Any resident of Quixo is familiar with the old water and power building, which, for the last 22 years, has been occupied by Tomozimi Imaging Ltd., doing triple duty as a manufacturing warehouse, sales floor, and headquarters for the globally successful conglomerate. Their triumph has overshadowed the town itself, earning Quixo the much-despised moniker: “The House that Jin-joo Built”.
Starting from humble beginnings, Jin-joo Tomozimi, introduced to Westerners as Jim Tom, was a first-generation immigrant from the shrimping district of Teitomo. After the portmaster drunkenly rerouted the immigrant-smuggling-vessel three degrees easterly, 12-year old Jin-joo disembarked on what he thought was New London; his arrival in what was actually Quixo changed the course of history as we know it.
Providing for his family at one of Quixo’s many shrimping docks earned him his livelihood, and also allowed him to save enough money over the course of a half-decade to buy a small workshop in the heart of downtown. At the age of 27, Jin-joo invented the CD player, predating its commercial release by 15 years. Had his plans for the device not been stolen by his then-partner, Marty “Butterfingers” McCloud, then patented, and subsequently misplaced (the blueprints were drawn on a napkin by Jin-joo in Quixo’s longstanding Buggy’s Diner), his rise to power may have come much earlier.
Tomozimi Imaging Ltd. now stands at a market value of $12.7B, and is the leading manufacturer of laser printers, photocopiers, fax machines, scanners, x-ray imaging technology, 3D printers, plotters and one very special machine which does all seven. Beyond their far-reaching commercial prosperity, Tomozimi Imaging Ltd. also donated 20 per cent of their yearly profit to the Tomozimi Fund, a charity uplifting scientific and sociological development in impoverished Teitomese communities.
Earlier this month, Jin-Joo Tomozimi, the man so deeply engrained in Quixo history, passed away from natural causes at the age of 92. A funeral parade passed through Quixo, with thousands marching along side printer-shaped floats to Shrimperman’s Wharf for the service. Eulogizing her momentous father was Shino Tomozimi, the sole heir to the Tomozimi fortune. Among many good words of honor and heartwarming stories of Jin-Joo’s graciousness in fatherhood, was a closing statement to the public and televised audience that she would be stepping up into the C.E.O. position, according to her father’s wishes. Hushed disgrace from stockholders have swept the corporate world since Jin-joo’s death, expressing doubts about Shino’s ability to manage the enterprise.
Known in her teen years as “The Printer Brat”, notorious for her bottomless trust-fund, trashed hotel rooms and month-long benders, Shino’s reputation is all that shareholders can see, says corporate analyst Rich Williams.
“I heard a rumour once that she suffocated a male stripper at a bachelorette party–for a wedding that never happened–by covering his skin in black laser-printer toner,” says Williams. “Of course there’s no evidence of this, purely tabloid hearsay, but there’s some greedy, witchy… blood money stuff going on. I’m sorry, what was the question? Something about the Dow?” Williams stated.
With a steadily declining market value, the few remaining holdout investors are waiting to see the results at the upcoming TechnoWorld Summit in the spring to decide whether Shino will drive the company in a future-forward direction, says Williams.
“She better have something good to share at this summit, or else they’re kaput. We use Tomozimi machines at my office, and, yes, they’re good. They print reliably, and yes, I’ve not used a better machine before. That said, the industry needs a big change-up or it will be trashed–perhaps recycled is more apt.” Williams added.
