Kyra woke up a few hours later to a very pitiful sounding voice saying, “Kai!? Kai!?” From the direction of her feet. Ihaka had pulled himself up using the bars of his cot, and was bopping up and down with a very uncomfortable look on his face. It was a look she knew all too well, and coupled with the smell in the air, she didn’t even need two guesses to realise what he wanted.

Groaning, she pulled herself up and reached for her pack “I got it baby, let me fix that for you.”

Once Ihaka had been changed and fed, Kyra filled herself up by munching on another quarter of that mysterious celery/bamboo looking stalk that the MilkTree had given her before deciding to go exploring. The planet (assuming that it was a planet) that they were on had an approximate 48 hour day cycle. So even though it felt like she should have used up most of the day by now, especially considering that it was midday when she arrived, she actually still had a few good hours of light left.

Kyra was still debating with herself over whether or not she should invite Blaize to come along, or if she should give the both of them a bit more time to cool off, when the choice was taken from her with a light knock on her cubicle door. Kyra put down the small blue shoulder bag that she had been packing to go.

She opened the door to see Blaize waiting there with a smile on her face. “I heard you up, and I wondered if you wanted some dinner?”

“Well actually, we just ate. I had some leftover road rations that I didn’t want to waste.”

“That couldn’t have been very substantial right? I just made some Shepherd’s Pie, with a Kumera top.”

“Um, actually I’m really quite full right now.” Kyra demurred as calmly as she could, before trying to offer an olive branch, “I was thinking of going exploring, maybe after you eat you could come with?”

Blaize’s smile had turned stiff, “Maybe next time, I don’t want to hold you up.” And with that, she turned around back into her own cubicle before very firmly shutting the door.

Kyra sighed as she gently closed her own door and continued getting ready, clipping her knife onto her hip and adjusting the straps of Ihaka’s carrier so that it could go on her back instead of her front.

She strapped him in, and after quickly going to the toilet to relieve herself and flush away the contents of Ihaka’s soiled nappy, she sealed the soiled nappy into a ziplock bag to deal with later, and slung her bag over her shoulder so that it was hanging on the opposite hip to her knife.

“Alright Ihaka, let’s go exploring!”

“Ya!”

Taking a long look at Blaize’s folding door as she walked passed, Kyra sang “We’re going on a Lion Hunt and we’re not scared!” as she skipped along the hall and down the stairs, making Ihaka clap and laugh behind her.

She also received some amused, and a few annoyed looks from her new housemates as she made her way through the common room. However, she decided that she wasn’t going to care about those.

Out the back door near the kitchen was the courtyard that Blaize had mentioned. Kyra noticed the promised Barbeque pits placed throughout the large area, which was surrounded by six other identical buildings. Save for the different large numbers depicted with dark stone above their doors.

There were, of course, no play pits or other child friendly equipment. Not that she had really expected any, but still, you’d expect that there might be something. Although not many kids had been brought through as of yet, the number was expected to significantly rise in the future.

Not seeing any familiar faces, and deciding that she would rather take a better look out here another day, she asked Ihaka if he thought that they would be able to find any amazing things today. Causing him to enthusiastically wave his arms and call out “Ya! Ya!”

“Ok, here we go then!” And she abruptly turned on her heel before running to the corner, where she could see an opening between the buildings.

The opening led to a lush purple field between the buildings 4 and 6. Kyra was somewhat surprised that they didn’t just build four more buildings in the corners of the block. But maybe there were plans for developing those areas in the future.

What she was really surprised about after the day that she’d had, was the fact that the native grasses were seemingly obediently growing where they were put. From the incredibly sharp outline of the field, she was wondering if they were acting even more agreeable than the Earth varieties that would have no doubt grown out into the road by now.

Though, perhaps the reason for their apparent good behaviour could be found in the fact that the grasses here, may very well have been able to realise that the humans would stop yanking them out if they just stayed away from those areas. If that was the case, then Kyra wasn’t sure how to feel about this very neat patch of field. The seemingly innocuous straight lines around the edges began to look like an invisible set of bars.

Swallowing down her nerves, Kyra skirted around the edges, deciding to think about the implications of that another day.

“Alright Ihaka, shall we look to see if there have been any shops put up yet, or shall we go see what kinds of jobs I might be able to find?”

“Ya!”

“Which one are you saying ‘Ya!’ to? Shops or jobs?”

“Ya! Ya!” Ihaka just laughed.

“You’re no help.”

Another giggle came from behind her.

“Well, I guess I don’t really want to be responsible right now. I’d rather just have some fun. So how about we have fun now, go and look for shops, and then I can be responsible and look for work tomorrow, yeah?”

“‘Un!” Came the enthusiastic response from the peanut gallery attached to her back.

“Yeah! Fun! Sounds like a plan.”

“Lan!”

“Yeah! Plan.” She said as she set off back towards the Registration building. It was the only place that she had relative confidence in reaching without getting lost at the moment, and she was regretting not asking earlier if she could purchase a map or information booklet of the base.

Kyra had planned on letting herself take in the scenery as she walked, but there wasn’t much to see really. Despite the wide open roads that looked like they were built to let tanks through —and maybe they were— they felt almost deserted. She had seen one woman reading in a window of what was presumably her cubicle, and a few small groups of people were walking by.

However, Kyra knew that somewhere around 10,000 people had opted to cross over to the Spirit Realm in the first batch. Not including the number of Military personnel who had already been here. All’n all, Kyra estimated that there should have been around 15,000 to 16,000 people living here. Quite small by modern city standards, but far from being as deserted as it appeared right now.

Kyra remembered the crowd that had gathered around her when she had come through the gate. Perhaps most of the goings on were concentrated on the outskirts, people only coming into the inner area to go to their resident building.

It might have been true, as the number of people that she saw as she walked along did seem to increase slightly, the further out she went.

Back at the registration building, the guy the desk seemed to be surprised to see her. Stuttering at an apology that the wolf skin probably wouldn’t be done for another couple of weeks.

Kyra quickly reassured him that that was not why she was here.

“I was actually wondering if I could get directions to a shopping district or anything similar that might have been set up by people.”

He blinked at her, scratching his bright orange hair. “I’m not sure what you mean. The only place where you can buy anything is here.”

“What? Nobody has set up any kind of shop yet?”

“No.”

“Wait, just actually how long has it been on this side of the portal since the first batch of people came through?”

“Um, just over a month and a half.”

“And not even a single street stall!?”

“I don’t know what to say.”

“How are people making a living? Weren’t a significant number of people planning to make money through hunting and stuff? I know we can sell our catch to you, but isn’t anyone selling themselves? Is there a regulation?” Kyra asked, surprised.

“There is no regulation beyond needing a health and safety certificate. But I think you might not know what’s been happening.” He fidgeted.

“Ok, what’s been happening.”

“While it’s true that a significant number of people came here intending to hunt and gather, but they significantly underestimated the difficulty of doing that here.”

“How significantly?”

There was a very pregnant pause. “537 people died within the first few days.”

Kyra’s breath caught in her throat. “What!?”

“Animals here, they are far smarter and more dangerous than back home.”

“I know that, it was drummed into our heads during training.”

“I don’t think you do.” He shook his head. “You see, when people started going out, it was chaos for a while. They would be ambushed on their way to check the traps that they had set up. Snipers would have their guns aimed at something they were tracking, only to realise too late that they were only seeing the decoy, while another one was sneaking up behind them. Not to mention hitting those animals with a gun at all is difficult. It’s like they can sense when you’re pulling the trigger, and dodge right at the moment the bullet leaves the barrel.

That’s why I was so surprised to see you with that TerraWolf. How on earth did you manage to take it down!?”

Kyra blinked, for the first time thinking about how much of a close call that whole encounter had truly been. She swallowed, “Adrenaline. It was going after Ihaka here.”

He blinked at the oblivious little boy behind her who was tugging on her hair, giving her a tight smile.

“Mothers instinct huh? He’s lucky to have you.”

Kyra just gave another tight smile right back at him. She had long since stopped trying to correct people about thinking that Ihaka was her son. For all intents and purposes, she was his mother now.

“So what have people been doing? We can’t just abandon the ability to get food right?”

He laughed, “No! Most people joined the military hunting teams. Though some still work privately, even they have banned together and have started to form teams of 50 to 300 people or so. Even they only really go out to get enough for themselves.

Other than that, most people have joined the building and farming teams. Are you interested?”

Kyra thought about it for a moment. Joining one of the base organised teams would certainly be a reliable solution to getting a job and a dependable income. But how much support and leeway would she have in that kind of environment, as someone who had to devote much of her time to raising a kid?

Originally, Kyra had been planning to be a Gatherer. Going out as a Freelancer to collect food and record data on the kind of flora that surrounded the base. She had figured that she could do that with Ihaka strapped to her back, and that she could then take commissions from the people whom she knew were intending to set up shops.

If the situation really was much more dangerous outside then anticipated as the guy said, then it was much more likely that these new ‘groups’ that were forming would eventually open some kind of business, and that they wouldn’t usually be looking for commissions from outsiders. Not to mention the question of her own survivability.

“I need to learn sign language.”

“What?”

“Um, nothing. Is there any way that I could order a whole lot of books?”

“Sure, it’ll cost an arm and a leg to get them here though.”

“How much?”

“It would depend on how many you wanted, but I’d recommend catching another couple of TerraWolfs.”

“Damn.”

“You can try the library.”

“There is a library here?”

“Yup. Just behind the medical facility. There aren’t many books for entertainment in there as of yet, but there is plenty of information and education stuff.” He gestured in the vague direction, “Also, if you order the books you want to read through there, it’s free as long as they are approved. I mean, it costs you a couple of copper bits to take them out, but that’s nothing to what it would be if you got them yourself.”

“Goddess, yes! Thank you.”

“No problem.”

“What’s your name?”

He grinned, “Alex.”

“Well, do you have any maps of the base that I can get Alex.”

“Sure do.” He said as he rummaged a bit in one of the cabinets behind himself, “One copper.”

“One whole copper?”

“Of course! This is printed paper. Cannot be made locally.”

“Alright, fair enough.” Kyra put her hand on her pack, then blinked. “I just realised, I probably should take some money out.”

Alex laughed again. “Sure thing.”

Kyra took out her bank book and looked at the balance again. 2 Gold, 7 Gold Bits, and 5 Silver were written into the income section for the TerraWolf. Under that was a deduction of 5 silver for the curing of the hide.

“Uh, I think I’ll take 20 silver out for now. And brake one of them down into 9 silver bits, 9 coppers, and 10 copper bits.”

Alex smiled as he took her bank book off of her, and went through a door behind the counter. “Be right back”

When he came back, he handed everything to her, and she checked her bank book to see a new balance of 2 Gold and 5 Gold Bits written down onto it.

Handing him back a Copper for the map, she thanked him again and put the money away into one of the pockets of her bag.