"You can say that again." He sits heavily, scrubbing a hand through his hair, and heaves a sigh. "I feel like I'm stuck in some surreal historical VR stream, and I can't log out of it."

He picks up the hydraulics apparatus and gets back to work. He puts the piston through its paces again: pressurizing it, running it until it seizes, then re-pressurizing it for another go around. After half a dozen cycles of that, he takes his napkin and wipes it around both attachment points for the hydraulic tubing. Then he adjusts his Interface, triggers the Eye's optical zoom, and peers at the cloth.

"Yep," he announces finally. "It's leaking. Both ends. Not a lot, but in a system this small you don't need much to muck up the PSI quick."