The Billionaire Who Forgot How to Love
Chapter 8: The Future That Shouldn't Exist
Rome — The War Room
The war didn't start with bombs. It began with silence—cell towers dying, memory banks crashing, digital ghosts vanishing from systems built to predict chaos.
Elias sat in a chamber buried beneath Rome, watching a world that was slowly forgetting how to function.
Maps lit up in red. Surveillance grids collapsed. Oblivion's reach was folding inward. The virus he'd planted through Petra's stolen data wasn't just code—it was entropy.
"They'll come for you now," said Liv, dressed in black, eyes steady.
"I'm counting on it," Elias said. "They think I'm fighting to win. I'm not."
"Then why are you fighting?"
"To remember."
She didn't ask what. She already knew.
Seoul — The Boy Who Remembered Too Much
They flew to Seoul to find Daesun, a teenage savant whose dreams had become prophecies. He painted his visions—cities burning, lovers screaming, skies falling.
"They say I'm crazy," Daesun said, wiping blue paint from his hands.
"You're not," Elias said. "You're just early."
Daesun led them to a mural hidden in a bunker. It showed Elias—older, bloody, holding Liv in his arms as the world collapsed behind them.
"You said this already happened," Liv whispered.
"In one timeline," Daesun said. "In the next, you shoot him before it does."
New York — The Collapse Begins
The stock exchange glitched. People's bank accounts vanished. Oblivion triggered failsafes designed to punish resistance.
Elias's fortune evaporated in thirty minutes.
He didn't flinch.
"You okay?" Liv asked.
"I was never fighting for money."
They watched the skyline burn with digital corruption. Holograms flickered. Skyscrapers turned to tombs of unreadable memory.
And then the news broke: Alaric was coming back.
He'd faked death. Reentered the timeline through a rogue quantum fold. And he wanted Elias's thread.
The Final Reborn
In Iceland, Solas gave them a gift before he vanished into exile—a device called the Chrono Mirror. One that could reveal your deepest future regret.
Elias stared into it.
He saw Liv dying alone.
She looked happy.
And he was missing.
Liv refused to look.
"I don't need to see it," she said. "I've lived enough futures. I just want one that matters."
The Bloodline Thread
Oblivion's final weapon wasn't tech.
It was lineage.
They'd uncovered Elias's child—the one he never got to raise. Now a brilliant coder, living in isolation under a false identity. They wanted to use her brain to anchor their next generation of predictive AI.
He tracked her to a sanctuary in Morocco. Her name was Selene. Seventeen. Eyes like his. Voice like her mother's.
She didn't recognize him.
But she asked one question: "Why did you leave?"
He knelt in the dust. "Because I thought love was weakness. But forgetting you was worse."
She didn't forgive him. Not yet.
But she gave him the code.
Geneva — The Last Stand
They set up shop in Geneva's abandoned U.N. chamber, once a temple of peace, now a fortress of rebellion.
Ex-agents. Scientists. Rebels. Reborns.
They were losing sleep, resources, hope.
But not each other.
Liv walked into the war table room with new intel.
"They're going to deploy the Foldbomb. It will erase six billion memories. Rewrite everyone's past to fit Oblivion's model."
Elias's hands tightened. "Then we erase Oblivion first."
The Raid
They struck Oblivion's final base beneath the Alps.
Gunfire. Explosions. Digital warfare.
Liv disabled the AI firewall.
Elias reached Alaric in the core vault, where time bent and past selves flickered in holograms.
"You built your empire on the pain of others," Elias said.
"And you built yours on guilt," Alaric replied.
They fought.
Fists. Fire. Memories shattering.
Until Elias dragged him into the timefold chamber.
"You want the future?" Elias whispered. "Then drown in it."
He locked Alaric inside. The loop began.
Alaric would relive his worst failure forever.
Silence After the Storm
Two weeks later.
The world wasn't fixed.
But it had a chance.
Elias walked the streets of Zurich with Liv. The sky was clear. People smiled like they didn't know how close they came to forgetting who they were.
Liv held his hand.
"I don't want to be reborn again," she said.
"Then let's die happy this time."
She laughed. It was the sound that healed him more than any timeline ever could.
And somewhere, in the quiet corners of the world, people began remembering love.
Rome — The War Room
The war didn't start with bombs. It began with silence—cell towers dying, memory banks crashing, digital ghosts vanishing from systems built to predict chaos.
Elias sat in a chamber buried beneath Rome, watching a world that was slowly forgetting how to function.
Maps lit up in red. Surveillance grids collapsed. Oblivion's reach was folding inward. The virus he'd planted through Petra's stolen data wasn't just code—it was entropy.
"They'll come for you now," said Liv, dressed in black, eyes steady.
"I'm counting on it," Elias said. "They think I'm fighting to win. I'm not."
"Then why are you fighting?"
"To remember."
She didn't ask what. She already knew.
Seoul — The Boy Who Remembered Too Much
They flew to Seoul to find Daesun, a teenage savant whose dreams had become prophecies. He painted his visions—cities burning, lovers screaming, skies falling.
"They say I'm crazy," Daesun said, wiping blue paint from his hands.
"You're not," Elias said. "You're just early."
Daesun led them to a mural hidden in a bunker. It showed Elias—older, bloody, holding Liv in his arms as the world collapsed behind them.
"You said this already happened," Liv whispered.
"In one timeline," Daesun said. "In the next, you shoot him before it does."
New York — The Collapse Begins
The stock exchange glitched. People's bank accounts vanished. Oblivion triggered failsafes designed to punish resistance.
Elias's fortune evaporated in thirty minutes.
He didn't flinch.
"You okay?" Liv asked.
"I was never fighting for money."
They watched the skyline burn with digital corruption. Holograms flickered. Skyscrapers turned to tombs of unreadable memory.
And then the news broke: Alaric was coming back.
He'd faked death. Reentered the timeline through a rogue quantum fold. And he wanted Elias's thread.
The Final Reborn
In Iceland, Solas gave them a gift before he vanished into exile—a device called the Chrono Mirror. One that could reveal your deepest future regret.
Elias stared into it.
He saw Liv dying alone.
She looked happy.
And he was missing.
Liv refused to look.
"I don't need to see it," she said. "I've lived enough futures. I just want one that matters."
The Bloodline Thread
Oblivion's final weapon wasn't tech.
It was lineage.
They'd uncovered Elias's child—the one he never got to raise. Now a brilliant coder, living in isolation under a false identity. They wanted to use her brain to anchor their next generation of predictive AI.
He tracked her to a sanctuary in Morocco. Her name was Selene. Seventeen. Eyes like his. Voice like her mother's.
She didn't recognize him.
But she asked one question: "Why did you leave?"
He knelt in the dust. "Because I thought love was weakness. But forgetting you was worse."
She didn't forgive him. Not yet.
But she gave him the code.
Later that night, under the stars of the Sahara, they sat around a fire. Elias told her stories—of her mother, of a world before this one. Selene didn't say much. But she stayed. And that was more than he deserved.
Zurich — The Broadcast
The next morning, Elias stood inside an abandoned news station. They hijacked the global emergency broadcast system.
He spoke live to the world:
"My name is Elias Thorne. You don't know me, but you know my silence. Oblivion is not a myth. It is real. It is inside your systems, your dreams, your memory. It has rewritten your past and is drafting your future. But today, I ask you not to fight. Just… to remember."
He played recordings—of mothers crying, rebels falling, lovers choosing each other through the end.
"For every soul that ever forgot what love looked like, this is your memory back."
The feed cut out mid-sentence. But it had already spread.
Geneva — The Last Stand
They set up shop in Geneva's abandoned U.N. chamber, once a temple of peace, now a fortress of rebellion.
Ex-agents. Scientists. Rebels. Reborns.
They were losing sleep, resources, hope.
But not each other.
Liv walked into the war table room with new intel.
"They're going to deploy the Foldbomb. It will erase six billion memories. Rewrite everyone's past to fit Oblivion's model."
Elias's hands tightened. "Then we erase Oblivion first."
The Raid
They struck Oblivion's final base beneath the Alps.
Gunfire. Explosions. Digital warfare.
Liv disabled the AI firewall.
Elias reached Alaric in the core vault, where time bent and past selves flickered in holograms.
"You built your empire on the pain of others," Elias said.
"And you built yours on guilt," Alaric replied.
They fought.
Fists. Fire. Memories shattering.
Until Elias dragged him into the timefold chamber.
"You want the future?" Elias whispered. "Then drown in it."
He locked Alaric inside. The loop began.
Alaric would relive his worst failure forever.
Silence After the Storm
Two weeks later.
The world wasn't fixed.
But it had a chance.
Elias walked the streets of Zurich with Liv. The sky was clear. People smiled like they didn't know how close they came to forgetting who they were.
Liv held his hand.
"I don't want to be reborn again," she said.
"Then let's die happy this time."
She laughed. It was the sound that healed him more than any timeline ever could.
And somewhere, in the quiet corners of the world, people began remembering love.
In Morocco, Selene began coding something new—a program that didn't predict pain, but archived love. She called it: Memorykeeper.
And for once, no one needed to forget.