He slammed his fist onto the desk. The dull thud echoed through the empty room.
"That tribal chief T'Chaka—has he lost his mind? How dare he dump the blame straight on us!"
The Chief of Staff stood behind him, gripping the corners of his tablet. His voice was tight and hurried. "Supreme Leader, Wakanda's statement will seriously undermine the narrative we've built. If people around the world start believing Yongye had nothing to do with the nuclear attack, the backlash will hit us..."
General Lane stood in the corner with his hands behind his back, the muscles in his face tighter than usual.
He said nothing. He only watched the statement on the main screen, his gaze as still as a lake glazed with thin ice.
He had reached the same conclusion as T'Chaka. Yongye was too powerful. So powerful that they had no choice but to back down.
But he also knew Grand Commander Aoniu was now trapped by his own actions.
If they had only launched a nuclear attack on Wakanda, there might still have been room to maneuver. But Ultron had exploited the opening, gained a Vibranium body, and thrown the world into panic. That had truly made everyone furious.
The White House staff held an emergency three-hour meeting that afternoon. Their final decision: keep shifting the blame.
No matter what Wakanda said or how global opinion shifted, mainstream United States media had to keep pinning the nuclear attack on Yongye.
The CIA's online information warfare division was reactivated. A new wave of sock-puppet accounts and automated comment bots began operating in bulk, trying to steer the conversation back toward "the President of the Eye Society is a prime suspect" after Wakanda's statement.
Fox News aired a special at seven that evening. Its title appeared in white