Rochester Inn

[Knuth--NF]

As Noam was having his talk with the professor, he managed to split out some attention and focus it on the newcomer. As more details of the man's apparel and equipment came into view, Noam was smiling again, wider and wider still when the man casually dropped his stack of unusual photos at a nearby table.

Noam raised his hand, gesturing Boris to wait for a while, and managed to excavate a few other lines he half-sang under his breath:

"People dancing around a fire
colours in the air
won't you come my love
to the country fair?"

Flashing assassin gear, clothing and weapons in Rochester was hardly unusual, but outright showing off with those while asking around for Phate and other outlaws with bounties on their heads... not quite.

Are those... photos? Damn, I thought he was a recruit. I guess I should remember that clown's face... judging by the look of things, it's not going to be attached to the rest much longer now. Which would be only proper for me to assist with, the helpful hacker I am. Then again, taking my lack of piloting skills or actual memory into account... ah, yes, naturally...

Noam poked around in his pack and fished out the gun-camera assembly he was working on, and turned back to Boris with a wink.

"As I was saying... Now, see here? Thanks to the attached multimeter, when I press and hold the iterative release button, we can clearly see that -"

*whir* *click* *click* *click* *click* *click* ...

"- the bloody actuator is off by about two kilo-Ohms and five degrees. Luckily I can compensate for that with a sliding resistor connected in-line, but the whole thing needs to be replaced, I'm afraid. Let me put this down and lock the trigger, you'll see the difference gets worse as heat accumulates. Now, if we look at this blueprint..."

The verbal stream of technical verbosity intermixed with machine clicks continued until after the Starflier was off in the distance, and ceased as abruptly as it began.

"Sorry about that, but that clown of an assassin didn't quite look like a Lane Hacker, or even a hacker wannabe, for that matter. What with the kitschy gear, I wouldn't put it past him to be a Bounty Hunter wannabe, though - doubly so, considering the photos he was so eager to flash."

Noam grinned yet again, and sipped some more tea.

"Did you enjoy the little ruse, then?"