Free Assault or Attrition by Blake Northcott

were
incidentally the same clothes I was wearing at the CN Tower during
my stabbing. I wore a dark hoodie to conceal my t-shirt, which was
torn and blood-stained. I agreed it was probably best to burn what
I was wearing and take a cue from Brynja – why spend hours flying
to the nearest mall when I could generate any garment I needed
right here?
    It was an
incredible machine: the next generation model 3D printer could
replicate virtually anything, from textiles to machines with moving
parts. A few torrent sites had searchable archives, home to
literally millions of design files called ‘physibles’. It was
simple: download the source file, upload the proper materials and
feed it to the printer. A few minutes later your desired item would
appear in a large metal chamber like magic.
    The machine had
a single design flaw: you had to ensure you had enough of the
correct material loaded into it before printing, or it would
default to a random compound – usually whatever had been loaded in
previously. My short-term memory issues didn’t help with the
problem. Forgetting to check the levels of cotton and polyester,
one evening I printed everyone a cushy new aluminum pillow for
their bedrooms. My running shoes made of chocolate chip cookie
dough with licorice shoelaces were another amusing disaster (and
provided a surprisingly delicious snack, considering the
combination).
    As a child my
father had purchased one of the very first commercially available
3D printers, which was a relic by today’s standards. At the time
the technology was mind-boggling, and my family was fascinated with
the device. Occasionally my sister and I were allowed to model and
produce our own toys under my dad’s strict supervision. The first
gen 3D printers worked by using hot polycarbonate plastic, which
hardened as the design cooled and took shape. Design options were
limited, and the printing process seemed to take forever, but one
option was all I needed: I wanted to make Lego. Sure, I had toy
chests filled with the tiny plastic blocks in my room, but there
was something special about inputting a design and printing my
own.
    With this
massive printing monstrosity at my disposal, I became a kid all
over again. Over the following month I must have created a thousand
things with my new printer: graphene-coated armor suits. Swords.
Shields. A customized toaster that looked like the original
Nintendo system. Frisbees. A working bicycle. Sniper rifles that
could fire marshmallows a thousand feet. And of course, mountains
and mountains of Lego. At one point I’d printed so many Lego pieces
that a room in the north wing was dedicated solely to my growing
collection. The entire compound was littered with pieces until the
maintenance staff got tired of stepping on them. Several people
threatened to quit if I didn’t start cleaning up after myself. I
wasn’t much of a ‘clean up after myself’ type of guy, so I hired
some additional cleaning staff dedicated solely to the task.
    When I wasn’t
printing Lego or playing video games with Brynja I was reading.
After a week of searching I’d located Cameron Frost’s hidden
library in one of the deep subterranean levels, accessed by pulling
a lever in one of the supply closets. It was epic . A
collection of every book and graphic novel I’d ever heard of,
leather-bound and carefully organized in a three-story room with a
cathedral ceiling. Retrieving a book from the top shelf required a
harrowing journey, climbing up while clinging to a series of
sliding wooden ladders. It was three days later before I’d realized
that London could hover up and retrieve them for me, but there was
a strange sense of satisfaction in risking a broken leg to source
out the perfect reading material.
    I read one
novel after the next, day after day, until I came across a series
of hardcover books that were not novels at all: they were Cameron
Frost’s personal notebooks; filled from cover-to-cover with
handwritten notes and