Directive Breach
White-hot pain tore through Jackie's human left side, a consequence of the BDJ system's stress. Two gunmetal drones lunged from opposite directions in the VR simulator, their servos whining. Three weeks ago, she was just a civilian. Now, she was a Blue Diamond Cyborg, forced into this combat environment by the ruthless Zero-Death Protocol.
She felt the cybernetic right leg tense and coil. It wasn't that she felt the alloy, but her mind processed the raw data—every slip, every spin of the internal workings—as she launched into a precise lateral dash, avoiding the drone that landed where she had stood moments before.
The scent of high-tech lubricating salve—an odd mix of citrus and motor oil—stung her human eye. She spared the briefest glance upward: a perfect replica of the Naya Kasol inner district, all angular spires and deep shadows carved into the side of the mountain. Sparks sizzled across the metal street from two drones she'd already destroyed, the smell of ozone and burning circuitry thick in the air.
Her pulse cannon shuddered. The weapon, a transformation of her Blue Diamond alloy right arm, was overheating as she fired blindly. Sparks exploded against the first drone's chassis.
"Breach of protocol! Stop using that weapon so much, Jackie!" Gregor's voice thundered through her comm. "You do not have a Directive Override clearance, and it strains your cybernetic core!"
Jackie grit her teeth, adrenaline flaring. She swung the cannon in a wide arc. The Blue Diamond alloy pulsed, a bright beacon in the darkness. The silver light of her internal relays flashed up her neck, signaling a process running beneath the Nexus operating system. The weapon discharged again, smooth as silk, as if of its own accord. The energy pulse cracked the first drone's plating.
The second drone closed the gap, and Jackie rolled forward. Her flesh-and-blood body protested; her cybernetic side remained rigid.
"Damaged nervous system… repairing. Ocular system… realigning. Evolution occurring… Neural Bleed detected…"
A broken whisper flitted through her neural net—faint, soft against the alarms, but undeniable. Jackie's mind froze.
Orion cried out, a raw sound of sheer agony that cut through his suit's internal sound dampeners. He slammed a fist against his helmet, synthetic life-preserving fluid instantly seeping from the corners of his visor, ears, and mouth as he forced a dampening field to engage, muffling the psychic scream of the crystal.
The Subaquilus crystal hummed violently, a physical tremor Jackie could feel through her boots, ready to turn the cavern into a weapon.
A metallic impact slammed her from behind. She hit the ground hard, her flesh and blood shoulder taking the blow. Darkness blurred her vision.
Then—a strange clarity. A silent process activated, overriding the Nexus input. The Directive's synthesized voice was muted, drowned beneath the system whisper:
"Tracking… trajectory… merging… Directive Override in progress…"
Jackie's vision pulsed painfully. Her ocular implant hummed, calculating trajectories and predicting enemy movements, guided by an instinct she didn't yet understand.
"This is ridiculous! Comply with the parameters, Cyborg!" Gregor's voice cracked.
Her ocular implant surged into action, mapping trajectories and predicting enemy movements—an involuntary upgrade she didn't understand. A faint, elusive pulse flickered at the edge of her vision, a heat trace she didn't recognize.
'What's going on…'
Jackie struggled to roll onto her back. Her arm, mangled and fused into a broken cannon, twitched with residual current. Her system whispered, almost teasing:
"An anomaly detected… would you like to open Directive Status Window?"
Before she could comprehend the question, the world melted away, the VR dissolving into humid air. She lay on a muted silver metallic floor. The heat traces vanished. Her mangled arm was pristine Blue Diamond alloy once more.
Her human left side pulsed with true, aching pain. Her cybernetic right side pulsed with energy, change, and unique evolution.
She was still breathing. She was still fighting. And for the first time, Jackie knew she was not just surviving the simulation—she was beginning to break it.