Raka landed on a grassy patch outside the warehouse parking area, rolling several times to absorb the impact. He protected the burlap sack in his arms with his own body."I'm alive," he whispered.And most importantly, he had managed to bring back the goods."Vanya," Raka mumbled weakly, a faint smile on his lips, "...I hate shopping."The rumbling of the explosion gave way to the sound of fire consuming the remains of the Sentosa Warehouse. The giant steel structure was now just a pile of rubble belching thick black smoke.Raka lay on his back on the grass, about two hundred meters from the blast's epicenter. His breathing was still ragged.The effects of the high-dose adrenaline shot were starting to fade, and the pain he had postponed during that "one minute of perception" was now coming to collect its debt with compound interest.His scorched back felt like it was being roasted, his right shoulder throbbed sharply, and his heart felt like an engine that had run out of oil, creakin

"Eight..."Raka's voice faded into an indistinct mumble. The giant operating lamp above him dimmed, but his vision didn't immediately go black. The anesthetic Vanya had injected felt cold as it coursed through his veins, but the remnants of pure caffeine from the energy bar and coffee essence he'd consumed at the Sentosa Warehouse were still waging a fierce battle in his nervous system.The result wasn't a dreamless sleep. It was a horrifying semi-conscious state. A twilight sleep. His body was completely paralyzed, his physical pain gone, but his brain was trapped in a terrifyingly vivid hallucination.Raka opened his eyes. He was no longer in the cold morgue.He was standing behind a warm mahogany bar. A shiny La Marzocco espresso machine hissed softly behind him. The aroma of freshly ground Arabica coffee beans filled the air, covering the smell of blood and soot that had previously clung to his clothes."My coffee shop..." Raka whispered, his hand tracing the smooth surface of the

BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! A high-pitched alarm shrieked, shattering the silence of the St. Mary's Hospital basement. Emergency red lights along the corridor began to spin frantically, drowning the room in a terrifying, blood-red glow. Raka, who had just been trying to process the fact that he was now part machine, was jolted so hard he nearly fell off the operating table. His right shoulder, freshly stitched up by Vanya, throbbed with pain, but he ignored it. "Vanya! What's that sound?!" Raka covered his ears with his free left hand. "Did your electric fence fail again? Ninja lizards? A horde?" Vanya, who a second ago was still smiling obsessively at her creation in Raka's chest, was now frozen. Her face, which usually radiated a confident madness, suddenly turned deathly pale. Her futuristic glasses flickered rapidly, displaying a series of blazing red data streams. "No," Vanya whispere

The darkness inside the drainage pipe was thick and oppressive, broken only by the occasional flash of small electrical sparks reflecting off the wet concrete walls. Raka Adhitama lay on his back in ankle-deep, ice-cold sewage that stank of a mixture of rotten eggs, chlorine, and rust. Above him, from the opening he had jumped through, concrete dust and glass shards were still falling slowly in the aftermath of the rocket explosion that had destroyed the hospital lobby. However, it wasn't the pungent smell or the cold sewer water that made Raka groan in pain. It was what was happening inside his chest. Bzzzt... click... whirrr... BZZT! A small blue spark leaped from under his torn shirt, right above Vanya's surgical incision. His bio-mechanical heart no longer beat with a steady click-whirrr rhythm. The machine now sounded like a sputtering, malfunctioning generator, forcing the rotation of its hydraulic pump. "A-argh..." Raka clutched his chest with a trembling left hand. Th

The sharp smell of medical alcohol and animal cage cleaner hung heavy in the stuffy air of Dr. Purr-fect's clinic. On the stainless steel dog grooming tub, Raka Adhitama lay weakly. His skin was as pale as a corpse that had spent the night in a cold room. His bio-mechanical heart pulsed with a forced and painful mechanical rhythm. Thump... thump... thump. His breathing was shallow and ragged. His eyelids were half-open, revealing only the bloodshot whites of his eyes. He was trapped in a twilight sleep—a semi-conscious state due to a lack of oxygen to the brain, where physical pain faded into a dull hum, but his ears could still pick up the sounds around him with crystal clarity. He heard the clinking of metal as Vanya arranged the veterinary surgical tools on a tray. He heard Luna's angry, held breath from the corner of the room. Then, he felt Vanya's shadow lean over his face. "Hello again, Guinea Pig," Vanya's voice was perfectly calm, perfectly professional, yet laced with a