you.”
CR-03 blinked rapidly, a tear sliding down her cheek. “Why… why do I feel this?”
“Because it was stolen. But we can take it back.”
Her pupils dilated. Fingers twitched.
“What do you want me to do?” she asked, voice cold now. Sharpening.
The screen zoomed in on Adrian’s eyes.
“Destroy him.”
Bolivia – Safehouse Ridge – Later That Morning
Elena watched the drone footage Liana had hacked from the Zurich lab. Her own face—yet not hers—staring blankly into a cell.
“She’s been rewritten,” Liana said. “Same DNA. But her neural pattern is unstable—like she’s half-you and half-wiped.”
Adrian leaned in. “How soon can they deploy her?”
“They already have.”
Elena stood. “We leave now.”
“No,” Adrian said, stepping in front of her. “She’ll be coming to us.”
“How do you know that?”
He glanced out the window, eyes dark. “Because she’ll want answers. And if she thinks I have them, I’m the first target.”
Elena’s lips parted. “She’s coming for you.”
“No,” he corrected softly. “She’s coming for you.”
Unknown Location – Moving Transport Van
CR-03 sat in the dark, bound in titanium cuffs that she’d already begun to test.
Her head tilted. She could hear radio chatter… coordinates… mentions of Bolivia.
Adrian. Elena. Safehouse Ridge.
Her fingers flexed.
She wasn’t Elena.
She was the correction.
The vengeance.
And she had no intention of failing this time.
Bolivia – Safehouse Ridge – Dusk
The setting sun washed the Bolivian highlands in crimson, casting long shadows across the landscape. Elena stood alone outside the safehouse, arms crossed tightly over her chest, wind tugging at her hair. The mountains in the distance looked like sleeping giants, unaware of the storm brewing between them.
Inside, Liana worked frantically on her laptop, decrypting the last remnants of the Zurich data dump. Adrian paced behind her, restless. Each second was a countdown. Each breath, borrowed.
“I found something,” Liana finally said, her tone sharpened. “Node 7 didn’t just activate a dormant clone—it initiated a layered directive.”
“Meaning?” Adrian asked, narrowing his gaze.
“She wasn’t just programmed to find you. She’s programmed to become Elena. To overwrite the original. The protocol’s called Phoenix Override. It’s not just psychological—it’s molecular. She thinks she’s the real one.”
Adrian turned sharply toward the window. Elena hadn’t moved from her place outside. The golden light clung to her, defiant.
“What happens when they meet?” he asked quietly.
Liana hesitated. “One of them dies. Or both.”
Meanwhile – Aboard the Black Transit Van – Border of Chile
CR-03 was no longer bound.
The guards were unconscious, their pulses faint.
She stared into the cracked side mirror as the vehicle rumbled forward. Her reflection stared back—a blend of confusion and fury.
Something inside her wanted to remember. Bits of color and sound flashed behind her eyes. A red scarf. Gunpowder. A man’s voice calling her Elena.
But every time the image settled, another command surged in to bury it.
The voice again whispered in her mind: “Become her. Replace her. Fix the fracture.”
Her fingers tightened around the scalpel she’d taken from the medic’s pouch.
The mirror flashed again.
But this time, her reflection didn’t blink.
It smiled.
Safehouse Ridge – 11:13 PM
Elena jolted awake in her bed, a sharp pressure in her skull as if someone had said her name from inside her head.
She looked around.
No one was there.
But the mirror by the door…
There were two reflections.
Safehouse Ridge – 11:14 PM
Elena froze.
Her chest rose and fell in silent gasps, eyes fixed on the mirror. There, just behind her reflection, was another version of herself—identical in appearance, but different in presence. Sharper. Still. Like a shadow with intention.
She turned around swiftly.
Nothing.
The room was empty. The window was closed. The night beyond it lay quiet, crickets humming low, indifferent to the war in her head.
She faced the mirror again.
Now only her own reflection stared back.
But a trickle of blood ran down its nose. Not hers. Its.
Then it mouthed something.
Two words.
“I’m coming.”
She stumbled back, knocking over the chair. Her heart hammered like war drums, her mind already trying to rationalize—lack of sleep, trauma, stress. But de down, she knew.
The other Elena was real.
And she was getti
Undisclosed Location – Node 7 Sleep Facility
A single light flickered in the sterile underground chamber. CR-03 sat on the floor, knees pulled to her chest, bathed in blue light as coded memories downloaded directly into her cortex.
Images of Adrian.
Of Liana.
Of the first Elena.
A flood of her life—their life—overwrote her synthetic beginnings.
She saw a future she believed was hers.
And then she heard it: the faintest command embedded in the code.
“Eliminate the anomaly.”
She stood, eyes glassy but filled with purpose.
“I’m not the copy,” she whispered to herself.
“I’m the cure.”
Safehouse War Room – 3:02 AM
Liana reviewed a satellite feed from a border checkpoint near the Chilean divide. A single figure walked down the cracked road barefoot, expressionless, toward the camera before the feed cut out.
Elena walked in, voice husky. “Tell me what I just saw.”
Liana didn’t look away from the screen.
“You.”
The coffee in Elena’s cup had long gone cold.
She sat at the corner of the briefing table, her legs curled under her, the soft hum of the data boards washing over her like waves crashing on steel. Her fingers drummed against the ceramic rhythmically—one, two, three—before stopping as Liana walked in.
“She crossed the Argentine border two hours ago,” Liana announced, dropping a fresh satellite image in front of her.
There was no mistaking it. Same face. Same frame. Only… not her.
Elena looked up. “How long before she finds us?”
“Depends,” Liana said quietly, “on whether she wants to talk or kill.”
Elena’s lips pressed into a thin line. “And if I want to do both?”
Silence.
Then Liana dropped another document in front of her: a hardcopy of the CR-Program logs. Elena’s ID was highlighted—CR-01—but beneath it was something new.
Designation Conflict: Identity Drift.
Resolution Directive: Hostile Neutralization.
“You’ve been reclassified,” Liana murmured.
Elena stared at the text, her voice barely above a whisper.
“As what?”
Liana met her eyes. “As a threat.”
Chapter Breakroom – 5:13 AM
Adrian stood in the doorway, watching Elena as she slid her holster into place. Her movements were calm, methodical—but her eyes… were volcanic.
“She’s you,” he said softly.
“She’s what I could’ve been if they’d succeeded,” Elena replied. “But I broke the chain. Now she wants to wrap it around my throat.”
He stepped closer. “We don’t have to do this your way. We can find a way to disable her safely—“
“She’s running a sleepwalker protocol, Adrian,” Elena cut in. “She’s not here to talk.”
A pause.
“Will you be able to do it?” he asked, voice raw. “If it comes to that?”
She didn’t answer right away.
Then: “I need you to promise me something.”
He nodded once. “Anything.”
“If I hesitate—if I fail—you end it.”
Adrian’s jaw tightened. His silence was long and deliberate, then:
“I won’t let you die, Elena.”
She stepped past him, whispering,
“Then don’t let her live.”
Outside the Safehouse – 5:42 AM
Far beyond the perimeter, wind stirred through the ash trees, their skeletal arms brushing against each other like bones whispering secrets. In the distance, a figure stood motionless at the edge of the valley—her silhouette sharp against the break of dawn.
She tilted her head.
A slow, unnatural smile crept across her face.
CR-03 had arrived.