Perkins Brothers Repair Company - Part 3

 

The lawnmower had a sleek design, made mostly of a clean white plastic with no visible screws or bolts. I popped the lid off the top, revealing a small screen and a single button. I pressed it, and the screen lit up. For a few seconds it was blank, until the word "Welcome" appeared in friendly letters, soon replaced by a simple menu with a touch interface. Ignoring this menu, I instead held the button down again for 5 seconds, bringing up a command console.

 

I'd hate to bore you with the details of what happened next. Let's just say I looked the machine over and found obvious signs of tampering with the lawnmower's computer. It was an odd mixture of complicated manipulation of the code and amateur mistakes that made the changes easy to spot. The hacker was even arrogant enough to include a signature in the coding.

 

I looked up from the display and realized both Lloyd and our client were in the room watching me fiddle with the lawnmower. Lloyd was sipping a cup of tea presumably made by the lady as a show of gratitude. "How goes it?"

 

I closed the lawnmower and stood up. "Well, I know the name of the culprit, if that helps."

 

Lloyd raised his eyebrows, pleasantly surprised. "Well go on then."

 

"We're looking for a person by the name of 'Ne0nVampL0rd57'."

 

Lloyd opened and closed his mouth several times, as if wanting to say something but not quite finding the right words. Finally he managed "And... where do you suppose we start looking for this... Vamp Lord?"

 

"This lawnmower was being sent instructions from an outside source. I've already pin-pointed the location of the signal's origin."

 

Lloyd set his tea down and stood up. "Well done! Where to now?"

 

"Well... I'm not sure if this is right, but apparantly the signal is coming from next door."

 

Suddenly our patron -- whom I had never bothered to learn the name of-- stood up and made her presence known with a shriek of "I knew it! It's that Barkley kid. I always knew he was a no-good criminal."

 

"I have to say, this is awfully convienant," Lloyd said. "Perhaps those other lawnmower attack victims had this Barkley kid as a student."