The storm-surge basin was silent, save for the rhythmic, metal clinking of ammunition being loaded into rotary magazines and the steady, low-hum of Titus’s earth-shaking grounding resonating through the concrete floor.
Arthur Vance sat at the folding light metal field desk inside the rear of the medical trailer, his Zeiss-Vanguard monocle clicked down, carefully inspecting a row of six heavy metal dart cartridges. Each dart had been milled from high-thickness tool steel, hollow-cored and packed with thirty milligrams of the freshly packed Anti-Chimera Disruptor enzyme.
Beside his elbow, lying sprawled across his open working notebook with her paws tucked beneath her chest, was Vesper.
The young sabertooth had fully ignored the stack of sterile gauze pads, the open razor-sharp rolls, and the metal instrument trays. She had chosen to sit directly atop the page where Arthur was calculating the moving shock equations for Mercer’s Cerberus armor.
Arthur looked down at her. “Vesper. I need to read line fourteen.”
Vesper didn’t budge. She turned her silver-striped head, looked up at him through half-slit golden eyes. Then she let out a dry, haughty nasal chuff that clearly conveyed her opinion of military arithmetic. She extended one long, silver-furred limb, nudging the tip of his ink pen with her nose until he set it down on the desk.
