The Waiting Game Sucks

When we last left Vicki and the rest of the characters not as important as Mini-Rayford aka Judd, they were in an underground tunnel.

I'm going to make this short so we can get back to Taylor and to a much lesser extent, Judd. The kids in the tunnel see a truck with a GC logo painted on it and hear a rumbling sound.

Now to Taylor and the rest of the gang. They've just arrived in Tel Aviv and waiting for them on the runway is one of Taylor's contacts, a young woman named Hasina Kamen. She is described as being of Arabic descent, but I don't know if Ellanjay actually gave her a plausible foreign name or if they did their usual "just make it sound foreign" bit like they've done so many times :cough: Ming Toy :cough: Anyway, she and Taylor banter a little which works so much better than any of the dialogue between Buck and Chloe. Anyway back to Vicki's group.

Well it turns out that nothing remotely exciting happens. Turns out all the freaky sounds were Z coming to check on them. Apparently the vehicle is one he's stolen from the GC and plans to use it to deliver supplies. I don't want to knock Z too much given that it's always nice to see the Tribbles actually doing stuff but wouldn't the GC have a tracking device on their vehicles or in the very least, they should be able to find it by license plate alone. There's brief talk about how the school was once part of the underground railroad. Ellanjay clearly want us to make the connection between the abolitionists and the YTF as they are both breaking the law in service of a higher one, but the abolitionists actually did stuff at great risk to their lives, while the most the YTF have done is publish a paper which was probably balked up and turned into spitballs.

Okay, we are now back in Israel. Judd talks with Hasina, who tells him about how her father was part of the resistance, who died in World War III. Judd tries to convert her but Hasina basically says, "I've been through the disasters, the meteors, the quake, the works, lost most of my friends as a result but have seen nothing that indicates there's any God of Love out there."

:wipes tears: This is truly beautiful. Hasina doesn't actually say it because the authors forbid it, but she realizes on a basic level that Zod, not the anti-christ is responsible for the misery the world is going through. She also vows to do whatever she can to stop the GC. Ladies and Gentlemen, we've found the other half of our power couple. Hasina and Taylor are what Vicki and Judd should be but can't due to Ellanjay's "Lie back and think of Zod" strategy. But before you get too hopeful, I've been to wikipedia and according to them, things don't turn out well for our power couple.

Anyway Z gives Vicki's group a Super Special Awesome TV but after they receive it, they realize that Melinda aka the GC Morale Monitor they're holding hostage because if she goes back to the GC and squeals, the GC will kill her then raid the school, is gone.

Next chapter finds Melinda standing over the grave of her partner, Felicia. Melinda decides to tell Vicki her story. Apparently before Zod slaughtered the kids, her parents liked to drink and party, but on the night of the Rapture, a preacher lady told her mother about Zod. Mother apparently converted and tried to convert Melinda, but Melinda shoved her, accidentally sending her tumbling down the stairs. The Rapture happened before her mother landed at the bottom and Zod slaughtered her. Melinda tried to tell her father what she had seen, but he didn't believe her and Melinda remains traumatized. Needless to say, Vicki decides to try to chalk one up for Zod and it doesn't take a rocket scientist to see the inevitable conversion scene coming up.

The chapter ends with Nicky Alps talking with Moishe and Eli. It really is quite boring so I won't linger long on it except that it further underscores how utterly screwed by Zod Nicky is. As said before, Nicky was created by Zod to be the anti-christ and is basically unable to do anything except be Zod's puppet, yet at the end of all this he will be punished and suffer for all eternity for doing exactly what he was created to do.