Chapter 111 A little VIP shopping tour
Luke then shuttled back and forth to take care of state business, and to his surprise, Jannet calmed down when she was finally able to visit Sarge. Who refused to come back.
Luke had managed to get the agents to return, but Sarge had enrolled in an advanced training course in higher mechanics. Tereen had enrolled at the academy to become better at his job and to get into the diplomatic program. Liz, on the other hand, had stayed with Sarge. Which didn't bother him. He paid for the three implants and the knowledge. His parents, well, they felt comfortable, they were happy about the visit of their daughter plus husband, but they had made up their minds. His mother spoke to her parents, who also came to visit.
Luke wanted to take them back and came to the habitat again. They were sitting in the living area, his mother, Babsi and Alex. What disturbed him about the picture was the mother empress sitting next to Babsi.
The mother empress looked up from a tray.
"I'll have a ship take them back."
Luke wanted to say something.
"Taheen wants to show Alex and me the planet." Babsi piped up.
Luke groaned.
"That's right, your father said that."
Luke raised his hands.
" "I know, I had to fill out the documents, they're just waiting for approval from the ministry."
Taheen looked at something on the tablet. His mother had to smile.
"There he was two."
"Why are you showing him pictures of me as a child?"
She looked at him.
"Well, she wants to make sure that Teheen doesn't get an ugly child." "
He groaned.
Babsi looked at her mother, confused.
"But he did..."
"Yes, and she'll soon be a big sister."
Taheen stared at Luke.
"What? I didn't smell that she was fertile."
"It takes more than that, it's usually like a ritual."
"Ritual?" Alex piped up.
She nodded.
"If we really want to have children, there are two possibilities. A drink or a partner who really gets going."
"I see. But Teheen says she's had abortions so often."
Taheen waved it off.
"She's more afraid of getting pregnant than anyone else. These are excuses to look good to the family."
"I see..."
Alex looked at him.
"Well then, you'll also have a daughter."
Taheen looked at him.
"How do you know?"
"It's kind of a family curse. So far, only girls have come after me, except for Luke, who is an exception."
Taheen looked from Alex to Luke.
"And does she know about this?"
"No."
"Good. Then we'll leave it at that, and I'll put in a word with the Ministry for the proposal."
Luke sighed.
No sooner was he back on Earth than he was buried in work again. Everything that had accumulated during the years of his absence.
Then all the discussions to pacify the uprisings. No, food wasn't enough for them, no. They wanted a utopian paradise. So he had the instigators of the uprisings invited and went through all the points with them, and since he didn't give a damn about their fantasies, he had the Ai show him the actual state of the earth so that they could agree on it together. They agreed on the points of food, dismantling the power plants and new jobs.
Luke had the power plants dismantled, and he sold the irradiated material or exchanged it for modules for the spaceport and a space shipyard. That was still planetar, but you had to start small. Jobs came with the dismantling, but he hired many for the restoration of the megacities, agriculture, etc. Good wages solved many problems.
In seven months, as he progressed with the restoration and the construction of the harbor, Teheen showed up with the landing ship.
"It makes me nervous that there's now a fleet in orbit that can destroy us," he said. Luke was busy with a coffee cup and a cigarette.
So he waited with both for the disembarking delegation.
Teheen looked around as he got out.
"When they said he was modest..."
Luke sipped his coffee unimpressed.
"We're still busy building. Believe me, once it's up and running, there will be shops and other things in it where you can buy cheap and overpriced things. Tax-free, where you can then slap a good amount of tax on them when they come back."
She looked over at the spaceships. Her space jet stood out like an anomaly.
"And this is your glorious fleet?"
"Yep. Next, we'll scour the asteroid belt for resources; metal doesn't grow on trees."
"Which ones to buy?"
"I want to boost the ego of the people here."
She looked at him for a long time.
"Buy ships..."
"And who's going to operate them? I have to train pilots first."
She kept looking at him.
"There are enough job seekers..."
Luke pulled on the butt.
"In the next step."
She rolled her eyes.
"So, what do I have the honor of being here for? I can organize parades so that..."
She raised her hand, which was wrapped in a wide robe that completely distorted her figure.
"I'm not here officially. Otherwise I would have said so. I need two things."
Luke pulled on his cigarette.
"Unofficially... last time..."
Teheen looked at him, pouting.
"I couldn't get out of it, I'm on planet control..."
He grinned.
"Really? How did you manage that?"
"The 2000 rounds, the biological weapons and the insults towards me."
Luke sipped his coffee. He thought he had used it as an excuse.
"First the crates are empty and I need new ones and then I want to see one of your doctors."
"I don't want to say anything, but yours are better than ours and then there's the technology."
She rolled her eyes and her skin color changed several times.
"Yes, and they're currently crawling up my ass so far that they're coming out of my ears and nose, I want a real statement."
"Okay, so what's first?"
"New crates..."
Luke looked at Peters.
"I'll have the carriages driven up." He murmured something into the radio.
"No teleporting?"
"Well, there are a few malfunctions."
Peter looked at him doubtfully.
Teheen looked at Peter.
"You! You look like the one who ensures his safety, so why no teleportation?"
Peter winced.
"Um, ma'am... the systems on the moon cannot record and store his biodata, and the technician from the trade alliance said that it is not a technical error. It is entirely due to the target person."
Luke sipped his coffee.
"You see malfunctions."
She looked at him skeptically.
Several SUVs and a limousine drove up.
Teheen gave her servants orders to go back to the machine. She sat down in the limousine.
Peters looked at Luke.
"I don't like this."
Luke looked at him.
"Yes. She seems to like the limousine."
Luke sat down with her. Peter climbed into the other SUV with some soldiers. Halfway to the gate, they were stopped by Jannet, who went to the window where Luke was sitting, annoyed.
"Can you explain to me why there are so many ships up there? You said we'd have some peace and quiet for a while."
Luke sipped his coffee.
"VIP shopping."
She looked at him, rubbed her temples and got in.
"It really was the worst mistake of my life to bring you back into office. Even your grandfather has calmed down, but you... you're only getting more and more intense, and much worse than he ever was."
She looked over at Teheen, who was examining the mechanics of the window buttons and pressing them.
"Who is that?"
Teheen looked at her.
"Ah, I see why the captain of the guard is afraid of you."
Janette smiled.
"Oh, that was one of their henchmen. Is it true that the men of your people have two limbs?"
Teheen nodded and pressed the button on the window.
"Yes. But they can only come from one. Maybe one in two million makes it out of both. It used to be said that they were the ideal candidates for girls, but that was just an urban legend. The captain did it with his partner in one girl, but in 4 boys. "
The limousine was about to leave when it was stopped again. Gitte yanked open the door.
"Jannet, why are you getting in? What about the PR meeting?"
Teheen looked at Gitte.
"You look like the one who lives with the agent who stayed here."
Gitte raised an eyebrow.
"Right, that's my daughter."
"Oh, that's why they look alike." "
Luke sipped his coffee.
Gitte looked at him.
"Is that the girl you nailed?"
Luke looked at her.
"What makes you think that?"
Gitte sat down next to Jannet.
"Because you remind me of Alex when he sits next to Babs."
"So a retired couple," Jannet said.
Gitte pondered.
"Yes. But now that I see it, you remind me more of Uther and Tes."
Jannet looked at her.
"Now that you mention it..."
Tyheen looked at them both.
"He was the most powerful man on the planet back then."
Tyheen saw a brief movement in the window.
"The records always said that Luke's grandfather was the most powerful. But the name sounds familiar."
Gitte smiled.
She pulled her tablet out of her pocket and clicked through the menus, opening a picture. It showed Uther standing next to Alex, both in sports clothes.
Jannet looked at it.
"Oh, wasn't that just before the two of them destroyed the training scenarios?"
"Yep."
Teheen looked at the picture.
Gitte clicked on.
There was a picture of Uther with Tes, in the background was an opera house.
"She has good taste in fashion, oh now I remember. From the documentary back then," Teheen said.
Jannet nodded.
"And the only one who spanked Gitte's ass. At that time, Gitte was in the special forces and had just established her women's commando. Tes, on the other hand, had already put together a women's gang during the chaos, tyrannized the infected areas, plundered, warlord queen in pure culture and what bothered me even then when I heard that. She just lost interest and went on to terrorize the survivors instead, with an army of death at her back."
Gitte nodded.
"That's right, she never had a good reputation back then, and as for your question about Alex, yes, because Uther made it look that way."
Jannet grumbled.
"I don't remember how long it took for the military to stop terrorizing the civilian population when soldiers marched. The man had a death squad when the first outbreak happened and the one that showed up with Alex in Area 51. For Alex, it was like Disneyland, but Uther viewed it skeptically, like a discount store. Later, when he came back to the surface, I saw with my own eyes what kind of monster he was."
Luke sipped his coffee.
"And where is this Uther now?" Teheen asked, reaching for his coffee and smelling it.
"We assume that he died during the first landing on Mars. Alex never got over that."
Teheen looked at Gitte.
"So to make a long story short, the pet lost its owner?"
Jannet looked at her silently.
"More or less, yes."
Teheen tasted the coffee and looked at Luke.
"This isn't the stuff you sell."
Luke looked at her and smiled.
"There are a lot of things we don't sell."
She frowned. Her stomach grumbled.
"To the nearest fast food restaurant then," Luke said.
"Just out of curiosity, how did you meet Luke, so far it was called the guard test."
Tyheen looked at Luke and grinned.
"Do you see what I mean by Tes and Uther?" Gitte said quietly to Jannet, who nodded.
"The guard exam was just to get him into my possession. Before that, I only saw him on holo-recordings. When he was executing orders for us."
She typed something on her wristband and Luke appeared in an exosuit.
"If it were up to my mother, I would have met Luke when I was still in her womb. Personally," she smiled.
"I met him when he was earning some money as a masseur. The trade alliance only ever dropped him off and picked him up again when ships were in the area. So he was often stranded on the planet. He did many different jobs there. Once a lumberjack, miner, art teacher, fisherman, waiter and even a cleaner. "
The picture changed to show Luke in a pair of synthetic sports shorts and a T-shirt with a griffin on it, lying on a massage table on which a mountain of muscles of an alien was lying. "
Gitte looked at him.
"I know the griffin, he made it at school back then."
They stopped and Luke took several bags out of the window.
"A maid of mine told me about an alien who offers massages that are otherwise only given in luxury resorts or palaces."
She looked at Luke, then at Gitte and Jannet.
"Cross-species massages are rare. My spies have confirmed to me that there is an alien like that who usually goes to strip joints or hangs out with local women."
Luke looked into the bags, looked up.
"Hm?"
"You screwed around even though you had a wife at home?"
Luke seemed to be thinking.
"Yes. You have to remember that before our solar system was connected to the large systems with the generators, time passed differently. For you, only 15 years passed back then. That's why so much was transported to make up for it."
He took some fries out of the bag and handed them to Teheen, who eyed him skeptically.
"Don't be like that." He put a French fry in her mouth.
She looked surprised, reached for the French fry and took a bite, looked at Luke, who took out a second one and put some sauce on it. She hesitated briefly, took it and tasted it.
Luke looked back into the bags.
"For me, 195 years had passed since then. I only sent messages when I was on the moon. Ai always showed me only the depressing recordings or the moments of happiness. But as with everyone else, when I waited for the timeline later."
He took a Coke from the other bag and drank some, then handed it to Teheen.
"She didn't have time to gasp. "
Teheen looked at him questioningly, then at the cola.
"You know it, you call it black stuff."
"Oh..." She drank from it and continued to munch on the chips.
Gitte grinned and looked at Jannet.
"So, how did the meeting go?"
Teheen looked up.
"Well, after the waitress assured me that it was good. I looked at the alien." She looked at Luke and smiled.
"What irritated me was that he even had a license and had passed an examination with the authorities, filled out all the bureaucratic papers and got them approved."
She looked up from the empty fries to him.
"According to the law, he was... is officially a therapeutic masseur, and even offering sex was legal because he used loopholes in the therapy laws."
Luke pulled on the cigarette.
Jannet looked at him.
"And all this just to screw alien women? Wait a minute, didn't you take a course like that here too?"
He stubbed out the butt and took a sip of his coffee.
"Yes. It was the only good thing about one of John's missions back then. Legal license on Earth as a masseur, also chiropractor," he sipped his coffee.
"I also studied traditional medicine in the Asian quarter."
Jannet raised an eyebrow.
"When did you do that?"
"Mostly on the trips, well, let's get back to Teheen and getting data, besides the fact that her servant, when she was there, tore up the table when she came and I had to pay a lot of money for the renovation, but I got more money that way than I would have as an illegal."
She cleared her throat.
"Yes. He gave me a massage back then and didn't say no when I persuaded him to have sex. Then I toyed with the idea of bringing the alien into my harem, well, and then he stood before my throne as a specter."
Luke took several burgers out of the bag and took one out of the packaging.
"What she doesn't say is that she only spoke with her hand back then and broke several of my ribs, smashed my pelvis and dislocated my shoulder."
Gitte tilted her head to the side.
"And why are you so infatuated with him?"
Teheen looked at her. Luke bit into his burger. She looked at him, then at Gitte.
"Infatuated?"
Gitte smiled at Jannet.
"Yes, in a harem, why so insistent on him and why he should do the guard exam naked."
She looked at her silently for a long time, reached for a burger and took a bite as she unwrapped it.
"My servants gossip a lot among themselves. So the rumor spread among my sisters that I was secretly having an affair with an alien who wasn't in my harem."
"Well, until I came to the massage nine times."
She chewed, nodded.
"Well, except for today. Been mine for a good 200 years and my sisters have also left and I had to be faster than them. The test, it always depends on the examinee. The blow he was in was also harem candidates of mine and my sisters, aunts, uncles and so on. "
She licked her fingers and looked at the last burger. Luke pushed it to her, and she took it. She started to unwrap it.
"Under pressure from the Trade Alliance, they translated his service record for us. Since we only knew Specter, he was a prestige object for the Trade Alliance. We classified him as a mercenary at the time, especially when he was working outside the Alliance. All of them were listed in the file, except for the illegal ones, which we had. Later I got his army file."
She bit into the burger.
"There were about 2900 applicants, and to keep us entertained, we made them strip naked. In the end, we had just under 500 contenders. 200 of them became guards. The rest were put into a harem for breeding offspring."
"What happened to the rest?" Jannet asked.
Teheen looked at her.
"They died, you have to understand that. The guard is the most glorious thing a citizen in the empire can become. At the same time, it is also the most dangerous. Most soldiers are smart enough to know that and only the suicidal join. The pretty ones, machos, dreamers only see the uniforms or only know about the harem. So they die because they are not fit enough. He, she pointed at Luke.
"He only complained because, in his opinion, the toilet paper was bad."
Luke grinned and lit a new fag.
"It was, luckily I had toilet paper with me."
Teen sighed.
"He passed the test, to everyone's surprise. My plan was to bring him into my harem if he failed. No. He fought his way through the candidates, they were afraid of him."
"And the suit?"
She smiled.
"It's the uniform of the guard and the traditional costume of my people."
She bit into the burger again.
"She burned my clothes."
Teheen chewed and nodded.
"He was active in the guard for a few years, missions etc... my court masseur, to make sure he didn't escape."
"Hm..." Luke pulled on the butt. He didn't say that it was more like decades in the guard.
Jannet looked at him.
"No matter what I did, he fled the palace."
Luke grinned.
"Still, you haven't said what you're infatuated with."
She licked her fingers, then reached for the napkins and wiped her hands.
"Well, until today," she looked at him, 'he never spoke to me or looked at me like the others. Except when he massaged me.'
Gitte looked at her questioningly.
"Females of my species give off strong pheromones to find a mating partner. Ned's species uses saliva brr. So."
She put the towels in the bags.
"During the first massage, I thought the pheromones were working, but only later. That he was more fascinated by the muscles and nerves. Other masseurs were careful and gentle."
She pointed at Luke.
"He didn't care, as far as he was concerned. I had a few experiences that the crowd luckily didn't see."
"Oh. What then?" Jannet asked.
Teheen looked out the window.
"She once called me in the middle of a job because she had a stomach ache, well, no wonder with what she had eaten. "
She grumbled.
"During the massage, she let out the burp of her life and the fart of her life."
"Because of you, I spent two hours on the toilet."
He grinned.
"And the fart of my life."
She sighed.
"Just like on the first day."
Gitte looked at Jannet.
"How are they marked in the harem?"
Teheen looked at Jannet.
"A metal band on the foot, but..." she looked at Luke.
"He got it on the first day." '
He grinned.
'But..." she took his hand and pointed to the bracelet.
"He has one that he can't destroy. Even if the arm is destroyed, it materializes on another limb."
They raced through the streets and then underground to Hawaii.
"Your cities are well built by our standards. Apart from the technology," Teheen said.
"Tunnels only exist on certain routes?"
Gitte shook her head.
"Every city is connected, and in the countryside, where there are no megacities, there are hubs."
"Hm," she replied.
"Why do you ask?" came from Jannet.
She was looking for something on her bracelet.
"Ned, I don't care what you're doing. You've been on the planet for a long time."
She was silent.
"Aha.." she played with the switch on the window again.
"What convinced you then?"
She was silent and listened.
"No. See you."
She hung up. She looked at Gitte and Jannet, who were staring at her.
"Can I see the network overview and the construction plan of the megacities?"
"Um, sure," Gitte replied, and she called up the network plan and showed it to her.
She looked at it for a while.
"Except for a few areas, it's a masterpiece that dwarfs the metropolis planets. Who built it?"
"Um..." Gitte looked at Jannet.
Jannet folded her hands and grinned.
"The same one who built the nets."
Teheen looked at the plans.
Gitte looked at her doubtfully.
"But it's true, Alex told me, there were a few connections before the outbreak, but not like that. That was all in the logistics program. When Alex agreed because of the company and he could tell me what he produced. I grabbed Tes at yoga and she told me. That the company is active in construction and mining, because of the megacities. Then chemicals and power plants, etc. were added. "
She sighed.
Teheen grinned.
Luke put his hand on her head.
"Come on, say what's on your mind, and there are no VIP trains, there never have been."
She looked at him.
"But..."
"You don't need them if you're only traveling for a short time. The longest trip might take half an hour."
She looked at him doubtfully.
He reached for Gitte's tablet.
"Hey!"
He ignored her and opened the world map.
He pointed to the east coast of North America.
"That's where you landed and that's where we are now."
He scrolled to the side and pointed to the archipelago. She looked at him in shock.
"Then my theory is correct."
Gitte looked at her.
"And what would that be?"
"The network plan and the city map look like the ruins of the first rulers. Perfect in every detail and Ned told me that during the first negotiation, Ukepa sat opposite him and assured him that he should make the deal."
"Ukepa?" Gitte looked at her questioningly.
Teheen sipped her coke.
"Ruler over everything. Simply put."
"So you're telling me that Uther was one of those beings?" '
Teheen nodded.
'Something about Alex must have sparked his interest enough to help him."
"If it's so powerful, why not stop it?"
She took a sip from the can and turned to Luke with it.
"Since you had to wait a long time yourself, what would you do?"
Luke looked at her.
"Hm?"
"If you were Uther and you could do incredible things?"
He took a drag on his cigarette.
"Keep a low profile and work in the background, as inconspicuously as possible. The chaos would distract people so much that they wouldn't even look up."
Jannet cleared her throat.
"Didn't it bother you back then that he was already married here?"
Teheen looked up at her.
"No. He told me on the first day. She was a fool to think she could control him. The same with the trade alliance, Specter works by a code."
She rolled her eyes.
"Yes, but only if he worked for the orders."
"What do you mean?" Gitte asked.
She clicked around on the tablet.
"Luke never told the Alliance that he worked as a guard; he caused more terror there than is good. Uprisings, counterterrorism, hijackings, assassinations, and so on."
She looked at Gitte.
"That's why the Elite Guard brought him back, they know him. The Syndicate now."
She smiled.
"I saw the records of Luke when he jumped out of orbit and started killing. That was roughly his mission for the Syndicate. The Trade Alliance used the name Specter, the Syndicate used Sepekata, meaning Space Devil, and I used Gardist Omega. The other empires just used Terran."
She looked at Tablet, looked at Luke.
"Did you ever look like that?"
Luke looked at Tablet, groaned. She had found his photo when he had just come from basic training.
She looked at it, clicked further, frowned.
"Are there any pictures of him in front of everyone?"
Gitte leaned over to her and called up the family photo.
"Here, this is the first picture of him. His mother was too lazy to take pictures before."
She looked at it, looked at Luke.
"Is that really you?"
He looked at the picture, pulled on his cigarette.
Jannet smiled.
"His mother."
Luke looked at her.
"She was overprotective and kept me away from a lot of people."
"You could say that, but even then he had passed through many women's hands to take care of him when his mother had to study or let off steam.
She dragged him to judo, karate, violin lessons, art classes."
Gitte smiled.
"But there is a photo of him before that." "
She clicked on a picture of little Luke in a plush rabbit costume, asleep in the back seat of a car.
Jannet looked at it.
"I remember that she used it as a wallpaper on her cell phone for years."
Luke groaned.
"Hm." Teen looked at the picture.
"He still looks the same when he sleeps, what about his hair?"
"If he let it grow..." Gitte piped up.
"Hm," she looked at Luke.
He looked out of the window.
"His mother said that he went to a school where you learn decency."
"He did, she just wanted the best for him and to be different from the others in the family. He also learned, if you want to know more about the time there. You just have to ask Bill, he was there too."
"Oh, the tailor."
She clicked on, found pictures of Luke at martial arts tournaments.
"So, what about academic education? I had to memorize the subject matter back then. So that he meets our standards, which in retrospect was a mistake."
Luke grinned.
"Knowledge stamping?" Gitte looked at him questioningly.
"They copy general knowledge into the brains of children, school is more rituals and activation of knowledge. Teheen is a PhD student according to the standards of her people and compared to here.
Her war zone is politics, she has chosen the level of knowledge that corresponds to hers".
"You asked too many questions!"
He grinned.
"That's right," she frowned.
"To break him, I put him in courses, and what does he do?"
Jannet grinned.
"A few have tried that here, he fights his way through. But do you invest so much in all your harem servants?"
Teheen looked at her silently.
Luke patted her head.
"She doesn't, even when she drops her facade."
"I see."
"That's right, I've never heard from the others that they've caught you burping or swearing. Or drooling and snoring in your sleep and farting when you came home from the gala evenings.
Or hugging when something annoyed you."
Her skin turned an instant shade of purple.
Gitte looked at Jannet.
"Oh, that's why she's so attached to him."
Jannet nodded.
Teheen stared at them both.
"Excuse me?"
"Did you make him change for sex?" Jannet asked.
She raised an eyebrow questioningly and looked at Luke.
"What do you mean?"
"No, she's lazy about that kind of thing."
"What do you mean, lazy? You are just as lazy and I want to see your face and not some alien. Then I'll take one from the harem."
She grumbled. She looked from him to Gitte.
"It's bad enough that he has mechanical arms and legs."
"Why are the feeling crystals actually forbidden for use on the body?" Jannet asked.
"Because they eat away at the body, the therapy is very difficult and expensive. Which three-quarters of the people can't afford. Then the consequence is never the same, as when, for example, he—she pointed at Luke.
"Did his kill job for the Syndicate and Lynx told me it was a bad idea. So the emotion crystals are actually harmless, but the processed ones that are used in the devices are highly toxic.
The crystal beings, for them it doesn't matter, just crystals. His kill job went across the galaxy and ended in a refinery. Where waste products that cannot be used are sold to the crystal beings. He was dumped in a bucket, in the hope that he would die from it. Only Luke, like a monster, chased him further. I saw the holo-recordings.
The doctor from the Syndicate did a good job, but..."
She folded her hands.
"Death sentence when he came back to me and casually mentioned that he got some crystals. I put him in the scanner. His genes were already so broken then, I don't want to know how they are now."
Jannet looked at her questioningly.
Teheen sighed.
"Your species is genetically modified, and our scans show that everyone here has done it. Those on the planet that was destroyed, there were still some without. So humans have almost the same genetic structure, which is why they are easy to recognize in the core sectors. The assholes who bred them and..." She raised her finger. "They're not the creators, the genetic samples we got from here. The ones from before the change show that very well. They bred their breed here and they always go the same way."
"Babs said that the facility was abandoned here."
"Something like that, the facility here was sabotaged by grain species, they panicked and left and never came back. When asked why, well, they were at war. Didn't have the resources back then. The facilities that supposedly produced the best results were the ones that produced the best slaves. Who used them. Here, there, the signal was interrupted and considered destroyed."
"How do you know that?"
Teheen smiled and took Luke's hand.
"Because he's responsible for them ending up in the jars. Luke has been traveling the galaxy for a very long time. As you know, your system adapted to the others when the table was reactivated. At the same time, a machine was reactivated that is shot into the planet during colonization. And why did he do that?"
She looked at him.
Luke looked at her from the window.
"Hm?"
"You, heads in jars?"
He looked at her.
"Oh, one of them didn't pay a debt back then. Such gene junkies to be perfect."
"You also make genes your own," Gitte said.
"That's right, only I have no goal with it. 98% is inactive. But the sabotage here, it grew on Exclite's shit. He only told me that, he did that on behalf of the gods, like many other things."
Teheen looked at him, looked at Gitte.
"He said he has a fish as a pet, is that right?"
Gitte looked at her, then at Luke.
"You call Berta a fish and a pet?"
"Berta is a smart fish and tame."
Gitte grabbed her face. Teheen looked at her questioningly.
"I'll show you Berta."
After a short drive, they stopped and Luke got out. They had arrived in an underground parking garage.
Peter approached them with 16 fully equipped soldiers.
"Hey, what are we doing here?"
Luke grinned.
"Visiting Berta."
Peter sighed.
"You do realize that the facility is still in active status?"
Luke tilted his head.
"Even better," he looked at Teheen.
"Do you see the feeding?"
He walked to the elevator.
Teheen looked questioningly at Luke, then at Peter.
He looked at the soldiers.
"Gold Protocol."
The soldiers nodded and changed the magazines in their weapons.
Teheen looked at Gitte.
"What does that mean?"
Gitte seemed to be thinking.
"They have permission to fire at anything we encounter," Jannet said.
She pointed at Peter and the soldiers.
"They are as efficient as your guard, Luke has updated the training program and they are the best who have made the standards. Apart from the fact that Luke lets all soldiers use the forbidden weapons."
"I see, and why forbidden?" "She went to Luke.
"They couldn't mass-produce them and they were afraid that only one person had the monopoly on them," Luke commented.
The elevator arrived and they got in. They went down and came to a concrete corridor, which they followed and which turned into a corridor with armored glass walls through which they could see the ocean. Fish swam peacefully around them.
"And where exactly are we going?" she asked.
Luke pointed to a monstrous structure that looked like a tumor in the ocean.
"Aha, and what is that?"
Luke grinned. She looked at Peter.
"Former marine research station Delta, he spread the rumor that there is secret information, treasure and money there."
She raised an eyebrow and looked after Luke as they continued walking.
"I don't like the damn thing, it just gives me the creeps," Gitte said quietly to Jannet.
"Not only you, ask me why it has activated again."
They came to a lock, Luke opened it and they came to an old bay for small submarines. In the middle, the water was illuminated by the headlights.
"Uh... didn't you say..."
Luke looked at Gitte.
"What are we doing here?" He went down the metal stairs. Teheen followed him.
"So... what are we doing here?"
Luke grinned and squatted down in front of the pool.
"To see Berta."
"I don't see any fish."
"The thing is afraid of him," Jannet said.
Teheen looked at her, then at the pool.
"So, how do you call him?"
Luke lit a cigarette.
"She knows I'm here."
No sooner had he said that than a dark shadow shot into the light and stopped, startled.
"See?"
Teen tilted his head.
Luke looked at the pool.
"Don't be shy." He pulled on the butt and blew out a cloud.
The shadow didn't move.
Luke sighed, raised his hand and the shadow fidgeted, slowly a 40-foot great white shark, covered in scars, emerged. It snapped open its mouth, Luke flicked and water shot through its jaws.
"Good girl," he said, putting his hand on her nose.
"Be careful it doesn't bite your hand off," came from Gitte.
Luke looked at her, then at Berta.
"She's a good girl." He rubbed the tip of her nose and the shark waved its fins.
"Is that your fish?" Teen asked, staring at the shark.
"Yes, she eats by herself, is clean, doesn't poop on the carpet, doesn't need to go for a walk."
"You feed her with the idiots who go into the enclosure," came from Jannet.
Luke stroked Berta's head.
"It's the natural course of life, everyone knows that the water here is infested with sharks."
"Of course, and the accidentally leaked information about relics from the past, what kind of junk is that you threw there?"
Luke looked at Gitte.
"Please, I put every single piece there, they are unique."
"Scrap, I know that because they are things from our basement that we wanted to throw away."
Luke grinned and looked at Berta again.
"Don't listen to her."
Berta opened her mouth and water came out, along with pieces of flesh and mucus.
Teheen leaned in closer. Berta stared at her, tapping her fingers on her nose.
"Why is she puking?"
"It's a fish, it's supposed to..."
Teheen tilted her head.
"I see."
Berta tried to grab her, but Teheen dodged and flicked at the tip of Berta's nose.
"Maybe down there in the water, but not here," she grinned devilishly.
Berta stared at her with black eyes.
"Can't you implant a few human genes in the thing so that it..." Teheen began.
Luke looked at her.
"You want to make an Apax predator more human?"
She looked at Berta.
"Why not..."
Luke stroked Berta's head.
"Berta is perfect just the way she is," he said, stroking a curl.
"He went to a metal cabinet and rummaged around in it.
"Why not Luke? With the..."
Luke came back with a brush, dripped some liquid from a tube onto it, and scrubbed over Berta's body.
"Quite simply, Berta is not a toy."
"She's your pet, like you said."
Luke scrubbed her until she was completely covered in foam. He made a hand movement and the water from the basin below splashed over her.
"I don't know what's more creepy, seeing the shark in the air or Luke doing the dirty work," Gitte said.
"I thought it was more that they were acting like a couple, he thought that Luke and Berta were like a married couple," Jannet said.
Teheen looked over at the two of them.
Peter and the soldiers had perched themselves on metal benches, and he looked at her.
"What? I thought we were going to the plant, not here. This is where he usually hangs out, Berta knows when he's there."
"I see, clever fish, how clever exactly?"
Luke scrubbed spots on Berta.
Peter tilted his head.
"Well, so clever that marine biologists, the serious ones, are afraid of it. The idiots now..."
Luke rinsed Berta again and she was flawless, apart from her size, she looked like a normal great white shark.
"So, now you're back in all your glory, luckily I installed the water filters."
Berta waved her fins excitedly.
Shadows appeared at the bottom of the pool, then several divers' heads emerged from the water.
"Speaking of which," came from Peter.
Teheen looked from him to the heads and then to Luke.
Luke lit a cigarette again and took a drag.
"Hm?"
She pointed to the divers.
Luke looked, squatted down at the edge of the pool.
"Yes?"
One of the divers pulled down his mask, revealing a woman's face.
"New Peta! What are they doing to the shark?"
Luke took a drag on the butt and blew smoke in her face, making her cough.
"I showed Berta, my better half, and cleaned it."
"You!"
Luke looked at Teheen.
"Do you want to see the feeding?"
Teheen looked at the divers.
"Of course..."
Luke grinned and raised his hand.
"You are violating..." the woman began.
"You are in a restricted area, danger level 7. "
He snapped his fingers and Berta slapped loudly into the water, the woman's eyes widened. Berta pulled the woman directly into the water, shortly followed by the other divers, and the water turned red.
"Aren't you afraid?"
Luke blew out another cloud.
"No. Restricted areas are zones that you enter at your own risk. The mutated animal species are running around there. All perfectly legal."
He grinned, Berta stuck her head out of the water and stared at Teheen. She looked at her.
"No manners."
Berta submerged, jumped out of the water and landed in front of Teheen with a heavy metallic sound.
She looked at her unimpressed.
"What now? Hm?"
Berta gasped, dragged her heavy body to the standing barrels and bit into it. Bluish liquid flowed into her throat.
Luke grabbed his face.
Teheen looked at him.
"Your animal does funny things."
Berta trembled and began to twitch convulsively.
"That's right, and you provoked her..."
"Ha!"
Luke walked slowly over to Berta and looked down at her.
"Evolution doesn't happen that fast, Berta."
"Hey Luke, I think your shark is scratching..." came from Janet.
Luke groaned, snapped his fingers, and Berta floated up. He put his hand on her body.
Teen grinned devilishly again.
Luke closed his eyes.
"What's he doing?" Gitte asked.
"He's manipulating the genetic code. Didn't you wonder why Lynx hadn't pressed a button the whole time?"
"Hmm, now that you mention it..." Gitte replied.
Berta melted into thin air, a humanoid figure floated by, the body was human with fins on the forearms and calves, the skin was gray-white, the hair hung down in blue-black strands, the face was human, gills could be seen on the ears.
"Oh, shit..." came from Peter.
Luke opened his eyes wide and tilted his head.
"Ha! You didn't expect that."
Luke tapped Berta on the forehead, Berta opened her eyes in panic, gasped for air, realized she could breathe.
She floated down, Berta staggered, looked at her hands. Then she looked at Teen and walked towards her.
"Now that you can walk, what now?"
Berta snapped her nose.
"That hurts like hell, you cow!"
Teheen looked at her, irritated.
"All this just to tell me yes?"
Berta blinked with black eyes and then went down on her haunches to rub her head.
Teheen grinned confidently.
Berta looked at her, growled.
Luke put his hand on her head.
"You can return to your old form, only your thinking ability will remain."
Berta stared into space for a moment.
"Can I continue to kill and eat people?"
Luke fished an arm out of the basin and held it out to her.
Berta stared at it, sniffed it, and had to vomit.
"Your sense of smell and taste have also been adjusted."
Berta continued to gag for a while.
"Ugh... body parts came out..." Gitte said.
Berta dropped to her buttocks and breathed heavily.
Luke gave her a change of clothes that were in a locker and Berta put them on suspiciously.
She followed him outside, got into the car and looked around skeptically as the car drove off.
Teheen grinned.
"Your first time in a car?"
Berta looked at her.
"Yes..."
Teheen looked at Luke, who was looking out the window.
"Why can she speak so well?"
"Hm?" He looked at her.
"Why can she speak..."
He patted Berta's head.
"I imprinted her knowledge."
She groaned.
Gitte smiled.
"Because you said that he served in the guard..."
Teen looked at her.
"Yes?"
"We were always told half the truth, something like he has a certain reputation..."
Teheen looked at her.
"Well, the trade alliance always presented him in a positive light. In the syndicate, he was now a predator in a breeding cage. Even if Lynx doesn't look like it, in reality she is ruthless and cold, life is worth nothing and so on... Luke didn't convince her with romance and flowers. He's worse than she is."
She folded her hands.
"You have to imagine it like this, she was the regent of a planet, surrounded by idiots. The ones she was allowed to fuck were even worse idiots. Nobles, lost in decadence and depression. He pointed at Luke.
"was unknown, uncontrollable, full of scars, that was her thing and the moment when he "she pointed at Luke again.
"she could touch, well,"
Teheen grinned.
"Yes, we know, he nailed her brains out."
Teheen looked at Jannet, thought about the sentence.
"That too, but also the thing with the chips that you gave them. She lost her job, which she never wanted to do anyway."
"And what attracted him physically?"
Teheen looked at Luke, who was looking out the window, and then at Berta. She crossed her hands.
"I don't know what moment he imagined. Was he..." she wondered.
Jannet looked at her.
"Yes?"
She smiled.
"Well, think about why a mutant fish would let him pet it like a pet."
Berta looked at her and narrowed her eyes.
Teheen grinned.
"He's a worse monster than you are and you must have sensed that."
Berta looked at her hands, looked at Luke.
Luke looked at her, then at Teheen.
"Hm?"
"They both want to know why Lynx took a shine to you."
He looked at her.
"Oh, she became more affectionate when I got rid of her rival." "
"Which one?" she asked in return.
"Your first planned partner."
Teheen raised an eyebrow.
"That was you?" "
Luke nodded and lit a cigarette.
Gitte cleared her throat.
"You look kind of shocked."
Teheen looked at her.
"Sure. For you here it's mundane. But back then it was a hot topic in the media. An entire ruling dynasty was brutally murdered back then."
"I see, and all the high tech didn't record that?"
"Huh..." She looked at Luke, who was puffing on a cigarette.
"The culprit disabled the systems with an EMP, the estate was outside the system. The bodies were found a good month after the fact, when a patrol flew there because the dynasty didn't show up for the meeting. Then they probably paid a bribe and looked the other way."
She kept looking at Luke, who looked at her when she nudged him.
"Hm?"
"How did you do it?"
"What did I do?"
"Get in there and get out?"
"I disguised myself as a maid, detonated the bomb, slaughtered everyone, and then fled by armored boat. Easy thing, I did the same here, except for the bomb."
Teheen tilted her head a little.
Luke looked at her, grinned, and his appearance changed into a multi-eyed humanoid with pastel-colored, scaly skin.
"So, how did you get out of the palace?"
Her eyes widened when Luke took on his appearance. He grinned and took a drag on the cigarette, changing back to his normal form.
"Hey, how does that work with the eyes?"
"Hologram," Luke replied. He put out the cigarette in the ashtray.
"In contrast to now, my form lasted 30 minutes, which was enough to get out back then, the servants were simpler, not as complex."
"How often did you use my form?"
"Once, no, wait, three times. Once when you were so drunk that you didn't react to anything at the Galaball and then again when you had that fuck-orgy and were completely broken afterwards and cried that you were pregnant."
She still looked at him.
"Aha, so what did you do as ME and how did you know about the orgy?"
Luke stroked Berta's head.
"Well, once I saved your ass from the Baroness... don't remember the name. You hate her. She wanted to abuse you while drunk for her own purposes. Ah," he grinned.
"She didn't expect to see you so sober and the other time."
He looked at her.
"You told me after you threw up on my food. Then on my shirt and pants and half the floor. It was a hell of a job getting you into the bathtub and cleaning up."
She fell silent.
"And according to the rumors..." He looked at Jannet and Gitte.
"She's like a praying mantis, except for the eating. As soon as her head was clear, she was gone and twenty-three places in the harem were vacant."
She looked at him angrily.
He grinned and rubbed her head.
He looked at Jannet and Gitte.
"And she took real monsters."
"What do you mean by monsters?" Jannet asked. Gitte poked her in the side.
"Do you remember the porn that Earl watched a few years ago?"
"Ah... such monsters."
Luke grinned and pulled on his cigarette.
"I don't like his grin," Jannet said.
Gitte looked at Teheen. She sighed and looked at them.
"He owns three quarters of the adult industry that is marketed."
They looked at him in disbelief.
"What? Somehow I had to pass the time and just sitting in casinos and ripping off people got boring. I even gave my younger self assignments. Oh so reliable."
Jannet stared at him.
"If that's true..."
Luke looked at her, reached for his tablet, tapped on it and gave it back to her.
She looked at him questioningly.
"You have access to a few thousand movies?"
She raised her eyebrows and looked at the tablet.
Teheen looked at him.
"What?"
She kept looking at him.
"You have a harem..."
She held out her wristband.
"And the good stuff, please, not the weak stuff."
Gitte looked up from her tablet at Jannet.
"So, let me get this right, what I see here is weak stuff?"
"Hmm, every species has its own fetishes."
"Well, well," she looked at Luke, who touched something on Teen's bracelet.
"And what about her?"
Luke looked at her.
"No control."
"Hey..." she said. Luke looked at her.
With screeching tires, they stopped in front of the wholesale market, where the soldiers jumped out and secured what irritated the dealers.
Luke got out and let Gitte and Jannet get out.
"What are you doing here?" Gitte asked.
Teheen got out elegantly, looked around and went to the fruit stands like a kid in a candy store.
"Say yes, VIP shopping..." He followed her.
Luke had to call a delivery truck to load the boxes. Since Teheen had actually bought all the fruit.
She liked the bananas the best, which she first looked at questioningly. An older saleswoman, who unlike others was not intimidated by Teheen's skin color, showed her how to cut them open.
Then they drove to the medcenter, walked through the corridors, Teheen munching bananas.
"And what are you doing here?" Jannet asked.
"I don't know, she wanted to see a doctor who doesn't kiss ass."
"Aha..." came the reply.
Luke opened a door and entered. Gills flinched at the suddenness of it.
"Don't scare me like that, ever heard of calling?"
"Oh, that's too boring. I have a patient for you."
"I see. But you know, the medcenter is full of doctors?"
"Hm, yes."
Gills rolled his eyes, saw Gitte and Jannet, and looked questioningly at Berta. Then Teheen came in.
"Oh well..." Gitte tilted her head to the side.
"But I'm a medical doctor, I have no idea about extraterrestrial biology."
Teheen came closer and looked around.
"Human biology is enough for my request."
Gills sighed.
"Then sit down on the couch over there, what about the other alien?"
She pointed to one.
"That's no alien, that's a, what do you call it, a shark, he was transformed into a humanoid form by it," Teheen said, pointing at Luke.
Gills looked at Luke.
"Yes?"
"Respect for evolution?"
"I offered her to change back to a shark, she doesn't want to. Now she wants to get to know the country up there."
Gills looked at Berta.
"Is he lying?"
Berta looked at her.
"No. It's true. She provoked me!" She pointed at Teheen, who grinned at her.
Gills looked at Gitte.
"That's right, a few hours ago she was a great white shark that ate a diver and then bit him in the barrel of poison."
Gills rubbed his temples. Then he looked at Teheen.
"If you want to be alone, I'll send them out."
Teheen went to the lounger, took off the robe, and now an impressive belly was visible.
"No, Luke can stay," she smiled.
Gills looked at the belly, touched it gently as she sat down. Carefully pulled back his hand.
Looked at Luke, who looked at her.
"Yes?"
He received a blow to the back of the head.
"What do you mean, yes? This is from you!" came from Jannet.
"Sure, she told me she was pregnant, but they usually shield themselves."
Teheen looked at Luke.
"Oh, so that's why they resisted my attempts."
She looked at Gills.
"I want to know what gender it is. Mine predict a boy..."
Gills pulled out a hand scanner and slowly ran it over her belly.
"Luke... you get her pregnant and don't say something like that?" Gitte said quietly in his ear.
"Well, I didn't guess with Nad either."
He got another blow to the back of his head.
"Who then?"
Luke wondered.
"Nid and Ned," Teheen replied. She looked at him smiling.
"They wanted high-quality sperm. When she was young, my mother traded among the rich with potential donors."
"I see. How much did you get?" Jannet asked, looking at Luke.
Luke rubbed the back of his head.
"Huh? I didn't pay anything."
Jannet groaned.
"I can't help it, she tricked me."
"Tricked?" Gitte asked.
Teheen grinned.
"They melted."
Luke looked at her.
"Yes, and that was intentional on her part.
Gills evaluated the data and then looked at Luke.
"Well, how should I put this? "
"It's quite simple," Luke replied.
"It's a girl, with four arms, but according to the data, she's healthy and happy."
"Well, you're damn good at getting girls," Gitte said.
Teheen looked at Gitte.
"How certain are the data?"
"100%." She pressed a button and a holoimage appeared showing the baby.
Teheen looked at the holo. She stood up and put on her robe.
"You have my thanks. I'm leaving now." She pressed a button on her wrist and was teleported away.
"She took the hand scanner with her..." came from Gills.
"Well, she doesn't want to leave any traces..."
What followed for Luke was that his aunts nagged him about it. Lynx just laughed at him.
Five months later, a servant handed Luke a basket. Inside was a four-armed baby. Luke grabbed his face. As he sat in his dwelling and took the baby out of the basket, Lynx grinned at him.
"Incredible, they really let the children be raised by the sire."
" Unfortunately . "
The baby opened its eyes and looked at Luke, its skin changing to gold.
Luke sighed and smiled. Pinx looked at the baby suspiciously.
"Is your half-sister Pinx, what shall we call her?"
Pinx looked at him.
" Tigra!"
Lynx sighed.
" Well then, welcome to the Tigra family. Your mother wants to call you Tihen."
Luckily, it wasn't the first time he had had a baby. It only got hectic when he came back to Earth with Tigra in a carrycot. Peter looked at him, very irritated.
"Er..."
Luke looked at him.
"Yes?"
"Why baby?"
Luke looked at Tigra, who was busy with her dummy.
"Oh, you know, when you said you didn't like the fact that the alien is here?"
Peters nodded.
"Well, it's just a tradition that men raise the children."
"Shitty tradition."
So Luke dragged Tigra to every meeting, every conference, etc. To his relief, she blended in with the color of people's skin.
Only when he had a break, sitting on a couch, smoking in front of him and Tigra sleeping, did the problems come in the form of Gitte, Jannet, Min and Babsi.
"Look, it's true, our president has a baby with him."
"Please, as if you hadn't expected it," he replied.
They grinned.
"So it's true what's in the guidebook."
"Unfortunately..."
"What did Sue say?" Basi asked.
"She said she had my nose."
"Nothing more?"
Luke took a drag on his cigarette.
"Yeah, she egged Liz on to get another one. What a great idea she thinks that is."
"You know what I find weird, he hasn't changed a single diaper yet."
Luke grinned.
"High-quality diapers that absorb and clean immediately. Made my life with Pinx a lot easier."
"And what does she and Lynx say?"
"Pinx is finally boasting about being the big sister and Lynx. She's taking advantage of the fact that Teheen is a baby to get one over on her."
They looked at him questioningly.
"The two are rivals and cousins and bombard Teheen with photos. Which led her to bend tradition and visit Tigra unofficially to nurse her and spend time with her instead of just sending bottles."
Tigra snored.
"Another thing she gets from you. Snores just like Pinx."
Luke grinned.