“Yeah, that’s great.” Nat clearly wasn’t sharing in Patrick’s attempt at lightening the mood. “But I’ve got my dad to take care of, on top of holding down a job. My aunt has been filling in for me for the last couple of days, but she can’t keep it up. And she’s my mother’s sister, so it’s asking a lot in the first place. We need to have some kind of defined end date on this.”

“I agree,” I said. “I can’t keep stringing along my parents with the secret-project story, either.”

Patrick sighed. “And I have to deal with Tim, although fratricide is still not out of the question.”

“I get that, and I … hmm … ” I stopped talking and stared into the distance.

“What?” Nat and Patrick said simultaneously.

“Well, what we really need is to shake things up a little and see what falls out. And it would be great if we could take care of our friend Phil Ross at the same time.” I tapped my chin. “And if we throw Tim a bone, make him feel like an insider—without actually making him one, you understand—then we could maybe make some headway.”

“That sounds like quite the deliverable,” Nat said. “You got an actual plan in there somewhere?”

“I think maybe I do. Look, Phil got the first video from TimJay666. He’ll know that, so he’ll be inclined to trust anything else that comes from the same source. We can get Tim to message Phil and give him the aerial images of the saucer field, both original and enhanced. I bet Phil will take it from there with very little prompting.”

Patrick laughed. “And I bet that’ll freak out the Loranna, having a gen-u-ine flying saucer investigator sniffing around their den.”

“You could also give him a cloaking detector,” Sheldon said.

Patrick and Nat stared at the communicator, looking as shocked as I felt. “Seriously?” I said.

“I have the enhanced phones ready for you, so you will no longer need the discrete items. And the detectors don’t actually do anything detectable unless there’s a cloaking field nearby, so they would not be impressive as evidence of aliens. And it might help your tinfoil-hat-wearing friend zero in on our mutual quarry.”

“You understand we’re using him, and potentially placing him in danger,” Nat said.

Patrick frowned at Nat. “Really? You think Phil Ross would have a problem with any of this? Let’s lay it all out for him. Complete honesty. You think he’ll hesitate even a microsecond? This is morally equivalent to giving a reporter an anonymous tip. And you can bet a guy like Phil understands that there are risks.”

Nat hesitated a moment. “Yeah … you’re right, I think. Based on his website, the guy would chew off his own arm to get a chance at aliens.”