SPACE DRILL´S GIRL PERSEFONE

BY:  J.E Ortiz 

THE PERSEFONE´S WORLD

The future in which Persefone Oikawa-Valarezo lives, it's a hard world to live. In first place, it has entire neighborhoods without a secure sewage treatment, or an effective air cleaner system inside the biodome of the asteroid colony DUI-699, located in the Asteroid´s belt in the limits of the Solar System. The question is:Why is a human colony inside an asteroid? The answer it's so simple: in the finals of the 21st century, a massive Mining Project went out of the Earth. In this interplanetary expedition, many poor and orphan human beings were sent, with the promise of better days, out of the Earth, being cheated by the Earth's first space-mining companies, in order to have disposable labor force to explore and explode the asteroid´s mines. These mines have a rare kind of metal that is used in the future to build spaceships and nuclear reactors, the same reactors that tend to pollute the water purification plant and, ironically ,  provide energy to the colony. In second place, the risk of Space colony life, as the another asteroids bombing from Solar System outside, that sometimes destroys the populous zones in the periphery of the dome, although in recent years the dome in that zones was rebuilt and reinforced. The local authorities prefer acting like fake superhéroes. Because sometimes they did their administrative labors and sometimes not.  If the colony's people do not react with empathy to the occasional deaths, it is because they have adapted to the anarchic situation. But the people still conserve, very deeply,  the hope to build a better society for all. This last one is the reason why the people of DUI-699 still resist and avoid the sadness and desperation, making “miracles” in order to survive.

The buildings of the colony/city, more specifically under the buildings of the suburbs, were interconnected by their sewerage system. This fact is due to the reduced flow of the sewers. In the most large part of this sewer service, there exists a hidden city, where there exists  a black market, where the people can get food and other essential products that only are legal on the surface for the high range bureaucrats and the elite. Persy went to this place to buy cheaper high-quality food, donating it to the local orphanages . This is because she was educated in one of them, specifically in the orphanage Santa Marianita, being baptized and educated by the father Carlos Daniel Morales and the Nun Carolina Valarezo, both known better for fighting against the social injustices provoked by the colony's government. 

And with this preamble, this surrealist story begins.

BACKGROUND HISTORY

In the 21th century ending, the natural resources of the earth practically were sold out. In that situation, the governments of the world started local wars to get the last fertile lands of the world. This situation soon stopped, because the humans noted that if they continued fighting, the human species would be extinct. In this case many scientists  were called and convened to solve the energetic and alimentary crisis that humankind was already living. But, why the humanking finally arrived to his situation? The answer is too simple and sadly: the rising of populist governments in 1st world countries. In the 2020's decade, many populist political movements, based on conspirative theories and a lot of misinformation, won a few, but concrete political elections in the principal countries of the world. These politicians eventually turned together into a totalitarian dictatorship. This disastrous historical event occurred in the middle of the 21th century. Basically, the actions that were committed against the people, as violation of civil rights , attacking the LGBTIQ collective, many “soft” racist politics, etc. All of this occurred because this populist politicians eventually proclaimed themselves as the saviors of the Earth , and justified these atrocities saying that this was for saving humankind “from the evil of communism  and globalism” that provoked in past years the 2023’ economic and moral crisis. All of this actions were inspired by the political “philosophy” of figures as Donald Trump, Jair Bolsonaro, Marie le Pen, Agustín Laje and Javier Milei, that accused, very maliciously, minoritarian human´s groups, for the 2023´s crisis. This crisis provoked recession in the world´s economy, bringing a lot of people to poverty. In this panorama, literally the middle class, the Social Security Programs collapsed absolutely. In this context the entire world society entered  into an anarchic and chaotic crisis. Later, the society literally receded into a Feudalist society, when local lords controlled and limited  the human movement, with deplorable sanitary life conditions. Evidently, this new feudalism accompanied the overexploitation of the earth's natural resources, only for Benefit a few people, to the detriment of the rest. The reason why the populist politicians made this like-medieval society was that they forbade the scientific education and later history based on evidences, replaced it with pseudohistory and pseudosciences, controlling the people afraid of the 2023´s crisis, with the promise of better days, obtaining the absolute control on the planet. Eventually in this scenario, there existed a partial recovery due to very necessary social reforms, where the populist had to give concessions to repair the social disaster that they, in part, created. In this partial recovery, specifically occurring in the years 2070´s, obviously many revolutions pressed the feudal politicians to do the respective reforms. But it was late to the human species on Earth. Because, due to the wars that occurred due to a civil conflict between revolutionaries and the feudalist regime, they destroyed in fact the last natural reserves and with them the majority of Earth's resources. In this context, the absolutist regime has to restart the scientific education, and their applications, in order to save “the little that was left”, this fact because they saw that the extremist ideology only provoques, in large term, misery, desolated and appalling quality of life.

One of the actions of the government was the reopening of the UN, that previously they closed, to try to repair the serious global problem that they provoked. With this action, they reestablished, mostly, the social order and peace. But, the principal action was to send humans to colonize space, in order to discover a new planet or satellite to find natural resources to survive. Eventually, a massive exploitation of the planet Mars began, solving, for a time, the problem. But the scientist advertisements have no good news to the global government. They, in less words, said that , even with the faster space rockets that were built, the environmental recovery still was insufficient to maintain life on Earth as in the old days. This is because the rockets arrive late with the resources obtained from the Mars Mines and polar caps. At the end of 2090´s occurred a powerful and destructive earthquake, originated near Japan, in Richter scale 11, in the Pacific Fire Belt, literally destroying the 3rd part  of the solid Surface of Earth. The survivors of this catastrophic event, including the governors, took a decision: get away from Earth permanently, in order to survive. In this context, many orphan children that survived the earthquake were sent to space into a colonial mission. The reason why the orphan child was sent was because, as young organisms, could adapt to a new environment faster than an adult, and also the other reason: the children are too easy to manipulate and convince, to really go as “planet testers”  . With this, the government lied to this child in the name of giving them “a new opportunity to make humankind great again”. Actually, the high commanders of the missions, in order to protect children, recruited and trained some people with Down Syndrome, obviously,  that can obey orders, walk, and work without question. This last one in order to take care of and educate the child once they arrive at the great asteroid belt. Why did the global government give these duties to these disabled people? Easy, To disappear them, with the pretext of “including disabled people “to built a more human space colony”, but the AI of the ships  don't care about the child guards beyond the traveling time, because “An Artificial Intelligence would pilot the explorer spaceship and would land on a giant asteroids of the belt. During the travel, the people inside the ship would be in suspended animation to not get old during the travel. Finally, the AI of the ships would report everything , everytime in the travel. If this group survives successfully, the high command and the rest of  humankind's survivors would leave the Earth.  And in one of this ships was put a little half japanese-half ecuadorian girl called Perséfone.

THE CHILDHOOD

Perséfone Oikawa Valarezo was born in Kobe, Japan. She had a difficult childhood because she lived in a country that established a totalitarian regime, in the beginning due to the rise of the Japanese Far Right Political Party called “. In this society Persy , the name that her parents used to call her, was a very curious girl. The education system got into military lessons, where the discipline for men and women imposed absolute obedience. In part this was justified, because, in the previous years, the “democratic” politicians led the country into an economic crisis, apart from the 2023´s economic crisis. The Japanese crisis resulted in 48% of unemployment. The unemployment provoked , eventually, a civil war between the liberals and the conservatives. In this conflict, mucho of the few natural reserves and resources of the country were decimated. Due to this, many rural families were obliged to return to work as farmers. Many of these people got afraid, because they remembered the time when Japan entered into World War II, and the consequences after having lost the conflict. Why? Because historians advertise that a serious economic crisis could lead to the rise of a totalitarian regime. In this situation, many school teachers, who were of the Far Right ascend, were advertised to start teaching about the “Golden Age” of the fascist Japan.

Persy, fortunately, in the last year of democracy, when she was 10, due to her curiosity, achieved to buy many books in clandestine used-book markets. This occurred because of the gradual cultural censorship laws that destroyed, as in the rest of the world´s dictatorship, the information against the government or information from the foreign countries and cultures. In this censorship was included, of course, the internet.  Although the dictatorship said that the government try to “protect” the people form “degenerated ways of thiking”, actually the high commands and the local oligarchs, mantain a corrupt net with the rest of the dictatorships, to mantain the terror on the general population. This fact was made, actually, to hide the problem of the acceleration of Earth's desertification, due to the overexploitation of the natural resources in previous years. Meanwhile in Japan, Persy, with her best  female friend Yuki Tatsunoko, enjoy so much to play football. In the local championships she literally was called “Messi Girl” for her sports abilities. Although the totalitarian regime installed on Japan, fortunately , the women don´t lost their rights and gender equality. For this, Persy continued playing soccer. This activity she did also with her second best Friend: Mauricio Leiva-Valarezo, a 3rd grade cousin from her mother´s family, and a very confident boy. They planned to go to play a game against an opponent team from another neighborhood. The game was in August the 4th, and all the parents of the child from the two teams prepare a local stadium to celebrate the match. During the match, the Persy´s team continue playing against the opponent team. Same opponent team in where was her rival to death, Hiroshi Kumano, who also was the captain. This fact was because , a year ago , both competed to win the football local championship, winning the same. For this reason, Persy promises and swears to him  that she will win the next championship. But life could have other plans. 

In the minute 80 of the match, when the team of Persy was winning, the soil started to tremble, three nearby buildings started to collapse so fast. As a country that historically was adapted to the earthquakes, the people quickly began to evacuate the local stadium, going fast to the neighborhood´s refugees. Unfortunately, some parents of the children who attended the match died. After a few minutes, a stronger replica of the earthquake finished destroying three quarters of Japan. Later, the rescue services came so fast to attend the wounded people, disabled people due to the natural disaster, and gather the corpses. Persy, unfortunately, lost her parents and her two best Friends, because many children from both football teams died tragically during the replica. The Red Cross and government emergency systems actívate the contingency operatives, trying to help the victims and start, as soon as possible, the Cleaning and Reconstruction of the affected zones. But, the authorities saw that the Word “Reconstruction”, with the slow recovery from the national economic crisis, would be impractical. The situation also was due to the natural resources fault, that, with the titanic hypothetical reconstruction works, could resulto on a great disaster that could launch Japan into prehistory. In this dark panorama, the survivors only have two options: waiting out the barbarism and death, or proceeding to migrate to outer space, as many years ago, in the last year of democracies, the governments of the world in that time announced with a lot of hope and positivity.  In the Emergency Centers, the refugees still were waiting for a miracle, a miracle that Persy desired so desperately. 

On August the 11th, the Japanese dictatorship decided to approve and execute the child reclute and training, in order to “send them to give the human species hope”. In the program, apart from the kids, a group of adults would go, to establish the future local government and some families, that only will land on an “secure” asteroid, 2 weeks before the child's spaceships have landing, in order to secure a long term and stable life to the kids, that came later. This last one humanitarian action, was due to a politician called Joey Kamakura, a former colonel of the Japanese army. Despite the dictatorship, this shows to us that humanity still exists in the genetic memory and heart of the homo sapiens. 

In this context, the rescued child from the Pacific Ocean´s natural disaster, the 4 years training began. In this group, Persy was introduced, and began her formation, with her companions, in order to survive the colonization process and establishment. In this point of the story, she met a beautiful soul called Carlos Daniel Morales, a catholic priest, who, in the years since that moment, turned into a second father and also school teacher. This priest also was a scientist, concretely an astronomer, astronomer that will be the key to save the future of the asteroid´s colony. Percy eventually met another kind person , the Nun Carolina Valarezo, ironically, named with the same second name as her mother.

THE SOCIETY IN THE “NEW WORLD”

When Persy arrived at the asteroid, called with the codename DUI-699, Father Carlos unfortunately, at the beginning, didn't take care of her. This fact was because of an unplanned delay in the landing of the spaceship in where the priest was. Instead, he was replaced temporarily and previously  by a man with Down Syndrome simply known as Gerardo. Gerardo, as another trained disabled man by the military colony unit, dedicated to taking care of a specific child´s group, during the first three months after the children's spaceships landing, in order to psychologically adapt the kids into their new life. The trained disabled people was very friendly and tended to be childish, the perfect combination to attract Young and innocent people, as the kids.. Every group of children were identified with a code name. In this case, the number of the Percy´s unit was the M7-A2. This unit was also known as “Santa Marianita´s Orphanage”, its civil name. Other of these educational units, were ubicated in other schools of the colony, have their establishments and rules, but all of them were ruled by the colony government. 

In the beginning of her adolescence, Persy went back to school to finish her education; she did this as other teenagers that arrived at the colony. The Earth's authorities ordered that, in the ships where the adult people, also were intellectuals and teachers, to continue the education of the kids and teenagers. This benevolent order fortunately makes life in the colony more supportable. Another reason was, in the beginning of the colony, the community worked, without the hierarchical strict order of the mother planet. But eventually this temporal prosperity finished, when some scientists of the adult groups began to create technology and get rich with it, in a selfish and ambitious way.

Some of the scientists that made their fortunes in the colony achieved this by inventing a new kind of gravitational motor, based on the discoveries of  Victor Schawberger´s, the father of the “Implosion Motor”. This invention replaced, in a few years, the use of oil to drive vehicles in the colony. At the same time, this invention could not be crystallized if it hadn't been previously discovered the Intinium, a metallic core that can conduct and store electricity more efficiently that the Ion-Sodium Battery. This Discovery, joined together with the acts of a few businessmen, eventually generated a, In fact- capitalist system in the colony.

Meanwhile, the teens, in this new society, when they have their 18th birthday, won their Independence with a high school title in a Technic Job. During high school, they prepared to learn a Technical speciality, in order to initially maintain the community wellness, but later to build a new capitalist and elitist society, based on the rule “Who has more resources, controls the site”. The Intinium was discovered due to the first mining works, made with traditional mining methods and modified astronaut suits that used oil. But with the Intinium applications, eventually special armored tanks with drills better explore the principal asteroid and other minor asteroids near to the colony.

Persy, in high school, obtained the much appreciated Mining Machinery Technician title, and two new friends: Olivia and Harley. Olivia is a girl that came in the second space migration wave, 8 years younger to her, studying very hard in the course of Reforestation to be a Forestal engineer. She comes from Brazil, and loves to Paint  murals, as Persy also does. She admires too much Persy, because she desires to be as humanitarian as her. This last one is due to the voluntary work that she still does today in the Home for people with disabilities. The other friend, Harley, is an introverted man, but noble, who can you trust. He studied and graduated in the same year as Percy, but he studied to be an Agricultural Technician. Also he is gay and he is not persecuted for this, neither the rest of people from the LGBTIQ+, because the government, at least, decided to not commit the same errors of the far-right and far-left dictatorships of the past years in the Earth.  Harley also helps Persy in her voluntary work in the Charity Home. He, with his job, and working together with other agro-technicians to protect the little amount of natural resources in the asteroids, resources artificially developed and imported from the Earth.

Unfortunately and sadly, the scientific developments didn´t help people like Gerardo, because these eventually were driven more to the exploitation of resources, but no too much to medical advances to give disabled people a good quality of life, for this reason, the disabled persons still exist in the “world of a new great beginning”, this due to the machiavellian thought of the planners of the colonization. Because they had the idea to exterminate the disabled people more easily. Apparently, the extremist ideas of the Earth's rulers didn't disappear at all. Gerardo and other people as him, eventually, died few years after the colonization process began, because, the medical services of the colony, secretly inoculated selectively a venom that only reacted with the blood of people with disabilities due to chromosomal alteration, as the 21th chromosome trisomy, as Gerardo. This is the reason why Persy decided to take care of people with disabilities, in honor to people like Gerardo, who, literally, sacrificed their lives to give the orphans a new hope.

Father Carlos, that was the basic science teacher of Persy's course,  eventually teached secretly to her, the existence of a secret astronomical engineer piece, hidden into a underground city , that was being developed by him, in order to save the colony from a menace that probably would destroy the asteroid´s colony. He did this, because, during the psychological and spiritual therapies that he did with Persy and other orphans, he discovered the great intelligence of the girl. He did this work because the unique psychologist that arrived in the first migration wave, mysteriously disappeared. This because he was a close friend of one of the governors, know a machiavellian plan to “eradicate the poverty” in the colony: leave the most populous and poor neighborhoods, with pendants works of reinforcement of their domes, exposed to an asteroids rain, discovered by the astronomers long time ago, and calculated that will arrive very soon. In this group there was Father Carlos, who also was a recognized astronomer. For this reason he eventually also “disappeared”. But natural disasters, as Earth's mega-earthquake occurred a long time ago, doesn´t distinguish between rich and poor, and the most developed science not ever can predict their real consequences. 

In this panorama, the Nun Carolina, gave to Persefone a secret warning: the moment of the killer giant asteroid, with unstoppable minors but lethal asteroid rain was about to be visible. Via a cellphone Whatsapp encrypted message. Yes, smartphones still are vital to communication in human society. And the advertisement finished with this text: “If you feel a tremor, go ahead honey”.

THE CATASTROPHE OF NEIGHBORHOOD “RAFAEL CORREA”

The architecture of the space colony mentioned, in their majority, is composed of buildings made on the base of the Non Euclidean Geometry, in order to be physically more functionally, faster, efficient, cheaper to repair and re-design in case of tremor. Or This is supposed to occur that day..

In the Astronomical Time of DUI-699, on January 24th, at the Universal Hour (UH) 301, a catastrophe occurred, specifically an “earthquake” at the Mayor offices, in the neighborhood “Rafael Correa ''. In the incident, the Mayor and another 19 office workers died and some important parts of the rest of the government's buildings. In the incident, the survivors announced that, one month ago, the authorities apparently  didn't hear the warnings from the asteroid 's astronomers. The scientist talked about a gravitational abnormality that came from a magnetic asteroid that crossed recently near the asteroid´s colony three terrestrial months ago. Suspiciously, in the TV news, that astronomical event wasn't reported, unlike the other minor and inoffensive space event. Many people died in this incident. The same day Persy was working at the 30th Mine Station, repairing a drill´s motor. At lunch time, she was eating a Cuyburger, her favorite food, the catastrophe was presented. The sound of many buildings sinking, provoked an instinctive reaction on Persy, who left her food at the local restaurant near to the mine station, and went fast to the building where her apartment was. But she didn't go upstairs, instead she went to the basement of the building. And finally, at the same time, she entered a sewer, running so fast to an unknown location of the underground city that only she met.

CRUCIAL MINUTES

In the underground town's secret location, she entered, at the same time, into a secret entrance. Inside the entry was a secret base, in which were many amazing electro-mechanic supplies. Persy was searching for a special motor piece with the size of a  that could transform a common drill into a powerful magnetic wave shooter. that can expel effectively the magnetic asteroids that even so often passed near and around the asteroid-city. Persy found it, and finally she continued moving across the underground sewers web, arriving at a secret exit that was under the colony's military base, the place where the most powerful star-mining drills were , and extremely well sheltered. Why did Persy do this? Because the Father Oikawa gave her scientifical education, but also told her the existence of this secret location where the special mechanical piece, and, at the same time, advertised her to do the possible for save the colony, because the reason of the “danger ignorance” of the high  command was to eliminate the poor people of the colony in a “cheap and practical” way. This fact is due to the fact that the priest also was, in his youth, one of the astronomers of the colony.  Persy, who got a military uniform before leaving the underground city, infiltrated into the installations so fast and cautiously. She soon found the hangars and also one of the most recent models of star-mining drill, that was only used in more complicated missions inside the asteroid belt. But, at that moment, another threatening gravitational pulse starts to destroy other neighborhoods randomly. Then, the girl installed the fastest she could do the key piece into the most new drillship type she found. So she turned on the ship, although the unauthorized alarm sounded so loud, she took off from the hangar and went fast to try to stop the cosmic monster. Marcus, the percy´s work companion in the mining drill´s workshop, previously advertised her to not go to the underground city, because many incidents occurred recently when many demonstrators from that zone were arrested for provoking chaos and violence.

OVERCOMING

Persy knew perfectly, as her disappeared teacher, that only a triple gravitational wave could stop the principal giant asteroid. But, what to do about the others? Fortunately, his friend Haley, when saw the first minors asteroid´s rain, called a militar friend in the high commandes, to help Percy´s space drill with space bombers . Father Carlos warnedto him also that, in case it is necessary, he should go to help the japanese girl. Persy won a few but vital minutes to get in a specific position to shoot and expel the giant asteroid out of the asteroid´s colony. Fortunately she achieved this and save the colony, specifically the people from the populous neighborhoods that were less protected. Many farmlands and crops were destroyed, but not the humans from them. Because……Olivia also realized about the future incident. This is because she accidentally saw the message sent by Nun Carolina. And, with this, via a Systems Engineer friend of hers, soon the majority of the people from every corner in the colony, get saved , as far as possible, in order to avoid something similar to the previous and recently reported disaster of Rafael Correa´s neighborhood. There was also a party to celebrate Persy´s action. After this, she was appointed by the asteroid´s General Governor.

A NEW BEGINNING

After her heroic action, she eventually , many years later, was elected as the new governor. Because, the previous politicians that survived the first asteroid attack, during these years, showed to be imcompetent to solve the colony´s problems in the long term. And for this, they were finally removed from their seniors, and judged. Because, it was also discovered that they hid the astronomers' advertising that, in the case of being transmitted early, the disaster of Rafael Correa´s zone could be avoided. Also during these years, a transitional military regime took control, in order to repair the social system errors. After, they summoned elections, in which the japanese girl won. And finally, the first action of Governor Oikawa was the wealth equitable distribution, without destroying the local capitalism, to finally eliminate the poverty inside the colony. Also, a plan for returning to Earth and restoring it was coming..

THE END.