Victor moves like someone who has spent equal parts life over a workbench and lecturing a crowded hall: precise, economical, and always with a slight forward tilt, as if leaning toward the next idea. He wears a slate-gray beard kept close and immaculate despite a pair of ink-stained hands; his skin carries the thin, papery look of someone who recovered from a wasting illness long ago. When he walks he tends to turn his head with unnerving quickness to take in angles and mechanical joints; his gaze rests too long on hinges. Unexpectedly, his left hand is replaced by a polished brass prosthetic with exposed gears that ticks faintly and emits a pale blue glow when he speaks with conviction. The prosthetic is both elegant and slightly grotesque: filigreed, engraved with prayers his father once used, and fitted with tiny, functional tools. Around his shoulders he wears a coat of layered canvas and treated leather that flares at the hem to hide tool pockets and a collapsible drafting arm. The overall impression is of a man who is always on the brink of demonstration—he smells faintly of ozone and pipe tobacco.