Note that it uses ax (16 bits) instead of rax (64 bits). I'd assume it has opcode 0x66 0x90, a 2 byte nop. Now if the author can provide some more details, we

Note that it uses ax (16 bits) instead of rax (64 bits). I'd assume it has opcode 0x66 0x90, a 2 byte nop. Now if the author can provide some more details, we'll see if the call is aligned on some interesting boundary. I always wonder how much aligning code helps in real code. They seem waste a lot of bytes in the code segment. Aligning data, yes, that changes a lot, but the return position of a call in code?