I turned my attention to Torio, who had been listening while swiping the channels on his visin and responding to messages. “Any news of VBione Corp?” I asked.
“They claim the test batch failed. They’re starting trials for another batch. They hope to have it ready within two days.”
“Damn it!” I smashed my fists down on the table. “We don’t have two days! I want everyone on their visins right now. I don’t care who you have to call, who you have to pay, who you have to threaten with banishment—I want the old Medseet lab up and running by noon today. I want every available scientist, biologist, pathogen specialist, and medical expert in that factory working on a cure by tonight. Do you understand me?”
“Yes, Your Most Supreme Majesty,” they all said, scrambling to get to work.
I realized then that my breathing was erratic. I was all jacked up on adrenaline. It was the intensity of the moment, the whole world threatening to implode while my team and I scrambled to fix it. And where was Zawne during all this? He was hanging out in Shiol with his mistress. Maybe Lordin had been right in assuming Zawne was unprepared to be king.
I pushed my chair back and stood up, feeling more like a fierce queen than I would have thought possible three years—no, three weeks ago! “And someone find out who owns VBione Corp,” I said. “I want a name within the hour!”
“I just don’t get it,” Nnati was saying over the visin. We were both in our private quarters, waiting for the Protectors to finish sanitizing everything and lock us inside until the KS3 scare was over. “These are profit-making companies. VBione Corp should want to make money. Why are they being so stubborn about getting the product to the people? They could be making a fortune!”
“I don’t get it either,” I said, sagging into my couch. Zawne had been placed in another part of the mansion under his own quarantine. If neither of us showed signs of infection after forty-eight hours, we would be allowed to rejoin each other. “I just really hope they’re being honest. We haven’t seen this kind of outbreak in a long time, so it’s understandable if they were unprepared, what with so many people having immunity and the mandatory vaccinations. There shouldn’t even be a superbug!”
“Yet there is,” Nnati said with a sigh. “I feel bad. I’ve been joking about it for years, and now …”
“Don’t think like that,” I told him. “We are going to work this out. The councillors are hard at work containing this, while Raad is investigating VBione Corp, and Dr. Weintag is helping to get the Krug medicine plant back up and running. Together we will come through.”
Nnati gave me a confused look. “Where the heck is Zawne? What is the king doing in all this?”
Canoodling with Lordin, I wanted to say. But that wasn’t entirely fair. Zawne was trapped in a private quarantine, just like me. I was sure he was working with his own councillors to mend the situation. “He’s working tirelessly,” I told Nnati. I wasn’t about to start slandering the king, my husband. Not yet, anyway.
“Good,” Nnati said. “I was beginning to think you were the only one ruling around here.”
Just then Raad bleeped in on my visin. I told Nnati, “Got to go. Raad’s calling,” and switched lines.
“You have news?” I asked as my brother’s sweaty face filled my screen. He looked crazed, stressed, totally frantic. I’d never seen him like this. I wondered how disheveled he would have been without the Aska training.
“A lot of news, and none of it good.”
Raad wiped sweat from his brow, closed his eyes to steady himself, and then said, “Someone’s out to incite global chaos. I can’t tell you why. It could be because they’re angry about you and Zawne taking the crown. It could be an idea that’s been fermenting on one of the continents for a long time, maybe a shadow government, maybe the Gurnots. I really don’t know. But listen to this, I got nowhere at the VBione Corp main factory. They have batches of the antiviral being made on the assembly line but claim they’re not ready. They claim it isn’t potent enough to halt the virus from spreading. They need to create an entirely new compound. I saw their scientists busy in labs, so they do appear to be working on a cure. Meanwhile, it’s not ready and people are dying.”
Raad sucked in a gulp of air. “And it seems like no one is in charge. Or at least, no one knows who’s in charge. There are factory foremen, but the higher-ups all respond to a computer, to messages sent to their visins. I have my best techs working on triangulating the signal. However, it’s being bounced off satellites. It’s like we’re up against a supervillain or something. I don’t know what to make of it.”
I didn’t either. A freaking supervillain? Why did disaster have to unfold under my watch? All I wanted was a peaceful kingdom. But no, I had maniacs unleashing viruses, polluting the planet with toxins, killing thousands. Never had I wanted to be in Zawne’s embrace more than in that moment, to have him hold me and tell me everything would be all right. But I couldn’t even do that. We were under quarantine for another forty-eight hours. I didn’t even care about Lordin anymore. I just wanted Zawne.
I slumped into my chair. “Thank you, Raad. Will you let me know when your techs find a name? I want this person brought in for questioning and VBione Corp destroyed.”
“You’ve got it, sister queen. But …” Raad hesitated, lips twisted in a scowl. “But that’s not all. There’s more.”
“Oh dear.” I whacked myself in the forehead. “What is it? Give it to me straight, Raad. Things can’t get much worse.”
“They can,” he said dourly.
