The Heart's small lab sounded like it always did when Saffi was alone in it. It wasn't loud, though. The sound lived in the trays, in the little fan on the corner of the workbench, in the box of resistors that rattled when she moved them.
The prototype lay open on a cloth like a patient in surgery. A weird housing sat in two halves, the new mechanism she'd built nested inside, teeth fine as sand, springs clean as bone. Saffi held a magnifying glass to her eye and muttered to the screw that wouldn't catch.
"Half a degree" she told it. "You and me, we are having a philosophical problem about half a degree"
Her tweezers pinched, turned, failed.
She set them down, stretched, picked them up again, and tried a softer hand. The micro-spring slid into its seat with a tiny click that sounded louder than it should have.
She sat back and rubbed the bridge of her nose. Tension lived there now. New roommate. Rent unpaid.
