My Eccentric Billionaire

X-09

CHAPTER TWO

Silence was the thing that hit me first.

It was so quiet it felt like the world had stopped. My eyes were heavy, like someone had taped them shut.

I forced them open, squinting against the harsh white lights blinding me from a smooth ceiling. The ceiling was too clean, too perfect, like a place where nothing bad should happen.

But something was terribly wrong.

I tried to turn my head, wiggle a finger, anything, but my muscles refuses to respond. My body wouldn't move. I knew I was on a flat surface, like a table or bed, but I couldn't look around. My eyes were just fixed on the ceiling.

Panic started to rise in my chest like a fire I couldn’t put out.

Why couldn’t I move? What the f**k was happening?

I focused hard, begging my body to listen. Just a twitch, a tiny shift of my toe, like how I do when I get sleep paralysis, please.

It was like I was trapped in concrete, buried alive. My breathing became fast, but I couldn’t feel my chest rise or fall. Air moved somehow, but it didn’t feel like mine.

Tears stung my eyes, blurring the blinding lights into a fuzzy mess. I wanted to scream, to shout, but my lips were locked tight.

What happened to me?

Suddenly, I remembered the lab, screams everywhere, pain so bad I almost wished I would die so it would stop.

Then… nothing. Was I in a hospital? Was I dead? My heart raced—or it felt like it should. I couldn’t tell anymore. Fear wrapped around me, tight, like a rope I couldn’t break.

The door hissed open with a soft sound that made me want to jump but I couldn’t. Footsteps came closer, and two people leaned over me—a man and a woman, both in pale blue suits and shiny gloves.

Their faces were blank, like they were checking a machine, not a person. The man stared at a tablet and started tapping fast. The woman shined a tiny light in my eyes, the beam sharp like a pin.

“Pupils look good,” she said like she was reading a list.

“Great,” the man said, eyes on his tablet. “Visual systems are online. Any neural drift?”

“None,” she said. “X-09 is stable.”

X-09? Was she referring to me?

“Hey! Can you hear me?” I wanted to shout. “What’s happening? Where am I?” But my voice was gone, stuck somewhere I couldn’t reach. Tears spilled down my face but I couldn’t wipe them away. I couldn’t even blink.

The man kept tapping. “She’s ready for transport,” he said, cold as ice. “Tell the board we can start the auction.”

Auction?

My heart—or whatever was left—pounded so hard I thought it might break. They thought I was a thing. Something to sell. My mind spun, the panic in my chest mixing with anger. I wasn’t a product.

I had a life—my tiny apartment with the dripping sink, my mom’s hugs, my friend Jess who’d be blowing up my phone by now, my entire model career....

Would that all be thrown away now?

The woman started wiping my face with a warm cloth like she was trying to be kind. She hummed a quiet tune, something sad.

The cloth moved over my cheeks, but I couldn’t feel it. I couldn’t feel anything. Tears kept falling, soaking my hair, and I hated how helpless I felt, how small.

“She looks so real,” the woman whispered, brushing hair off my forehead. “Like she’s… hurting.”

The man laughed, short and mean. “It’s just code, Lena. Programmed to look sad. Don’t get soft.”

Lena. Her name was Lena.

Lena, please, look at me. I’m here. I’m alive.

But she didn’t really see me. She just kept wiping, her humming quieter, like she felt bad. Did she see my tears? Did she care?

The man turned away, his shoes clicking. “Come on,” he said. “We’ve got a deadline.”

Lena paused, her hand still on my cheek. I thought she might stop and see me but she sighed and followed him, the door hissing shut. The silence came back, very heavy and suffocating.

I stared at the ceiling, the lights burning my eyes. I couldn’t look away. Tears pooled in my ears but my body stayed still, useless.

Fear choked me, but now anger was there too, growing hot. These people...they’d done this—Valent Industries, Dr. Havel, these people. They’d taken my body, my voice, my life. And now they wanted to sell me? Who exactly were these people?

My mind raced, grabbing at pieces. The lab, the explosion, Project X-09—it didn’t add up. Had they turned me into a machine? A robot? The thought made my insides twist, but it fit. The suit, the cameras, the “neural synapse” talk—it wasn’t just an ad.

They’d lied. Carla lied, or maybe she didn’t know. Either way, I was here, trapped, and no one was coming.

I thought of my mom, her warm laugh, the way she’d hold me when I was scared. I thought of Jess, probably texting me, “Where you at, girl?” They didn’t know where I was. No one did. Loneliness hit hard, heavier than the fear, making it hard to think. Was I even breathing?

I wanted to scream, to punch, to run. But I was stuck, a ghost in a body that wasn’t mine.

Then, a faint hum started coming from the walls. The lights flickered.

A soft beep sounded, close, like it was inside my head. My vision glitched—black, then clear, then black again. A voice, mechanical and cold, whispered from nowhere: “X-09, initialization complete. Transfer protocol activated.”

My tears stopped, frozen by a new kind of fear. Transfer? To where?