All Chapters of The Caffeine System: Critical Heart Protocol: Chapter 71
- Chapter 80
163 chapters
Chapter 70: Unboxing a Human Chest
On the stainless steel dog grooming tub, Raka Adhitama lay with his chest wide open."Alright, my loyal followers on my as-yet-unpublished digital medical journal," Vanya's voice broke the tense silence, her tone cheerful and filled with a deeply unsettling enthusiasm.The woman in the white coat was speaking to a cracked smartphone she had clipped to the arm of the circular surgical lamp above the table, its lens aimed directly at Raka's blood-soaked chest cavity."Today, we will be performing a very special procedure," Vanya continued, ignoring Raka's muffled groans as he bit down on the roll of gauze bandage in his mouth. "We will be conducting a live troubleshooting on a malfunctioning hybrid heart micro-controller, caused by... well, usage not in accordance with the user manual by the subject."Vanya glanced at her phone's camera, her eyes sparkling behind her futuristic glasses."Let's begin this unboxing process."Raka squeezed his eyes shut, tears streaming from the corners of
Chapter 71: Pacemaker V.2.0 (The Iron Heart)
"Clamping forceps, Luna," Vanya extended her blood-stained hand without looking away from Raka's open chest.Luna had been forced to transition from holding his hand to becoming a makeshift surgical assistant over the last two hours, taking the stainless steel clamps from the tray and placing them roughly into Vanya's palm. The mute girl's face was deathly pale, but her movements remained efficient and steady. She refused to look at Raka's chaotically pulsing chest cavity."Good," Vanya praised, ignoring her assistant's tension. "Now, let's get rid of this piece of junk prototype."Deftly, Vanya cut the remnants of the micro copper wires connecting Raka's old car battery pacemaker. She pulled the small metal box off Raka's sternum—the object that for the past two days had both kept him alive and tortured him.As soon as the device was removed, the forced 60 BPM rhythm in Raka's chest vanished.Thump... thump... thump...It turned into thump-thump... silence... THUMP!Raka's already-de
Chapter 72: The Remaining Heartbeats (Countdown)
"Vanya!" Raka gripped the edge of the stainless steel table until his knuckles turned white. His voice trembled, holding back a simmering rage. "What do you mean 'self-destruct protocol'?! Did you just plant a time bomb inside my chest cavity?!" Vanya took a step back, her futuristic glasses flickering rapidly as she scanned the data streaming from the small screen on Raka's chest. The shock on her face lasted only a few seconds before it was replaced by a smile. "Oh, calm down, Guinea Pig. Don't be so dramatic." Vanya waved her hand casually, as if she had just made a minor mistake in a recipe, not in a surgical operation. "I already disconnected the main explosive trigger back in the lobby. That thing won't explode and shatter your sweet chest into meaty bits." "Then what is this number?!" Raka snapped, his breathin
Chapter 73: Goose Rehabilitation
Two days had passed since the emergency surgery in Dr. Purr-fect's animal clinic. Raka stood in the middle of an aisle of empty pet food shelves, trying to take his first steps without assistance. Thump... click.81,452 Thump... click.81,451 Every step he took felt unnatural. His center of gravity had shifted. Raka felt as if someone had strapped a five-kilogram dumbbell directly to his ribs. "Damn it," Raka cursed softly. His body swayed slightly to the left as he tried to quicken his pace. He immediately corrected his posture, holding his breath to stabilize himself. BPM: 70. "Don't slouch, Raka," Vanya's voice came from the reception desk, which she had converted into an observation station. The woman in the white coat was sipping her self-brewed Robusta coffee while typing something on her tablet.
Chapter 74: Starving Guests
"It's been two days," Raka grumbled as he scraped at the residual dust in the empty cat food shelf. "Not even a mutant rat wants to stop by here. We're completely out of calories. This reactor battery in my chest can't run on air and good intentions." Click-whirrr.80,995 Vanya, who was packing some leftover bandages and surgical tools into her black backpack, snorted softly without looking up. "You forget, Raka. Your cyborg metabolism burns calories ten times faster than a normal human's to keep that micro-controller cool. That's the price you pay for not dying on the operating table." "Thanks for the biology lecture, Doc," Raka retorted sarcastically, his stomach growling loudly. "Any suggestions on where we can find a drive-thru that's still open in this apocalypse?" Near the back door they had planned as their escape route, Luna was sitting cross-legged, her eyes close
Chapter 75: Head Explosion
Raka still stood frozen, his eyes wide as he stared at the two giant mutant dog heads jamming the bent rolling door. The silver cylinder had rolled to a stop right under their jaws, which were dripping with thick saliva. WIIIIIIIIIIINNNNNGGGGGG! The sound exploded. It wasn't a thunderous gunpowder explosion like the C4 bomb at the Sentosa Warehouse. This sound was an ultra-high frequency that was almost beyond the threshold of human hearing. The air inside the clinic's waiting room felt like it was solidifying. An acoustic wave slammed into Raka like an invisible wall of solid glass. Raka immediately dropped to his knees, pressing both hands against his ears with all his might, but it wasn't enough. His eardrums felt like they were being pierced by thousands of micro-sized ice needles spun by an electric drill. An incredibly sharp, agoniz
Chapter 76: The Mechanic's Garage
"We don't have much time before another reconnaissance drone picks up the heat anomaly from that explosion or the electromagnetic signal from my chest." Raka warned, leading the way through a narrow, dark alley filled with wet trash. Click-whirrr.80,600 His mechanical heart beat steadily at 60 BPM. His right shoulder still throbbed with pain, but it wasn't as severe as the day before, thanks to the tight bandage Luna had applied and the partial nerve damage from the side effects of Vanya's surgery. Luna walked silently beside him, her new compound bow slung over her shoulder. Her eyes watched every shadow that moved in the night wind. Behind them, Vanya walked casually, tinkering with her tablet. She was completely unaffected by the horrors of the outside world. Meanwhile, Baginda limped along, constantly grunting in annoyance at having its deep sleep
Chapter 77: Jumper Cables
"Oh, of course, Captain," Vanya chimed in, raising both hands in a mock surrender, but her eyes remained locked on Raka's chest. "I was just thinking of the most efficient, practical, and closest solution." Vanya pointed at the beating black reactor inside Raka's chest with the tip of her stethoscope. "Inside that chest cavity of yours," Vanya explained, her eyes sparkling, "is embedded the core reactor of an A.E.G.I.S military drone. That machine stores a reserve power designed to run the drone's propellers and weapon systems for hours. Its electrical capacity is massive, Raka." Raka took a step back, his eyes widening in horror as he realized where this conversation was heading. "Don't tell me..." "Precisely!" Vanya clapped her hands once, cheerfully. "We just need a pair of jumper cables. I can connect the positive and negative poles of the reactor in your chest directly to th
Chapter 78: Modifying the Moving Fortress
CLANK! TRANG! BZZZTT! The sounds of a hammer hitting steel plates and the sparks from an argon welding machine filled the "Baja Mandiri" garage for the past twenty-four hours. They were in a race against time. Every second wasted was an opportunity for an A.E.G.I.S Corporate drone to track the residual radiation from yesterday's explosion, or for a Horde of monsters to smell the scent of humans in this garage. Raka stood beside the driver's door of the medium expedition truck, wiping a mixture of sweat and soot from his forehead. His dirty shirt was open, revealing the steady, flashing red number on his chest. Click-whirrr.79,200 His mechanical heart worked efficiently at 60 BPM, a physically torturous limit but one that proved to be a lifesaver. Raka couldn't run fast, couldn't lift heavy weights that required a burst of energy,
Chapter 79: The Deadly Test Drive
"Is everyone ready?" Raka shouted from behind the wheel of the expedition truck that had been transformed into a moving fortress. His sweaty hands gripped the thick, tape-wrapped steering wheel tightly. In the passenger seat to his left, Baginda the mutant goose had won the silent argument. The fowl sat comfortably in its nest of torn foam, its beak peeking out from behind the iron bars Luna had just welded onto the window. "Ready in the back, Captain!" Vanya replied from inside the cargo bed, which was enclosed by corrugated metal plates. The woman had turned the spacious cargo area into a makeshift mobile laboratory and command center, complete with dim LED lights and monitors connected to her futuristic glasses. Luna, who had conceded to Baginda's stubbornness, stood in the narrow gap between the driver's and passenger's seats. The mute girl held a firm stance, her compound bow slung over her back, both hands gripping an iron handle welded to the cabin's roof. She gave Raka