After Yoli left and closed the gate after herself, Malcolm stood there for a couple of seconds and smiled. "Yeah, this was most unusual" he said quietly.

He was still smiling as he walked back inside, accompanied by a feeling of warmth and satisfaction. A feeling that was replaced by sudden fear as soon as he stepped inside his house. He froze in his tracks and gasped.
He had been assuming he was feeling good because he had liked interacting with Yoli. But what if he had been deceiving himself? What if everything was an autonomous reaction of his body? A testosterone rush caused by staying physically close to a human female specimen of mating age, with no relation to what makes Yoli... Yoli?

Malcolm tried to imagine himself interacting with another good-looking girl. He thought back to that girl who had tried to make him smoke - what was her name? Jennifer? - and created a mental construct of a study date with her.
Jennifer was certainly different from Yoli: she used her beauty as a tool, and she had tried to manipulate him, persuade him to damage himself with the promise of a sensual interaction that would not compromise her too much. She would have probably tried that again, which would have angered Malcolm just like the last time.

Malcolm shook his head and shivered. The idea of feeling the same way about Jennifer as he did about Yoli suddenly felt ridiculous. While testosterone was certainly a factor, him being a healthy male, there were other less beastly elements about his current feelings. Realizing that came as a relief.

It was few hours later, in the evening, that the email arrived. His father had finally sent him news from China Lake.

My dear Malcolm,

I have finally found some time to write you. How are you doing? I hope living alone for a few months hasn't bothered you, especially with the funds I left you.

Working with the Navy gives me great satisfaction, the environment is stimulating and the pay is good. If only you knew what I'm working on, you'd have a nerdgasm. It's a shame I can't say a word about it, so don't bother asking, because I'm not telling. :-)

Malcolm grinned as he read that sentence. "Why would I? I already know everything!"

I have some good news and some bad news. As usual, I'll tell you the bad news first as a token of honesty. I'm not coming home for the holidays.

For a fleeting moment, Malcolm thought that his dad's absence would be an advantage, with the ability to use Kilokahn, but his next thought went to the intellectual and emotional interaction he could have with his dad, of which he was fond.

"No..." he sighed, and resumed his reading.

I know you cared about this, and I hope you'll forgive me. Sadly, there have been unforeseen developments, and my presence here is of utmost importance right now.

Unforeseen developments? Malcolm could not avoid but wonder what his father meant. What did Kilokahn do that could be seen from China Lake?

Well, it was natural to assume that the reality-remodeling equipment in Alaska was under strict surveillance and every connection to it was logged. Every Megavirus monster Kilokahn had launched; every circuit tower Malcolm had altered with the Sigma program. The China Lake personnel probably even knew someone had destroyed the HARRP Access Control System, while the document archive had been raided less than a minute later.

This would mean his dad would not come home because of him! But his life had improved so much since he had found Kilokahn... he had even surpassed the human condition, and eventually, the entire humanity would transcend! No, the long-term plan was more important, he could not just quit.

As for the good news, I've been allowed to ship out a present for you: before the end of the year, you'll be the proud owner of a 3D printer. Think about it: it will be like taking objects out of cyberspace into the real world!

I wish you well, and I promise to contact you again soon.

Love, Dad

The email generated contrasting feelings. On one hand, there was another cool present Malcolm would soon be amassing, which gave him the familiar tingle of excitement he got whenever he thought of new creative ideas. On the other hand, the prospect of spending the holidays without his dad was a big disappointment.
"Focus on the good news..." Malcolm told himself.

It took little time to write and send a reply:

Hi Dad,

I'm fine, thank you.
School could be better, as always. I've been bullied at the beginning of the year, but the problem is solved now.
The IT teacher is unprepared to deal with someone with my knowledge, and I casually suggested you could organize a conference on AI for the school. It's a shame you won't be home soon: we could have talked more about this.

On a lighter topic, I've been on a study date with a girl today. I kinda like her.

Bye, Malcolm

The following days, without school, Malcolm had taken a habit of staying up late at night to draw or code at his computer, and waking late in the morning, so the door bell woke him up abruptly.
From the window of his room, he could see a FedEx truck outside the gate, so he got dressed and went outside.

"Are you Malcolm Frink?" the delivery man asked.
"Yes."
"Package for you."

The delivery man handed him a small package, the right size to contain two video game cases.
"Are you sure it's all? I'm waiting for another parcel."

In response, the man tapped something on his smartphone. "You're right" he said, as he reached the back of his truck and retrieved a larger package. "You're getting stuff from China?!" he added, after a glance at the sender's address.
"Uhm, something like that" said Malcolm, feeling there was no purpose in correcting a person he would probably never see again.

One electronic signature later, Malcolm went back inside, up to his room, and unboxed everything, excited with anticipation.

Syndicate Revolutions was a cyberpunk first-person shooter with an emphasis on freedom of movement, where the player impersonated an agent doing strike missions for one of two rival factions: the Eurocorp Syndicate and the Church of the New Epoch.
As Malcolm discovered the underlying story, he could appreciate its two layers of irony. On one hand, the player could choose between a paramilitary organization that defended the status quo, requiring unquestioning faith and fanaticism to its members, and a subversive secret society that spread rationalistic teachings by shrouding them in mysticism. The second layer of irony was that the nature of the missions was identical for both factions.

Prey: Anniversary Edition was much more scripted and cinematic, punctuated by a cosmic-industrial soundtrack by the German metal band KMFDM, and it involved a modern Native American named Talon Brave Sun getting abducted by aliens.
The blurb on the box compared it to the original version, emphasizing the higher resolution of the textures, the additional effects, and the bonus level at the end, but Malcolm's favorite part was the enhanced level editor. Not only would he be able to create custom levels where anything he could script would happen, but now he could also export levels and models, then use them with completely different programs.

The last was the best. The 3D printer was a hollow cube with transparent faces, containing a movable head that would melt and extrude a plastic filament in the desired shape. After installing the drivers and utilities and connecting it to a USB port, it was ready to turn virtual models into real, tangible objects.

As a test, Malcolm exported the polygonal model of the Arctic Cannon from Prey into the 3D printer's main program. Four hours later, the printing process was over and a hollow plastic model had formed.
In a sudden burst of inspiration, Malcolm ran into his dad's lab room and added electronics to the model, including a microcontroller with a USB connection to pilot everything.

Returning to his room, he started Kilokahn.
"Kilokahn" he said, "are you familiar with the feeling of... curiosity?"
"Yes" replied the artificial intelligence. "It killed the cat, when Schroedinger opened the box and collapsed its wavefunction."

Malcolm laughed at the unexpected joke. "Curiosity is like a fire" he then added. "It burns you from the inside, and getting the answer is like a primal feeling of refreshment. Do you know what else burns from the inside, if not adequately chilled? A CPU."
Kilokahn shook his head. "I don't see your point."
"I'm performing an experiment" said Malcolm, showing the Arctic Cannon model to the webcam. "For now this is just a toy, all it does is beep and blink. I'm curious to see how much you can alter its nature."

"Alter it, how?"

Malcolm connected the toy to the computer and picked up his phone. "I'll explain in a moment. SIGMA!"

In the digital domain, he opened a portal leading to the model's microcontroller. There, in front of the circuit tower, he opened a communication channel.
"All I can do with that toy is pretend that I'm shooting freezing beams" he said, "but what if I didn't need to pretend? What if I could actually use it to reduce the temperature of what I'm aiming at?"

"An elementary task, really" replied Kilokahn. "Stop an atom here, one there, and their momentum will average out."
"Perfect!" exclaimed Malcolm.

The yellow elements on his chest lit up. The three yellow beams hit the circuit tower, changing it from a blue dome to a white antenna that looked like a snowflake.

Back in the real world, Malcolm took a glass of water from the bathroom and shot it with his 3D printed toy.
An opaque white flame sprung out of the nozzle and froze the water in less than thirty seconds. The plastic of the toy gun never changed its temperature, which was a violation of thermal conduction laws.
Next, Malcolm switched off his computer and removed a panel from the bottom, exposing the CPU. Carefully, he aimed the Arctic Cannon at the heat sink and activated it, and then, from the BIOS, he drove the CPU to twice its nominal clock speed.

The results left him astonished. The continuous cold beam kept the overclocked processor completely stable, while his video games ran much smoother, and not even stereoscopy managed to slow them down. Everything was so much better that even parts he had already experienced produced a feeling of exhilaration.
Video streaming was possible at a much higher resolution, which let him appreciate every little detail of the recently released first movie trailer for A Whole New Universe, as well as a news video that would probably go down in history as it showed Kim Jong-Lo, the supreme leader of North Korea, signing the first official peace treaty from the Ryongsong Residence.

Malcolm wondered how his classmates would spend the rest of the holidays, and concluded they would probably go somewhere to get drunk. As for himself, he'd have a lot more fun at home.