The machine booted to a clean install of Monterey. No user account. No password. Just the setup screen asking for language.
Three dots appeared. Then vanished. Then a final message: “Then you understand. Keep the laptop. We’ll know if you erase it. Welcome to the board.”
I’m a board-level repair technician. I don’t care about stolen goods or corporate paranoia. I care about voltage rails and cracked solder joints. So I did what I do best: I opened it up.
That’s when I saw it. Not one, not two, but seventeen repair logs under this single serial number. Seventeen. A laptop doesn’t need seventeen repairs unless something is very, very wrong.
I felt a chill, the kind that has nothing to do with room temperature.