I stood at the edge of the river and surveyed the city.  My journey
through post-Y2K-apocalypse America had been filled with horrors --
militiamen in the Rockies, Nebraskans without cable TV, Hoosiers with
unlimited access to fireworks, Pennsylvania Amish pointing and
laughing at me -- but none could compare to the sight that now met my
eyes: Back Bay yuppies grimly battling one another with bureaucracy.

Even as I watched one group accuse another of noise violations, while
the second subpoenaed the first for unshoveled snowy sidewalks, a
tribe of BU students fell upon a group of stragglers in ragged
business suits.  They didn't even cook them.  A few of the students
noticed me standing on the Cambridge side of the river with my
livestock roped up behind me, but with the bridges destroyed I was
safe from their attentions.

I turned back toward Cambridge, resuming my journey toward the AI lab.
Central campus was in pretty good shape, mostly because the MIT police
were shooting anyone who didn't immediately produce their MIT ID.
There was a touch-and-go moment when my hand got snarled in my
radiation suit, but after ducking the initial volley of bullets I
produced my ID and was allowed to enter the perimeter of burning
busses and overturned cars.  The livestock followed dumbly.

Outside the perimeter wall to the East, Senior House was having a
party; signs outside named the party "the first annual Dean Roast."
Further North, chain gangs of grad students were building a monolith,
a giant four-story bust, just outside the Media Lab.  The figure was
only half-complete, but I recognized it immediately.  I wasn't the
only one -- innumerable businessmen danced around the giant head
chanting prayers and throwing bushels of money at its base.  "Some
things never change," I thought, and, shaking my head, continued
North.

Passing the bio building I lost a cow to angry green tentacles lashing
out of many of the windows, and was nearly killed by cinderblocks
thrown by a platoon of angry monkeys on the roof.  Fortunately a swarm
of identical albino lab rats attacked the monkeys just as they were
starting to get close with their missiles and I was able to run past
the building safely.

Tech Square, like the East side of campus, was outside the perimeter
established by the CPs, so there were some dicey moments battling
ragged Harvard students as I made my way across Vassar and Main
streets.  Tech Square itself was nearly unrecognizable; rogue
construction crews had destroyed three buildings, and taken a huge
gash out of LCS's part of the fourth.  Heavily armed legged robots had
finally destroyed the construction equipment, however, and now stood
guard around 545.  Dragging my now-reluctant livestock, I approached
the robots, praying that my three-weeks-untrimmed beard would not
defeat the face recognition algorithms.  My prayers were answered: the
robots stepped aside and allowed me to enter.

I loaded the livestock into the cargo elevator, which promptly dropped
like a stone into the basement, killing them all.  I took the stairs
to the basement, started the barbecue fires right there in the
elevator shaft, and then began the long climb to the seventh floor.
As I passed the third floor I heard the wind whistling through the
empty halls of Theory just as it had for weeks; "I wonder how Akamai
is doing now," I thought.

Upon reaching the seventh floor lobby, I heard sounds of laughter and
meriment coming from the playroom.  Shocked, I checked my calendar:
yes, it was the first day of the AI Olympics!  Come hell, high water,
or apocalypse, I knew that nothing could stop the Olympics.  This
year, of course, there would be a new twist -- the winning team would
get to eat the losers -- but I didn't expect there to be any hard
feelings.

And thus it was with joy in my heart, and head held high and proud,
that I marched down the hallway to join in the opening round of
Trivial Pursuit, where it temporally overlapped with a very, very
special edition of the...

******************** G I R L  S C O U T  B E N E F I T ********************
********************    USUAL PLACE:  7AI PLAYROOM     ********************

********************     >>>SPECIAL TIME:  6pm<<<      ********************

******************** SPECIAL STUFF:  REDBONES BARBECUE ********************
********************  ONLY FOR REGISTERED OLYMPIANS!   ********************
********************  (INCLUDING VEGETARIAN OPTIONS)   ********************