Moonshine made me blind to this pyramid scheme (BL)

Slowly and carefully, Yax placed his coffee mug to the ground. Mani still had his eyes closed, unaware of their early morning visitor. Reaching down to his boot where he had a knife strapped to his leg, Yax was glad that he followed "Tips and tricks: Preparing yourself for a mission in outside world according to the ancients" manual. Regardless how many times Ivory rolled his eyes at him, right now he only regretted that his laser was packed in his bag.

Before he could do anything else though, from behind him came the sound of a tent flap opening and Jone's voice broke the silence. "Good morning!" All Yax could do now is watch, as big brown animal turned it's head and moved away with dignity, not in hurry at all.

Jone saw movement with corner of his eye and turned his head. All he saw though, was a big brown butt with a short white tail flipping left and right disapearing between trees. "What was that?" He asked, shocked a bit by sudden encounter.

"Some kind of a deer." Yax thought that it looked like the ones in records. Brown fur, thin legs, horns and all. "Oh great" Jone said cheerfully "Those are definitely edible." Then he moved towards fire and helped himself with a cup of coffee. Yax tilted his head wondering how exactly to turn an animal into food.

Soon everyone else got up. Except Blaze, no one else showed interest in Mani's coffee. He made a fresh pot and poured it in his thermos. Traveling supplies, yup, essentials.

Echo and Floreo made a large pot of porridge, and they all ate in turns, while disasemblig tents and packing up. Yax took Cid and Ivory to examine perimeter alarm and found it untouched. There were dents in soft ground showing how close deer got, but it stopped just before triggering the alarm.

"Very careful animal" Cid said while deactivating the device. He moved to pick up the rest, as even though it did not work on deers, there might be other things visiting them in the future.

"It was not afraid of me at all." Jax mused "It seemed more curious than anything else."

"Well sure," Ivory interjected "we are first humans it ever saw." On the earth of today, world belonged to animals.

Ever since humans either got shipped up to the orbit, or closed itself in shelters, or died if they did not manage to secure either of first two options. Basically, humanity screwed up, did not know how to clean up the mess they made, then ran away to have fun somewere else, while leaving the nature to take care of itself.

And nature did just that, and it took only some 20 cycles. No one expected world to heal itself so fast. If they knew, perhaps more effort would be spared for maintaining living conditions of natural humans crammed into shelters. As it was, those who went to orbit got too into setting up habitats on Mars and Jupiter's moons to take close care of those left behind. Ivory sighted. Well, they are here now, so he should focus on that. Regretting past would just be a waste of time.

After they packed up, Ivory determined the direction and Yax took the lead with Blaze by his side. Cid took rear guard duty today. Rest of the team loosely kept previous formation. Unlike yesterday, they all had their lasers strapped to their waist. Even Mani got two little electro-shockers hanging on his hips.

As they walked, some tried to spot edible plants in passing while others scanned surroundings hoping to see a real living animal. No one talked, as they figured that in such a silent forest, sound of voices would just attract trouble.

Slope they were walking on was barely noticable yesterday, but today it was impossible to ignore. Ground was much steeper and on some places there were rock formations jutting out and forming low wall-like structures. They climbed up, partly to stay on course, and partly because Yax noticed that the ground was less wet higher they get.

At one point they stopped for a short break, munched on some nuts and fruits bars, due courtesy of Dagda. Echo and Floreo went to check some short bushes growing among stones and moss. Jone reaplied his sunblock as there were more sunbeams here due trees being wide appart. Blaze imitated him, as he firmly believed that following Jone's example is always the best bet.

Cid looked at a huge grey boulder that was the reason they decided to make a break here. To climb it or to go along it's bottom was something Yax and Ivory needed to decide. Was it even possible to climb it? Yax decided to test it himself. He left his backpack on the ground and used his fingers and toes to pull himself up the cracked surface. His muscles flexed and he felt satisfied by his body ability to carry itself. He might be old, but still in his prime.

Stone was not completely vertical, and there were plenty of cracks. Soon he reached a protrusion big enough to safely stop climbing, and looked down. He went up some 20 meters, reaching half of the climb, proving that it could be done. He looked ahead over the tree tops.

Yax watched Cid climbing up and thought it should be fun to try it as well, so he left Ivory studying the map and also went to climb. He reached protrusion where Cid was, and deliberately moved higher just to showcase his prowess. As he climbed to the top, he looked down at Cid gloatingly. Cid paid him no attention though, so he followed his line of sight and also looked over the tree tops.

Ivory felt veins on his forehead popping out again. What are those two doing now up there. If it was only Yax he would already call him to come down, but Cid had no habit of being frivolous. So Ivory climbed up as well, strictly to investigate. As he pulled himself up next to Yax, he turned with a huff and also looked over the tree tops.

With three of them up there, just staring into distance, rest of the team pondered a bit then also went up to see what's going on. Perhaps it's another of Yax's tests? First to go up was Jone, who quickly climbed and joined Jax and Ivory. Blaze found a nice little shelf like stone to stand higher than Cid but not too close to Yax, as he did not want to fail this test too. Echo and Floreo exchanged glances and climbed to a protrusion of their own. Looking up at them all, Mani hesitated a bit then decided to join the fun. He did not want to stand out too much, so he joined Cindy at his spot, and looked over the tree tops as everyone else.

Sun shined from the blue sky while leaves rustled in the wind. Here and there a random bird flew by. All eight of noble replicants stared with their enhanced eyes into the same direction. Over the tree tops, back to where they came from.

It was obvious now that they actually climbed up that 500 meters high hill that they were supposed to pass by. Enough said about letting Yax lead he way. The valley they came from was a huge expanse of green. Trees swayed in the wind as waves of a lake. But that was not what they were all looking at.

At the opposite side of the valley, roughly 70 kilometers away, stood a huge shiny pyramid. It was sitting among the trees, sticking out of it as a mountain. It was obvious that it is really the place they came from. Their home that they left for the first time only yesterday. They never actually saw it by their own eyes before.

Ivory searched through his memory. "Well, it is 2000 meters high."

"No wonder those stairs took so long to go down and then climb back up" said Jone. To think he went up and down delivering food daily. No wonder Tzol always patted his legs in admiration. To think Jone misunderstood it as flirting.

Blaze added "I heard Olaf complaining once about squareage they had to cover while cleaning, but I had no idea." He was now glad that his only duty was keeping an eye on Mani.

"It's like 8 square kilometers of living area and greenhouses combined" said Floreo. He sure knew how huge gardens were, even while being hydroponic and vertical, growing area was enormous.

"How many people was supposed to use it as a shelter?" Asked Echo, trying to remember how many people were there when he and Floreo arrived.

Cid answered with a sigh "There was about a million when I arrived, but I heard that almost 3 millions were squeezed into it when it was first established." People were afraid and desperate back then. Lack of privacy was not a factor when survival was in question.

Yax did not say anything. When he and Ivory arrived, there was less than a hundred thousand left. And now, none.

Mani also had nothing to say. He was staring at that huge building, but not actually seeing it. Instead, he was trying to calculate how much fuel should have been stored for that monstrously huge habitat to actually move. What's more, that thing was supposed to fly.