Damn. Good point, I thought. Oh well, let’s roll with it. I put on my best confident smile and said, “A good catch, Mr. Ross. But you’ll never have heard of us. We’re from MOBIUS.”

Patrick almost lost it. He turned and resumed walking toward the parking lot, and Phil and I followed automatically.

“MOBIUS.”

“Uh-huh. Like I said … ”

“I’ve never heard of it. Right.” Phil pointed at the Duster. “So tell me, Men from Glad, is that an agency vehicle, or did you rescue me in your own car? If the latter, you’d better hope they don’t get your license plate.”

“Good luck with that,” Patrick replied.

I grinned, remembering how much effort Patrick had put into making his license plates unreadable without actually stepping over the line, legally. He’d even, at one point, bought one of those plastic covers that was supposed to be opaque to traffic-camera flashes. If a blurry frame from a distant webcam at a bad angle could extract a license number from the small part of his plate that was actually visible, I’d eat it.

I decided it couldn’t hurt to give Phil a little more to go on. Or a little more rope. “The device you’re holding is designed to detect a cloaking field, Phil. The cloaking field can create a disguise as well as produce invisibility. Very probably the guy in the suit was disguising himself. As human.”

Phil’s eyes registered shock for the briefest fraction of a second, then he got it under control. That was surprising for someone who, let’s be blunt, walked around literally wearing a tinfoil hat most of the time.

“You guys know a lot, it seems,” Phil said. “So what are you going to do when an alien hit squad comes and busts down the door to your barn and trashes the place looking for an alien corpse?”

Now it was my turn to be shocked. Our passenger had apparently put a few things together. “Seems you know a thing or two as well. For what it’s worth, they won’t find anything.” I decided to play a little hardball. I gestured to the Duster. “So where can we drop you off, Phil?”

“Oh, I don’t think so. We’ve got a lot of ground to cover. Maybe some trading of information. For instance, I found something in that field. Something amazing.”

“An invisible spaceship?” I turned and smiled at Phil. “Or at least a landing strut. Most of their ship is above head height. Even for me.”

This time, Phil’s surprised expression lasted longer. “That’s … you knew about—wait, their ship? I thought you weren’t aliens. Whose side are you on, anyway?”