Titel Information

 

 

 

Tom Knocker

 

 

NOVA

 

 

THE BOUNTY HUNTER

 

A SPACE PUNK STORY

 

 

Copyright 2023

Prologue

 

Dr. Antraxa strides through the corridor wearing a dress as white as lithium nitrate and a bloodstone necklace. Then she pauses and looks out of a window with her narrow, pale-skinned face.

It is located in the floating palace above the metropolis of the planet Xalypso. Shuttle and transport capsules buzz between the skyscrapers, while two red suns seem to cross each other in the firmament. In truth, the closer celestial body is only a lava planet and not a fixed star. But the people speak of two suns, and once they cling to a designation - who will tell them anything smarter?

With a disdainful smile, Antraxa turns away and walks to a sluice-like door guarded by androids. These sophisticated robots resemble humans in dark military uniforms. Yet they seem harmless compared to the X9P standing in front, a prototype of the latest generation. He is the military's Inspector General and is encased in sleek armor with a black visor. He also has murderous weapons and a near omniscient AI. With it, the X9P can fight off all viruses and even simulate more humane behavior than the Doctor.

Apart from her electronic implants, which boost her hormonal performance and perceptions like drugs, Antraxa is human. But no one can beat her in the fields of bioengineering and medicine. Science has not only made her spiritually aristocratic, no, science is her god.

Gallantly, the X9P says, "Have a nice day, Dr. Antraxa."

"You're obviously trimmed for purpose-optimism, aren't you? Well, the patriarch sent for me."

"Yes, he wants to talk to both of us," confirms the X9P.

Without any movement of his hand and only with his data network, he opens the door. Immediately, he enters a residence hall with Antraxa.

A bare-breasted footmaid bows and balances a crystal plate of exotic fruit on her fingertips. Antraxa coolly eyes this still inexperienced girl with her anklet. Although the doctor is considered a tall woman, she is but a stalk against the patriarch in his high-tech throne.

He straightens up like a purple giant boil with a bull's neck and scissor hands. Even if the people see a patriarch simply as a male tyrant, they call him 'mutant' in the back, and in this case the terms are correct. Everything about him shimmers as fearsome as it does awe-inspiring.

However, his Inspector General uses the salutation, "Sir!"

"Ah yes, finally," the mutant says to Dr. Antraxa. "You may be wondering why I sent for you."

"I am honored, but certainly not because I would have to examine you again. You seem perfectly healthy," she replies matter-of-factly and dryly.

Silence.

Then the mutant laughs boomingly. Taking a step here and there, he commands the X9P, "Summarize our successes."

"Yes, our starship fleets have reached the planets in the neighboring galaxies to establish colonies and obtain raw materials for science. If there are indigenous people there, we will use diplomatic or military arguments to convince them of our desire for progress."

"Exactly," affirms the patriarch. "The oligarchs are stirring the hell out of the population because of the astronomical costs, but what do they want? On the one hand, people are grumbling about robots taking their jobs and leaving nothing but wealth. On the other hand, they are afraid that they will lose the prosperity and would have to work more again. Who is to make sense of these morons? Sometimes I would like to tear them apart in the air."

"I understand you," assures Antraxa. "All this will bear fruit, but they are still distant and sour."

As if on cue, the patriarch sighs and beckons the lackey closer with his menacing scissor hand. "Bring me a juicy piece of fruit, little girl!"

Unfortunately, the girl is shaking so badly that she drops the crystal plate. She apologizes a thousand times and gathers the shards on her knees, but now all frustration bursts out of the mutant.

"How can you be so clumsy, so sloppy in front of me and offend me? I'm tired of everyone thinking I'm a monster just because I look like one! To judge so blatantly by appearances is the height of ingratitude. I just had a chemical accident," he roars. "But pah, it's beneath me to tell you more. Out!"

The girl scurries out of the hall.

In fact, the patriarch's ancestors have already contracted an infestation. According to Dr. Antraxa, degenerations of this level cannot be reversed even with hypermodern genetic engineering. In any case, all this has led the patriarch to a tremendous supercompensation in power politics.

Petulantly, he sits back down in his throne to mumble something about his ingenious needs and rallies. Antraxa watches the spectacle as calmly as the X9P.

Finally, the mutant leans forward to receive reassurance or even flattery from the doctor. He says, "Regardless of my research programs for the common good, there is in the universe what I personally seek, isn't there? The Element of Eternal Beauty?"

"In the universe there is everything," replies Antraxa. "We will find it, whatever the cost, and then all people will - love you."

The mutant smiles transfigured.

Chapter 1

 

Nova sits on the edge of the bed, twirling a charred valve ring in her fingers as her reddish-blonde hair hangs forward. Her eyes are steel blue and beautiful, but the right pupil contracts like a black hole in the starlight. Actually, she might consider this ring-shaped component useless. After all, the associated hover car - a hovering car - and the engineer no longer exist. But this engineer has been her beloved husband.

What is the point of her living herself? Nova asks herself if she doesn't want to die.

Anyway, she doesn't like Xalypso, and least of all the city where she grew up. That's why she lives alone in a bungalow here on the prairie, or Step pe, as they would have called it on Earth.

Nova tucks the ring to the laser gun in her shorts, knots her hair and straightens up in a terra cotta colored top. Her breasts are medium-sized, but her thighs are strong and her slim waist is marked by surgical scars. She walks outside.

All around are brown-red rocks. Their jags are not high, but they offer a little protection from gusts of wind and herds of animals. The yellowish grasses look a bit burnt.

However, it rained early in the morning and Nova's greenhouse systematically sucked the water drops. She grows exotic root tubers, leafy vegetables and berry varieties.

Reaching for gloves and a small trident, Nova sets about her gardening. She crouches down and sees the wheels of her dusty rover through the ultra-glass wall.

But all of a sudden she notices a whirring sound. A space copter (a helicopter without blades, but with the torque of a UFO) appears in the sky. Nova can already read the company logo at an uncanny distance and knows who it is. Well, she stands in front of the bungalow, puts her hands on her hips and waits.

The Space Copter lands.

A troop of androids gets out and forms a line. A stocky oligarch with a half-smooth face, googly eyes and air-conditioned business attire trudges through the middle.

"Nova!" he greets. "Nice garden you have."

"Thank you, Babošov. But I bet you've already spotted him on satellite cameras and remember our last conversation." Nova takes off her gloves as if to shake something off. "So what's with this deployment?"

"Well, we need your help again."

"I don't work as a bounty hunter anymore. Making a living off murder just isn't good."

"All you've ever done is kill criminals. I'm sorry if you blame yourself that your nice husband was killed by a bomb. But whether that was really connected with your orders, we'll never -"

Nova turns away from Babošov towards the front door.

"Understood, I won't bring up the subject again. Just ... what else do you have to lose, Nova?" His voice sounds firm and pleading at the same time. "Can't I come in and have a vegetable juice with you?"

"A vegetable juice?" asks Nova over her shoulder.

"Yeah, don't you have one?"

"Yes, of course. I've even got some Schmauchnuss confectionery."

"Hmm, if that's not hospitable!"

She shakes her head and goes inside with him all the same. The androids stay outside.

While Nova has the oligarch sit at her table, she piles the confectionery into a pyramid and makes the juice with a blender that cleans itself. Ba bošov pulls a tube out of his suit and swallows a pill.

"What's that?" asks Nova.

"Oh, just a metabolism booster. It allows me to destroy a ton of goodies with my body without getting fatter and having to exercise. It's just that I'm a lazy money-bag."

Nova says, "At least you're honest."

She puts the two glasses and the sweets on the table, takes a seat and watches Babo šov feast. She thinks that he is being so quiet on purpose so that she will become restless and even more curious.

At that very moment, he says, "Let me tell you what this is about before you make a judgment. Our patriarch has ordered the conversion of various production processes to the colonization of alien planets. In fact, it's probably necessary because our own resources on Xalypso are considered almost exhausted. But first of all, businessmen like me don't like to be led on a dog leash, and secondly, the mutant - so my spies report - acts out of pathological egocentricity. Unfortunately, his military is programmed for absolute loyalty. But that doesn't change the fact that he harms the people and the economy. Already, people are receiving less money. If the patriarch doesn't find the miracles he seeks further and further in the universe, it will be the ruin of us all."

Since on Xalypso it is mainly the robots and computers that generate the gross national product, but they don't even have to buy food, the people are allotted a monthly budget by the state. Consequently, unemployment is at a normal 70 percent. People try to escape the perceived meaninglessness through countless hobbies, vices and sects. Even Babošov comes from such an average family. However, he has worked his way up as a speculator of manufactures, androids and real estate. He has a reputation as an opportunist. But that is precisely why he knows the psychological mechanisms of people. The greatest political danger lurks in the fact that citizens can no longer cultivate their rites of consumption.

Nova drinks from her vegetable juice and philosophizes: "Don't people learn anything existential beyond science? According to the legends, our home, the earth, was a huge garden with a fascinating variety of species. But we have plundered it. We have disregarded it, misunderstood it, abused it - and got the bill for it. Some people think that the blue planet has now recovered, some do not. Supposedly people still live there in mer or again, right? In any case, we are scattered all over the universe like bacterial cultures. Yes, most of us left Earth after climate disasters, and now we're repeating the same mistakes on other planets."

"That's why I sought you out, because I don't think it's too late for us to learn from the past and contain the damage in the future. It doesn't hurt anyone if we only mine the resources of two or three uninhabited planets, but that's not enough for the Patriarch and Dr. Antraxa."

"Dr. Antraxa?" asks Nova in dismay.

In the most dicey situations, the bounty hunter's chances of survival were one in a hundred. But the doctor patched her up every time with the help of biotechnology and made her stronger, faster and more superhuman. Nova is now half cyborg.

She differs from androids in that she was born human. But does that make her fate any better?

"Dr. Antraxa has changed," says Babošov. "She benefits from the patriarch's bizarre hope that there is a so-called Element of Eternal Beauty in the universe. In truth, however, it is only concerned with pushing the boundaries in the macrocosm and microcosm further . She wants to overcome and conquer nature. Her explorer instinct knows no stop. Believe me, Nova, your body may be cyborgized, but in the case of Dr. Antraxa, the evolution of morality is inhuman."

The bounty hunter muses.

Puffing through, Babošov adds even more conspiratorially: "Have you ever met Dr. Antra's ex-husband xa? She filed for divorce years ago, but he belonged to the circle of oligarchs like me. Two weeks ago he had an android reprogrammed as an assassin to put an end to the mutant's madness. But the

Impressum

Verlag: BookRix GmbH & Co. KG

Tag der Veröffentlichung: 30.10.2023
ISBN: 978-3-7554-5925-5

Alle Rechte vorbehalten