Defending Aiden
She was deep in thought when the first shot was fired, but her ocular implant saw it all. It wasn't a standard kinetic discharge. The blue and red energy blasts shooting from the enforcers' Plasma Dampener Projectors (PDPs) were not meant to kill, but to overload and incapacitate cybernetics. The Red-spectrum discharge targeted the crowd's Bio-Synaptic connections, inducing seizure-like spasms, while the Blue-spectrum charge was a targeted EMP burst designed to fry non-shielded internal components.
Her mind raced at the speed of light: was it an accident or was it intentional? The PDPs had fired simultaneously on a command override, bypassing the human supervisor's authority. 99.99\% probability of deliberate hostile escalation, BDJ noted in her neural stream.
Before she could overthink anything, she had to move into action. The problem was, she still was not sure of right and wrong. Instead of trying to destroy, she decided to protect. She activated a low-power acoustic scrambler to disrupt the PDP targeting arrays and began moving civilians toward the structural pillars for safety.
Lyra stopped her deep dive into the Subaquilus Ore analysis to watch it all. She shook her head lightly; this was what both fascinated her about Jackie and caused her to pity Jackie. Self-preservation subroutine perpetually deactivated, Lyra analyzed, her ruby eyes reflecting the neon chaos.
Jackie moved to match a fully robotic enforcer—a Sentinel-Class M2 unit—as it moved too close to Aiden, its servos whirring aggressively, the noise a high-pitched metallic scream over the muffled shouts. Jackie reacted instinctively, stepping into the line of motion.
"Hey! Step back!" she called, projecting calm authority, her voice automatically amplified and tailored with a specific 20\text{Hz} sub-bass frequency designed to command attention from mechanized units.
The robot paused, its optical sensors freezing on her. It ran a Level 4 Biometric and Neural-Signature Scan. The robotic enforcer spoke, its digitized voice calm and formal, devoid of any inflection: "Cyborg: Jackie Cannon recognized. Designation: Alpha-Prime Asset. Current directive: Do not harm, allow to pass."
The Sentinel-Class M2 unit shifted aside, its heavy chassis grinding on the SDP, allowing her to approach Aiden safely.
Both she and Aiden were confused by the situation, but neither had time to react or think about the chilling implications of that designation.
She quickly positioned herself between the advancing enforcers and the cluster of civilians. Her ocular system flared subtly as it mapped the trajectory of incoming Blue and Red charges. BDJ guided her: "Energy matrix recalibrated. Drawing 45\% total available power from internal capacitor bank. Shield projection sequence available."
A translucent, bluish energy barrier shimmered into existence, enveloping the cluster of humans in a roughly 3\text{-meter diameter} hemisphere. This was her Ablative Energy Field (AEF)—a system capable of momentarily condensing ambient kinetic energy into a stable field. It intercepted the PDP strikes. Sparks—a brilliant mix of crimson and electric blue—flickered violently against the surface of her shield, dissipating the high-frequency energy harmlessly into the surrounding dome air. The heat spike registered a staggering 2,000\text{ degrees Kelvin} at the point of impact, but the field held.
"The field is performing 12\% above baseline expectation," BDJ reported, its tone a mix of excitement and concern. "The initial stress load appears to have catalyzed a subroutine upgrade within the AEF's internal Cryo-Cooling Loops."
Her systems had undergone another stress-related upgrade. Her eyes shifted about as she felt like the Nexus Directive and Resistance would see all her secrets and she would become trapped—a specimen under the omnipresent lens of the corporation and the desperate watch of the rebels. Every spike is a tracer, every shield pulse is a signature. I am exposing my own source code with every action.
But she couldn't think about herself and continued to ensure that the people around her were all safe. She watched Aiden's face.
Aiden's eyes widened, gratitude and astonishment mixing in his expression. His Torso Stabilization Unit (TSU) would have been completely fried by a single Blue-spectrum discharge, leaving him immobile. He understood the stakes better than anyone.
"Thanks… didn't expect a Nexus Alpha to get involved," he said quietly, his voice raspy. He quickly keyed a command on his integrated forearm terminal, sending a coded burst signal to the other protesters: 'STAND DOWN. PROTECTED.'
Jackie shook her head, dismissing his praise. "No problem. Stay low," she murmured, scanning the surrounding crowd and the Sentinel units. Her system adapted in real time, analyzing stress points in the enforcer units' Ablative Ceramic Armor and dynamically adjusting the shield's strength where needed, reinforcing the field against potential kinetic counter-attacks.
The confrontation ended as quickly as it had begun. Nexus Directive higher-ups receiving calls to squash the tension and withdraw the enforcers. BDJ intercepted the incoming telemetry. "CALL-SIGN-OVERSIGHT-3 has issued PRIORITY-LEVEL-ONE-RETREAT. All PDP fire ceased. Sentinel units disengaging."
The robotic enforcers immediately ceased fire, their charging indicators turning a cold, neutral white. They began an organized, almost unnervingly swift withdrawal from the plaza. The protesters were shocked, but they were also happy. It seemed an odd victory, very odd—a sudden, corporate-mandated halt to violence—but they would take any victory that they could get.
The crowd calmed, the robots retracted, and Aiden looked at Jackie with renewed respect. "You're one of them, but you shielded us. Why?" he asked, his cybernetic grip tightening on his wrist, a question that cut to the core of her internal conflict.
She gave a small nod and a faint smile, already noting improvements to her ocular interface and shield projection for next time: Reduced power draw on AEF by 15\% for equivalent energy dispersion.
"I am not one of them." She shrugged, her right shoulder cybernetics hissing with the motion. It wasn't a lie but it felt so hollow, why didn't she know what side she wanted to be on yet, why was it so complicated?
She knew the truth. It was a victory of sorts, but seeing all the calls followed by eyes on her, she knew she had exposed herself even more. That designation—Alpha-Prime Asset—had overridden the Sentinels' violent mandate. It meant Nexus had custom-coded her into their security architecture, granting her immunity, but simultaneously tracing her every move. This tug of war was becoming more and more taxing, and as she allowed for more to be revealed about herself, BDJ, and her constantly upgrading adaptive systems and abilities, she set herself up to be wanted all the more.
I am not a shield for hire, nor am I am a weapon, iI choose who and what I am, and as I try to figure these things out everyone knows my trajectory, she thought bitterly. She knew that the high-level communications that forced the retreat were not about saving lives; they were about protecting a potential asset. She also knew if she chose the other side she would be hunted and destroyed.
Lyra broke her silence. "Jackie. new high-priority tracers have locked onto your location: two from Nexus Central Command, one from an unregistered IP cluster near the Mine Shaft C-4-Delta. Your exposure level is critical. We need to move, now." The victory felt cold and brief, overshadowed by the sudden, intense spotlight now focused directly on the Alpha-Prime Asset.