Nothing quite woke a girl up like the smell of burning solder in the morning. The sizzling flux and subtle smell of hot metal and evaporating resin soothed away the lingering anxiety of the night before, and Dia was glad of it. She knew from experience how important it was to maintain concentration when working on delicate joints.
She’d left the apartment early - earlier even than Harmon - so that she could get a head start on her latest project. After completing the joint she was working on, she turned off the torch, and carefully used a pair of long, locking tweezers to dunk the freshly soldered piece into a quench. Steam rose from the quenching bowl as the still very hot pieces of metal hissed and caused the water to bubble.
Lydia smiled as she took the now cool metal and dumped it
