Anaximander's Goggles Part the antepenultimate

"Take me to Dr. Whitney's things," Clark, still arrogant, demanded.

"Not a chance," Wallace replied pulling from his breast pocket the moleskine Dr. Whitney used, a foil gum wrapper marking a page. "What do you make of this?"

Thumbing through the book Clark looked puzzled and a little angry. "Gibberish!" he exclaimed. "This is the only thing I can read."

He pointed to a Greek word. "anaximander." Wallace looked at Forrester who adjusted her glasses and after a moment replied, "Anaximander."

Clark took the foil up in his hands, turning it around, staring at it while the two agents talked.

"He was a presocratic philosopher."

"I'm no philosopher Dr. Forrester. Why don't you put that doctoral philosopher's brain to work for me?"

"Well, he was a mathematician, he developed the sundial. He was also known for looking for the unified field theory of the sixth century BCE, the origin of the elements, kind of an early evolutionist."

"What could that possibly have to do with this twenty-first century murder? Could Anaximander be an alias for someone?"

Suddenly Wallace jumped at Clark. "What did you do with that gum wrapper?"

"Nothing," Clark replied, thrusting his hands in his pocket. Slowly he withdrew them, "I must have absentmindedly put it in my pocket. Tell me is it yours or was it Dr. Whitney's?"

"It was his, there must have been a dozen of them in his car," Forrester answered.

Clark's eyes widened and then he made a conscious effort to put on what he thought was a poker face. "Ah, so that is where you got the goggles? Dr. Whiney had them?"

"Care to share what you know?" Wallace asked.

"I suppose you'll find out soon enough on your own. The goggles are designed to see through the loosely bound particles that make up matter. Only Dr. Whitney knows how they work, some how they create a field that bends time and isolates the particles, something to do with the Heisenberg uncertainty principle. Like I said, I don't know the science behind it, no one in this world does now."

"Didn't he leave any notes behind?" Forrester probed.

"Just this … Gibberish!" Clark growled.

"What does this have to do with that gum wrapper?"

"This, agent Wallace is the first thing we could see through with the goggles. It dissolved into a dull glow and our protective gloves became visible. Whitney always dreamed of taking the device out side and looking through organic material, but removing it was impossible."

"Apparently not," Wallace replied. He and Forrester left an agitated and quiet Clark in the interrogation room.