Nkiru Ktag is a narrow, hard-edged woman whose presence seems to pull a room into alignment. Her skin has the matte brown tone of fired clay, usually dusted with pale conductive powder around the wrists and temples. Her jaw is broad and powerful, with square molars that show whenever she chews, speaks through clenched teeth, or laughs at something nobody else finds funny. She moves with abrupt economy, never wasting a gesture, yet her hands sometimes continue tracing invisible circuit diagrams after the rest of her has gone still. She smells strongly of hot copper, bitter tea, ozone, and the faint medicinal sweetness of sleep draughts. She knows about the copper and tea, but insists the ozone is everyone else's problem. The unexpected contradiction is her voice and posture: she looks like an iron nail driven into the world, but when concentrating she folds herself around her work with the delicate care of someone arranging moth wings.