Tyler finds me a job as a waiter, then he puts a gun in my mouth and says, "The first step to immortality is death. For a long time, though, Tyler and I were best friends. People always ask me if I know Tyler Durden. The barrel of the gun is against my throat, Tyler says: - We're not really going to die.
With my tongue I can feel the silencer holes we drilled in the barrel of the gun. The noise from the shot is almost entirely due to the expansion of the gases, plus the slight audible pop from the bullet, due to its velocity. To make a silencer, you just have to drill holes in the barrel of the gun, lots of holes. Then the gas will escape through them, and the bullet velocity will drop below supersonic speed.
You drill the holes wrong, the gun rips your hand off.
- It's not really death," Tyler says. - We're going to be a legend. And we won't grow old.
I shove the barrel away with my tongue behind my cheek and say," "Tyler, it's like a vampire thing.
The building beneath us will be gone in ten minutes. You take one part of 98 percent fuming nitric acid concentrate and mix it with three parts sulfuric acid. You do this in an ice bath. Then you add glycerin with a pipette, drop by drop. You get nitroglycerin.
I know this because Tyler knows it.
You mix nitroglycerin with sawdust, you get a nice plastic explosive. A lot of people mix it with cotton and add bitter salt - as a sulfate. Also works. Some - use a mixture of paraffin and nitroglycerin. Seems to me - paraffin never works at all.
And so, Tyler and I are on top of the Parker-Morris Building, with a gun sticking out of my mouth; and we hear glass breaking. We peek over the curb. It's a cloudy day, even at this top. It's the tallest building in the world, and there's always a cold wind at that height. It's so quiet that you feel like you're one of those monkey astronauts. You do the little job you're trained to do.