The Only Fixer

I was laid off. Having reached middle age and lacking any special skills, I could only work as a warehouse manager in a private company. On the first day of work, I saw a large, dusty object in the corner. An imported precision instrument worth four million dollars sat there as scrap metal. My new colleague scoffed. "Stop looking. The boss spent a fortune on it. Even ten experts couldn't handle it. It's just a decoration." I walked up and touched the familiar body of the machine. "I can fix this." The entire workshop fell silent. My boss came upon hearing the news. He looked at me with contempt. "If you can fix it, I'll give you half of my shares. If not, you'll pay with your life." Chapter 1 The entire workshop was filled with the hot, smoky smell of engine oil and metal dust. Everyone focused on me with astonishment and contempt, as if looking at a lunatic. Our boss, Bill Lamar, was in his 40s. He was a chubby man who wore gold-rimmed glasses. At that moment, he emerged from the crowd. He surveyed me from head to toe, his gaze like a surgical knife, moving from my faded old work clothes to my dusty boots. Finally, his gaze rested on my hands, which were covered with calluses and small scars. "You?" he snorted, filled with undisguised mockery. "Shaun Zigger, right? HR said you used to work as a warehouse manager of a state-owned enterprise?" "I'm a senior maintenance technician," I corrected him. My voice was not loud, but each word was clear. "Senior maintenance technician?" Bill seemed to have heard the biggest joke as he burst into laughter, his protruding belly quivering. There was immediately a chorus of chuckles throughout the workshop. "A senior maintenance technician now working as a warehouse manager? Mr. Zigger, your joke isn't funny at all." "I'm not joking." I looked him in the eye and repeated, "I can fix it." My gaze passed over him and landed on the massive machine lying quietly in the corner. It was a Gorman DMG five-axis machining center. Its ivory-white painted exterior was covered with a thick layer of dust, like an abandoned work of art. My heart skipped a beat at an inopportune moment; it was a bittersweet feeling of reuniting with an old friend. Bill's laughter abruptly stopped. His fat cheeks twitched as his gaze instantly turned sinister. "Alright, very well." He clapped his hands. "We have over 20 engineers in our factory, and I spent half a million to hire eight so-called experts, and not one of them said that." He walked up to me, his short, stubby fingers almost poking my nose. "You're a new warehouse manager, yet you said you can fix it?" "I did." I did not back down. "Fine!" He waved his hand sharply. "I'll take this bet with you today! If you can fix it, I'll give you half the shares of this factory! It'll be written in black and white and fulfilled immediately!" A wave of gasps swept through the crowd. Half the shares were worth tens of millions of dollars. Bill's eyes suddenly turned fierce. "But if you can't fix it or destroy it..." He slowly and deliberately uttered with clenched teeth, "This machine is worth four million dollars. You'll pay with your life!" A deathly silence fell over the workshop; even the hum of the fans ceased. "Boss, why bother arguing with this idiot?" A workshop supervisor-looking man quickly stepped in to smooth things over. Chapter 2 "Yeah, Mr. Lamar. Ignore him. He just wants to show off." Bill ignored the crowd; his gaze remained fixed on me. "Dare you do it?" My wife Linda Gordon's pale and thin face flashed through my mind. She took medication regularly, and the family's savings were long gone. My daughter had just been admitted to university. We needed money right now. I was laid off as part of "optimization", like a fish thrown onto shore. Apart from this one skill that others looked down upon, I had nothing at all. Dignity? Dignity was worthless in reality. However, a tightness stuck in my chest, neither rising nor falling; it almost suffocated me. "Yes." I heard myself say. A cruel smile appeared on Bill's face. "Alright! You've got guts!" He turned to his assistant behind him and shouted, "John Sterling! Prepare the contract! No, it's a betting agreement! Today I'm going to show him that he can't speak nonsense and brag all he wants!" A few minutes later, a sheet of paper, still warm from the printer, was slammed in front of me. [Equipment Repair Betting Agreement] [Party A: Bill Lamar] [Party B: Shaun Zigger] The content was simple and brutal. [If Shaun Zigger successfully repairs the DMG 5-axis machining center, Party A voluntarily transfers 50% of its company shares; if the repair fails or causes secondary damage to the equipment, Shaun Zigger voluntarily assumes full liability for the equipment's depreciation compensation, totaling four million dollars.] "Paying with your life isn't just talk." Bill lit a cigarette, his face contorted in the smoke. "If you can't afford to compensate me, you'll be my slave, working your whole life to pay off the debt! I'll 'take good care' of your wife and kids." It was a blatant threat. The surrounding colleagues formed a circle, whispering among themselves. "He's insane. Will he really sign that?" "Look at his penniless appearance. How is he going to compensate? He's selling his entire future." "Serves him right, who told him to brag?" I picked up my pen, the nib hovering over the paper for a second. I remembered Linda holding my hand before I left, her eyes full of worry. "Shaun, don't overwork yourself. Your health is important. We'll earn the money slowly." I remembered my daughter excitedly saying on the phone, "Dad, I got the scholarship! It can ease the burden on you and Mom!" I could not give up; I had to win. Without hesitation, I carefully signed 'Shaun Zigger' in the Party B section. After signing, I looked up, meeting Bill's contemptuous gaze. "Boss, I need an advance of three months' salary." Bill froze before bursting into an even louder, mocking laugh. "Ha! Hahahaha! You haven't even started working, and you're already thinking about getting paid? You fuck..." He seemed about to curse, but held back. He then looked at me as if looking at trash. "Fine! I'll give it to you!" He had the accountant bring a wad of cash. He then slammed it onto the table in front of me with everyone watching. "Ten thousand dollars! Take it and buy medicine for your wife!" The banknotes scattered like snowflakes, covering the floor. Some even drifted down to the bottom of the greasy machine tool. At that moment, all sound disappeared; I could only hear the roar of my blood rushing to my head. Humiliation repeatedly cut into my heart like a dull knife. I silently bent over. With dozens of people watching, I picked up the money that carried the warmth and contempt of others, one by one. Chapter 3 I carefully smoothed out the creases on the dirty banknotes, folded them neatly, and solemnly placed them in the inner pocket of my coat. That pocket pressed tightly against my chest. Standing behind Bill all the time, a young girl frowned. She was the boss's daughter, Melody Lamar. I did not look at anyone and turned around directly toward the dusty machine. My back was straight. "Now, it's mine." I walked around the DMG machine, as if inspecting an old acquaintance I had not seen for a long time. The others had dispersed and returned to their workstations, but everyone's ears were perked up, and out of the corner of their eyes, they would occasionally glance at me, the "clown" in the corner. Melody did not move. She crossed her arms and stood a little distance away, her face showing blatant suspicion and curiosity. "I need a set of tools," I told her. She raised an eyebrow. "What tools? They're in the warehouse. You can get them yourself." I shook my head and recited a string of Gorman words. Melody's expression froze. Although she barely understood, the pure Gorman pronunciation made the disdain on her face fade a little. "What did you say?" I switched back to English and patiently repeated, "A Gorman-made Hoffmann tool set, 16 sockets, a torque wrench, and a precision micrometer set. They were bought with this equipment when the factory was built; it should be in a silver metal box." Donald Winston, the workshop supervisor and a seasoned equipment maintenance veteran, scoffed. "Hey, Mr. Zigger, do you think this is your home? You know where everything is? We don't have those in our factory!" I calmly replied, "You do. It's on the second shelf in the warehouse, the third box from the top. It should have an 'Ersatzteile' label on it." Donald's expression instantly changed. 'Ersatzteile' was Gorman for 'spare parts'. They did have that label there, but few people in the factory recognized it. Melody's eyes flickered before she said to Donald, "Mr. Winston, go check it out." Skeptical, Donald muttered, "I think he's just guessing." He then led two workers to the warehouse. A few minutes later, the three men returned carrying a dusty, silver metal box, their faces filled with shock. The box was opened, revealing a brand-new, gleaming set of Gorman-made tools neatly arranged in a red velvet lining, the packaging oil still wet. Donald's face flushed red and then paled. A few suppressed gasps came from the crowd. Melody's gaze toward me changed completely. I ignored their reactions, pulled my reading glasses from my pocket, and took a half-meter-long metal stethoscope from the box. I did not open any of the machine's electrical control boxes, nor did I connect any diagnostic equipment. I gently placed one end of the stethoscope against the outer casing of the machine tool spindle box. Then, I leaned down and pressed the other end firmly against my ear. Chapter 4 I closed my eyes. "Haha, who are you acting all mysterious for?" A young worker taunted in a whisper. "Exactly, does he think he's an expert? Just listen, and he'll know the problem." Melody also frowned, clearly not understanding my actions. I ignored them, and the entire world seemed to consist of me and this machine. I could hear the subtle sounds inside it—the almost inaudible, abnormal friction between the gears; the extremely subtle, sluggish jolts when the guide rails moved; the faint popping sound of bubbles breaking as lubricating oil flowed in the pipes. These sounds were a jumble of noise to others, but they were a clear report filled with symptoms to me. I remained motionless for a full ten minutes. Then, I straightened up and took off my reading glasses. I repeatedly ran my rough hands over the cold seams of the guide rails, as if caressing a lover's skin. My fingertips could feel the micron-level misalignment and wear. "How is it?" Melody finally could not help but ask. Her voice had lost its previous disdain, replaced by deep confusion. I turned to look at her and at Bill and the group of workers who had gathered again at the sound of my voice. I calmly announced my diagnosis. "It's not a circuit problem. The XY-axis linkage transmission module of the machine tool suffered severe impact during transportation or installation, resulting in irreversible loss of mechanical accuracy. My preliminary assessment indicates that the loss is at least 50 micrometers or more." These words caused an uproar in the workshop, as if a bomb had gone off. Melody's eyes widened instantly. She strode to the nearby desk, pulled a report from a pile of documents, and held it up to me. "But... But the diagnostic report jointly issued by those eight experts concluded that the main control chip was overloaded and burned out, the driver circuit board was faulty, and they suggested that we replace the entire motherboard and servo system!" The report highlighted 'Main control chip failure' in bold red, followed by a shocking repair quote of 1.2 million dollars. My gaze swept over the report as I sneered. "They're wrong." "How can you be so sure?" Melody pressed with an urgent tone. I pointed to an inconspicuous hexagonal bolt on the machine tool base. "This bolt is one of the reference bolts that were calibrated horizontally before leaving the factory. Its tightening torque is strictly regulated; the tolerance cannot exceed 0.1 Nm." I gently rubbed the bolt between my fingers. "But this bolt's torque is incorrect; there are signs of it being tightened twice. Moreover, the method was amateurish. Not only was it not calibrated, but it also disrupted the stress balance established at the factory for the entire base. This is the root cause of the loss of precision." "As for the circuit alarm..." I paused. "It was simply a mechanical malfunction that caused excessive load on the servo motor, triggering the system's self-protection mechanism." The entire workshop fell silent. Everyone stared at me as if I were a monster. A warehouse manager overturned the conclusions reached by experts using various precision instruments simply by listening and touching. Chapter 5 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. Chapter 6 In my early 20s, I stood before the world's most advanced machine tool, dressed in brand-new blue overalls, my eyes gleaming with a thirst for knowledge. Beside me were meticulous and rigid Gorman engineers and top technicians from all over the world. With an unyielding spirit and extraordinary talent, I mastered all the technical points in the shortest time and could even discuss improvement plans with the Gorman masters. Together, we drank beer, went through drawings, and stayed up all night. We gave each machine we debugged a name. Back in the present moment, the blond and blue-eyed senior engineer named Klaus patted my shoulder in broken English and said, "Shaun! You're a genius! A true mechanical genius!" I looked at the dusty machine in front of me, my eyes turning tender. "Back then, its model was still called DMC-60H. We all called it Ingrid. It was like an arrogant and precise Gorman girl. You must treat it with the gentlest and most understanding way, and it will show you its most perfect side. I just... met an old friend I hadn't seen for many years." Melody was completely speechless. She looked at me, this middle-aged man with a slightly hunched back wearing an old vest, covered in grease stains. She could not connect the person before her with the one she remembered—a former state-owned enterprise employee reduced to a lowly warehouse manager in a private company. This stark difference left her mind blank. "Who... Who are you?" she asked politely, her voice trembling slightly. I smiled but did not answer. I turned and continued my work. I used a special and almost subtle technique to tap the locking pin of the calibration module. Each tap was executed with terrifying precision. The only sound in the workshop was the crisp, rhythmic tap. This sound was like a series of heavy hammer blows, striking everyone's hearts. It also shattered the deep-seated arrogance within them that judged a person solely by their education and position. Three hours later, the mechanical calibration was complete. I closed the last outer casing and tightened the last screw. The whole process was seamless. After the hundreds of disassembled parts were put back together, there was not a single one left over or missing. "It's done." I straightened up and let out a long breath. The entire workshop fell silent. Everyone held their breath, waiting to witness a miracle. Bill's fists were clenched tightly without him even realizing it, his palms sweaty and his face a mixture of anticipation, tension, and disbelief. Melody looked at me, her eyes filled with undisguised admiration. She walked to the control panel, took a deep breath, and pressed the green start button with a slightly trembling hand. Buzz... A steady, pleasant hum of electricity rang, and the machine tool's LCD screen lit up instantly. The various indicator lights flickered in sequence, indicating that the self-test program had begun. "It's moving! It lit up!" A worker shouted excitedly. Bill's face instantly showed an ecstatic smile. It worked! It really worked! The piece of metal, condemned to failure by eight experts, had been resurrected by the unassuming warehouse manager! However, this joy lasted less than ten seconds. Beep... Beep... Beep... Chapter 7 An urgent, piercing alarm abruptly shattered the workshop's tranquility. A barrage of red Gorman error codes instantly appeared on the LCD screen; a bold warning message at the top pierced everyone's hopes like a sharp sword. [SYSTEM OVERLOAD! SHUT DOWN IMMEDIATELY!] The alarm was so shrill that it was going to puncture eardrums. The indicator lights that had just illuminated went out, and the code on the screen scrolled wildly before finally settling on blood red. The lively atmosphere that had just begun to rise in the workshop was instantly doused with ice water, freezing solid. Bill's smile froze, becoming more like a grimace. How could this be? It was clearly fixed, so why did it suddenly set off the alarm? Just then, hurried footsteps came from the workshop door. "Mr. Lamar! Mr. Lamar! I've brought Mr. Henry Lewis for you!" Bill's assistant, John, strode in with a middle-aged man in a sharp suit. It was none other than Henry, the expert Bill had regarded as an honored guest and had overseen the repairs. The moment Henry entered, he saw me, the warehouse manager, standing beside the machine, and his expression immediately darkened. "You're fooling around!" he roared, his voice filled with scholarly arrogance and an unyielding anger that did not allow anyone to violate his authority. "Mr. Lamar, didn't I tell you? This equipment is incredibly delicate. Leaving it to an untrained person could cause devastating consequences! How could you let a handyman touch my 'patient'?" He strode to the control panel, glanced at the blood-red error code on the screen, and his face immediately showed an agonized expression. He slapped his thigh and pointed at the screen before saying to Bill, "We're doomed! We're completely doomed! Mr. Lamar, the motherboard is completely burned out! It was originally just a problem with the driver chip; we still had a sliver of hope for repair. After he messed around with it, the high-voltage current directly damaged the main control CPU! This machine is now just a pile of scrap metal! It has absolutely no value for repair!" Every word Henry spoke struck Bill's heart like a hammer blow. Bill's face instantly went from ghastly pale to ashen, then as black as the bottom of a pot. He whirled around, his eyes fixed on me. His gaze was icy cold, as if he wanted to devour me alive. "Shaun... Zigger..." His voice seemed to come from hell, filled with the fury of being deceived and betrayed. The life-or-death contract I had signed and the massive four million dollars in compensation crashed down on me like an invisible mountain. In the workshop, gloating, sympathetic, and contemptuous glances once again wove together into an impenetrable net, trapping me firmly in the center. I met Bill's murderous gaze and Henry's contemptuous and smug gaze. I spoke, word by word. "He's wrong. This isn't an overload. It's a protection protocol. Someone deliberately modified the safety parameter thresholds in the system." As soon as I finished speaking, Henry burst into laughter, furious. He pointed at me and said to everyone, "Absurd! Absolutely absurd! Listen, a warehouse manager who can't even read a circuit diagram is discussing safety parameters with me? It's utterly absurd!" Chapter 8 "This is a typical chain reaction caused by hardware damage! Do you know what a security parameter is? Do you know what level of access is required to enter this machine's backend?" He turned to Bill, continuing to fan the flames with a heartbroken expression. "Mr. Lamar, you're just too soft-hearted. That's why you were deceived by these charlatans! Now, great. Four million dollars has been completely wasted!" Bill's fists were clenching, the veins on the back of his hand bulging. He pointed at me, his voice trembling with extreme anger. "Shaun, you'd better give me an explanation. Otherwise, that contract... Today, you won't be able to walk out this door no matter what!" The immense pressure squeezed me from all sides, like tangible seawater. Bill's eyes flashed with a fierce glow, as if he were about to pounce over and tear me apart. Henry stood to the side with a smile. The slight awe the factory workers had felt for me vanished instantly, replaced by the amusement of onlookers watching a spectacle. However, I remained unusually calm. I pointed to a line of error code on the screen and said to Melody, "Look here." Melody instinctively leaned closer. My voice was not loud, but everyone heard me. "Error B-4711. In DMG's fault code database, all hardware fault codes start with A. Codes starting with B indicate software or parameter anomalies. The official definition of B-4711 is: Unauthorized external parameter writing causing system protective lock." "Henry." I turned to look at him. "You're an expert in this; you should understand this code better than I do, right?" Henry's smile froze. A flicker of panic crossed his eyes, but he immediately denied it. "Nonsense! I've studied DMG's systems for over a decade, and I've never seen a B-4711 code! You're making things up to stall for time!" "Is that so?" I sneered. I ignored him and turned to Melody, who seemed somewhat dazed from our conversation. My tone was gentle. "Melody, could you do me a favor?" Melody hesitated for a moment before nodding instinctively. "Get your laptop from your car and connect it to the machine tool's maintenance port with a data cable." "What do you want to do?" Melody was somewhat wary. "Enter engineering mode and check the background logs." Henry immediately shrieked, "Impossible! Engineering mode requires the highest-level password, and only engineers at the Gorman headquarters have it! How could a warehouse manager like you have it?" His reaction was excessive. Even Bill sensed something was off. His gloomy gaze swept back and forth between Henry and me. Melody hesitated, looking at the hysterical Henry and then at my calm face. Finally, she gritted her teeth and chose to believe me. "Okay!" She turned around and ran out, quickly returning with a pink laptop. Following my instructions, she connected the data cable. "Open HyperTerminal, set the baud rate to 115200, 8 data bits, 1 stop bit, no parity," I recited a series of parameters. Chapter 9 Melody typed rapidly on the keyboard, and a black command window popped up. "Now, enter the password." I took a deep breath and recited a complex password consisting of 19 characters, including both uppercase and lowercase letters, numbers, and symbols. "D... M... G... h... a... n... o... v... e... r... 1... 9... 9... 8... k... l... a... u... s...!" When I uttered the last character, Melody's finger stopped on the Enter key. She looked up in shock at me. The first half of this password was DMG and Honover. The second half... was the name of her Gorman mentor! 1998 was the year her mentor joined DMG! This was something her mentor had told her privately. It was a God password that theoretically existed but was never allowed to be used! She no longer hesitated and slammed down the Enter key forcefully. On the screen, the black window was instantly filled with a line of green 'ACCESS GRANTED'. A hidden interface, filled with various data, popped up. Henry turned deathly pale instantly. "Open the log file 'system_log.txt'," I commanded. Melody found the file and double-clicked to open it. The densely packed system records were presented to everyone. I pointed to the last few lines. "Look here. Just yesterday afternoon at 3.15 PM. A device with the IP address '202.118.XXX.XXX' logged into the backend system through the remote maintenance port. Login permission: Administrator. Operation log: Modified the core security parameter 'Voltage_Threshold', increasing it from the default 1.2 to 1.8." "This IP address..." Melody's fingers searched on the keyboard. She then suddenly looked up, her eyes shooting toward Henry. "It's the dedicated education network of Westham University Town." Henry was a visiting professor at Westham University! All eyes instantly focused on Henry. Bill's eyes were no longer filled with anger, but with a murderous chill. Cold sweat poured down Henry's forehead, instantly soaking his shirt collar. I delivered the final blow. "Raising the voltage threshold from 1.2 to 1.8 will not cause any hardware damage when the machine is off. But as soon as power is applied and the servo motor starts working, the instantaneous voltage detected by the system will immediately exceed the 1.8 threshold, triggering the highest level overload alarm and forcibly locking the system. It'll create the illusion that the motherboard has been damaged and burned by high voltage. "This way, the machine, which originally only had a minor mechanical problem, will truly have a motherboard failure. Then, he could make Mr. Lamar spend 1.2 million dollars to buy a brand new motherboard from that so-called Gorman original factory channel... that Henry specified, right?" Chapter 10 My voice was not loud, but every word pierced Henry's heart like an awl. "I... I didn't...You're spouting nonsense! This is slander!" Henry rambled incoherently, trying to argue his way out. Bill could not take it anymore. The self-made businessman hated nothing more than being scammed like a fool. He suddenly kicked over the toolbox beside him, scattering metal tools everywhere with a deafening bang. "Henry Lewis!" Like a furious lion, Bill lunged at Henry and grabbed him by the collar. "You fucking dare to scam me? I pay you 200,000 dollars a year for consulting, and you fucking colluded with outsiders to swindle me out of four million dollars?" He punched Henry hard across the face. Henry's refined face instantly turned into a bloody mess; his gold-rimmed glasses flew off and shattered on the floor. "Mr. Lamar! Mr. Lamar, let me explain! It's a misunderstanding!" he screamed in horror. "Misunderstanding my ass!" Bill kicked him again, knocking him to the ground. "Beat him! Beat this traitorous bastard out of here!" Several burly workers, who had long disliked Henry, immediately rushed forward and dragged him out of the workshop. Henry's piercing screams echoed through the workshop before gradually fading into the distance. The farce finally came to an end. Bill breathed heavily, his chest heaving. He walked up to me, his face alternating between pale and grim, his expression utterly complex. He opened his mouth as if to say something, but he eventually pulled a pack of cigarettes from his pocket and offered one to me. He changed the way he addressed me, his voice now hoarse and embarrassed. "Shaun... No, Mr. Zigger. I acted impulsively... just now. I'm sorry." I did not take his cigarette, only shaking my head. "Get the machine fixed first." I returned to the computer and asked Melody to revert the maliciously modified parameter to its default value. Melody typed the command, but a new warning window popped up on the screen. [Firmware Locked by Administrator] Melody's expression changed. "Oh no! He had a backup plan! He locked the entire firmware. We no longer have write permissions! This is the highest-level firmware lock. Unless we have the original Gorman-made key generator, it's impossible to unlock!" Bill's newly ignited hope was instantly extinguished. He was frantic, like a cat on a hot tin roof. "What do we do? It's still useless, isn't it?" The atmosphere in the entire workshop froze again. I stared at the screen in silence for a moment. Everyone thought I was at a loss. I suddenly said, "No need for a key generator." I turned to Melody. "Melody, do me a favor. Go to the electronics market and buy me an Arduino Uno development board, a decent soldering iron, a roll of 0.2mm solder wire, and some DuPont wire." Melody paused. Arduino? Was that not a basic microcontroller development board for students and electronics enthusiasts? It was only a few dozen dollars each.