Oxygénia
In the year 3069, space farer Peter MacGulliver who is used to a happy life on a healthy and clean planet Earth strands on a planet which environment is completely ruined by heavy pollution, where there isn't even any oxygen left in the atmosphere and where billions of humanoid beings have to live with gas masks and rationed oxygen for their whole life – Oxygénia. On his long way to escape this living nightmare, Peter has to get to know all three major layers of the society of Oxygénia: Trunk Bearers, Rememberers and the "upper ten thousand" (one hundred lineages with one hundred members), the last ones living in a literal paradise and sheer luxury on the expense of all others. There are also some refugees and renegades amongst the Rememberers... can Peter escape Oxygénia, get back to his spaceship and his wife who is waiting there for him? This novel is a grim dark vision of what can very well become of Earth if mankind goes on the way it has done for the last few centuries. Today, there are already structures on Earth similiar to the dreadful "Oxygénia Trust" with its one hundred lineages, "elites" who don't bother about the fate of billions of other humans; there is pollution and climate change which is both very well capable of turning Earth into Oxygénia if our species doesn't change the set course very soon. See what the future might be like, and let's hope and take actions that it's not too late already, that we still can get off the path we're on to now – the path to Oxygénia.
In the year 3069, space farer Peter MacGulliver who is used to a happy life on a healthy and clean planet Earth strands on a planet which environment is completely ruined by heavy pollution, where there isn't even any oxygen left in the atmosphere and where billions of humanoid beings have to live with gas masks and rationed oxygen for their whole life – Oxygénia.
On his long way to escape this living nightmare, Peter has to get to know all three major layers of the society of Oxygénia: Trunk Bearers, Rememberers and the "upper ten thousand" (one hundred lineages with one hundred members), the last ones living in a literal paradise and sheer luxury on the expense of all others. There are also some refugees and renegades amongst the Rememberers... can Peter escape Oxygénia, get back to his spaceship and his wife who is waiting there for him?
This novel is a grim dark vision of what can very well become of Earth if mankind goes on the way it has done for the last few centuries. Today, there are already structures on Earth similiar to the dreadful "Oxygénia Trust" with its one hundred lineages, "elites" who don't bother about the fate of billions of other humans; there is pollution and climate change which is both very well capable of turning Earth into Oxygénia if our species doesn't change the set course very soon. See what the future might be like, and let's hope and take actions that it's not too late already, that we still can get off the path we're on to now – the path to Oxygénia.
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22 – Underground council<br />
Peter was awoken by Sunshine. It was night.<br />
Together with ON, they headed for the inner depths of the cave.<br />
The cave was now pitch black dark, and Peter lit with his atomic<br />
wristwatch. Spooked by the harsh light, the sleeping ones startled<br />
everywhere, frightened children and adults who were ready to<br />
protect them.<br />
"Good friends, good friends", Sunshine said everwhere they were<br />
passing by.<br />
They went fast, and Peter tried to look around everywhere, to<br />
mind everything.<br />
The way was much longer than he had believed, and even in<br />
these deep parts, refugees lived everywhere. Peter couldn't<br />
determine whether there were some dozens, several hundred or<br />
even more than a thousand hiding down here underground. The<br />
subterranean corridor was crossed by small watercourses several<br />
times, and short planks were placed above them as a sidewalk.<br />
Here and there, water dropped down from the ceiling, crystal clear<br />
drinking water even. Many of the walls were bare, others were<br />
covered with moss, and frequently, the miracle of the subterranean<br />
brushwood and vegetable gardens repeated itself. But the biggest<br />
miracle of all was the respirable air.<br />
Some of the side corridors were uninhabited.<br />
"We're breeding mushrooms here", Sunshine explained. "They<br />
grow plenty and are quite nutritious."<br />
It was obvious that the cave got a part of its oxygen from the<br />
green plants, but the oxygen they emitted would've been too few.<br />
Where did the additional oxygen come from? And where did the<br />
water come from? Where did the seeds for the plants come from –<br />
this last one seemed less mysterious to him since he knew that<br />
<strong>Oxygénia</strong> once had an oxygen-rich atmosphere as well as plant and<br />
animal life.<br />
The light of the atomic wristbeam now lit a somewhat larger cave<br />
again. There were rocks in the middle of it, and it was unclear<br />
whether they were made by nature or aligned there as seats by<br />
human hands. Anyway, around thirty people sat there, men and<br />
women. And amongst them, ORO.<br />
"We're there", Sunshine said, and to Peter: "This is the 'garden'."<br />
The entrance to the cave was in the canyon, the inner part was<br />
called the garden. It was unknown when or by whom it had been<br />
84
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