Restless Earth

Chapter 1: Xavier

Xavier walked out of the lift, heading towards the bright white double doors at the end of the unnecessarily long hallway. The sign could be read from a far, Mission Cure: Training center. He and his team plus the opposing team and their commander would be trapped in that training camp for two weeks to provide them some preparation for the mission they where about to undertake. The mission that had guided the shaping of the Military, the search for the cure.

A hundred years before, humanity had nearly gone extinct due to too many greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.
The result of the super-toxic smoothie of chemicals was a shift in the composition of air molecules instead of oxygen, hydrogen and nitrogen plus a bunch of others, it was nitrogen, carbon dioxide, oxygen, hydrogen and carbon 203, said to be the basis of life on earth.

This mixture of chemicals was impossible to breath and on the day of the shift, many dropped down dead while the rest rushed to the underground bunkers that had been built by long-ago government scientists in anticipation of a crisis like this.

Of course, not everyone fit. Some where kicked out and the only ones allowed to stay where the young, smart and beautiful.

Since the great catastrophe, a small dedicated group of scientists has been searching for a cure, a solution to earth's changed atmosphere for a way to adapt to it.

It was a great honor to join the military and yet, the vocation was reserved for second sons and daughters, those who had to scratch out a living on their own wits because their oldest siblings got it all.

Xavier found his mouth twisted into an ironic smile as he reached for the handle of the doors that would seal his fate.

One deep breath.

Push the door open.

And he was in.