"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?"

"Not specifically, but I'm sure if we ask around we can find someone."

"Sure, let's try it... If we can't swing a transcription spell I should have you unsummon me and find a bunch of printers that I know will hook up to this thing." He waves the tablet. "Even if I don't know anyone who could backchain to compact disks, it'd speed things up."

"...What do you use instead? I'm betting none of the science fiction I've seen is accurate."

"Wireless communication directly between two devices. And for stuff bigger than few terabytes - A terabyte is a thousand gigabytes is a thousand megabytes - little sticks of flash crystal that don't even plug in because they're wireless too."

"I imagine I'd be more impressed if my area were the mechanical instead of the biological, but even I can tell that that's pretty cool."

"It's pretty sweet, yes." He taps a few things on the computer. "I found a biology book I thought looked promising. Flip 'pages' by flicking at the corners." He hands over the tablet. "How does one find a professor?"

"Ah--since you're a stranger and I'm a student, it would probably be for the best if I introduced you, rather than simply giving you directions."