Me? There? +29
Waaaaaaaaaah—!
I woke to the blaring scream of a siren.
It was the alarm sound I’d used for the past fifteen years.
Groggily, I reached out and shut off the phone alarm, then opened my eyes.
The ceiling was unfamiliar, yet familiar all the same.
Because this was the dormitory room at our company.
I’d gone to sleep and woken up in the security room instead of at home, but I felt more refreshed than I had in ages.
“Grrrnnn···!”
I sat up with a long stretch.
The satisfaction of finishing the machining data yesterday and even succeeding in the simulation still seemed to be coursing through my veins.
Fifteen years into the job, mornings usually left me feeling as heavy as a pig being dragged to the slaughterhouse.
But today was different.
Now I had something that could become my own weapon, and I was in the middle of shaping a plan around it.
When work dried up, it dried up.
When a paycheck came in, it came in.
My fifteen years of office life had been passive like that, just rolling along on whatever someone else handed me.
But now I had broken out of passivity and was moving on my own initiative.
Maybe that was why.
I was happy.
More than happy.
“Once I finish machining the prototype today···.”
I tied my tie while looking in the mirror.
My reflection no longer showed a face worn down by exhaustion; instead, it had a bit of life in it.
“The team will live, and I’ll live too.”
That was enough for now, and as for what happened next, I could keep moving and refine the plan as I went.
I left the security room with light steps.
On the way through the lobby toward the production building, my phone rattled loudly in my pocket.
It was Song Younghoon, the department head.
“Yes, sir. Are you coming in?”
―Baek Manager! Where are you? You at the company?
Song Younghoon’s voice was frantic over the line.
The traffic report playing in the background made it sound like he was driving.
“Yes, sir. I slept in the security room yesterday and I’m just on my way to the office now.”
―Good. Don’t go to the office first—run straight to the production building. Park Kwangchul’s team is in full chaos.
“What? What happened?”
―The machine’s gone down. The mood there is... basically a funeral. I’m on my way too, but traffic’s a mess, so it’ll be at least another twenty minutes. Go ahead first and see what’s going on.
The machine had gone down?
After we’d wrapped up the test machining perfectly yesterday?
“Understood. I’ll head there right away.”
The moment I hung up, I broke into a run for the production building.
A bad feeling slid down my spine.
Looks like something went wrong while helping out on the MRO side.
Song Younghoon’s words flashed through my mind.
MRO. Maintenance, Repair, Overhaul.
If our R&D department’s job was to develop and sell new weapons, then the MRO division was where the money was made by repairing and upgrading thousands of tanks and armored vehicles already delivered to the military.
The company’s stable cash cow, and a power center with enormous influence because it dealt directly with the armed forces.
What in the world had happened?
Out of breath, I shoved open the door to the production building.
Heat hit me first, along with the smell of machine oil.
But the usual lively roar of equipment wasn’t there.
Instead, there was a silence so heavy it was almost mournful.
Right in the middle of it stood our hope—the five-axis machining center—frozen in place.
And in front of it, Park Kwangchul was slumped against the machine with his head bowed low.
“Team Leader!”
Beside him, a woman from the MRO division in a maintenance uniform was pacing in misery, close to tears.
Her name tag said she was an Assistant Manager.
“Team Leader··· I’m sorry··· I’m really sorry··· Because of us···.”
She looked as if she might burst into tears any second.
Park Kwangchul let out a long sigh and waved her off.
“Ah, stop crying already! I know it ain’t your fault. How many times do I gotta tell you I was the one being greedy?”
“What happened?”
As I approached, Park Kwangchul looked up at me with a lifeless expression.
None of his usual mad-dog ferocity was left.
“You’re here··· Sorry. There was a bit of a situation at dawn, so··· I pushed it too hard.”
“A situation?”
With another sigh, Park Kwangchul jerked his chin toward the MRO Assistant Manager beside him.
“Well, apparently there’s a K2 tank mobility demonstration this afternoon, and the Army Chief of Staff is going to be there.”
“···The Chief of Staff?”
“Yeah. But during final inspection, they found a crack in the drive shaft. There was no replacement on hand, and if this thing went bust, the whole demonstration would’ve been canceled and the place would’ve blown up.”
The MRO Assistant Manager, on the verge of tears, hurried to add, “If the demo was canceled, we’d get disciplined, and the company’s credibility would take a hit too··· They said if we couldn’t solve it right away, everybody was dead meat···.”
So the entire MRO team had panicked and latched onto the production team, and Park Kwangchul had been forced to take the lead.
The problem was that the part in question was a titanium alloy.
It was extremely hard and highly viscous, so it had to be machined slowly, but because the deadline was so tight, they’d raised the spindle speed above normal—and that had apparently become the root of the disaster.
“The part itself was fine when we sent it out··· but the machine itself gave out.”
Park Kwangchul tapped the motionless machine.
“I think the bearing’s gone. The sound was just··· like metal grinding metal. If we call in a headquarters engineer, it’ll take two weeks just to get the parts···.”
Two weeks.
If we waited that long, our project was finished.
The MRO Assistant Manager kept her head down, helpless.
There was no one to blame.
Everyone had simply been doing their best for the company in their own place, and still an accident had happened.
But we couldn’t give up here.
I stepped closer to the machine.
“Wait a second.”
I narrowed my eyes and stared at the spindle area.
Then I saw it.
Through the cold metal, a dark red haze curled and writhed inside the machine.
Like the shoulder of a man with a bunched, overworked muscle, red stress had concentrated in a specific area.
But the location was odd.
“Team Leader. When it stopped just now, did you hear a crackling break first, or a low vibrating hum?”
“Huh?”
Park Kwangchul blinked.
“How’d you know that without even hearing it yourself? It was definitely more vibration than a metallic snap. Like a helicopter taking off.”
“And the spindle temperature gauge—didn’t the rear motor housing light up red before the front bearing did?”
“···!”
Park Kwangchul’s mouth fell open.
“That’s right. Exactly. So I thought the motor had burned out and shut it down in a hurry.”
“Then it doesn’t sound like the bearing shattered.”
I pointed to the rear section of the machine, where the red haze was thickest.
“Looks like the sudden torque loosened the preload nut in the back and threw the balance off toward the rear. It’s not that the bone broke—it’s that the muscle seized up and started pulling on the joint.”
“The preload nut?”
Park Kwangchul, half convinced and half skeptical, rummaged through the tool box and pulled out a wrench.
He opened the cover around the motor and checked inside.
After a moment, his eyes went wide.
“Huh··· Damn, you were right? There’s play in it. The thing that should’ve been clamped tight’s come loose.”
He turned and stared at me.
“How the hell do you know that? You’re the kind of guy who stares at monitors all day, right? This is the sort of thing you can’t figure out from just a day or two of taking a machine apart. How do you know this?”
“I just··· spent fifteen years on the shop floor and picked up a few things by watching.”
I laughed it off as casually as I could.
Honestly, if I hadn’t had mechanical engineering knowledge, I never would’ve known what I was seeing in that red haze.
But fifteen years of experience wasn’t for nothing.
“Team Leader. We don’t need to replace any parts. We just need to loosen the jammed section and tighten it back up. Want to give it a try?”
“Give it a try? If you want to re-center this thing, we’d need a laser measuring device, and we don’t have one.”
“We may not have a measuring device, but we do have something even more precise.”
I pointed a finger at the machine’s monitor.
“The servo motor load rate.”
“···Load rate?”
“Yes. Since the axis is twisted now, the motor should be under load even while it’s stopped, because it’s straining just to hold position. Pull up the screen.”
Park Kwangchul, still doubtful, worked the panel and brought the display up.
His eyes widened.
“Huh··· The Z-axis load’s at eighteen percent even in standby.”
“That’s proof the mechanism’s warped and forcing itself to compensate.”
I spoke with certainty.
“Instead of using a laser to plot coordinates, watch that load rate. The point where it drops below five percent when I loosen the bolts and tap the housing—”
I met Park Kwangchul’s eyes.
“That’s the neutral point where the machine isn’t under stress. That’s what we need to find.”
At that, Park Kwangchul slapped his knee.
“Right··· So if we take out the forced load, that’s the same as getting the center back in line, ain’t it?”
“Exactly. We’re returning the machine to the most comfortable state possible.”
Park Kwangchul’s eyes changed.
Clicking his tongue, he opened the tool box.
“Makes sense. Sounds real damn plausible. Fine, let’s do it.”
The real repair began.
Park Kwangchul took up the spanner and wrench, while I watched the monitor and the machine in turn, playing navigator.
“Team Leader, not that one—the bolt on the right first. Look at the screen. The Z-axis load spikes from that side.”
“Here?”
“Yes. Back it off forty-five degrees, then strike the housing twice with a urethane mallet.”
Park Kwangchul turned the wrench and raised the mallet.
Tok, tok.
Two simple knocks.
But I could see it.
With every strike, the tangled red thread unwound a little, and the twisted blue lines slid back into place.
“Oh···?”
It seemed the sensation had reached Park Kwangchul’s fingertips too.
“It’s going in. The stiffness is loosening up.”
“Good. Now tighten the opposite diagonal bolt to spec torque.”
Park Kwangchul’s seasoned hands and my eyes became one as we coaxed the machine back to life.
Had it been about thirty minutes?
“Hoo··· I think that’s about it.”
Wiping sweat from his brow, Park Kwangchul straightened up.
The dark red haze I’d been seeing had mostly faded, and a stable blue glow now wrapped around the machine.
The load graph on the monitor was scraping the bottom too.
“Go ahead and start it.”
Park Kwangchul took his place in front of the control panel, face tense.
The MRO Assistant Manager, watching from the side, clasped her hands together and stared at the machine.
Click.
[System Ready]
[Spindle ON]
Wiiiiiiing—
The spindle began to spin.
First slowly, then faster and faster.
The unpleasant crackling noise that had been echoing through the factory earlier was gone.
In its place, only a deep, steady, smooth drive sound hummed low in the background.
“Ah···!”
A cry of relief burst from the MRO Assistant Manager.
Park Kwangchul laid a hand on the machine, felt the faint vibration, and let out a short laugh.
Then he looked at me.
“Damn, Baek Manager. Since when were you this capable? How did you catch the preload issue just from sound?”
“Haha··· I got lucky.”
“Lucky, my ass.”
Park Kwangchul snorted a laugh.
Then his gaze returned to the machine.
For a moment his face had brightened, but now a shadow had settled over it.
“It’s running··· but it’s not perfect.”
As expected.
This would have to do for now, I supposed.
“It’s an emergency fix, so if you push it to one hundred percent, it’ll throw itself out of alignment again.”
“Yeah. We’ll have to walk on eggshells. Cut the machining speed down to eighty percent of normal too.”
Park Kwangchul smiled again.
“Still, it’s better than being dead in the water, isn’t it? We were about to sit around sucking our thumbs for two weeks, and you gave us some breathing room.”
“Thank you, Manager! Seriously··· if it hadn’t been for you, I’d have been writing up a report of misconduct.”
The MRO Assistant Manager kept bowing over and over.
Just then—
“Huff, huff···!”
The factory door flew open, and Song Younghoon burst in, panting hard.
His face was slick with sweat as he looked around and shouted, “What happened? I heard the machine was dead!”
Park Kwangchul laughed heartily and gave Song Younghoon a clap on the shoulder.
“Don’t worry. Baek Manager here gave it CPR and brought it back to life.”
“What? Brought it back?”
“Baek Manager’s the real deal. An emergency doctor, that one. Said the first-aid’s done.”
Song Younghoon looked from the running machine to me and back again, his expression blank with disbelief.
I shrugged.
“Welcome, sir. The machine isn’t perfect yet, so machining will take a little longer.”
“Who cares about time? The fact it’s running at all is a miracle!”
“I’ll stay on it the whole time, so don’t worry. All right, Yoon Section Chief! What are you doing? Set it up!”
At Park Kwangchul’s bellow, Section Chief Yoon moved fast.
“Load the prototype material! We finish before lunch!”
The factory had regained its energy.
And with it, my plan—on the verge of collapsing before it could even truly begin—had been revived too.
I watched Park Kwangchul and his workers hustling about, then turned my gaze to Song Younghoon.
He looked relieved, like a man who’d narrowly escaped disaster, and when he noticed my stare, he raised an eyebrow as if to ask, What?
“There’s something I’d like to discuss with you.”
“What? Ah, hold on.”
Song Younghoon asked for a moment and took out his phone from his pocket.
It was vibrating—an incoming call.
“Yeah, Department Head Kang. What’s up?”
Department Head Kang?
Was that someone from another company?
Confused, I kept watching Song Younghoon while sorting out what I wanted to say once the call ended.
But then Song Younghoon’s face twisted.
He even let out a sigh, looking as if he couldn’t believe what he was hearing.
“No, listen to me, man. Even so··· fine, I get the situation··· Hey, come on, this still isn’t right.”
What kind of conversation was that to get such a reaction?
I waited a little longer, increasingly puzzled.
Then Song Younghoon, holding his forehead with his free hand, finally ended the call and said, “That lunatic. It was Department Head Kang from the automatic loading device TF.”
“Ah, I see.”
I’d thought it was someone from another company.
So he was the Kang Department Head from a neighboring team.
I was just about to speak when—
“Baek Manager.”
“Yes?”
“You want to go take a quick look at the automatic loading device TF?”
“···Yes??”
Me?
There?