The operating theater in Zurich did not smell like a hospital. It smelled like a server room—ozone, sterilized plastic, and the dry, recycled air of high-end electronics.
Rio lay naked on a table of brushed steel, his body a map of sensors and wires. The room was freezing. Dr. Lena Vogel had explained that lowering his core temperature to 32°C was necessary to reduce metabolic demand during the procedure. He was already shivering, his teeth chattering in a rhythm that matched the frantic beep of the heart monitor.
[HEART RATE: 145 BPM]Status: Pre-Operative Panic.
Standing behind the glass observation wall, Guntur Wijaya watched with his arms crossed. He looked like a man watching a volatile stock ticker. He wasn't praying; he was calculating.
"Explain the device again," Rio whispered, his voice trembling as a nurse swabbed his chest with icy iodine.
Dr. Vogel stepped into his field of vision. She wore a surgical mask that hid everything but her cold, grey eyes. In her gloved hands, she held a small, metallic container.
"The human heart is a pump," she said, her voice distorted by the mask. "Yours is a pump with weak walls. It expands, but it cannot contract with enough force without damaging itself."
She opened the container. Inside sat a web of silver filaments, fine as spider silk, pulsing with a faint, rhythmic light.
"This is Protocol X. It is a Nanofiber Myocardial Mesh. We will not replace your heart, Mr. Valdes. We will wrap it. This mesh will act as an external muscle layer, contracting in sync with your natural rhythm. It will hold your ventricle together when you push past human limits."
She paused, looking down at him.
"It is not approved for human use. If the synchronization fails, the mesh will constrict your heart like a python. You will die instantly."
Rio looked at the silver web. It looked alien. It looked expensive. It looked like a cage.
"Will I be able to run?"
"If you survive the integration," Vogel said, "you will be able to run until your legs break. Your heart will no longer be the weak link."
She nodded to the anesthesiologist.
"Initiating anesthesia. Protocol X start in T-minus 10 seconds."
Rio looked at the ceiling. The lights blurred.
Specter, he called out in his mind.
I'm here, kid, the ghost's voice echoed, sounding distant, like a radio signal losing frequency. The System detects a massive foreign invasion. It's going to fight the mesh. You have to tell it to accept the upgrade. You have to fight the rejection.
"Count backward from ten," the doctor ordered.
"Ten..." Rio whispered.
[SYSTEM ALERT][FOREIGN BIOLOGICAL INTRUSION DETECTED][INITIATING IMMUNE REJECTION...]
"Nine..."
No, Rio thought, his consciousness fading into a heavy, black fog. Don't reject it. Consume it.
"Eight..."
The world turned black.
THE SYSTEM DREAMSCAPE
Rio wasn't asleep. He was online.
He found himself standing in a void. It wasn't the usual dark locker room where he met Specter. This was a digital abyss, a space constructed of raw code and flowing blue data streams.
In front of him floated a massive, holographic representation of his own heart.
It was hideous.
The organ was swollen, angry, and scarred. It beat with a jagged, painful rhythm—thump-crunch, thump-crunch. It looked like an engine that had been run without oil for years.
Surrounding the heart were thousands of red warning lights.
[BIOLOGICAL INTEGRITY: 12%][CRITICAL FAILURE IMMINENT]
Suddenly, the void turned red. Massive silver chains—the Nanofiber Mesh—erupted from the darkness. They wrapped around the holographic heart, squeezing it, trying to force it into a stable rhythm.
The System screamed.
[WARNING: UNAUTHORIZED HARDWARE][SYSTEM INCOMPATIBILITY][PROTOCOL: REJECT]
The holographic heart began to fight the silver chains. It pulsed violently, trying to tear the mesh apart. Rio felt the pain in his phantom body—a crushing pressure, as if his chest were being put in a vice.
If the System rejected the mesh, his real body would go into anaphylactic shock and die on the table.
"Control it!" Specter's voice boomed from everywhere and nowhere. "The System thinks the mesh is a virus! You have to override the admin privileges!"
Rio sprinted toward the giant, beating heart.
"How?!"
"It costs Lifespan!" Specter yelled. "You have to pay for the compatibility patch! Check your balance!"
Rio summoned his interface.
[CURRENT LIFESPAN: 05 Days, 11 Hours]
He had nothing left. If he spent days now, he would wake up dead.
"I have no days!" Rio screamed.
"Then pay with something else!" Specter roared. "The System accepts Potential! Sacrifice your stats! Sacrifice your skills!"
Rio froze. Sacrifice skills?
The silver chains were tightening. The heart was turning purple. The rejection was nearly complete.
Rio looked at his skill list.
[Flash Step (Evolved: Lightning Stride)] - No, I need speed.
[Eagle Eye] - No, I need vision.
[Last Line Dive] - No, I need defense.
His eyes fell on a passive skill he had acquired long ago, one he rarely thought about because it was automatic.
[SKILL: BASIC BALL CONTROL (Rank D)]
It was the foundation of his touch. If he sacrificed this, he would lose his natural feel for the ball. He would be clumsy. He would have to relearn how to trap a pass from scratch.
But I'll be alive.
"Take it!" Rio screamed at the void. "Take the technique! Give me the engine!"
He reached out and ripped the [BASIC BALL CONTROL] icon from his interface. He threw it into the pulsing red core of the holographic heart.
The icon shattered into data dust.
The System paused.
[SACRIFICE ACCEPTED][REWRITING NEURAL PATHWAYS...][INTEGRATING HARDWARE: NANOFIBER MESH]
The silver chains stopped squeezing and started glowing. They fused with the heart muscle, turning from a cage into a supportive exoskeleton. The jagged rhythm smoothed out.
Thump-thump. Thump-thump.
It was strong. It was mechanical. It was perfect.
[INTEGRATION SUCCESSFUL][NEW ATTRIBUTE UNLOCKED: CYBERNETIC ENDURANCE]
Rio fell to his knees in the void, watching the new, silver-veined heart beat with the power of a piston.
THE REBOOT
Zurich. Recovery Room.Time Unknown.
Waking up felt like drowning in ice water.
Rio gasped, his eyes snapping open. His body convulsed, arching off the bed.
"Stabilize him!" Dr. Vogel's voice was sharp.
Strong hands pinned his shoulders down. He blinked, trying to clear the white spots from his vision.
He was back in the white room. But it felt different.
He felt... heavy.
His chest felt solid. The fluttering sensation—the constant, bird-like panic that had defined his life for months—was gone. In its place was a rhythmic, powerful thud that vibrated through his entire torso.
Thud. Thud. Thud.
It didn't feel human. It felt like a clock.
"Mr. Valdes?" Dr. Vogel leaned over him, shining a light into his eyes. "Can you hear me?"
Rio nodded slowly. "I can... hear it," he whispered. "The ticking."
"That is the mesh," Vogel said, checking the monitor. "It is synchronized. Your resting heart rate is 45 BPM. That is elite athlete territory."
She stepped back, looking at him with a mix of scientific pride and something bordering on fear.
"You died on the table, Rio. For eighteen seconds. Your body tried to reject the mesh. And then... it just stopped. Your physiology rewrote itself. It was impossible."
Guntur stepped forward from the shadows. He looked like he hadn't slept in three days.
"The cost?" Rio asked immediately.
Guntur looked at the doctor. Vogel tapped her tablet.
"Physically? You have lost significant fine motor control. The neural pathways connecting your brain to your feet have been... disrupted by the trauma. You will be clumsy. You will need to relearn how to touch the ball."
Rio closed his eyes. The sacrifice of [Basic Ball Control] was real. He had the engine of a Ferrari, but the steering wheel of a tractor.
"And the time?" Rio asked.
He summoned the System interface.
[SYSTEM REBOOT COMPLETE][PROTOCOL X: SUCCESS][SURVIVAL BONUS AWARDED: +14 DAYS]
[CURRENT LIFESPAN: 19 Days, 11 Hours]
He had gained two weeks. The "Survival Bonus" for enduring the surgery had saved him from immediate bankruptcy.
Nineteen days.
It wasn't a lot. But with a Bionic Heart, nineteen days might be enough to conquer the world.
"When can I train?" Rio asked, trying to sit up. His muscles screamed, but his heart... his heart didn't even flutter.
Guntur threw a football onto the bed.
"Now," Guntur said. "You have five months until the World Cup. You have a heart that won't explode, but you have the touch of a donkey. You need to relearn football from zero."
Rio looked at the ball. He reached out to touch it. It felt foreign, slippery, unconnected to his instincts.
He smiled. A cold, mechanical smile.
"Then we start at zero," Rio said. "I don't need talent. I have time."