Getting to the meadow wasn’t easy. As it turns out I grossly underestimated the scale of the threat. Shortly have heading up the north trail my way was blocked by a derailed train. Without the government the train system, along with everything else, went straight to Hell. I’m not sure what events specifically lead to the derailment but it was likely due to either improperly maintained track or an improperly maintained train. We would need government inspectors to look it over to know for sure. Were my troubles limited solely to a derailed train I wouldn’t have worried to much. Regulations vanished when the government shutdown and the train companies must have no longer seen any reason to avoid hauling dangerous cargo. Combine the lack of rail regulations with the lack of oversight on weapon research and you have a truly terrifying problem: antonymous killbots.
Everybody knows that the defense contractors have been researching fully antonymous killbots for some time now. The only thing preventing them from unleashing their robotic horrors was the federal government, which put strict laws in place to prevent such a catastrophe. With the government shutdown the defense contractors decided to make a power grab and loaded their killbots onto trains and sent them into major metropolitan areas. The killbots must have been activated and released when the train derailed. Judging by the number of bodies that littered the ground the killbots had either been active for some time or were horribly efficient at dispatching human targets.
I encountered the first killbot as I was working my way around the derailed train. It was a bipedal model approximately five feet in height and had two machine guns in place of arms. Upon seeing me it opened fire. Luck shined down on me because I was able to tip my bike over behind a train car. Bullets riddled the car but the killbot seemed unable to see me. Thank God it didn’t have X-Ray vision or some other such science fiction nonsense. Hearing the killbot approach I popped out of my hiding spot just long enough to learn a valuable lesson: .308s don’t do shit against killbots. Even the legendary stopping power of my rifle glanced off of the titanium exoskeleton of the walking death machine. I reclaimed my spot behind the train car as the killbot opened fire again. There wasn’t much I could do other than run. As I lurched to the other side of the tipped car I heard another killbot approaching. Who would have known that walking killing machines would also be able to communicate with one another? Those corporate bastards have no morals other than those imposed on them by the state!
That’s when I made, what I thought was, the dumbest move possible: I heaved myself on top of the tipped car and ran. As I ran both killbots took aim and opened fire. Hitting the ground (or car in this case) saved my life because the killbots ended up hitting each other instead of me. It was something right out of Hollywood, something that the staff at Elite Operators Inc. said was possible but I never believed. Both killbots toppled over and burst into flames. Thinking quick I retrieved my mountain bike and booked west. I planned to take Cedar Lake Parkway around Cedar Lake. Going to the meadow seemed unwise with the threat of killbots roaming the area but I didn’t know what else to do. At least the killbots would kill me quickly. The gangs would probably torture me now that the government shutdown has allowed them to dispense entirely with any form of morality.
I also faced the grim reality that night was catching up to me and there was no way I was going to beat it to Minneapolis. Thinking that I would have to either camp out the night without the government operating or travel the lawless area in the dark terrified me more than either the gangs or killbots.