"Sensible." At any rate, back to imitating a carjack.

Back to replacing the tire! It doesn't take very long; she's had to do this before quite a few times.

"Alright," she says, wiping her hands on a rag. "It would probably be best to tell the police about what happened tonight--they tend to get cranky if I get too cavalier about incredibly weird murder attempts."

"I suppose I'll stay here and start curating bio books for you, since we don't want them to see me."

"Sensible. Thank you. Tomorrow I can get started scoping out which professors might be best to introduce futuristic textbooks in their subjects to."

"See you later, don't forget about the transcription spell. Hm, let's start with old university textbooks..." And then he descends into nerd fugue, writing out booklists and plans.

"I won't!" she calls before he's fully enveloped in fugue.

She goes to the police, who are exasperated with her for attracting another serial killer, but agree to take care of things. Then she goes to her room, email Cecil about a possible trans-computer translation spell, and leaves a note for Jaromira, who's currently out, about the broad strokes of the situation and does she know if Kanimir has something suitable.

Then she crashes, because it has in fact been an exhausting night.

In the morning she goes looking for Nick again.

Nick is still in the same place, though he has apparently acquired large amounts of coffee and paper from somewhere and looks slightly manic. "Aha, good morning! I've worked out some development plans." He flourishes a set of papers that might indicate 'some' as an understatement.

"Excellent. Where'd you get that coffee?"

"He was a grad student, I think? Or maybe a TA. I helped him move files and he paid me in coffee and paper. Wasn't paying too much attention, honestly. I don't need sleep but I can still get groggy."

"You don't need sleep? Lucky."

"Yes, well, I do settle into a sort of perpetual drowsiness if I go without for long enough, but caffeine removes it thankfully. Here, have a look at this."

It's a sheet of notes on keystone technology advances organized by decade in Nick's original earth. The closest ones to 2000 include things like lithium-ion batteries, algae-sourced biofuel, 'metacarbon materials', lots of medical information, it mentions medical angels and demons but those are noted as 'dangerous - skip for now?'

"What's dangerous about angels and demons? Specifically, I mean."

"Well demons make arbitrary things. Apparently they all live in complete material comfort and the only ones who take summons are looking for sex, souls, new media, or to get someone to screw up their bindings and have a chance at causing mayhem. Angels are similar if less extreme - they change things, so electronics at least are still tricky for 'em. I'm told your average demon is perfectly nice, but the average demon who will answer summons is not. So we'd need to study up on bindings and come up with a plan to prevent a demon from ever having a chance to turn Earth into a black hole."

"Aha, yes. How do bindings work, generally?"

"Bindings are written sentences added to the summoning circle that define things that the daeva being summoned can't do. They're quite prone to loopholes, and they can gain exceptions when a deal is agreed to. It's a tricky business. The kinds of bindings I'm usually summoned under, none now by the way, wouldn't do they're designed for fairies."

"I think you already said you weren't bound when you first showed up, and putting them in the circle you gave me seems...unlikely."

"Right, but I'm used to humans getting twitchy about bindings, so I said it again. And just to inform you, I've decided that open relationships won't bother me unless you and I get orders of magnitude more serious than flirting and related activities."

"Noted. Although I suppose it is relevant in this case that I'm not from a culture that expects your kind of summoning, so the...twitch reaction wouldn't be ingrained. I appreciate the courtesy, nonetheless."

"You're welcome. A perfect gentleman, except when I'm not, that's me. You know this country and time better than me, would it be a terrible idea to patent some of this future knowledge and sell it? I don't quite need money, but it's still very nice to have."

"Off the top of my head, it would probably be best to release some fraction of it to build your credibility and then patent the rest. If you just claim to be from the future with fantastic knowledge to sell without much concrete evidence, you're likely to come off as a scammer."

"I was planning to release a solid 'most' free, or free-ish. Things like consumer electronics are not as needed as an AIDS cure or yield-boosting agriculture AIs, though."

"There is that. I'm probably not the best person to ask, but patenting anything that's not on that level surely ought to be fine."

"I'll need to talk to Lawyers." The way he says it, it's definitely capitalized. "I've heard terrifying stories about Lawyers."

"That's definitely a stereotype more than a real thing."

"I suppose it's to be expected that I absorb stereotypes. My interactions with Earth have been rather limited. Anyway, any ideas on who to talk to about giving away tech?"