interlude
Somewhere beneath the streets of Washington—
inside a classified government building hidden from public records—
a man in a black suit sat alone in a dark office.
Rain tapped softly against the windows while a single desk lamp illuminated stacks of confidential files spread across the desk.
At the very top sat one folder.
PROJECT COSMO.
The man opened it slowly.
Inside were photographs:
Dr. Cosmo entering Harvard.
Security footage from Best Buy.
Satellite images of the Alaska wilderness.
Blurry pictures of Vanessa Monroe.
Encrypted reports signed with blacked-out names.
The man flipped through the pages carefully.
Then finally—
he stopped at the last photograph.
Dr. Cosmo.
Standing outside a cabin beneath the northern lights with Vanessa and two children beside him.
Alive.
The man stared at the image silently.
Then another voice suddenly spoke from the darkness behind him.
“So he survived.”
The man in the chair closed the file calmly.
“Yes.”
“Should we move forward?”
A long silence followed.
The older man walked slowly toward the window overlooking the rainy city.
“No.”
The younger agent looked confused.
“But sir, his research—”
“Is gone.”
The man interrupted coldly.
“Dr. Cosmo destroyed the final equation before escaping.”
The room became silent again.
Because without the final equation—
unlimited energy remained impossible to complete.
The older man slowly loosened his tie while staring out at the city lights below.
“Maybe that’s for the best,” he muttered quietly.
The younger agent frowned.
“You really believe humanity wasn’t ready?”
The older man looked back toward the photo sitting on the desk.
Dr. Cosmo smiling peacefully with his family.
Then he answered softly:
“No.”
He paused.
“I think humanity simply forgot what matters.”
The younger agent remained silent.
Then finally asked:
“What do we do with the file?”
The older man stared at it for one final moment.
PROJECT COSMO.
A discovery powerful enough to change the world.
A scientist who vanished.
A story the public would never fully know.
Then quietly—
he slid the file into a drawer and locked it.
“Some truths,” he said softly,
“are too dangerous for the world.”
The desk lamp clicked off.
Darkness swallowed the room.
And somewhere far away beneath the northern lights—
Dr. Cosmo slept peacefully, unaware that his story had already become legend.
