Sanctuary

LUNA is a 18 year Latina senior in an urban high school, waiting for exam results that she hopes will change her life.  For LUNA, a student struggling in school all her life the only way to escape the rampant inequality of her daily life is full citizenship, only achievable through college education or military service. All those without it remain Residents, a new underclass of her society.  Members of this underclass risk expulsion to King 1, a labor satellite in lower orbit. Reaching the end of her senior year, LUNA makes these preparations in earnest, determined to avoid this fate herself. But there is one thing she has yet been able to do. To confess to her friend how she feels about her. Her best friend, MAYA, is at the top of her class. When the latest test results arrive ,MAYA is in the top ten guaranteeing her college admission. LUNA wasn’t so lucky. Under normal circumstances, citizenship wouldn’t matter to her so much, but citizenship is required to gain the right to marry a same sex partner. Poor grades cement Military Service as her only option. When LUNA tells MAYA, MAYA is furious, having lost her mother to an attempt to follow the same citizenship path. Furious she berates LUNA and refuses her proposal.  LUNA, heartbroken, signs up anyway, much to MAYA’s disappointment.  She storms off in a rage, severing the friendship. On the eve of their respective departures, a crisis strikes the city in the form of humanoid AIs known as Dolls, which deviate from their traditional labor programs and begin assaulting and kidnapping the local populace. Now, in a city under AI threat, LUNA searches for her distant friend, hoping to make amends. . .and to make her understand.