54. PCS ' A~69 '

The pod blinked.

Not a flicker of light. Not a mechanical stutter. It pulsed—alive, slow and uncertain like something forgotten was learning to breathe again.

Andrew Fritz stood motionless beneath the ceiling's dim ward-lamps, arms crossed, gaze fixed on the sealed cylinder marked PCS A~69. Within, the translucent jelly-like mass shimmered with an unnatural hue, shifting faintly like oil in water.

"You're early," said a voice behind him.

Andrew didn't look back. "Didn't sleep."

Ballister Darwin entered with a lazy stride, wearing his Vanguard uniform slightly unzipped at the collar, as always. He glanced at the pod and let out a low whistle. "Well, I'll be damned. That thing's moving."

"It hasn't stirred in a hundred years," Andrew said. His voice was low, but not surprised. "Now it's waking up."

Ballister scratched the back of his neck. "Been working in this room three years, thought that one was just for show."

"It wasn't," Andrew replied simply. "PCS A~69 was considered inert in 1521. Before containment, it caused an entire port town to vanish. Left nothing but mist and bones."

Ballister blinked. "Didn't find that in the logs."

"You won't. Most of the reports were scrubbed or redacted. The thing reacts to spatial shifts, distortions in dimension, time compression, plane-thinning… name it."

"Like a jellyfish that senses earthquakes," Ballister muttered, stepping closer to the containment glass. "You think something's… shaking again?"

Andrew's eyes narrowed. "Maybe. Maybe it's just old instincts waking up. But things like this don't twitch without reason."

Ballister gave a low hum, tapping his fingers on the frame. "And here I was thinking this week would be dull. You've been stationed in Prada long enough to know better."

"Two years," Andrew said, glancing at him. "I've been in Prada since 1624. But I was assigned to the Vaults back in 1618, eight years now."

Ballister gave a faint smirk. "And they still haven't transferred you to somewhere warm and quiet?"

"I stopped asking," Andrew replied, dry. "Silence has its own noise down here. You get used to it."

They both turned their eyes back to PCS A~69. It pulsed again but softer now, like it was listening.

Ballister exhaled slowly. "So what do you suggest we do? Poke it? Pray?"

Andrew shook his head. "Just monitor. Increase mana dampeners to twenty percent. Notify Research Tier Sigma quietly. Last thing we need is panic in the upper departments."

"You don't think it'll breach?"

"No," Andrew said. "Not yet. But if it's sensing something, then it means our sensors haven't caught up."

"Charming."

The Vanguard backed away, muttering under his breath. "Guess I'll hold off on vacation requests."

Andrew didn't answer. He stayed still, watching the artifact as it flickered again.

....

The artifact chamber was colder than usual, humming with quiet energy. The pale glow of the containment field surrounding PCS A~69 cast flickering shadows across the polished steel walls. It writhed ever so slightly in its pod—like a creature halfway between sleep and awareness.

Inside the adjacent observation room, two researchers stood before the glass, sipping lukewarm coffee.

Dr. Elswin Merrow, a tall man with silvery hair and perpetual eye bags, gestured at the artifact with a nod. "Still pulsing, huh?"

Beside him, Dr. Lanya Cress, a younger woman with sharp eyes and a notebook tucked under her arm, nodded. "Third time today. It's stirring more often than it should."

Elswin chuckled faintly. "Maybe it wants to say hello."

Lanya gave him a sideways glance. "If that thing says hello, half of Prada's industrial district is going to melt."

They stood in silence a moment, watching the jelly-like mass inside shift colors—subtle hues of green, violet, and dark red.

"You know the origin story, right?" Elswin asked suddenly, sipping his coffee again.

"Of course," Lanya replied. "But yours is always more dramatic."

He grinned. "It was 1304 when a team of Terran scholars stumbled upon it in the ruins of the Hollowed Ring, northeast of modern-day Drenze. It wasn't even in a containment field—just sitting calmly in the center of a blasted crater, humming. One of the lead researchers, a woman named Halten Vauren, reached out to touch it."

"She's the one who vanished, right?"

Elswin nodded. "Disintegrated. Instant gamma vaporization. But the funny thing is… A~69 didn't move. It didn't lash out. It simply reacted to fear. Gamma force—pure, focused, nuclear breath. And then? It went back to sleep."

Lanya tapped her notes. "It mimics what it sees. Behaviors, forms, even sounds. Not perfectly, but close. It once copied an injured researcher's sobbing for six days straight."

Elswin grimaced. "Creepy little blob."

"It doesn't want to destroy. It's calm by nature," Lanya said, more to herself now. "We've documented it mimicking doves, human laughter, even a lullaby someone once played in the room. But when it's angry... it breathes out Gama Force—a stream of invisible fury that melts, corrodes, and erases."

"Only twice since containment," Elswin said. "Once during the Rift Event in 1523, and once more during the Sensor Breach of 1359."

Lanya added, "Both times we lost over seventy percent of the facility's structural integrity in under five seconds. Yet no direct fatalities. It never targets people."

Elswin raised an eyebrow. "Still think it's friendly?"

"It's not unfriendly. It's just... reactive. Think of it as a mirror to the world around it. If we remain calm, so does it."

Elswin nodded slowly, his expression unreadable. "Then maybe we should be very, very calm right now."

They turned back to the pod. PCS A~69 shimmered again, colors rippling like breath on glass. For a moment, a faint, warbling sound came through the speakers almost like laughter.

Or crying.

Neither said a word.

....

Silence clung to the artifact wing like fog. The air was thick with that artificial chill used to suppress energy output. Rows of reinforced chambers lined the dim corridor. Each a vault holding relics, anomalies, or things not meant to be named.

Chamber 9 sat dimmed, its subject considered passive for decades. PCS A~69—an ancient, jelly-like entity rested at the center of the sealed room. Or so it seemed.

What remained inside was not the artifact.

It had begun with mimicry. Simple shapes. Then color, light, shadow, motion. A~69 had perfected the illusion of stasis, replicating its sleeping form and leaving it behind like a projected shell. The guards never noticed. They saw what they expected to see.

Its real form had already slid out, hours ago.

Shaped like the floor. As thin as fog.

A pressure hatch leading to the maintenance corridor had been left open during an earlier shift. Just a sliver. Enough.

And through it, A~69 drifted quiet as memory. Its mass pressed flat, slipping through the passage like water through cracked stone. It pulsed faintly as it passed the corridor junction, mimicking ambient heat to fool thermal sensors.

Security systems blinked green.

Cameras looped.

No alarms. No breaches.

In the observation room, a yawning technician glanced at the readout but still showing stable gamma levels from Chamber 9. Of course it did. A~69 had copied the radiation signature of its own containment echo.

Down in the lower east hall, a glimmer of movement passed unseen through the corner of the guard's vision. He turned. Nothing. Just hallway reflections.

A door clicked softly.

By the time anyone checked the chamber, it was too late.

The mimicry had held long enough to trick both human and machine. The gelatinous projection collapsed without warning, like wet silk losing shape.

An empty room.

All that remained was a faint smear on the polished floor and a whisper of ozone in the air residue from the last breath of gamma energy it used to dissolve the sensor lock.

The artifact had vanished.

Somewhere in the facility, something soft and dangerous moved with purpose.

....

The flickering candlelight cast long shadows across the stone walls of the Vanguard archives as Elswin and Lanya met in the quiet room, the heavy scent of parchment and ink filling the air. The news had spread quickly through the facility that PCS A~69 had vanished from its containment. Neither spoke at first, the weight of the situation settling over them like the evening fog outside.

Elswin broke the silence, his voice low but steady. "A~69 was never just an artifact. It's a PCS—Post Cataclysm Sect. A being that exists beyond our material realm, in the astral spaces."

Lanya nodded, pulling a worn scroll from her satchel. "That's the Mosedonian scientist's theory—it changed everything we thought we knew. Countless types of genies and lineages, breeding and evolving beyond our comprehension."

"Exactly," Elswin replied, pacing slowly. "They are not spirits, nor simple demons. They are entities born of the Cataclysm, existing between worlds. Many of these PCS have their own motives, their own nature. Not all are hostile, but all are dangerous."

Lanya unfolded the scroll, revealing detailed illustrations of shifting shapes and ethereal forms. "A~69 is one of them, yes? The gelatinous one that mimics and breathes gamma force when angered?"

Elswin nodded grimly. "Yes. Its calm is deceptive. When provoked, its gamma breath can destroy stone and metal alike. It's rare for one to lose control, but it happens. The thing about PCSs is that their true nature lies beyond our understanding. They are shaped by the astral currents, breeding in ways we cannot track."

"Breeding…" Lanya's voice was soft. "They reproduce? Like living creatures?"

"Indeed. According to the Mosedonian scholar, PCSs have lineages much like our own world's creatures. They can split, adapt, and multiply in the astral planes. It means they can increase in number, and some might not be as benign as others."

Elswin paused by the window, staring out into the darkening sky. "The problem is that these beings do not belong here. They come from beyond the material veil. They do not abide by our laws of nature or magic. That's why containment is difficult, and why it's better to avoid contact."

Lanya's brow furrowed. "But why did A~69 awaken now? After so long dormant?"

"That is the question." Elswin sighed. "Perhaps it sensed something—a shift in the astral fabric, or a breach elsewhere. PCS like it can be sensitive to disturbances beyond our world. Their presence can be a sign of greater things to come."

Lanya looked back at the illustrations, her fingers tracing the outlines of the forms. "Not all PCSs are evil. Some may even be neutral, or… helpful in ways we do not understand."

Elswin smiled faintly. "True, but neutrality is a precarious balance. It only takes one provocation to turn a calm entity into a destructive force. We must be cautious."

Lanya nodded, the weight of the knowledge settling deep within her. "Then our task is clear. We watch. We learn. And we keep our distance."

Elswin met her gaze. "Yes. For now, that is all we can do."

The room fell silent again, the flickering candlelight dancing over the ancient scrolls and the fading image of PCS A~69—a being both enigmatic and dangerous, lingering at the edge of their world and the astral unknown.