Brek is a compact, weather-beaten human with the dense posture of someone accustomed to bracing against machinery that wants to throw him across a room. He walks with a slight forward lean and favors his left heel, not from injury but from decades of testing vibration through the soles of his boots. His hands are broad, darkened at the creases by copper dust, and permanently roughened into a map of tiny pressure scars from wire, clamps, and hot housings. He moves quickly when working, with abrupt turns and precise pauses, yet becomes unnervingly still when listening to a signal. His face is square, sun-browned, and usually marked by a smear of graphite beneath one eye. The unexpected contradiction is his immaculate white fingernails, which he scrubs obsessively before touching a student’s work, insisting that clean hands are a form of respect.