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slowed. “I think I know who it is.”
    “What? What do you mean? You found who has Halliday?”
    “Well, I can’t find them. But I think I would be able to if they weren’t wiped.”
    “Hey.” I snapped my fingers at him. “Make sense.”
    “I think it’s the Lancer.”
    “Who’s that?”
    “A black hat hacker. A pretty infamous one. So much of what I’ve been trying to track has been wiped, and I just realized—it’s his style, exactly. The way the information’s gone missing—it’s like a shadow. His shadow.”
    “Wait a second,” I said. “Does this mean someone else would be able to trace me through data you’ve wiped? Because that doesn’t make me feel terribly secure—”
    “Oh, leave it to you to make it all about you. Come on, Cas. I’m the best. And whoever else—” He cut himself off with a cough. “It’s different. This guy left traces.”
    But whoever this was probably felt confident he’d wiped the evidence clean. Just like Checker felt confident. And with the NSA’s spying eyes being turned toward us right now…my thoughts soured.
    “It’s not like I can tell he did it,” Checker continued. “It’s more like, I can tell things are gone, and the work is trademark Lancer. Thus, I’m assuming. If the Lancer’s not one of the people who has her, then maybe he’s someone close to them. Or works for them.”
    I supposed there was nothing I could do about my own digital footprint anyway. Fucking information age. “How does this help us?”
    “Because I might be able to trace him. Not to his location; he’s too good. But through his activities, by looking for his shadow, so to speak. I can figure out what he’s doing.”
    “We know what he’s doing,” I said. “He’s going to code up an algorithm to Halliday’s proof and then they’re going to rob the world blind.” Shit, we’d been assuming the programming would take time, but these men already had half the equation: a computer expert who could do the work.
    “But at least this is something,” argued Checker. “Maybe we can…I don’t know, lure him out?”
    The idea hit me fully formed—something that would show both Arthur and the NSA, would let me solve this whole catastrophe once and for all. “No,” I said. “We don’t lure him out. We lure him in.”
    “Huh? You mean you want to, to what—grab him and trade him?”
    “No. Even if we got our hands on him, they wouldn’t trade the professor for him. He’s expendable. They can find another computer guy.”
    “Hey!”
    “You know it’s true. Halliday is the one they really need. Unless he’s the one in charge, they’d never trade him for her.”
    Checker leaned back and crossed his arms. “All right, it seems like you’ve got an idea. Let’s hear it.”
    “We don’t make them give up Halliday. We make them take me.”
    “ What?”
    “We convince them somehow that she needs help. That I wrote part of the proof. Whatever. You drop whatever electronic hints will make them think that.” I ignored the edge of recklessness limning my brain. This plan was perfect. “It’ll work. I can pass muster.”
    “Of course you can; that’s not the point!”
    “What is the point, then?”
    “That—that you’re trying to offer yourself up as bait to people who nearly killed you and Arthur just this morning, twice, and have already kidnapped another person and what would make you think they’d want to keep you alive once they’d finished with you anyway? This is a terrible idea!”
    “Come on, have you not met me?” I said.
    “What—I don’t—”
    “No one can keep me in a box. They catch me, they’ll take me to Halliday, I’ll get us both out. Easy as pie.”
    “No. No, no, no, no, no. I don’t mean to rain on your frankly impossible skill set here, but even you can’t always bust your way out in a second once you get locked in a cell. You’ve admitted it before! There are so many ways this can go wrong, starting with, what if we