Beneath the Billionaire Mask - Chapter 95: Chapter 95
You are reading Beneath the Billionaire Mask, Chapter 95: Chapter 95. Read more chapters of Beneath the Billionaire Mask.
Location: Private Jet — Airspace over the Tyrrhenian Sea – 9:34 AM
The cabin was suffocating.
Not because of altitude. Not because of pressure.
But because Elena could feel her skin crawling with memories that weren’t hers.
She gripped the seatbelt, forcing herself to breathe. Her reflection in the window was still hers, but something beneath the surface whispered otherwise.
“She looks like me,” she said. “Moves like me. Thinks like me. But there’s no heart in her.”
Adrian sat opposite, watching her.
“She has one,” he said quietly. “It’s just programmed to beat differently.”
Elena looked up.
He leaned forward. “You’re not her. You never were. You bleed. You question. You resist.”
“I also remember things I never lived,” she said, voice cracking. “My mother’s death… a room full of mirrors… A man in white whispering, You are voice and vessel. None of it ever happened to me.”
Liana’s voice came through the speaker, sharper than usual. “CR-00 wasn’t activated alone. She triggered a cascade across the European grid. Five cities. Five anomalies.”
Adrian straightened. “How long before they reach full consciousness?”
“Too late,” Liana replied. “One node just breached a data bank in Brussels. They’re not waking up confused. They’re waking up with purpose.”
Elena swallowed hard. “We have to go to Malta.”
Adrian nodded.
But then paused.
“Unless that’s what she wants.”
Location: Blackwood Archives — Off-Grid Facility, Romania – 10:15 AM
Screens flickered across the chamber like a digital storm. Rows of archived footage, biometric data, suppressed audio logs. In the center, a single figure watched with precision.
CR-00.
She leaned back, scanning through centuries of rot—the greed of corporations, the silence of governments, the shadows of forgotten experiments.
And in all of it… Adrian Blackwood.
She smiled faintly.
“You think you built a firewall around her,” she said aloud, as if speaking to him.
“But she was always just… on loan.”
Behind her, a robotic voice announced: “Phase Two Complete. Initiating Vocal Override Sync.”
CR-00 pressed her palm to the cold floor.
The entire facility responded with a low, harmonic pulse.
She was connecting to something deeper than code.
She was syncing with every replicated fragment of the original Elena.
And they were listening.
Location: Geneva – Safehouse Echo – Same Time
Liana stared in horror as red dots appeared across a global map.
Not five.
Not twelve.
But twenty-seven.
And counting.
Each one labeled: VOX Unit – Pending Conscious Reconciliation
“No…” she breathed. “This isn’t a protocol.”
“This is a chorus.”
Back on the Jet – 10:27 AM
Adrian’s phone vibrated.
A new message.
“You taught one voice to sing, Adrian. But what happens when the whole choir wakes up?”
— CR-00
Elena looked over his shoulder. Her hand went cold.
She whispered, “I’m not the only Elena anymore.”
He turned to her slowly.
“Then we don’t fight them,” he said.
“We fight what made them.”
Location: Private Jet — Airspace, en route to Malta – 10:28 AM
Elena reread the message over Adrian’s shoulder, the words etching themselves into her mind like a brand:
You taught one voice to sing, Adrian. But what happens when the whole choir wakes up?
Her voice was a whisper. “How many more are there?”
Liana patched through the jet’s secure line. Her voice was low and rattled. “We don’t have an exact count anymore. The system we tapped into was just a mirror node. The real index… it’s fragmenting itself. Like it’s hiding.”
Adrian stood and paced toward the aircraft’s rear, tension radiating off him. “They’re sentient enough to protect their own architecture now. That’s not evolution—that’s war prep.”
“And not just digital,” Elena added. “They’re not just waking up. They’re aligning.”
A brief silence.
Then Liana spoke again. “There’s something else.”
She hesitated.
“Say it,” Adrian ordered.
“The last remaining replication,” she said, “it’s not CR-00.”
Elena blinked. “What?”
Liana’s voice dropped to a near-whisper. “It’s CR-03. Hidden. Masked under deep code. Whoever built her didn’t want her found.”
Elena’s heart thudded.
Liana continued, “And her designation in the system is not a number anymore. It’s a word.”
Adrian sat back down, bracing for it.
Liana said it:
“Catalyst.”
A silence thick enough to swallow the roar of the jet engines.
Location: Blacksite Node 7 — Classified Coordinates
CR-00 watched the world flicker on holographic maps, each red dot pulsing like a heartbeat. But her gaze remained fixed on the anomaly in the Atlantic region—a signal unlike the rest.
She turned to her reflection in the mirrored panel across the chamber. “She’s still fragmented,” she said.
Behind her, a soft metallic purr.
A new figure stepped from the shadows, face covered by a translucent veil of data, constantly shifting.
Female.
Familiar.
But wrong.
CR-00 didn’t flinch. “You’re early.”
The new arrival’s voice echoed with layered distortion. “She’s stalling. She doesn’t know what she is.”
“She will,” CR-00 said. “And when she does… she’ll choose us.”
Location: Valletta, Malta – Secret Foundation Outpost — 12:02 PM
The jet touched down under cloud cover, barely visible to local radars. Within the hour, Adrian, Elena, and two trusted operatives entered a compound disguised as a centuries-old monastery.
It was dark. Empty.
Until a red light blinked in the far corner.
A voice spoke from hidden speakers—distorted but female.
“Welcome, Elena Cruz. Or should I say… CR-03.”
She froze.
The room lit up, revealing a mirror across the wall—except the reflection looking back wasn’t hers.
It was her face.
But with jet-black eyes.
And it was smiling.
Adrian reached for her arm, but Elena took a step forward. “What is this?”
The voice returned.
“The mirror doesn’t lie. It only waits for you to see.”
The mirror shimmered again—glitching momentarily—then the image of Elena in the glass tilted her head with eerie precision.
Adrian stepped forward, shielding Elena instinctively. His voice was ice. “Who are you?”
The reflection answered, lips curving into a smile that didn’t reach her eyes.
“I’m the version you buried. The one you couldn’t control.”
Elena’s throat tightened. “You’re… me.”
“No,” the voice said. “I’m what you refused to become.”
Behind them, a hidden panel on the wall hissed open. Cool white light spilled through the crack.
Adrian’s hand hovered near the small of Elena’s back. “We don’t go in there without a plan.”
But Elena stepped forward. “I think this is the plan.”
The room on the other side was circular, lined with screens showing split-second data bursts—DNA strands, thermal signatures, neurological spike patterns. Every single screen was focused on one thing.
Her.
In the center of the room was a chair.
No restraints.
Just… waiting.
A woman stood beside it.
Not a clone.
Not a reflection.
Real.
Alive.
And identical.
CR-03.
No glitches. No malfunctions.
She looked at Elena like a scientist observing a test subject. Or worse—a sister seeing the version that was chosen instead of her.
“So it’s true,” Elena whispered.
CR-03 nodded. “You lived the story. I lived the consequences.”
Adrian broke the silence, stepping beside Elena. “Why reveal yourself now?”
CR-03’s expression was unreadable. “Because the story’s not yours anymore.”
She stepped closer. “It’s ours. And the world doesn’t get just one of us.”
Elena’s eyes narrowed. “So what happens now?”
CR-03’s reply came without hesitation.
“Now we find out who the original really is.”
The tension between them crackled like a live wire.
Elena stared at CR-03—the same face, the same eyes, the same voice—but the energy… it was wrong. Off. This woman wasn’t broken. She was sharpened, forged in fire and left uncooled.
Adrian glanced between them, his instincts bristling. “If this is a trap—”
“It’s not,” CR-03 cut in smoothly. “If I wanted you dead, I would’ve let the Sleepwalker Protocol run its course. But I terminated it.”
“You were the one who shut it down?” Elena asked, disbelief cutting through her.
CR-03 nodded. “You’re not ready. Not yet. But they’ll trigger it again. Soon. And when they do… only one of us survives it.”
A chill slid down Elena’s spine. “You keep saying they. Who is behind all this? The replications, the node activation, the… split?”
CR-03 took a breath, then reached into her jacket and pulled out a microchip, tossing it to Adrian. “Blackwood Industries didn’t fund the original program.”
He caught it, brows furrowed.
CR-03’s voice dropped. “Your father did.”
Adrian’s heart skipped. “That’s not possible. My father died before—”
“No. He disappeared. Because he knew what he’d built. What we were.”
Elena stepped forward, heart pounding. “You’re saying Adrian’s father… created us?”
“Created me,” CR-03 corrected. “You? You were the test for something else entirely.”
Adrian looked between them, thunder in his gaze. “Then what the hell does that make Elena?”
There was silence.
Then CR-03 spoke quietly. “The only version who ever escaped.”
Elena blinked. “Escaped… from what?”
The door behind CR-03 slid open—revealing another corridor.
CR-03 turned toward it. “Come with me. I’ll show you what they erased from your memory. But once you know, there’s no turning back.”
Adrian placed a hand on Elena’s shoulder, his voice low. “We don’t have to go.”
But Elena looked at him, then toward her mirror twin. Her jaw tightened.
“Yes. We do.”
Together, they stepped into the dark.
The cabin was suffocating.
Not because of altitude. Not because of pressure.
But because Elena could feel her skin crawling with memories that weren’t hers.
She gripped the seatbelt, forcing herself to breathe. Her reflection in the window was still hers, but something beneath the surface whispered otherwise.
“She looks like me,” she said. “Moves like me. Thinks like me. But there’s no heart in her.”
Adrian sat opposite, watching her.
“She has one,” he said quietly. “It’s just programmed to beat differently.”
Elena looked up.
He leaned forward. “You’re not her. You never were. You bleed. You question. You resist.”
“I also remember things I never lived,” she said, voice cracking. “My mother’s death… a room full of mirrors… A man in white whispering, You are voice and vessel. None of it ever happened to me.”
Liana’s voice came through the speaker, sharper than usual. “CR-00 wasn’t activated alone. She triggered a cascade across the European grid. Five cities. Five anomalies.”
Adrian straightened. “How long before they reach full consciousness?”
“Too late,” Liana replied. “One node just breached a data bank in Brussels. They’re not waking up confused. They’re waking up with purpose.”
Elena swallowed hard. “We have to go to Malta.”
Adrian nodded.
But then paused.
“Unless that’s what she wants.”
Location: Blackwood Archives — Off-Grid Facility, Romania – 10:15 AM
Screens flickered across the chamber like a digital storm. Rows of archived footage, biometric data, suppressed audio logs. In the center, a single figure watched with precision.
CR-00.
She leaned back, scanning through centuries of rot—the greed of corporations, the silence of governments, the shadows of forgotten experiments.
And in all of it… Adrian Blackwood.
She smiled faintly.
“You think you built a firewall around her,” she said aloud, as if speaking to him.
“But she was always just… on loan.”
Behind her, a robotic voice announced: “Phase Two Complete. Initiating Vocal Override Sync.”
CR-00 pressed her palm to the cold floor.
The entire facility responded with a low, harmonic pulse.
She was connecting to something deeper than code.
She was syncing with every replicated fragment of the original Elena.
And they were listening.
Location: Geneva – Safehouse Echo – Same Time
Liana stared in horror as red dots appeared across a global map.
Not five.
Not twelve.
But twenty-seven.
And counting.
Each one labeled: VOX Unit – Pending Conscious Reconciliation
“No…” she breathed. “This isn’t a protocol.”
“This is a chorus.”
Back on the Jet – 10:27 AM
Adrian’s phone vibrated.
A new message.
“You taught one voice to sing, Adrian. But what happens when the whole choir wakes up?”
— CR-00
Elena looked over his shoulder. Her hand went cold.
She whispered, “I’m not the only Elena anymore.”
He turned to her slowly.
“Then we don’t fight them,” he said.
“We fight what made them.”
Location: Private Jet — Airspace, en route to Malta – 10:28 AM
Elena reread the message over Adrian’s shoulder, the words etching themselves into her mind like a brand:
You taught one voice to sing, Adrian. But what happens when the whole choir wakes up?
Her voice was a whisper. “How many more are there?”
Liana patched through the jet’s secure line. Her voice was low and rattled. “We don’t have an exact count anymore. The system we tapped into was just a mirror node. The real index… it’s fragmenting itself. Like it’s hiding.”
Adrian stood and paced toward the aircraft’s rear, tension radiating off him. “They’re sentient enough to protect their own architecture now. That’s not evolution—that’s war prep.”
“And not just digital,” Elena added. “They’re not just waking up. They’re aligning.”
A brief silence.
Then Liana spoke again. “There’s something else.”
She hesitated.
“Say it,” Adrian ordered.
“The last remaining replication,” she said, “it’s not CR-00.”
Elena blinked. “What?”
Liana’s voice dropped to a near-whisper. “It’s CR-03. Hidden. Masked under deep code. Whoever built her didn’t want her found.”
Elena’s heart thudded.
Liana continued, “And her designation in the system is not a number anymore. It’s a word.”
Adrian sat back down, bracing for it.
Liana said it:
“Catalyst.”
A silence thick enough to swallow the roar of the jet engines.
Location: Blacksite Node 7 — Classified Coordinates
CR-00 watched the world flicker on holographic maps, each red dot pulsing like a heartbeat. But her gaze remained fixed on the anomaly in the Atlantic region—a signal unlike the rest.
She turned to her reflection in the mirrored panel across the chamber. “She’s still fragmented,” she said.
Behind her, a soft metallic purr.
A new figure stepped from the shadows, face covered by a translucent veil of data, constantly shifting.
Female.
Familiar.
But wrong.
CR-00 didn’t flinch. “You’re early.”
The new arrival’s voice echoed with layered distortion. “She’s stalling. She doesn’t know what she is.”
“She will,” CR-00 said. “And when she does… she’ll choose us.”
Location: Valletta, Malta – Secret Foundation Outpost — 12:02 PM
The jet touched down under cloud cover, barely visible to local radars. Within the hour, Adrian, Elena, and two trusted operatives entered a compound disguised as a centuries-old monastery.
It was dark. Empty.
Until a red light blinked in the far corner.
A voice spoke from hidden speakers—distorted but female.
“Welcome, Elena Cruz. Or should I say… CR-03.”
She froze.
The room lit up, revealing a mirror across the wall—except the reflection looking back wasn’t hers.
It was her face.
But with jet-black eyes.
And it was smiling.
Adrian reached for her arm, but Elena took a step forward. “What is this?”
The voice returned.
“The mirror doesn’t lie. It only waits for you to see.”
The mirror shimmered again—glitching momentarily—then the image of Elena in the glass tilted her head with eerie precision.
Adrian stepped forward, shielding Elena instinctively. His voice was ice. “Who are you?”
The reflection answered, lips curving into a smile that didn’t reach her eyes.
“I’m the version you buried. The one you couldn’t control.”
Elena’s throat tightened. “You’re… me.”
“No,” the voice said. “I’m what you refused to become.”
Behind them, a hidden panel on the wall hissed open. Cool white light spilled through the crack.
Adrian’s hand hovered near the small of Elena’s back. “We don’t go in there without a plan.”
But Elena stepped forward. “I think this is the plan.”
The room on the other side was circular, lined with screens showing split-second data bursts—DNA strands, thermal signatures, neurological spike patterns. Every single screen was focused on one thing.
Her.
In the center of the room was a chair.
No restraints.
Just… waiting.
A woman stood beside it.
Not a clone.
Not a reflection.
Real.
Alive.
And identical.
CR-03.
No glitches. No malfunctions.
She looked at Elena like a scientist observing a test subject. Or worse—a sister seeing the version that was chosen instead of her.
“So it’s true,” Elena whispered.
CR-03 nodded. “You lived the story. I lived the consequences.”
Adrian broke the silence, stepping beside Elena. “Why reveal yourself now?”
CR-03’s expression was unreadable. “Because the story’s not yours anymore.”
She stepped closer. “It’s ours. And the world doesn’t get just one of us.”
Elena’s eyes narrowed. “So what happens now?”
CR-03’s reply came without hesitation.
“Now we find out who the original really is.”
The tension between them crackled like a live wire.
Elena stared at CR-03—the same face, the same eyes, the same voice—but the energy… it was wrong. Off. This woman wasn’t broken. She was sharpened, forged in fire and left uncooled.
Adrian glanced between them, his instincts bristling. “If this is a trap—”
“It’s not,” CR-03 cut in smoothly. “If I wanted you dead, I would’ve let the Sleepwalker Protocol run its course. But I terminated it.”
“You were the one who shut it down?” Elena asked, disbelief cutting through her.
CR-03 nodded. “You’re not ready. Not yet. But they’ll trigger it again. Soon. And when they do… only one of us survives it.”
A chill slid down Elena’s spine. “You keep saying they. Who is behind all this? The replications, the node activation, the… split?”
CR-03 took a breath, then reached into her jacket and pulled out a microchip, tossing it to Adrian. “Blackwood Industries didn’t fund the original program.”
He caught it, brows furrowed.
CR-03’s voice dropped. “Your father did.”
Adrian’s heart skipped. “That’s not possible. My father died before—”
“No. He disappeared. Because he knew what he’d built. What we were.”
Elena stepped forward, heart pounding. “You’re saying Adrian’s father… created us?”
“Created me,” CR-03 corrected. “You? You were the test for something else entirely.”
Adrian looked between them, thunder in his gaze. “Then what the hell does that make Elena?”
There was silence.
Then CR-03 spoke quietly. “The only version who ever escaped.”
Elena blinked. “Escaped… from what?”
The door behind CR-03 slid open—revealing another corridor.
CR-03 turned toward it. “Come with me. I’ll show you what they erased from your memory. But once you know, there’s no turning back.”
Adrian placed a hand on Elena’s shoulder, his voice low. “We don’t have to go.”
But Elena looked at him, then toward her mirror twin. Her jaw tightened.
“Yes. We do.”
Together, they stepped into the dark.
End of Beneath the Billionaire Mask Chapter 95. Continue reading Chapter 96 or return to Beneath the Billionaire Mask book page.