All Chapters of Lifeline Protocol: The Exiled Doctor: Chapter 21
- Chapter 30
110 chapters
Chapter 21: Ghost Frequency
The nightmares began the same night the White Core fell.Raymond jolted awake in the med-grid infirmary, sweat dripping down his spine. The world around him pulsed, quiet, normal, almost peaceful, yet his heart hammered like he’d sprinted through a battlefield.A whisper echoed faintly in the back of his mind.Raymond… still trying to heal what cannot be cured?He clenched his jaw. “Not real. You’re gone.”Gone? A soft laugh, cold as static. Ghosts aren’t gone. They linger in frequencies you can’t cleanse.He pressed both palms to his temples. “Voss. You don’t exist anymore.”The voice softened. Then why am I whispering to you?Down the hall, Lira stood hunched over a holographic display. The infirmary was dim, lit only by soft blue utility lights. Jin slept across the room on a cot, snoring softly between scattered data pads.Raymond stepped out of his room, trying to steady his breathing. Lira looked up immediately.“You look like hell,” she said. “Bad dream?”“Not a dream,” he mutt
Chapter 22: Dreamkill Protocol
Raymond hit the dream-floor hard. The impact felt real, too real. He tasted metal and static, the signature flavor of corrupted memory.Above him, the sky cracked open like shattered glass, revealing layers of other people’s dreams, faces, buildings, childhood fragments, sliding past each other in chaotic, impossible loops.Lira landed next to him, rolling smoothly to her feet. “Ray, status?”He spit out phantom blood. “Conscious. Or whatever counts as conscious in here.”Jin stumbled in afterward, flailing. “Okay, I’m definitely not built for dream combat. Can someone downgrade the physics settings?”Raymond steadied himself. “Stay close. The environment’s going to shift based on whatever memory the Ghost Frequency attaches to next.”Lira scanned the horizon. “And Voss?”Raymond pointed toward the monolithic structure ahead, the giant spine piercing the sky.A silhouette stood atop it, flickering in and out like a glitching god.“He’s rewriting himself,” Raymond murmured. “But he’s n
Chapter 23: The Man Who Shouldn’t Exist
The dreamscape collapsed in a violent shudder. Light folded inward, shapes dissolving into neon threads and Raymond felt himself yanked upward like a body caught in a digital undertow.He slammed into a new environment.Cold.Silent.Monochrome.A vast white expanse stretched in every direction, marked only by thin black lines like a designer’s blueprint grid.Jin groaned beside him. “Okay, seriously, whose interface is this? It looks like a depression simulator.”Lira scanned the empty space, blades half-drawn. “No shadows. No walls. No terrain. This is deliberate. Something doesn’t want us to have cover.”Raymond didn’t answer.He couldn’t.Because across the endless blank floor, a figure stood with its back to them, still, tall, impossibly familiar.A thin coat.Dark hair.Hands clasped behind.Jin blinked. “Wait. Is that,”Lira whispered, “Ray…?”Raymond’s breath caught.Everything inside him recoiled with cold dread.“No,” he said softly. “That’s impossible.”The figure turned. R
Chapter 24: Ghost Frequency Awakens
The white dreamscape dissolved into raw darkness, no floor, no horizon, just an infinite void humming like an enormous machine behind a wall.Raymond stood still, breath held.Lira scanned the shadows. “Ray… what’s happening?”Jin whispered, “Please tell me this is just the end-credit screen.”Raymond didn’t answer yet. He couldn’t. Because the pulsing signal ahead of them wasn’t just sound. It was breathing.A low, resonant thrummm shook the void like a heartbeat inside a dying planet.Lira tightened her grip on her blades. “That’s the Ghost Frequency?”Raymond nodded slowly. “Or the part of it that was sleeping.”Jin stepped back. “Not to be rude, but can someone define what exactly we’re about to fight? A monster? A system? A nightmare? All of the above?”Raymond’s voice came out flat.“All of the above. Plus one more thing.”The void trembled. A dim red glow flickered in the distance like an eye opening.Lira exhaled. “And what’s the ‘plus one’?”Raymond swallowed hard.“Intent.”
CHAPTER 25 — The Scalpel That Knows Your Name
Rain hammered the clinic’s shattered windows as if trying to warn them.Jin paced across the floor, boots crunching over broken med-glass. Lira sat on the examination bed, arms folded tight, her eyes fixed on the sealed door to Raymond’s chamber.Because something inside that room was… breathing wrong.Too slow.Too deliberate.Too aware.“Lira,” Jin whispered, “we shouldn’t be here when he wakes up.”“He won’t hurt us.”“You didn’t see what he did to those enforcers in the alley. That wasn’t healing. That was surgery by execution.”Lira swallowed hard.Before she could answer, a low hum crawled through the clinic, and the lights dimmed to a pulse-like rhythm, slow, steady, alive.Then a metallic snap echoed. The chamber door unlocked itself.Jin backed up so fast he hit a cabinet. “No. Nope. We are not doing this.”The door slid open and Raymond stepped out.But this wasn’t the Raymond Briggs they knew.His skin held faint glowing lines, thin traceries like veins rendered in digital
CHAPTER 26 — Pulse of the Killzone
Neon rain stitched the night as Raymond walked straight into the undercity’s industrial maze, his coat trailing behind him like a moving shadow stitched with light. Lira and Jin followed close, though every instinct screamed at them to turn back.“Raymond,” Lira hissed, “this is Syndicate territory.”“I know.”“We’re walking straight into a killzone.”“I’m aware.”Jin swallowed. “Okay, but are you aware that I’m not built for dying? My bones are statistically, a terrible investment.”Raymond didn’t slow. “Then stay behind me.”« Host proceeding toward hostile sector. Efficiency: 93%. Emotional interference detected. Adjust? »Raymond clenched his jaw. No.The whisper receded, but only slightly.The alley narrowed around them, screens flickering with ghost-static. Above, the sky glowed with the soft red pulse of surveillance drones.They were being watched.Lira tapped Raymond’s arm. “Drone, roof level.”“I see it.”“Do you plan to avoid it?”“No.”The drone dropped. Fast.But Raymond
CHAPTER 27 — The Master’s Shadow
Neon storms raged above the undercity as Raymond, Lira, and Jin sprinted through the dripping alleys, dodging collapsing signs and flickering holo-ads. Sniper fire echoed in the distance, too close, too precise.“Left!” Lira shouted.Raymond grabbed both of them and yanked them into a maintenance tunnel just as three bullets ripped through the wall behind them, carving glowing trails in the dark.Jin collapsed against a pipe. “This is ridiculous! Can we go five minutes without someone trying to medically uninstall our spines?!”Raymond said nothing. His eyes glowed faintly, more intense with each breath. The System kept pulsing in his veins like a second heart.Lira touched his shoulder. “Ray… we need to regroup before—”Her voice cut off as Raymond suddenly slammed his palm against the tunnel wall.The neon lines under his skin flared.« Host adrenaline spike detected. Emotional agitation compromising efficiency. Stabilizing? »Raymond growled under his breath. Don’t touch my mind.«
CHAPTER 28 — The Clinic of Echoed Screams
The city seemed to hold its breath as Raymond, Lira, and Jin stepped into Sector 9, the part of the undercity people only entered if they wanted to vanish.Neon signs flickered like dying stars, casting jagged shadows that slithered across abandoned medical carts and rusted cybernetic limbs.Jin whispered, “Okay, slight concern: every horror story I’ve ever heard starts exactly like this.”Lira scanned the rooftops. “Stay sharp. Raymond’s master could have eyes on us from anywhere.”Raymond didn’t respond.He was staring at a building ahead, a towering ruin of shattered glass and rusted metal. Once a prestigious trauma center. Now its windows pulsed faint red, as if syncing with a heartbeat.Lira followed his gaze. “What is this place?”Raymond’s jaw clenched. “The clinic where I was trained.”Jin froze. “Oh fantastic. We’re visiting your haunted medical kindergarten.”Lira scoffed. “Jin.”“No, seriously, nothing good ever happens in a building that looks like it wants to inhale your
CHAPTER 29 — Phase Three
The scream echoed through the clinic like metal dragged across bone, too human to ignore, too warped to trust.Jin whispered, “Okay… that was either someone dying or someone being born, and I don’t like either option.”Lira tightened her grip on her knife. “Raymond, lead.”Raymond didn’t hesitate. He moved toward the dark hallway, each step slicing through the silence like a scalpel.The walls here were different, lined with glass panels showing preserved organs, neural implants suspended in fluid, metal spine prototypes curled like predatory insects.Lira muttered, “Your master decorated this place like a medical serial killer.”Raymond’s jaw clenched. “It wasn’t like this… before he broke.”Jin hissed, “Define ‘broke’, because his design aesthetic is currently stapled between ‘homicidal’ and ‘apocalyptic.’”The hallway widened into a surgical observation room.But this wasn’t for teaching.It was for worship.Spotlights illuminated a massive chair, half throne, half operating table,
CHAPTER 30 — The Operating Theater
The steel door sealed behind them with a hiss, like the clinic itself was swallowing them whole.Jin shuddered. “Fantastic. Love when the only exit vanishes. Really sets the mood.”The corridor ahead was long, narrow, and illuminated by a single pulsing line of red light along the floor. The glow felt alive, like a heartbeat guiding them deeper into the body of a machine.Lira whispered, “This place wasn’t here before, Ray. It’s new.”Raymond never stopped walking. “It’s always been here. Verrick hid it from everyone, including me.”« Host pulse elevated. Adrenal load increasing. Proceed. »Raymond ignored the System.Jin didn’t. “Uh, Ray? You okay? You’re doing that creepy blank-stare thing again, like you’re listening to an invisible GPS that wants to kill us.”Raymond didn’t answer.At the end of the hall, a surgical theater door slid open automatically.Then the lights came up.Lira sucked in a breath.Jin’s jaw dropped.Raymond froze.The operating theater was massive, three floo