Central A Assignment
Jackie leaned back slightly, letting the hum and motion of the sliding path settle beneath her. Her ocular implant flickered, scanning the surroundings again, but her attention kept returning to BDJ's last whisper, her system had fully integrated. Faster than she had anticipated. Her heart raced—not with fear, but with a precise, measured excitement. This wasn't just a minor upgrade; or, at least she thought it wasn't. If she were honest with herself she was not sure what would happen next. She had never heard of a cyborg like herself but the truth was, she was new to this world.
Cyborgs were always separate, some idolized, and some thought to just be labor, but all were a separate world from the population of unenhanced.
She took a calming breath and made herself focus. The central section awaited, and the island's recalibration wouldn't complete itself. One thing at a time. She could admire the integration later. For now, there was work to do.
BDJ's whisper was quiet but insistent, signaled the shift from passive observer to hydraulic lab worker. Central A, C-D, B-3 assigned. Red cyborg check-in complete. Observe, adapt.
Jackie's gaze flicked upward, noting the Red cyborg stationed at the junction of the first sector. Its black metal alloy glinted under the filtered light of the overhead dome. She remembered BDJ's earlier clarification: the color designation was not cosmetic. The color added to cyborg classification explained the cyborg's mental functioning at time of cybernetic acquisition. The Red cyborg's black alloy was an upgrade and a choice.
Her own blue cybernetics felt anomalous in contrast—elegant but clearly different from standard Nexus directives. An anomaly among anomalies, BDJ murmured in her mind.
"The blue silver allow of unit Jackie Cannon was a manifestation of the nanobot population within the unit. These nanobots have been created with the new ore discovered on the floor of the world's oceans. The Jackie Cannon unit is the first cyborg to have them."
She almost stopped in her tracks. The sliding sidewalk somehow calming her. Her ocular implant whirled to look at Sura, she was unfazed, standing perfectly still and continuing her observations.
Jackie moved deeper into the central, leaving most of the other human traffic in the outer levels. She finally reached Central A, eyes scanning every conduit, pipe, and support beam in the labyrinthine sector. Even from this height, the subtle wear-and-tear on the suspension supports was noticeable—a microfracture forming near the junction of a maintenance hatch, vibrations faintly amplifying through the metallic plate below. She made a mental note, cataloging the anomaly without alerting Sura to her awareness.
The first task came unexpectedly. A pedestrian transport vehicle had stalled mid-slide on the elevated track above her, its energy lines sparking faintly. The cause appeared minor—a misalignment in the hover magnetic rails—but the consequences could cascade into pedestrian collisions if not resolved. Jackie turned her path toward the vehicle, activating the ocular-weapon overlay for micro-manipulation. Though she had not explicitly revealed her full capabilities, she allowed a small magnetic pulse to realign the hover rails.
BDJ noted: Efficiency: 97.2%. Energy draw minimal. Motion recalibration successful.
The vehicle resumed its glide, smooth and silent. Jackie exhaled, letting her shoulders relax for a fraction of a second before BDJ's next reminder intruded: "Maintain this trajectory. At next junction follow grey path to left to lead to, Next sector: Central C-D. Sura still passive. Observation continues."
Her path led her through an archway lined with semi-transparent panels that filtered the sun in geometric patterns. The arches themselves were of unusual design, blending sharp, angular bases with gently pointed tips reminiscent of ancient Japanese architecture. Sunlight caught in the angles, forming a lattice of shadow and light across the gray sliding paths. Jackie's ocular system recorded, analyzed, and highlighted weak points in the material integrity, generating a mental map of potential hazards.
Nexus Directive's AI chiming in as she completed the task:
Sector map updated: Structural anomalies minor. Human risk negligible.
As she moved, her mind processed multiple streams of information simultaneously: the city layout, pedestrian flow, the microfractures she had noticed earlier, and Sura's passive observation. BDJ's interface allowed her to parse probabilities at a rate she could barely articulate consciously. Thousand-point calculations condensed into a single choice: Sura remained non-intrusive, yet the potential for a passive observer to become a liability if an incident occurred was nonzero.
Jackie adjusted her pace, letting the ocular scan sweep in a wider radius, highlighting weak energy conduits along the edges of the city. Microfractures that might have gone unnoticed were cataloged, and she tagged them for maintenance intervention. BDJ whispered the potential consequences, calculations running in tandem with her mental acuity: "Cascade failure probability: 0.032%. Immediate threat: negligible. Recommended: monitor."
By the time she reached the junction leading to Central C-D, Jackie's internal systems had already begun modeling potential structural anomalies across the entire Central A sector. Her mind felt heavy with calculations, yet clarity remained: she could see the patterns, understand stress points, and predict cascading failures before they manifested.
From the periphery, a faint shimmer indicated Sura adjusting her position on a high ledge, still passive but following Jackie's path with an intensity that bordered on curiosity. Jackie's ocular system picked up subtle neural echoes—minute changes in the observer's focus that suggested interest, not threat.
Observation: confirmed. Probability of passive intervention: 0.008%. Continue monitoring.
Jackie's steps slowed as she approached the next sector. A series of energy conduits hung overhead, conduits that transmitted power from the city's central core to the surrounding districts. BDJ highlighted an irregularity in the conduit insulation: a small arc of exposed wiring sparked intermittently. Though minor, the risk was cumulative if left unchecked.
Jackie reached up, letting her fingers graze the conduit. Her ocular system emitted a faint pulse, detecting energy flow and pinpointing an optimal route for manual adjustment. She didn't need to reveal her full cybernetic strength, so she applied a delicate touch, stabilizing the arc without alerting nearby humans to the intervention.
Action complete. Energy flow: stabilized. Risk mitigated.
BDJ murmured a note about her evolving ocular capabilities: Micro-manipulation efficiency: 88.6%. Neural adaptation observed. Evolution: ongoing.
She continued toward Central C-D, mentally cataloging each anomaly, each pedestrian flow disruption, each minor hazard. The city beneath the hovering plates moved in choreographed chaos: humans, cyborgs, automated vehicles, all interacting with an unspoken rhythm. Jackie felt herself adapting to the rhythm, seeing it not as a crowd but as a lattice of probabilities, each node representing a choice, a risk, or a hazard.
At the entrance to Central C-D, a minor tremor rattled the plates beneath her feet. BDJ's alert pulsed: Stress detected. Minor structural variance. Monitor closely.
Jackie glanced upward to see a series of maintenance drones skimming the overhead paths. One had misaligned its trajectory slightly, and the tremor had propagated through the suspension system. Calculating risk and reaction time, Jackie allowed a controlled, small-scale pulse from her ocular interface to nudge the drone back into alignment. It responded instantly, gliding along its intended path without incident.
BDJ noted: Structural stress mitigated. Probability of cascade failure: reduced by 0.029%.
Jackie exhaled, letting herself move into Central C-D fully, unaware that this sector held the first major anomaly that would eventually test not just her ocular evolution, but her mental acuity and reflexes under pressure.
From above, Sura adjusted her posture, leaning slightly over the ledge to maintain line-of-sight. Even in passive observation, the young woman's curiosity was undeniable, and Jackie's evolving ocular systems caught the subtle changes, logging them as potential variables in the wider system of monitoring.
The metallic gray path ahead twisted and dipped, leading her deeper into the heart of Central C-D. Arches stretched overhead, some of them damaged from previous wear and tear. Panels along the edges flickered as energy fluctuations surged from the core. Jackie's fingers brushed against a railing, feeling vibrations translate through her cybernetic interface. Subtle at first, but increasing in amplitude.
BDJ whispered in her mind: Stress distribution anomaly detected. Microfracture propagation at edges. Probability of minor collapse: 0.47%. Recommend continued monitoring.
Jackie's mind raced. She mapped out multiple intervention strategies, running simulations internally, each one branching into dozens of probabilities. Her ocular evolution continued subtly, detecting data streams flowing not just physically through conduits, but digitally as well. Somewhere in the system, Tally was active, controlling data within the sector—but Jackie had not yet identified the source.
Her mind calculated: Sura's passive observation, the minor stress points, the drones overhead, the energy conduits—all intersecting probabilities converging in the central sector. Jackie moved carefully, steps deliberate but calculated, ready to respond should anything escalate.
The first minor collapse occurred just as she reached the core of Central C-D: a small section of flooring near the pedestrian transport hatch cracked, panels tilting dangerously. Jackie's ocular interface flared, identifying the fault lines in real time.
BDJ's note was calm but urgent: Immediate intervention required. Structural stress critical in localized zone.
Jackie extended a hand, applying a precise force pulse through her cybernetic arm to stabilize the panels. Sparks flew from stress points as metal realigned. Pedestrians above barely noticed the micro-event, unaware of the intervention.
Sura's eyes widened. Even as a passive observer, the young woman couldn't hide the awe. Jackie's blue plating gleamed faintly, micro-servos whirring, but she didn't slow down, didn't hesitate.