"Yeah. My current thing is: I would like to take a break and visit an old friend in Fairyland. Would you mind resummoning me tomorrow morning?"

"Oh, yeah, sure. Bye!"

So she focuses on dismissing him.

Aaaand he's gone.

Work continues on Nick's various projects. He keeps Eva up to date on what's ready and what's not - but they kinda need a real customer soon.

They do need a real customer soon! Fortunately, as has been mentioned, there were a few more potential investors and Eva's been busy working to try to sort out a good deal. She's been researching patents and contract law, and has decided that it would probably be best to consult a lawyer about this sort of thing, because while she'd be able to do some of it herself, she should probably consult somebody who does this thing for a living instead.

Nick should probably also attend. With the wings sufficiently hidden, of course.

He should!

So, it turns out the lawyer is much more knowledgeable about all this stuff than Eva (wow, such a surprise), and her first understanding of the IP system is overall... largely incorrect. Hardly surprising.

She's not exactly happy about this, but she knows when to step aside and have someone else handle things for her. This definitely seems like one of these scenarios.

That lawyer also helps them set up an Official Corporation. Nick does not officially exist, which the lawyer is, somewhat sketchily, prepared to deal with for the right price. At least the dodgy legal maneuvers will make collecting on his Randi Prize easier.

Nick is not particularly concerned with patenting everything, which should make the lawyer's job easier. He has a hundred and sixty five years of tech to pull from seemingly nowhere, after all.

Oh, okay. Well, that does make things easier, and they're probably going to get lots of money through those things anyway, so it's not really that necessary.

Eva feels a bit like she's not actually contributing much to this project anymore. Oh well, she can still be the public face, and she's the one who summoned Nick, so. Eh.

Nick does not want to have to talk to customers or negotiate with them, except perhaps to their engineering teams, as tech support. She should be the one to talk to Shell/BP/ExxonMobil about their fuel thing, and whichever cell phone or electric car manufacturers about the slightly more difficult batteries. Dealing with people is an invaluable skill.

She still feels like she should be doing more, but she's somewhat mollified by that.

The business talks progress. Woo!

Nick will just be in this workshop continuing to produce revolutionary technologies on a pace of about one every two weeks. And occasionally flirting at Eva, of course.

Of course! She's occasionally flirting back, because she in fact likes him.

Eventually they do indeed get a client for the fuel thing. The lawyer's also gone over some things and they've been sorting out some patent applications, so that's nice.

Will they in fact summon a maker at some point?

That depends on Eva's risk tolerance, really. They'd definitely be handy and it's not that risky, but things are going well enough without them.

After thinking it through a bit, Eva has actually decided that she is fine summoning a maker.

It would be interesting to see what they're like – presumably somewhat humanoid – and see how they act. And it's true that it's not really that risky, so she's not altogether opposed to the whole thing.

She tells Nick as such, one day.

Right. He looks over her list of authors/artists/musicians/actors that a demon might not have heard of and that are butterfly-effected away from their original earth and suggests to make a smaller list to offer, in case they want another maker later. And here is the shopping list, and here is the circle, the bindings are rather tight but will at least allow them to move around inside the circle and talk.

She cuts the list down to just the relevant content creators, then breaks it up into a few separate chunks and picks one for them to use.

Once she's done, she fetches Nick, gets him to take her to the warehouse, then draws and completes the circle.

This maker is an ordinary-looking vaguely eastern european woman with a neat bobbed haircut, dressed in a very fancy business suit. She would be indistinguishable from a human if not for the grey, leathery wings folded up behind her, and the exaggerated canine teeth. She grins. "Hello, summoner... And fellow summonee." She glances over Nick's body appraisingly. "I appreciate the marginally looser-than-usual bindings."

Well, that's... a bit creepy.

Oh well, she can deal.

"Hi there," she says somewhat cheerily. "We've got a list of things we'd like you to make," she says, holding up the shopping list, "and a list of assorted content creators that you probably haven't heard of."

Then she looks over to Nick before she continues and says anything that could constitute an agreement or an offer. This is only her second proper daeva summoning, after all.

She scans the list. "I'll make the top half of that for two names. Musicians, or actors."

"What about the rest of it? Don't want to do it all, or would you just want more payment?"

"I'd want the other usual payment, from him." She points at Nick.

"No."

She shrugs. "That's that. Summon someone else for the other half of your list. Top half, two names, deal or no deal?"

"You do up to this one," Eva says, pointing at a specific entry halfway down the list, "and you get two names of musicians or actors, deal."

She taps her foot impatiently as large stacks of objects begin appearing. It takes only a couple of minutes.