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Stories from the Verse
Re Verse All
Chapter 116: Beam 100
Table of Contents
Previous chapter: Hastings 221
The white-haired man took his dozen men plus Bron and Dawn, following a map he had sketched which showed how to get to a lumber and hardware supply outlet and from there back to the ramp without passing through the section where the repair robot was fixing the mining mole. He had transferred his three cases of beer to Dawn’s weapons cart, and ordered lunch delivery for everyone else a few hours in the future.
“You guys,” he said, “are going to be our construction crew. We might need you in the future, when we find the surface. Today we’re going to get you some tools and teach you how to use some of them, and we’re going to frame and build a bridge, which should give you the basics of how to frame a building.”
Then he focused on his map.
Reaching the first destination, he started giving instructions again. “Everyone gets tools. That’s more tools than we need for this job, but we’ll be taking them with us. Each of you gets a claw hammer, a crosscut saw, a set of screwdrivers with a gimlet, and we’ll throw in a Crescent wrench, a pipe wrench, a pair of gas pliers and a pair of lineman’s pliers, none of which you’ll need for this project but which might come in handy in the future. We’ll also need to get a tool box for each of you, although probably the saws won’t fit. I’d get you smaller saws, but you’re going to need the crosscut saws for the plywood.”
By this time even Bron was staring at him in confusion.
“What, you don’t know your tools, Bron?”
“Hammers, sure, but claw hammers? Crosscut? Crescent?”
“Right, well, we’ll introduce you. Let me get one of these tool carts to follow us. We’re also going to need a big box of eight penny nails, and another box I think of ten penny nails, and some two and three quarter inch wood screws, all galvanized, I think. And we’re going to need a ton of two-by-fours, a load of planking, maybe deck planking or something like it, and I think plywood to surface it.”
“You know I don’t know what all of that is. Nails, screws, sure, but that other stuff?”
“Wood. Carpentry stuff. We’ll find it, although we’re going to need the right carts for it all.”
They spent the next couple hours, longer than Beam had expected, gathering everything on his list. He then took another twenty minutes wandering around the store trying to decide whether he forgot anything, and wound up getting everyone a tape measure. He chided himself that he had forgotten it, and that the project would have been a lot more difficult without it.
From there he made his way to the base of the ramp where, as he had anticipated, the shopping carts would go no farther. “Unload everything,” he said. “We carry it from here.”
There is a behind-the-writings look at the thoughts, influences, and ideas of this chapter, along with five other sequential chapters of this novel, in mark Joseph "young" web log entry #397: Verser Challenges. Given a moment, this link should take you directly to the section relevant to this chapter. It may contain spoilers of upcoming chapters.
As to the old stories that have long been here:
