Cosmos

Sartre’s voice broke the stillness, his tone half-curious, half-aimed at sparking some hidden truth. “It actually reminds me of that old Carl Sagan show. You ever watch that, Mat?”

“Cosmos? Yes, I watched it years ago,” came Matt’s reply, a glimmer of nostalgia in his eyes. He glanced over at Alyssa. “Have you seen that?”

“Not the Sagan one but I did see the newer one with Neil deGrasse Tyson.” Alyssa’s voice was steady, but something in her gaze flickered.

Matt turned his attention back to Peter. “How about you, Peter? Have you seen one or both versions of Cosmos?”

“I saw both versions,” Sartre mused, sipping his lemonade, his eyes narrowing slightly as he continued, “I preferred Carl Sagan’s much more. He had a much better presentation style, went into deeper depths about how the public willingly accepts control. If they only thought critically, we wouldn’t be able to control them as easily. He was wrong about the Demon Haunted World, though, Matt.” He shrugged, his voice lowering. “The second version on Fox with Neil deGrasse Tyson in 2014 was good, especially the part about Bruno. He had to have been a member of the Illuminati.”

There was a subtle, almost imperceptible change in the air, a shift as Peter made his usual pointed remarks. It wasn’t intentional, but every time he made an observation that Matt should have already known or understood, the atmosphere seemed to tighten. Alyssa felt it too—like a tugging at the edges of her nerves. The tension swelled quietly between them, a presence in the room.

Matt gave a small, practiced nod, “Yes, Hypatia probably was. Who knows, I would guess many, many volumes. If the factions were smart, they would have split the many volumes among themselves.” His words were a thread, pulling the conversation along, but they barely eased the palpable discomfort.

Alyssa, quietly sipping her tea, cast her eyes downward, attempting to hide her discomfort. Peter, oblivious to the effect his words had on the group, responded lightly, “I’m not doing anything, Silly. Just complementing you. I can stop.”

It wasn’t enough to quell the tension. She looked at him, her voice soft but firm, “Yes, please. I appreciate it but it’s making me feel weird.”

Matt gave a short, understanding nod, before turning his gaze to Peter. “It’s fine, Peter,” he said. “Let’s not drag this out.”

“That all sounds good. Could go for some chocolate,” Alyssa added quietly, the suggestion drifting between them like a fragile bridge, an attempt to restore normalcy. She glanced over at Ekaterina and Max. “Thanks.”

Sartre’s face softened slightly, almost imperceptibly, as he continued to dissect his thoughts on history and the Illuminati, unaware of the subtle currents passing through the room. “I really liked how Carl Sagan had his segment on Hypatia of Alexandria. Hypatia had to have been an early member of the Illuminati as well. I wonder how many volumes from the library of Alexandria we have stored somewhere.”

Matt was quiet for a moment, contemplating the question before he spoke. “There are,” he agreed with Ekaterina, who had just added her own insight on the subject. “Beyond the spirits of the dead, many entities which appear in Native American folklore are real, sometimes they’ve been slightly modified to meet a narrative, but mostly it’s accurate. Ever heard of The Nimerigar?”

Sartre’s response was immediate. “I never have.”

Alyssa’s voice broke the silence then, her words a careful unraveling of a mystery, “The Nimerigar are from the Shoshone people. They’re a race of little people found in the Rockies. According to Shoshone tales, they were aggressive, shooting poisoned arrows from tiny bows. Their name, Nimerigar, translates to ‘people eaters.’”

She paused, gathering her thoughts. “They were believed to kill their own if they became too ill to contribute. In 1932, a mummy was found in a cave in Wyoming, and at first, it was thought to be a hoax. But they quickly realized it wasn’t. The mummy was a full-grown adult, though later tests revealed it was an encephalitic infant.”

Her gaze turned to her father, the quiet weight of her question hanging in the air. “You’re saying they still exist?”

Matt didn’t hesitate. “Yes. We had to fight some off during the investigation.”

The statement lingered in the air like a fading echo. The room felt momentarily colder, the shadows stretching just a little longer.

As the conversation shifted, a sudden ping from a phone broke the tension. A message. Alyssa’s fingers flew over her phone, the words that followed sending ripples through the room. Peter, always the one to act on the slightest impulse, retreated upstairs, leaving a message behind, his words as warm as they were unsettling: “I love you, too.”

Alyssa turned to her father, the quiet hum of the message still vibrating in her chest. “Do you want to see more of the house?” she asked, her voice steady now, though there was something unspoken in the way her words hung in the air.

Her father smiled, that familiar, almost soft expression she had come to recognize over the years. “Yes, I would like that.”

As they stood, moving toward the door, Matt nodded his thanks to the others, acknowledging their hospitality with a genuine warmth. “Thank you, Ekaterina, Max. Dinner and dessert were excellent, and I don’t get home-cooked meals often.”

He paused for a moment, turning to Sung. “Thank you for the hospitality.”

Alyssa followed him out, the door clicking softly behind them, the faintest hum of conversation trailing in their wake. The house was quiet now.