Universe Undone

Chapter 6: The Sandstorm

Scott and his team come across a small town, but not all is as it seems, and things between teammates and their two traveling companions becomes heated.

Meanwhile, Stan hijacks a truck full of valuable supplies where he and William come across an entire city buried under ice. Thinking it might be their home or that there are other survivors there, they head down to investigate.

Justin and Brian find out there might be more to their dead Invid friend than meets the eye, and while the rest of his teammates are holed up in a cave during a raging sandstorm, Rand heads out in search of cacti but comes face to face with Ammon instead.

The following day after they'd left, Scott and his team had come across a small town that he'd spotted from the Alpha. But since they were still low on protoculture fuel, it was decided that only a few of them would head in to check it out while the others stayed behind and waited. The plan was not only to refuel their supplies, but to also drop off Victoria and Maxwell since that had been the goal from the start.

It had only been less than a week so far, but in that short amount of time Victoria had learned so much from these strangers who she now considered her friends. They each had soul and heart, as well as their own strengths and weaknesses based on what she observed. But above all else she admired their courage in going against such a great enemy that pretty much had the entire world under their thumb.

In a way the Invid invasion kind of reminded her of Morane's control over Atlantis City. Both of them had blind followers who showed no resistance and saw the military as the enemy, and both of them were hell bent on eliminating any threats to their power. The only difference seemed to be that Morane was a tyrannical sadist on top of it all, while the Invid were all about survival, or so it seemed. Although after her close call with the Invid yesterday she had to wonder if they might just be as bloodthirsty as the man himself. He once told Victoria, "I kill because I like it," when he explained to her why it was important that he deliver his message himself rather than depending on somebody else to do it for him.

"It's one thing to send a messenger, but when you deliver the message yourself? It's a lot more personal and in their eyes you are god and you are the very last thing they see before it's over. It's a feeling like no other, Miss Thompson. Almost intoxicating. I'm sure you must have felt some kind of power when you killed that film producer. It was an accident yes, but you were still the one with the power in that situation, weren't you?"

After listening to that little confession of his, she couldn't help but wonder if that's the reason he killed his wife himself instead of sending somebody else to do it for him. He must've wanted to make it personal, especially to his wife's lover at the time. But for him to even bring up the first time she ever killed someone as though it were some grand achievement was about as vile as one could get. First of all, she didn't mean to kill that man, and second, it was out of self defense and she had deeply regretted it then. Only, Morane didn't know about Victoria's other victims after that; all the witnesses to her crimes she had shot in cold blood in order to protect her identity. He didn't know about any of it and with good reason, because if he ever found out the truth he would kill her and Maxwell in a heartbeat for stealing from the city; for stealing from him.

Everything was about money with that man and nothing else. The more coming in the better, the less coming in and somebody would have to pay with their lives. It made her wonder if the Invid must have felt the same way about their protoculture since it was more or less their lifeblood. In this universe it seemed just as valuable as gold and also in short supply as her friends always seemed to be searching for more. They needed it to power their mecha, and during her little late night chat session with Lancer he told her about the time they arranged a heist in order to steal a bunch of protoculture from a warehouse using a Yellow Dancer concert as a distraction.