Dun-Dun-Dun!

We begin this week with Exciting! E-Mail reading! Action! aka the only thing Ellanjay loves more than Exciting! Phone Call! Action! As you probably guessed, there's nothing really notable except they receive one from Carl (whom I picturing as Carl Carlson from The Simpsons) who confirms that Chris Traickin is a mole. They wonder how he managed to fake a Zod-mark (and I'm wondering the same thing). I'm also wondering just what was the point of this whole Chris Traickin thing; there doesn't seem to be any payoff in sight and I can't help but feel that Ellanjay are just padding out their page count. Padding in an Ellanjay novel? Surely, you jest.

Meanwhile Vicki and the others are walking around in the woods discussing the Tennessee Believers.

“I’d say about nine out of ten people I talked with had gone to church before the disappearances,” Conrad said. “Some of them were even regular attenders.”

“Why didn’t they believe?” Vicki said.

Conrad shrugged. “I guess you have to do more than just show up. God offers a gift, but you still have to receive it.” Conrad asked Vicki about Omer.

Vicki explained how they had met and what had kept him from believing. “Some people are stubborn. Others have pet sins they don’t want to give up. But I think a lot of people have never seen anyone have a real relationship with God.”

Ah, the old "You have to have a relationship with God" clause and of course that whole relationship thing is so nebulously defined that even if you pray and attend church every Sunday, you can still be guilt-stricken about whether your in favor with God or not. Also, remember if you don't accept the Truth! it's because you enjoy sinning you dirty, dirty sinner, not because you have different ideas as to the nature of God.

Vicki's section ends with them noticing a white serial killer GC van heading for them, but given that the GC couldn't find their dick with two hands and a map, I'm not worried. I'm sure this will come to nothing, just like all their previous run-ins.

Now back to Judd in New Babylon...Well those of you who were dying to know what ethnicity Kweesa Darjonelle is (ethnic characters always have screamingly obvious "ethnic" names in Ellanjayland), you can relax. Apparently she's described as having a "heavy African accent." Note that Ellanjay can't be bothered to say which of Africa's 54 countries she's from; they just commited the common fallacy of treating Africa, which is a continent made up of 54 countries, like a monolithic nation. But anyway, nothing really happens in that section except Kweesa leads them to Dan's apartment.

At Dan't apartment, Judd runs into GC Peacekeepers. He says something along the lines of "I wanted to see where the crazy religious nutter lived" and the GC let him by. Judd searches around but then leaves. But after he leaves, he sees the light come on in Dan's apartment. Dun-Dun-Dun

So the GC Peacekeeper, who has been asking around about the whereabouts of the followers of Token Jew, removes his helmet revealing himself to be Chris Traickin complete with Super-Special-Awesome Zod-mark. Dun-Dun-Dun

Next chapter, everyone's all milling around the manly Chris Traickin who tells them about how he escaped from the GC. But Conrad is still suspicious. He points out that Traickin escaped rather easily from the GC (even though the YTF have easily escaped them on numerous occasions). When Vicki points out that he doesn't have any locust stings, Conrad's like, "Uh, how long has he been wearing that GC suit?" But Pete puts his arm around Traickin and says that they're taking him back to Illinois.

Nothing happens except that Pavel finally snuffs it. That is all.

So Vicki is traveling with Traickin and more and more, she starts to have her doubts. There's something funny about his Zod-mark and she can't help but notice the locusts trailing the van. Conrad makes plans to expose Traickin.

In New Babylon, Judd mourns for Pavel. He and Nada talk and they decide to go back to Dan's apartment to see what's going on.

Basically, Conrad's big plan to expose Chris Traickin involves him egging him on, asking why his Zod-mark looks so weird and daring him to go outside with all the locusts. Traickin responds by saying he never looked in a mirror so he doesn't know why his mark looks weird and he still wears the GC suit because he has a chronic fear of bugs even though they can't sting him.

Meanwhile, Judd and Nada steal some GC uniforms and go to Dan's apartment. But when they get there, Nada passes out, leaving us with a double cliffhanger for this week: we still don't know if Traickin's on the level and we don't know what Nada saw. I thought about doing another chapter, but it looks like quite a bit goes down in the next one, so I'll leave you be.