“Wasn’t me. Honest.” He hiked his chair up close. “But ya might ask the boss about it.”

“What?” I peered at him sideways. Jenn once called him Rousseau’s spymaster, but I took that as one of her odder delusions. Even cleaned up, Peeto didn’t come off as anyone’s master. “You’re saying Rousseau steals people’s stuff?”

“Course not!” He reached past my hands to two-pick the keypad. “Just like a heads up. Listen, ya wanna know about Mars, ask Ellie Mae. She’ll tell ya a thing or two.”

“Are these her files?”

“Pro’bly. Mars is like her thing, if ya can get her to talk.”

“And you can?” Hard to believe.

But Peeto was refusing offense today. “Sure. When we hang in the garden together. More private, y’know? She’s been warned.”

“About what?”

“ ’Bout keeping her ideas to herself. It’s no secret.”

Had Peeto flagged me as someone interested in radical ideas? This made me nervous. What if Jenn was right about him? Time for some misdirect. “Does she know sun signs?”

“What?”

“You know, astrology. It matters where the planets were when you were born, so I thought maybe if I learn about planets, I can backtrack to my birth date.”

“You believe that stuff?” Never seen Peeto look like he pitied someone more than himself. “Well, ya could always ask. She’s got, y’know, an open mind.” He leaned into the keypad again. “Like, here’s something she showed me. So I got all the sides.”

The file came up on the screen. Lots of print and bold-faced exclamations. “See what it says? No dudes ever walked on Mars, there’s no Arcadia base, and never was one.”

“No what? What did you call it?”

“Arcadia One. The international base. See it right there?”

Arcadia with a C. Did it matter?

“Yep. All a giant media hoax.”

I had a mad urge to pull the documents out of my gut wallet and check the spelling. Had to be a silly coincidence.

“Here, take a look.” Peeto linked to a site where the Mars story became a government program to distract a restless public from the warming Earth, the rising waters, the wheat famine, the increasingly unstable and noxious atmosphere, whatever. More conspiracies.

He sat back, smiling at the screen. “Everyone’s got a theory, right?”

“But what’s the truth?”

“Depends on who’s talking, don’t it?” His head bobbed like he’d laid down a nugget of wisdom. “Just think it’s cool.”

“Cool why?”

“ ’Cause it would be awesome to fool the whole world like that. Besides, don’t matter if it’s true or not. Ain’t no one going back to Mars anytime soon, things as they are.”

But what if they were? No, that was too crazy.