"When the two angels are joined and the third angel is born," says the radio, "the hosts of Heaven will descend and we will bask in their glory. Heed the words of Missionary Michael and Father William."

"Turn it off," demands Morgan from the backseat, crankily. "I've heard enough of this garbage I hate it."

"It's all that's on any of these fucking channels!!! And sometimes they actually give weather reports, which we might just need."

"I am being tortured. This is torture. I am back on the table being experimented upon. I would rather die in a sandstorm than this."

"Fine, fine, but only because you're traumatized and won't stop using it as a gigantic bludgeon to make all of your problems go away."

Radio: off.

"But in other news, there really is a sandstorm on the way. Next time we find a good place to hole up we should."

And speaking of places to hole up, they can see a reasonable landmark in the distance, there. The metal skeleton of one of the crashed ships, or pieces of it put together by people decades past. Windmills dominate it, more of them than most villages and towns they pass through have, since usually there's no need for that much power generation with plants around.

A bit closer by, however, is the corpse of a worm—a normal-sized one, only about half again as large as their car—lying on the sand. What's curious about it is that there's no blood.

"Ughhh I do not want to get eaten by a worm again," sighs Yvette. "How accurate is your bullshit sandstorm sense, can we hole up elsewhere."

"Eh. Haven't died in a sandstorm yet, and I've mostly been walking this desert like a loon, so. Any. And probably not."

Yvette gives a loud unhappy sigh. "Fine, fine. Hopefully anyone here's friendly."

Zash seems—distracted. Not paying so much attention to what they're saying, eyes glued to the outpost in the distance, watching it like a hawk.

Yvette notices his distraction.

"Mm. Think the worm corpse is worth checking out for butchering?"

And buy time for Zash to finish eyeing the place they're planning to go to.

"Sure why not, I've probably eaten worse. Look at you, princess! Talking about maybe eating road kill!! We'll make a wastelander out of you yet."

She pulls up to the worm corpse and stops.

"Is that road kill? It sort of looks like... I dunno, it was hit with something smaller than a vehicle."

He wordlessly steps out of the car, eyes not leaving the town until he's close enough to the worm to be able to examine it. Then he frowns. "Looks like it was punched to death."

She also steps out of the car, because now she's curious. Well. Sort of.

"Punched. Uh. Are we sure we want to stop around these people?"

"What people?" calls Morgan, not getting out of the car. "I'm not seeing any. And no roadkill for you tonight, princess, that thing looks ancient and long picked clean."

"And yet my heart is not filled with warm fuzzies and glee." She steps next to Zash. "Hey. You okay?"

He blinks and then turns a smile to her. "Yeah. Peachy. Let's go to the town?"

Bullshit. She knows that smile. That's the 'I'm unhappy but I'm trying to pretend I'm not' smile.

"... Yeah. Let's."

"More like a town's skeleton. It looks dead even from here."

"Mm. Wind power fell out of favor as the duststorms settled down as more water actually entered the atmosphere. Solar or plant based is generally the way to go now, more reliable these days. So... hopefully they just moved to somewhere better. Higher ground, maybe."

This is her attempt to comfort Zash, because you see, she's starting to get an inkling of why he's so distant. He has probably been here before.

"That sandstorm not hitting here soon, then?"

"Ehhh. I'd give it by nightfall at the latest, but I've been wrong before."

"We could get a second opinion from the religion radio."