Anneliese clinked her glass of bubbly champagne against Axel’s as they toasted once again to their success. It had been a long and arduous journey of scientific advancement, fraught with setbacks, but at long last, they had a functioning prototype weapon that had successfully completed its first test firing. The XM -1004 was the most complicated handheld weapon ever conceived. Its operation, on the other hand, was quite simple, just a trigger and four option settings on the safety switch. There were no moving parts, and no need to ever reload, thanks to its internal nuclear battery.

Axel smiled with his flushed face at Anneliese. They were already a little tipsy from the celebrations. The weapon had been her brainchild, but it was Axel’s calculations that had carried them over the line. The other scientists on the floor marvelled at their own creation. They had changed the face of warfare in a way that no scientist had done since oppenheimer. Within six months they could scale their designs and have these operating on fighter jets and battleships.

The thought of her disintegrating ray melting cities full of people was already getting her hot under the collar. It was one of her secret fetishes after all. She reached down and grabbed Axel by the hand and led him away from the main floor and into her private laboratory. The door pad beeped as her keycard let them into the room. Walking backwards so she could stare into his deep eyes, she pulled Axel inside. She stripped off her lab coat, revealing that she was wearing nothing underneath and sat herself nude on the workbench, giving him a “come hither” look while beckoning him closer with her finger.

Axel eagerly started to disrobe himself, aroused by the slutty performance his girlfriend was putting on for his pleasure. He was already rock hard, and ready to go. Axel was feeling particularly possessive in light of the alcohol and his ego boosting success. Anneliese laid back on the surface of the desk and spread her legs wide for him. Office sex had always been one of her many turn ons, and she was finally getting the chance to give it a try.

Unbeknownst to either of the two lovebirds, the party had been under the watchful eyes of an enemy operator,hidden in the dark of an air vent high above. Watching carefully, she waited until the scientists had dispersed from the weapon’s cage to refill their glasses before making her move. She unfurled gymnastically from the roof hanging down by her legs. The nearest scientist, a usually uptight woman, whose reactions had been dulled by less champaign than the others, noticed the event immediately. She yelled to let the other scientists know of the intruder. Her short scream of alert was cut off by the subsonic 9mm bullet that fragmented inside her braincase, blowing tiny wet pink shreds of cranial organ out of a bloody exit wound. She went from being one of the smartest weapons developers in the world, to a decraniated sack of meat before she could blink. There was a spray of pink mist and she was dead.

The sound of the silenced pistol in the enclosed space was quiet, but not so quiet that it couldn’t be recognised as a gunshot at close quarters. The sound of the scientist’s body hitting the floor was louder, and attracted everyone’s attention. Some had had more alcohol than others and were slower to turn to the threat, but eventually they all realised the danger they were in. The intruder was making a beeline for the experimental weapon’s tempered glass. She couldn’t break through it with a pistol, but if she photographed it, and got away, perhaps the weapon could be reverse engineered by a state actor with enough knowledge and resources. Each one of the scientists calculated that she couldn’t statistically shoot them all if they bum rushed her, so being geniuses, they all rushed forwards to protect their precious research, unaware of the true danger they were in.

When the operative got close enough, she whipped out a counterfeit access card. It didn’t look at all anything like the official ones, which were a shiny plastic red, but instead it was all gold and silicon printed circuit boards. It clicked into the receptacle just like the real thing though, and the lights lit up green when the computer beneath accepted the cards answer to its challenge. The girl’s stomach sank simultaneously. Somehow, against all logic, the operative had gained access to the weapon. They realised their mistake. She had to be stopped, or they were all dead.