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Stories from the Verse
In Version
Chapter 94: Slade 237
Table of Contents
Previous chapter: Kondor 243
Slade walked into their kitchen, and approached the room controls with a sense of invoking some dark spirit. He stared at it for a second, and then moved right up to it. A warrior was not afraid.
“Pandora, I am changing your name to Dwarf.”
This was followed by a beep as had happened when Derek had activated it, then a voice said “That is an invalid activation code. Activation codes must be at least three syllables and cannot be common words or phrases.”
Nevermind, he thought. “O.K., Pandora, I want a seven inch long knife. It needs to have a point, and a single cutting edge. The tang will extend all the way to the pommel. On each side of the tang will be knife scales.”
“What are knife scales?”
“Thin long blocks put on each side of a tang to form the handle. Held to the handle by glues or epoxy or rivets through the tang.”
“Understood. Continue.”
“I want to balance edge retention and ease of resharpening against sharpness and durability against chipping or breaking.”
“Is that all?”
“Price, under five hundred factory seconds.”
“I recommend this.” A picture on the screen showed a long blade, seven inches long, with a flat, slightly widened backside. It had a sharp point which curved into a cutting edge on the remaining side. “The metal in the blade and tang is CPM S110V. It will be difficult to sharpen, so a mechanical sharpener will be included. The handle is two knife scales, textured, riveted four times through the scales and the tang between them. The knife scales are formed of titanium. This metal is light and extremely tough. This will cost 112 Factory Seconds.”
“Buy it. Deliver it to Derek Brown.”
“Within two hours, he will have it.” The screen clicked off.
Now Derek would have something better than a nineteenth century kitchen butcher knife to fight with in the upcoming matches.
There is a behind-the-writings look at the thoughts, influences, and ideas of this chapter, along with eleven other sequential chapters of this novel, in mark Joseph "young" web log entry #491: Verser Ventures. 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:
