On January 13, 2006, Queenlord Cassandra sends her forces to kidnap Griffin Spade's son Brandon and kill the rest of the family. Griffin and his army push back the attack—but Cassandra turns his own troops against him through mind control. Griffin and his wife Madison escape San Francisco and begin chasing Cassandra across the United States, tracking her to Washington, D.C. before she escapes with Brandon to Great Britain. The pursuit crosses England, France, and Germany, where Griffin and Madison discover Cassandra's deeper history: she was responsible for releasing a virus in 2001 that killed every woman on Earth who lacked the power of the Edge.