Georgia must have been thinking about the palace as well, because she squinted and gestured in its direction. “I’m gonna go ahead and admit something shallow,” she said. “That place is supposed to be Instagram heaven.”

“George!”

“Hold up. Before anyone lectures me, I am aware we’re gazing upon eleven glorious—and inglorious—centuries of European and Moorish history.” She grinned, showing all her teeth. “But are you aware inside those gates is the exact spot where Prince Doran Martell was murdered by Ellaria Sand?”

Kira returned to the table. “Who? I never heard of them.”

“The Kingdom of Dorne? Game of Thrones? Ring any bells?”

“Why does everyone like television so much?” Everyone laughed, but Kira didn’t appear to notice; her gaze drifted past them to some indeterminate spot in the distance. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I need to work for a while. You all go ahead.”

Shaking off her unease of a moment ago, Hannah ushered her friends together for a photo before Kira left for the afternoon. Later, she would gaze upon this picture, of the five of them standing in the buttery sunshine in front of the grounds of the Alcázar of Seville with their arms linked and their hair blowing, as a kind of talisman of an easy happiness the world would never know again.

10

The Subcellular War

KIRA

THE STRAIT OF GIBRALTAR

Our rented van coasted through the grayscale darkness of the predawn, hills and orchards and the occasional small town taking on form and color as the sky lightened. I drove; in the passenger seat next to me, Declan typed at a blistering pace into his laptop. Everyone else slept.

I used the quiet time to organize my thoughts. Since yesterday, the scattered handful of reports on the new illness had mushroomed into dozens and dozens of bulletins, press releases, and emails. It constituted big news in this region, with the coverage spilling over from the scientific/medical community into the mainstream media, but had caused barely a blip in American news coverage, which was saturated with a political battle between the president of the United States and a coalition of congresspeople who were trying to deregulate banks.

Over the last twenty-four hours, I’d been in contact with my team, who were awaiting samples of the virus to confirm the genetic sequencing performed by public health officials in Rabat and Madrid. In the meantime, they’d reached out to the WHO and the people at the CDC who interfaced with public policy setters in the United States, just in case this thing blew up, and they’d put together a go-team from the EIS if needed. But so far, the public messaging coming from the WHO continued to emphasize that no evidence of easy human-to-human transmission existed.