Seven: Making Good Time

I found that I was doing great time, but I did find myself almost skidding into disaster a few times – the rope tires didn’t exactly have great traction. So I slowed down a lot. But, still, I was doing great – at least five times better than my regular pace.

I was now doing about 10 miles per hour, and, if I’m lucky, I’ll probably do about fifty miles by the end of the day.

While I was leisurely pedaling along, I ran across another pack of wolves that were chowing down on what looked like a dead bear. But as soon as I came close, they yelped and scattered away. Maybe it was the smell of the wolf grease that scared them.

Anyway, I stopped. It was a fresh carcass, so I chopped up some chunks of bear flesh, chucked them into my pack’s reservoir, and continued on.

Given my good experience when I discovered the bike, I decided to look for another nice town (with quotes around the word “nice,” of course, since “nice” is relative).

Eventually, I found another town and yet another bus station. I couldn’t find any maps with the words “cape,” “space” and “center.” The best I was able to do was to find one that had “space” on it. But this one was better since the map was fairly intact, and it showed directions to something with that fragmented label of “space.”

I crossed my fingers that this was indeed the “space center” I was looking for.

And as per the map, it was only a hundred miles away. And with my bike, I might actually get there by tomorrow night.

I wanted to start going right away, but the light was starting to go. It would be so ironic if I just had an accident a day away from my destination, so I decided to postpone my ride, and look for somewhere to hole up for the night.

As I was searching for a new place, the concrete right beside me exploded. I was peppered with little bits of rock and concrete but I was mostly unhurt. I crouched and ran to my bike, grabbed my own rifle and pushed the bike behind the ruins of a small building.

How did they get here so quickly?

As bad as these assholes were, they really didn’t know any better, and I didn’t really want to hurt them. But, at this point, it was either them or me.

As one-track-minded as these a-holes were, they were good at their job.

I’ve been lucky so far, but my luck will run out eventually. What can I do? They had more skills, there were more of them, they were better equipped and they were fanatically dedicated to capture me. What do I have?

Well… they don’t know I had the bicycle…

- - - - -

I circled back and now I was behind them. Clearly they didn’t know I could do so this rapidly because they weren’t looking around for me, and were concentrating on the place where I used to be.

I looked up and saw a ten-story office building looming over them so I aimed roughly halfway up the building, I then fired, and the building collapsed on top of them.

Their armor will definitely keep them alive, but with enough luck, I should be very far away before they dig themselves out.

I got on my bike and pedaled away.