It’s a MAD, MAD Industrial World: The Story of Repair Zone Man
It all started in the small, farming-town of Rustville. The town’s main employer is Grateful Automotive. It employs nearly all of the population, except for the farmers. The President of the company is Jed Nilson, whose grandfather started the company more than 60 years ago. Grateful Automotive makes engine parts for major car manufacturers. The town and the employees take great pride in the company and its historical past. Lately, they have been in a dark cloud of anxiety and fear. They have recently missed some deadlines and had compromised parts shipped back to them. These problems have been the result of unforeseeable mishaps, each shrouded in mystery as to how they happened. In these dark economic times, mistakes are not forgiven. They have been granted one more opportunity to produce 45,000 pistons. The deadline is the end of the week.
20 miles away lay the large industrial city, called Tock City. It is full of greed and bad seeds. Tock City is secretly run by The Underground Industrial Sabotage Syndicate, whose leader is: Boss Mob. It profits from crooked Executives who call on them to take out their competition. Boss Mob is a very large man that owns a restaurant that feeds only him and his posse. He is also very jovial and well read, refined in a sense. Not your typical crime boss. Polluted and unforgiving, Tock City hosts the main competitor to Grateful Automotive: Hammerhead Manufacturing. Known in the industry for its cut-throat ways, Chief Operator Vincent Scatuni is leading the charge to steal as much business from Grateful Automotive and other competitors as it can, through any means possible.
Back in high school, Jed and Vincent were rivals. Jed once led the Rustville Golden Raiders over the Tock City Dwellers for the state championship. As time ran out, Jed was hit hard, helmet-first by Vincent, breaking his hand. Jed broke free and with his other hand hurled the ball 55 yards into the out-stretched arms of his best friend, Gordon Newhouse. The entire town of Rustville was there to witness this feat, as Jed further cemented Rustville and Grateful Automotive as a symbol of excellence and unflappable will. Gordon and Jed were on the cover of every newspaper in the state, as “Heroes from a Small Town.” Vincent never forgot these images. It drove him to the brink. Besides, Vincent thought that he was the chosen one. It was his father, Vinny the first, who owned the States’ biggest manufacturing company. It was his father who pushed him to be the biggest, meanest, ball player in the state. It was his father that never let him forget losing to tiny Rustville. It was his father that he can still hear say, “You should have broken his friggin’ neck, not his hand.”
Vincent, still living with revenge on his mind, set up a meeting with Boss Mob. Together, they planned a scheme that would bring Grateful Automotive down, along with the town of Rustville. The Underground Industrial Sabotage Syndicate specializes in this type of calculated accident, and it is not the first time Vincent has called on the group. Boss Mob came up with a plan for Vincent. “It will be done then. I will send my top agents, Evil Downtime and Arc Nemesis, into Grateful Automotive for some 'machine re-engineering',” said Boss. “They will never finish their parts. Ha ha ha ha!”
Sometime around midnight, Evil Downtime and Arc Nemesis found an area in the parking lot with no light. They quickly cut through the fence and headed for the nearest entry into Grateful Automotive. They brought with them some Tock City capacitors, capable of carrying a 10,000-volt charge that emits a toxic nerve gas when discharged. They found the machine putting the final touches on the parts that were to go out in 2 days. When the coast was clear, Evil Downtime paused the machine to replace some capacitors with the deadly ones he had brought with him. Arc Nemesis rewired a couple servo drives with the power supplies and the servo motors, which will bring too much voltage and cause them to burn up. ED turned the machine back on and moments later the whole system failed, triggering an alarm to go off. They did a little dance and faded into the shadows.
Gordon Newhouse is the second shift maintenance manager who takes his job very seriously. His computer alerts him that the alarm on machine #7 is going off, indicating it had stopped. He quickly leaves his office and heads off to the south end of the building.
Gordon is the first one on the scene. As he approaches the machine, he notices some shadows off in the distance. He also notices the handle on the machine’s cabinet is unlatched. Inside, the servo drives have a strange wire running to an odd looking capacitor. Gordon looks at them and immediately starts to troubleshoot the problem. He reaches for the capacitor, and ‘POP!’ It blows up on contact. The plant’s power begins to flicker and fade, as a green smoke is emitted. Gordon is thrown on his back and is lying there, helpless. The last things he sees are two strange laughing faces hovering over him as he spins into unconsciousness.
“Gordon, Gordon Newhouse, are you there?” Gordon slowly opens his eyes and sees it is his friend, Jed, calling his name. He finally comes to, and is told that two months have gone by since the accident. Jed begins to fill him in on what has happened. “Buddy, I am glad you’re finally waking up. They have been telling me that you’ve been calling my name so I came to see you. I have nothing but bad news for you. You’ve been badly electrocuted and inhaled poisonous gas. The machine we found you by was tampered with and blew up. The Fanuc servo drives and motors were badly damaged. We didn’t have any spares! We tried to find replacements, but could not. It was too late. We lost the order, and couldn’t deliver on our promise of 45,000 pistons. I had to close the plant. Most of the people think that you sabotaged us. Did you?” “No. I never,” said Gordon, “I saw 2 guys in the shadows, they were laughing at me… Please Jed, you know I would never…” “Doesn’t matter, Gordon, the town has made up its mind. You need to leave town, now. When you are ready I will drive you in any direction, but then you’re on your own. It’s for your own good.”
Somewhere, many miles outside of nowhere, Gordon Newhouse speaks up, “This is where I will start.” Jed Nilson pulls over to drop off Gordon. “What are you going to do out here? This is nowhere,” Jed says. “I am going to start a service that will help small, medium, and large manufacturing companies eliminate downtime, by offering automation parts like servo motors and electronics. A place to buy, exchange and repair them. A place that takes downtime seriously and offers emergency service to get customers back up and running. A place that saves our customers money. This place I will call Repair Zone. I will be available 24-7 online and by phone, anywhere on the planet, to help those in need, so this type of thing will never happen to them.” As he gets out of the car, much to Jed’s bewilderment, Gordon sheds his hospital scrubs revealing a red suit underneath and bulging muscles, then begins to fly. “I am no longer Gordon Newhouse. I am…Repair Zone Man. No Downtime!”