Sparks in the Sim
White-hot pain tore through Jackie's body as the two cybernetic drones lunged from opposite directions. Her muscles screamed, servos groaned, and sweat poured down her temple into her human eye, stinging. She knew she was in a VR but it was all still so new to her. This new life of hers had only just started three short weeks ago.
Three weeks ago she couldn't Walk and could hardly stand for more than two minutes. Now she was in a high-tech VR system like none she had ever seen before.
She felt her cybernetic leg tense then coil, to quickly straighten so that she dashed to the side to avoid one of the drones as it landed where she had just stood. It was not that she could feel her cybernetics it was more that her mind processed every motion, every slip and spin of the inner workings.
She staggered a bit as she landed her human knee wobbling as her cybernetic one held firm. She smelled the high-tech lubricating salve she has just applied this morning. It was a mix of an odd citrus and motor oil.
She looked up for the briefest of moments. The cityscape carved deep into the side of the mountain. Tall angular spires, neon lights and layers of traffic moving in the distance. It was a perfect replica of Naya Kasol's inner districts.
Sparks sizzled across the metal streets from broken drones, she had already destroyed, the smell of ozone and burning circuitry thick in the air.
Her pulse cannon shuddered. It was her cybernetic arm transformed and it was now overheating as she fired blindly at the first drone that had landed. Sparks exploded against its chassis, but the second one moved faster than expected. A metallic whine grated within her ears, and her heart pounded.
"Stop using that new weapon of yours so much!" Gregor's voice thundered through her comm. "You don't fully understand it, and it puts too much strain on your cybernetic systems!"
Jackie grit her teeth, frustration flaring alongside adrenaline. "What? Should I use my teeth then?" she muttered under her breath.
She swung her cannon in a wide arc. The blue alloy shining in the darkness like a beacon. The silver light of her relays running up and down its barrel to her shoulder and up her neck as if informing her processing systems of something crucial.
It discharged again, smooth as silk, without any recoil and as if of its own accord. Sparks danced along its barrel as the energy pulse struck the first drone with enough force to crack its plating. The second drone tried to close the gap, but Jackie rolled forward, narrowly avoiding a crushing mechanical punch. Her servos protested, her body trembling under the stress.
"Damaged nervous system… repairing. Ocular system… realigning. Evolution occurring… Evolution—"
A broken whisper flitted through her ear. It was faint, soft against the cacophony of alarms, but unmistakable. Jackie's mind froze for a fraction of a second as she rolled away from danger.
She stood, suddenly spun, and fired again. The first drone had already crumpled and lay motionless. The second staggered under a direct hit. Nexus Directive's cold metallic voice sliced through the static: "All systems critical… but usable."
Jackie's head pounded. Sweat blurred the edge of her vision. Her ocular implant caught a flicker in the corner—a faint pulse, heat traces she couldn't explain. Am I imagining it?
Before she could react further, a metallic impact slammed her from behind. Her head snapped back and her body skidded across the cracked neon street, sparks spraying from her metallic hand as she instinctively reached down to slow her motion. Gaining purchase she effortlessly flipped, she fired two desperate shots—but the cannon exploded midair. It coughed smoke up into the air, blue alloy jagged and curly outwards, and wires dangling like broken veins.
Pain radiated up her arm as she hit the ground hard. Her flesh and blood side landing om its shoulder. Darkness blurred her vision. And then—a strange clarity.
A system activated, overriding the Nexus input silently. The Directive's voice was still present, but muted, drowned beneath the same whisper as before. Her own internal system spoke, calm, calculating:
"Tracking… trajectory… merging… evolution in progress…"
Jackie's vision pulsed painfully. The world bent in and out of focus as this new system ran diagnostics, mapping drone trajectories, environmental heat, and movement patterns. Her ocular implant hummed in synchrony with the system's calculations. She was slipping in and out of consciousness, yet somehow her body responded, guided by an instinct she didn't yet understand.
"This is ridiculous!" Gregor's voice cracked through the comm. "No matter what, you're a cyborg — listen to directions!"
Her teeth clenched. Every word drove adrenaline into her being, sparking an uneasy cocktail of fear and exhilaration. Her system tracked two sets of surveillance signatures in the arena: one obvious—Nexus Directive—but another, faint and elusive, pulsing like a shadow. Her system cataloged the anomaly, but she could barely process it through the blur of pain.
Sweat stung her eye again. Sparks from a destroyed drone lit the arena like broken stars. Her arm twitched with residual current. Her ocular implant surged into action, mapping trajectories and predicting enemy movements—an involuntary upgrade she didn't understand.
'what's going on…' Her mind tried to process things but she was in too much pain and the events were top strange.
Jackie struggled to roll onto her back. Wires dangled from her mangled arm now partially an arm and partially a cannon. Sparks occasionally arcing into the ground as it tried to move back into on of the forms as if it were confused as to which one was its true form. Her system whispered again, almost teasing:
"An anomaly detected… would you like to open status window?"
Her lips parted, but she couldn't form words. The thought repeated in her head: Open status window? Isn't my status window already open? Doesn't the status window stay open?
Suddenly it all began to register as if a data stream had just been opened before her. The soft whisper talking about being a system and reporting. It wasn't the Nexus Directives system talking in its gruff electronic voice.
Pain pulsed in her ocular implant as it flickered, scanning the arena for threats. Two heat signatures danced across the neon streets—one aligned with Nexus surveillance, the other subtle, almost hidden. She didn't recognize it. Yet something about the second trace felt… deliberate, intelligent.
Jackie's vision blurred. The smoke, sparks, and shattered neon fused into a kaleidoscope of light and shadow. Her system continued its silent evolution, mapping, scanning, calculating—all beyond her comprehension, yet guiding her body to react.
A shadow moved in the corner of her vision. Tall, steady, a figure observing from the periphery, unregistered by Nexus. She couldn't tell who—or what—it was—but the system highlighted it subtly, almost instinctively.
Then darkness. Silence.
And in the void, a whisper, faint and persistent:
"Blue Diamond Cyborg Jackie Systems coming online.
"System anomaly detected… Processing new integration…
"Core systems aligning.
"Integration in process."
Jackie's heart raced. Her vision flickered one last time, catching a hint of a code pulsing in her ocular implant—a trace of something watching, someone waiting. She wasn't alone.
When the world returned, the VR melting away like ice cream on a humid day, she lay, barely conscious on a muted silver metallic floor. She had used her mental functions beyond safe parameters. She allowed her brain to stay too tight, made it calculate too quickly and now she was paying the price, oblivion.
The cityscape was no more, her mangled arm was no longer mangled. The blue metal and silver coiling wires all pristine. Only the running light had changed and only her human half, the left half of her body, pulsed with true pain.
The right side pulsed with energy, change, and unique evolution.
She was still breathing. She was still fighting.
And for the first time, Jackie realized she might not just survive the sim—she might change it.