Over this last year of working together, Henry stuck with the man’s given name, appreciating its peculiar mix of the noble and sinister. Anyway, it felt silly to fall back on a nickname for this old man who really did speak and move like some icicle-bearded master from a kung fu flick. Lucius, on the other hand, never bothered using Henry’s name, referring to him only as youngblood, which Henry didn’t mind one bit. The moniker instilled a sense of belonging in their two-man tribe and sounded like a genuine term of endearment from a modern-day sage to his apprentice.

That first day, Lucius had ignored the shift manager’s initial buddy-system pairing for Henry’s training, waving off the pudgy white man and leading the rookie away for a tour. As Lucius shuffled ahead, he aimed a knobby index finger at the rectifiers, rollers, hoists, and racks, explaining each contraption’s role in the electroplating process. In a husky murmur yet vivid detail, he described how electric currents running through vats of cyanide dilated the pores of the metal to be plated, into which the gold salts were deposited and fused. He pointed, saying that right there was the lab where technicians converted the gold bullion—real pricey-ass shit—into pure salts. And over there, just behind the control furnace, was the safety station, emergency shower and fire kit and all. But what he really wanted to show Henry was down this way, here by the delivery dock. Lucius lifted a plain crate’s lid as if it were a treasure chest. Inside were hundreds of inch-wide nickel bands stacked into neat columns. See now, normally they just plated computer parts, circuit boards and all that, but not this week, nope.

“Okay,” Henry said. “So what’s this week?”

The old man’s lips crinkled into a grin.

“This week we gilding high school graduation rings.”