Page 119 of Sins of Arrogance

But the lab?

It doesn’t smell like any­thing.

Hex doesn’t use gun oil on the new weapon, only syn­thetic lu­bri­cant and ther­mal paste. Which can have a slight odor when heated, but right now, the air in the lab is as ster­ile as the work­benches.

The weapons en­gi­neer stands across from me, a steel gun case on the lab bench be­tween us.

Her dark curls are pulled back in a messy twist, pen­cil jammed through the cen­ter like she for­got what cen­tury she’s in. The coat she wears is sup­posed to be crisp and white, but it’s rum­pled and the lapel’s smeared with graphite.

Arms crossed, ex­pres­sion some­where be­tween tri­umphant and ex­hausted, she nods to­ward the gun case.

But I don’t pick it up. “Did some­thing go wrong with the last pro­to­type?”

“That’s the same pro­to­type.”

“Why this?” I wave at her ap­pear­ance.

“I’m work­ing on a mod­u­lar rail sys­tem com­pat­i­ble with pis­tols, ri­fles, and SMGs. The idea is a built-in nanocoat­ing which slowly re­leases syn­thetic lu­bri­cant when in­ter­nal fric­tion in­creases.”

“Sounds promis­ing.” I knew I got the right weapons en­gi­neer to head our re­search lab.

She grins tiredly. “It’s pure sol­dier self-care, but I’m stuck on de­vis­ing a mech­a­nism that sig­nals when it’s time to dis­man­tle and clean the weapon.”

“Like the heat in­di­ca­tor on the whis­per gun?” I can think of some sol­diers who would ben­e­fit from the re­minder.

Not on the crews un­der me. My men es­tab­lish a weapons care rou­tine that they learn never to de­vi­ate from.

Pun­ish­ment for do­ing so is se­vere. I’ve never had a sol­dier for­get more than once.

“Ex­actly like that. Ev­ery­thing I come up with is flawed though. I’ve barely slept in three days.”

That ex­plains the graphite.

Dr. Xi­mena Morales does all her draft­ing with graphite pen­cils on inch graph pa­per. Old school and un-hack­able.

“Af­ter we fire the test rounds, you’ll go home and change that. The whis­per gun is a pri­or­ity, but that big brain needs rest to keep com­ing up with bril­liant break­throughs.”

“You don’t have to tell me twice.”

Which tells me that by barely slept, she means she hasn’t slept at all.

Hex nods to­ward the gun case. “No in­ter­rup­tions dur­ing this test fir­ing, boss.”

Like she’s the boss. Hex has got balls, I’ll give her that.

I flip the latches and open the lid.

The whis­per gun looks ex­actly like it did the day be­fore yes­ter­day. Sleek. Matte black. An el­e­gant, if or­di­nary weapon.

Or so it would seem. I reach for it.

“Seven shots,” she re­minds me. “Be­fore it needs a pas­sive cool-down cy­cle.”

I test the heft of the weapon in my hand. Not as heavy as a reg­u­lar hand­gun, but more pow­er­ful than the smaller guns with a sim­i­lar weight.

“What are we call­ing it?” I ask.

“Vanta.” Hex pushes her glasses up with her fore­fin­ger.