The Only Fixer

It was sheer nonsense!

Bill's expression changed constantly. He looked at me and then at the expert report, his eyes a mixture of doubt and shock.

Melody was completely stunned. She looked at me, and the last trace of contempt in her eyes vanished completely, replaced by an unconcealable shock and intense curiosity.

Bill remained grim as he broke the silence. "Talk is cheap. You said you can fix it, so do it. I don't care if you figured it out by hearing or touching. All I want is the result."

"Okay," I replied without any other comments, took off my coat, and wore only an old grey vest.

I took out several strangely-shaped tools from the brand-new Hoffman toolbox. Without a single blueprint or a maintenance manual, I began to disassemble the most crucial transmission component.

Every movement I made had a strange rhythm—loosening which screw, with what force, removing which component, and in what order.

Everything seemed to have been practiced countless times and had become integrated into my muscle memory.

My calloused and scarred hands were now moving nimbly, as if they were dancing.

The onlookers, initially just watching with amusement, pointed and whispered.

"Look at him pretending; it'll be funny when he takes it apart and can't put it back together."

"Exactly, this is Gorman-made. He messed with it without blueprints. He's asking for trouble."

However, the laughter gradually subsided. Everyone fell silent, their gazes shifting from mockery to silence, astonishment, and finally to a near-awe. My actions were utterly inconceivable to these experts.

Melody pulled out a thick, original Gorman repair manual from somewhere. She flipped through the pages rapidly, comparing them to my movements. Her mouth opened wider and wider, her eyes wide with disbelief.

"Gosh... Your operations..." she murmured, her voice trembling. "The manual's... emergency calibration method under extreme conditions... Even... Even our Gorman teachers said that this is only an optimal solution in theory; no one could do it in reality!"

This calibration method demanded an extreme level of skill, experience, and judgment from the operator; even the slightest mistake could render the entire core module unusable.

Without looking up, I focused on measuring the clearance of a ball screw using a special caliper.

I replied casually. "Theory? Twenty years ago in Honover, this is how the veteran DMG technicians taught me, step by step."

I paused as I wiped the sweat from my brow and looked up at Melody's shocked face before calmly revealing my identity. "20 years ago, at DMG headquarters in Honover, Gorman, I was among the first batch of trainees they invited from our country."

My thoughts were instantly transported back to that spirited era.