The Partridge

Heavy respirations, a forward moving panting, straining advancements fill these deserted corridors. Trampling. Wheezing. A forceful smash into a cornering wall, the sprinkling of concrete that rains onto the floor. A desperate man in a panicked flee.

Myths they still call it. This story, to those who don't understand its significance, sound like another empty breath of installing bravery and triumph to children. It was even iterated into the history texts, incorrectly, but in there nonetheless.

This earths crust engulfed facility held not only humanity, but its demise.

Back when the commission was intact, Sector N/A had a crucial role within Dome M-9. These were the town to country wide bio domes that held the still living creatures and plants of that region in a habitable space. It became a shocker to the outside territories when M-9 began a successful brigade, become self sufficient and disbanded old religion to bring forth something known as “Knxls”. Knowldge of Nomads, Revolutionaries, Legends and Souls. It was evident when war was no opponent they all turned, everyone, for the sake or survival.

Trust us they begged at the early signs of defeat. The hidden rulers washed from their burrow. And the Counsel did. Weeks after a mass revolution. Where the shadowing controllers fled, the republics residence took their own land and people to the battle field. It was every man, woman and child for themselfs. or whoever you were in cahoots with. Every county for themselves. Everything felt lonely, it was always self.

Region wide groups cooperated with each other, casting bigger unions, less internal bickering, less diverse groups exchanging crippling blows. More integrated forces.

After a decade of madness, where there only stood three opposing forces, they gave into the palms of a hovering governing power in a state of internal chaos. Right back into old palms. And hows that? There’s a reason why the elite and powerful hide, it’s not for their safety, but for their agendas. It’s hard to realize that a shape shifters lives amungst the stagnant. Even Lucifer was once an angel.

Everyone lost. War finally ended. There was nothing left but what happened to remain. What struggled to stay stayed to watch itself die. We thought.

Luckily, annihilation didn’t happen. Survival of the fittest, not the fickle. The new 1% of the remaining contentntial population came with the ultimate difficulty of regrouping after attempted mass depopulation. This was the biggest battle to tackle post deoxygenation. Some came in groups, the others, alone. The call to the waters brought about 1.5 million souls to the western shore line. A similar number crowded the eastern. This facility ran the Atlantic edge. It was the first most complicated structure erected, the first was the district built on top of it.

Gail was one of the highest ranking and highest priorities to be recognized by those who remain. A botanist. He ran the subbase in his 30’s. A pioneer in crossed, forced or morphed molecule manipulation. Something that revolutionized not only the warming ecosystem, but it destroyed the need to drain resources within the soil to create power. People called him The Partridge. For reasons you have yet to understand.

Gail hauled, clawing as at his armored chest as his arms swung, pushing deeper within the floors. His swinging waist pack jingled, jostling as he pants feverishly, stopped before an access gate between levels. he used to time to pant.

“Vitality is at 32% and decreasing. Sir, please-“ Gail’s virtual assistant advises.

“Not now!” he exclaims, wrapped in exhaustion. He leans against the vault like door. unlocking its dead bolted mechanisms. Entering a stair chamber. Clinging to the spiraling staircase which aided his descent into a singlw, small cement pit. Like a emergency exit, a 5x5 slab of concrete, similar colored walls, a single gray door, the stairs behind him, a capped green signal light above.

“One more level. Just one more level.” He spoke to himself. He slapped the nose of the door hovering light, it pushed in softly to a click. A black palm pad emerged from middle of the door. While inputting the locking code on the face of the circuit resembling touch panel, the passing instructions drifting under his finger as he signed symbols. It transitioned to a small acceptance screen. Al the pixels fell into blackness.

The door slides into the wall, a doubling of clear doors open to a freight elevator. He placed himself in, within the pit of the crystal corner. The cascade of illumination shown in, brightening, showing more racing stripes of black bars. The growing single blue light emitting from what seemed to be a small towns center building, pulsated softly, like an artificial sun.

Once at the basal of the shaft he slips a small fire arm southpaw. This forelimb, once assisted by the exosuit, twitches from a linkage malfunction. He knows well enough to not wrap his extended finger within squeezing potential of the trigger. The weapon is more for show, it may buy him a couple crucial moments in the near future. Gail has noticeably lost slabs and joint connecting pieces to his assisted armor. Making the journey dependable on his endurance rather than synthetic assistance.

“DNA sample required.” The system interface demanded before opening the sliding doors. Locking into place.

Slitting a horizontal notch in his left index finger with his right metal finger tip, Gail moves to offer the drippings of mercury looking fluid to the onyx control panel whos 13th floor button spun inside out. Becoming a concave cup the size of a dime. Retracting back into the wall of the interface, the doors perimeter strobes in a soft green.

“Welcome, Father Brid.” The autonomous female voice follows his sprint into the opening floor. A hanger type pre screening room. The football field length was crowded with abandoned vehicles, building materials, furniture, testing equipment, ransacked containers, rotting matter and the sense of abandonment. The metal structure held inductive heat, absorbing the constant light it blocks out.

Shots of fear drove over his ignorance of personal stamina, the ground was pounded harder with every step. The black carbon aluminum exoskeletal let off a red aura around the joint linkages. Outlining his torso, dimly coming from his ragged arm, prominent within his AR display infested glasses.

“7 percent left.” His assistant read off every dropped percentage. The descending number in the peripheral of his glasses vision. The central lab was in eye shot. Right outside the prescreen hanger, in the midst of the scaled town. Gail’s robotic assisted legs pushing him forward, faster as he fed them signals to override overriding protocols. He mentally coexisted with his exo suit. The consequence of a man to manmade cooperation.

“I hear you.” He answered back to his assistant.

“There are charge stations nearby. I can set a course-“

“Too late for that now.”

Gail pushed into the round, central building by its back entrance. The circling laboratory with subsections separated rooms as if sliced like cake. Each part of a whole, separately. A circular observation window was molded into the structure. Architects created the botanical garden before erecting a surrounding testing facility. He crawled closer to its pit from the back of the observation room.

The white saturation expanded harshly. The un air conditioned rooms burnt, drawing moisture from his already depleting vessel. Shielding his eyes, using muscle memory and a superficial feel to navigate to the corner of the observatory room, he reached a blackened case on the far wall. Once finding its latch, he scrambled its contents for a pair of black out googles. Equipped, he searched the connecting rooms. Moving to the circuit box, removing the floors siren breaker, replacing it with the blown condition gfi, he moved forward swiftly.

He scrambles the abjointing room. Destroying once active labs, monitoring room stations, sewage and power lockers and storage spaces. On the hunt for a key on a feathered chain. Within the observation room. a cycling red light activates. Turning the foggy air into clouds of faux fire.

"Unauthorized personnel. United Territorial Agent Override." His virtual assistant grabs and transfers the facilities emergency transmission.

Gail jumps, trapped on the other side of the bright ball, slowly making his way back to where he had infiltrated from. Cloaked suited individuals sneak quickly through, displacing the fog as smoke reveal their movements.

“Line specimen.” He recognized the super slim riot type armor anywhere. With its accents of orange. It’s logo a simple D and X.

"One last thing." He pushed forward, chanting and speaking with himself.

Through the walls large vacuum ducts ran. Wide enough to allow a slim man passage. He would remove the vents tops, following rooms behind the small horde of operatives.

From the broadcasting station he retrieved a doctors badge. The monitoring room granted all gate openings. In the laboratory he retrieved a wooden box with an inscription of a broken symbol. Closely resembling a seal or ritual marking. The picture on top was a giant butterfly flying away from what seems to be a gap of tree canopies.

The explosion of light made sneaking around easy. Without favorable eye wear, its intensity dries and pronounces visual rods and cones unusable. Fried. Within a half an hours’ time. This is why they moved so quickly around the room. Prompting Gail to do the same.

Death comes before life. It’s told all the time. In many ways. Especially with the living. We speak of the tragedy of death and not its usability. Its necessity. Before light, darkness. Remember that. Where his last recovered piece of introspective data.

And as a light being, a mere man who chased the fury of the brightness into a instantly drying, flaking demise, he lost so we could win. Gail made it into the domed habitat that held a single tree in its midst. Once he broke the seal of the observation bay door the troops flooded in from the opposing door.

The closed ecosystem held its own climate, clouds, wind pattern, a moist scent of absolute purity. A sacred garden never touched once by man, until now. Gail raced across the stretch of grass. Running towards the foliage that surrounded the massive centered tree. The box tucked under his twitching arm, the other swinging as he ran with a lunge. Metal shells expelled silently from various weapons bully his stability. Throwing his strides into a fight for bipedal stability.

The overarching heat source began to wilt all organic matter. The invaders became crayons within a heated cupola. Gail would soon drop. A domino demise, they all fell.

The Partridge died on November 17, 2101. Here’s his final exert, recovered from his exo suits black box has recently been uncovered. It survives only passed down from the realist, lost in its place in the history Ebooks, it goes:

The world became whole again as a butterfly cross pollinated a rose and a pear tree. How magnificent. How life only needed another chance at survival to survive. And they thought I was insane. Ha. When I assured them it will only take one sacrifice. Told time and time again. They said it was too- vague. As if the road were promised to be safe, easy and calculated. We’re talking about existence here. Not humanity. I may be missed, but, we all will be able to share in the excitement of continued existence for the price of one soul. I hope this works.

Yours always,

-Parry.

Fin.

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With love,

-Jahvon