Thread:Riley Heligo/@comment-362861-20150602194316/@comment-809585-20150602204938

As I said, it's vague. It was never flat out said he never complied, the idea of the 'programming' was also never really detailed much in the entire series when it was the original timeline, it's possible Cyrax had free will but was easily programmed to disregard his original orders.

It also mentions in his bio that like his counterparts his program was to hunt down Sub Zero, this making it clear he along with the others were under orders via programming at that point. With Sub Zero hacking into him, the oddities could easily be his humanity overiding his programming as a whole as well as his loyalty to the clan, especially seeing as he was labelled as being souless.