# Mack Piston / The full-size upgrade

Added September 23, 2026. Play S01, approach Nina and choose **Try your best pickup line**. After completing it, choose **Replay the full-size upgrade** to watch again. Each dialogue line waits for Continue; the entrance and scuffle play automatically.

Mack Piston is a fictional adult service-bay foreman and Nina’s boyfriend: heavily built, dark hair, navy workwear, dry delivery. He appears only after the flirtation reveals him, then remains an approachable resident of the rental lobby. His optional conversation links to the existing slides on maintenance, operational intelligence, uptime and fleet-service economics.

## Playable script

1. Lucky: “If I rent for the weekend, do you come with the upgrade?”
2. Nina: “My boyfriend works out back. Want to meet the full-size upgrade?”
3. Mack enters from the service-bay side of the lobby.
4. Mack: “Mack. Fleet maintenance. What’s making that squeaking noise?”
5. Lucky: “Your girlfriend said I could check out the bodywork.”
6. Mack: “That’ll be a contact sport.”
7. Mack closes in. A brief dust-cloud scuffle hides the blows; boots and Lucky’s leisure-suit shoe stick out. Lucky ends seated, rumpled and seeing stars.
8. Nina: “Mack! I said check him in, not knock him out.”
9. Lucky: “Does the rental cover collision damage… to me?”
10. Mack: “No. But an apology’s free.”
11. Lucky: “Sorry. I mistook the customer service for chemistry.”
12. Nina: “Let’s try the rental agreement. It’s less painful.”

The player returns to Nina’s rental choices and Lucky gets back on his feet. This optional gag creates no extra chapter requirement, fee or injury mechanic. Existing rental keys, research and story progress remain intact. Mack’s reveal and the completed encounter are saved independently.

## Production assets

- Runtime: [counter-scene.js](game/counter-scene.js), coordinated by world.js and scene-life.js.
- Four-pose RGBA sprite sheet: [mack_counter_v1.png](game/world/assets/mack_counter_v1.png). Runtime canvas crops isolate Mack’s crossed-arm and entrance poses, the dust cloud and seated Lucky. Public hosting uses a lossless WebP conversion.
- Artwork generated with the built-in `image_gen.imagegen` tool. Exact prompt and source references: [mack_art_prompt.json](source/mack_art_prompt.json).
- The original three-panel counter storyboard is retained. This is an additional playable branch, documented here and in the current HTML bible; earlier PowerPoint/PDF snapshots precede it.

Lucky’s speaker name stays green; Nina’s is magenta; Mack’s is blue. The camera widens for the encounter to keep Nina, Lucky and Mack visible. Research/help overlays pause story timers. Reduced-motion preferences suppress the scuffle shake and entrance bob while preserving the story. Leave the conversation returns safely to exploration. The art is silent; the existing scene music continues.

Local master: `videos/Htz/Hertz_Quest_Game_Bible_v2`. Mirrored game/bible: `C:/Users/phill/Documents/epochX/Hertz_Quest/Game_Bible_v2`. Both are included in the updated local package ZIP.