“Stand still, please. You will feel a stinging sensation as the beams pass over you, and some of your body hair may be singed off, but try not to move despite this as it is the only way to guard against improper fit and accidents.”

The replicator technician-priestess–Glynnis or somesuch, it wasn’t Pat’s concern to remember names–herded the supplicants onto a squealing and rusty conveyor belt. No one except the technician-priestess was wearing a stitch of clothing, but most were so caked in dirt and grime that it was hard to notice. Unlike the dole, which gave out as much mostly-inedible food as the machines could make, the spinprinter could replicate thin if livable clothing perfectly well–so long as the matter hoppers were kept fed.

Luckily for Pat, and for Herb beside him, the best way to get the proper raw materials was from the tatterdemalion rags of the indigent.

Pat nudged Herb at a private joke, pointing and laughing. Herb was having none of it; though it has been some time since the two of them lucked out by finding a settlement that still possessed working replicators at all, he was still resolutely paranoid about being thrown out. The settlement sure beat the regression to hunter-gathering, cannibalism, and worse that they had fled, Pat conceded. And if the price of the occasional replicated chocolate and clothing was a stinging sensation and having to turn in old garments to be recycled, he was happy to do so.

But that didn’t mean having no fun, Pat mused as the grinding of gears pushed the indigents through a laser-ringed arch to begin the printing process.

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