Having passed, in order of arrival, the discount aisle and the 'pay little, get a lot' deals in addition to the detergents aisle, flanked by the body care products section and, most importantly, taking note of where the food and alcohol sections were located, Roberto and Alex finally reached the longed-for finish line.

Compared to the other good stuff they had temporarily ignored, on the shelves placed on either side of them there was nothing as important, at least from Alex's point of view. After all, that was undoubtedly the cooking utensils aisle, a technical term used in real time by the boy to describe those items; and, except for a couple of pots and pans that might have been useful for preparing something cooked, what else could really be considered so essential to be sought first in an emergency situation like that?

"Ah! There they are! Here they are!" Roberto exclaimed just at the moment when the other evil genius had started to ponder, leaning over a medium-low shelf immediately afterwards and saying contentedly, "Come to Daddy! Come to Daddy!" while simultaneously moving his hands all over the place to grab what he was interested in.

Alex, staying a step away just in case, leaned forward with his body and stretched his head to see what the other was doing. Also because, as said before, in the straight shelves in front of their heads was hanging a long stretch of dusty pots.

From his uncomfortable position, however, he couldn't really see what Roberto was unwrapping or holding in his hands. And, since he had already experienced too many emotions, he avoided asking or getting any closer and instead diverted his attention towards the plates, cups and glasses behind him, wondering if he should take some of them. Washing the dishes would obviously be more difficult than before and in the long run they might even be ruined. However, continuing to use plastic plates or plastic cups would be worse in the long run. At least the way he thought about it.

"Oh! Look at that blade! Look at that beauty! Look at that beauty!" Roberto blandly remarked in the meantime, continuing his work as a master thief, using an unconvincing southern accent for the final two sentences; I guess to make some sort of quote, I honestly don't know.

Anyway, whatever his mental problem was at the moment, also because I honestly don't really want to know, after having spent some more time among boxes, small boxes and family-size plastic packages, he finally turned his head towards his companion. In his hands he was holding a small collection of kitchen knives of various types, value and size, grasping the handles and even risking dropping a couple because of the large number.

Alex paid attention to him again, putting aside the three or four pans he had selected to take away, asking him perplexed: "What do you want to do with all that stuff?" understanding that having knives with him, even if they were kitchen knives, was a good idea to protect themselves and others, but just with the ones he was showing them at the moment they would have had at least five or six each if they had divided them equally.

"And you're asking for it? You don't have much imagination dear friend. Eh... Dear friend..." he replied, subsequently dumping the bundle of stuff on the floor, causing an annoying metallic noise. "I've never tried, but it can't be that hard, can it?" he then resumed saying as he cautiously picked up a small number of knives with cautious.

"Let us speak plainly, dear friend," he continued meanwhile with his speech, standing up again after finishing his selection. "Now that we no longer have the protection of civilization it is better for us if we remain prepared for anything. Arm ourselves," he paused for a moment, bringing his right hand forward now with only a single knife clutched between his fingers. "In fact, staying armed is the least we can do right now. Even for the girls, having a weapon at the ready with them at all times will be no small psychological help."

Alex listened to him without interrupting, shifting with small tentative movements his gaze in the direction of the blade that now stood straight in front of him. Obviously during his life he had always seen or used such a tool, certainly not for cooking because that was not his talent and was not part of him, but in that moment he seemed to be looking at a foreign object, different not in its characteristics but in its purpose.

Whether there were dangers out there or whether they might encounter people against whom it would be necessary to use violence neither of them could know, but the thought often came back to that possibility. A rather radical change from the tranquility of everyday life where good or bad you are aware that no one will ever hurt you, except in the hypothetical case where a person decided to go walking through the dark streets of the city at four in the morning with a wallet bursting with bills sticking out of his pocket. In that particular case he would already be lucky not to end up in the hospital.

Alex still hadn't fully accepted that idea, despite the fact that a part of him knew it would be the only effective way to protect Camilla. However, his body was clearly telling him that he wasn't ready, causing him to gasp as the seconds passed at the mere imagining of swinging a knife in someone's direction. "None of us have ever received training in handling a deadly weapon. Or at least I would hope not. If we were to swing it around we might end up hurting ourselves," he finally said after thinking it over carefully, subconsciously looking for an excuse not to actively take action.

"That's true, at least I think so. But that's not what I had in mind," Roberto answered him, moving slightly to the side ending up showing part of his side to his partner. And, standing there in that position, he then raised his dominant arm upwards with a fluid gesture, changing the type of grip with which he held the handle of the knife. Without turning his head to the side, he continued after again locking himself in a new position: "I once heard that spears are better than swords because the length of the weapon lessens fear. By staying farther away from the target you risk less, and although this is merely my own thought without any concrete evidence, I believe that the psychological pressure the attacker is subjected to is limited as the range increases. So..."

Arriving at that point, his voice suddenly went dead, as his entire body engaged in a rapid and, somewhat ungracefully, almost cohesive motion. His legs rushed forward, carrying with them the momentum caused by the one-way shift of his weight and the acceleration generated by the thrust. The torso, charged with that force, flexed first backwards and then forwards, as a stream of wind would have done. Finally, the last successors of that motor heritage, his arms were thrown forward the instant his left foot landed on the ground and stopped the run for the rest of the body.

With that kind of centrifugal force on his side, the knife that departed from his hand flew away spinning on itself in almost a perfect straight line, reaching the end of the lane without difficulty. There, positioned horizontally from their point of view, was a floor standing refrigerator used to store and sell packages of chicken breasts and similar items; so the poor little thing that survived the test of time had to suffer the full impact at the moment of the collision.

To tell the truth, the noise was not too exaggerated, reducing itself to a continuous vibrating of the handle after the initial sharp blow. In fact, absolutely by sheer luck, the knife blade had managed to hit its way inside the outer plastic casing, stopping after digging out what it could.

"Well, well, well... As a first throw, that wasn't bad at all. What do you say boss?" Roberto asked after observing from a distance the extent of the damage caused, being more surprised by his aim than anything else. Usually Lady Luck didn't grace him with that much generosity especially when he was playing darts.

"Ugh..." Alex swallowed loudly, moving his head first in the direction of the fridge and then back to his companion, only now realizing where he was going with this. "Indeed," he commented thoughtfully, lowering himself to pick up a knife as well. His choice ended up falling on an ordinary metal serving knife, as opposed to the other one that was straight suited for the much bulkier and sharper kitchen ones.

No less, however, what he had in his hand could still hurt. The tip and edge of the blade were there, and those in most cases were enough. Holding it tightly in his hand with this new knowledge gave him a chill down his spine, a passing terror that faded when he imagined using that weapon in a throw rather than a lunge.

So, just as he had just imagined, he too attempted to make a throw in the direction of the same innocent frig. However, his athletic skills and coordination were both worse than Roberto's; details that led to the knife not only spinning too much and badly, but also caused it to travel upward. Following that trajectory it went to slam into and, eventually, chip the high edge of the appliance where the hard plastic held sway.

" Well, it's going to take some work but I'd say we've found something very useful. It won't be like firing a gun, but at worst it will be enough to scare anybody. After all, hitting a human body with little objects like that..." Said Roberto referring to the knives still lying on the ground, satisfied with both the idea and the result of the practical test, and then continuing saying while picking them up one by one, "If we learn to throw them properly it will be a slaughter, I can't wait."

Alex did not share that same good mood, but the idea of possessing effective weapons, within the limits of what was possible considering the means and experience they possessed, reassured him enough. Probably Roberto was right. It would have been impossible for him to stab another person. The distance, the fear and the danger... All those factors would have stopped him before the tip of the blade reached the target's body. Throwing the same knife on the other hand was a much easier task psychologically; an idea that was still enough to scare if you thought about it, but still better than the previous option.

Roberto meanwhile finished collecting the loot, getting up as soon as he finished and exclaiming with a short sigh, "And this is done too. Come on, let's hurry up and gather as much as we can. I'd like to take a tour of the building before heading back to base, and if we waste too much time screwing around the sun will go down. We're still in winter unfortunately," turning around again and resuming moving his hands before he even finished speaking.

"Hey..." Alex, however, noticed something odd since this time he had never stopped watching him; and, not understanding what kind of magic trick he had just witnessed, he suddenly grabbed Roberto's shoulder and asked in confusion, "Wha... How did you do that? Where did all the knives from before go?" Referring not to the new pile his friend had begun to accumulate in front of him, but to the old one that had been lying around until just now.

"Ah... Right, I forgot to mention that. I guess I'm more stressed than expected, I don't usually forget things so easily," the other replied to him, stopping opening packs and turning her head so she could look straight at him.

"While playing with the Terminal I discovered a little thing," he continued after having made the magical electronic instrument donated by the System appear in his left hand. "Apparently, and you have to go read a Readme.txt file to know this, there is a command called dd that allows you to store, or convert what the fuck I know, objects inside the Terminal. Then, using the same command, you can do the opposite and have them reappear. So, look..." He explained calmly, showing the relevant screen in which to type or select the command, but the second case required an extra step.

Finally, after the theory he turned to practice and made his treasure bag full of cigarettes and lighters appear out of nowhere in his right hand, commenting a bit astonished: "Yeah... in theory this command should have cloned the two objects, treating them as files. But I guess they just got the idea of using a shell command because dd sounds good and is easy to remember. Considering the level of cleverness we're dealing with, it's a plausible theory."

Needless to say, that was without a shadow of a doubt the most important and useful discovery made up to that point, and the great genius had still managed to forget to warn the others. What patience one must have these days....