Patreon or PayPal Me keeps this site and its author alive. Thank you. |
Stories from the Verse
Re Verse All
Chapter 124: Beam 104
Table of Contents
Previous chapter: Hastings 223
As they headed for the ramp the next day, Beam had his construction crew up front. He stopped everyone when they reached the bridge. Giving it a quick once-over with his eyes he decided that it was still safe.
“All right,” he said, “I want six of you to cross over and stand on the other side with Bron, and the other six to stay on this side with me. Sophie, you lead the people to the next level, and find a restaurant where we can all eat, or a couple of them if they’re small. Bron and I and the construction crew will be bringing up the rear.”
As everyone began to comply, one of the twelve asked, “Why are we standing here by the bridge?”
“Two good reasons,” Beam answered. “The first is that I want the people to see you, to know who built this for them. I expect you’ll be building more for them in the future, and they should appreciate your work and thank you for it. Sophie, get them moving.”
“The other?” one of the other men asked.
“If something goes wrong, we’re going to have to fix it.”
Nothing did go wrong, other than that Beam found his patience wearing thin as a hundred some men, women, and children crossed his slightly-better-than-makeshift bridge. The bridge held, although the noise was sometimes deafening as feet drumming on plywood echoed in the space below. Finally Beam and his six crossed to join Bron and the other half dozen, and they followed the train up the ramp until he was able to find Sophia and collapse in a chair in the restaurant. They had reached level twenty.
“What looks good?” he asked Sophia as he activated the now familiar computer screen table menu.
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 #401: Characters Hiking. 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:
