Nancy Drew: Mystery of the Six and a Half Keys
Chapter Eleven
Nancy sent an angry text to Frank, as she made her way to Aparat Computers. Next time, get a secret agent who doesn't care so much about security!
"How can I help you?" the blonde woman asked.
"I'm a detective, working on a diamond theft case with a secret agent," Nancy said. "But the problem is, I don't know how to open pictures on my phone."
"Let me see," the woman said. "Is it okay if I take your phone into the back room for ten minutes?"
"Only if it's okay for me to snoop through all your personal belongings while you're distracted," Nancy said.
"That would be a no," the woman said.
"Look, I got this email that's really important for my case," Nancy said. "I don't know how to make it work."
"Hmmm..." the woman said. "Did you get a strange pop-up after you opened the file?"
"I didn't get that far," Nancy said. "Look! It wants me to do something with this mountain picture."
"Oh, that's simple," the woman said. "Just swap tiles until you make a picture of a mountain."
"I'm a detective, not an artist," Nancy protested. "You do it for me, Miss..."
"Elka Strojnik," Elka said. "Cybersecurity expert, store owner, and relationship status: currently crushing on Radek the puppeteer. Let's be best friends!"
Nancy frowned. The last twelve times someone had become her instant best friend, they ended up being a criminal, trying to lull her into a false sense of security. Then again...Elka did have a cool t-shirt...
"I'm Nancy Drew, and I'm glad to do anything to help my new bestie!" Nancy said. She started swapping tiles on her phone, when suddenly the screen turned black. A green puppet monster jumped out of the darkness, screaming.
"OH NO FREAKING NO!" Nancy shouted.
"Oh dear, I believe your phone has a virus," Elka said. "Maybe it's because you connected to the public wifi instead of using a secure line."
"There's public wifi here?" Nancy asked.
"Loutkaji provides free wifi to all of Prague," Elka explained. "Well, now that your phone is infected, I have to take it into the backroom to be fixed."
"Ugh, fine, whatever," Nancy said. She slammed her phone on the counter and marched into the next room, where an old man in blue was having a whispered conference with a man in yellow.
"Still no word on...puppet number twelve?" the young man asked.
Nancy instantly knew this was important. "Hold on a second, Banana Shirt!" she said. "Did you just say 'puppet'?"
"Banana shirt?" the young man asked.
"You're Radek, the hunky puppeteer!" Nancy said.
"Guilty as charged," Radek said, smiling.
"Guilty is right," Nancy said. Someone was clearly guilty of lying, if they called Radek a hunk. He was more like...15% as cute as Ned. "Why'd you cancel today's puppet show?"
"My assistant didn't show up to work today, and I messed up the script," Radek said. "If only someone could help me..."
Nancy could tell that Radek was trying to ask for her help. Well, that was just too bad for him. Nancy Drew was never going to do someone else's chores, ever again! "Good luck with that," she said.
"Help Radek do the puppet show!" Elka called from the next room. "You can consider that payment for fixing your phone."
"Dang it!" Nancy said.