The pair are visiting Captain Burger when Summer perks up.
“The bike,” she says suddenly.
Charlotte looks up from her burger-shaped omen of death. “I beg your pardon?”
“The bike. Ghostheart told Daph they rode a bike to meet with her at the cave entrance. They said it was a rental. Paid by credit card. Well, credit card transactions are electronic, and can be traced.”
Charlotte sits up. “You’ve lived with this technological currency longer than I have. What would that require?”
Summer takes a bite of her burger, pausing in her explanation for an appreciative “mmm”. As a robot, she has a distinct advantage in the Captain Burger survival challenge. “The security around credit cards is very tight. We’d need some kind of world-class hacker. But it should be possible to pull up a list of sales made with a given card and turn that into a map of places someone has been. And with luck, we could figure out patterns, places the card holder typically goes, and stake those out.”
Charlotte nods in understanding. “How do we begin?”
Summer wolfs down more of her burger. “Womf foomf ffsom.”
“Don’t talk with your mouth full, dear.”
Summer finishes and nods sheepishly. “Sorry. Um. I’d usually ask Alycia for something like this. Say, why don’t we ask Jason?”
Charlotte samples her own burger, rather than speak her first thoughts.
“Honestly, that sounds legally dicey.”
Jason is sitting in the conversation pit, turning over what the two girls have told him. Charlotte and Summer sit opposite. Now that they’ve explained the situation and what they hope for, they’re mostly watching Jason walk himself through the consequences.
“On the one hand, I want to help, and I have the resources and skill to do this. On the other, if it’s traced back to me, the Foundation’s charitable efforts and public image would suffer.”
Jason pauses, stands, and paces for a minute. “I could set up isolated resources, enough to provide some shielding against detection and countermeasures, but it would take time. Let me get started on that, and I’ll let you both know when I’m ready.”
Charlotte nods, and rises as well. “That would be most appreciated, Jason. Thank you.”
Summer stands too. “Say, um, Alycia hasn’t been around lately. I figured she’d tell you if anything was up. Is she um, she doing okay?”
Jason nods. “There’s something going on. That’s all I can say.”
“Okay. Understood.”
Jason shows them to the front door, and the girls walk out into the daylight.