Anaximander's Goggles (last part)

A cold rain fell. Wallace adjusted his panama as he stepped from his craft on to the bank of the Missouri facing the crash site. Forrester walked around the car standing in contact with him, coveting his warmth. She pulled the collar of her jacket up around her cheeks.

Wallace put the stainless case on the hood and pressed the release buttons. The case opened with a gasp as the electric hum stopped. Carefully he lifted the goggles from their housing. He handed his hat to Forrester and situated the goggles on his face.

"The recorder is on," Forrester announced. "Special agents, Eric Wallace and Ella Forrester. Case number 7272144. Re: goggle test at Whiney crash site. Agent Wallace, testing, Agent Forrester reporting." As Ella dictated the information to the recorder, Eric turned the goggles on. All that he saw he dutifully reported to Ella and the record.

When he powered the goggles the gray landscape, yellowed by the tint of the lenses, burst into color. Greens were vivid, bluff walls glowed with reds and browns, raindrops became crystalline wonders. Eric's breathing slowed and shifted draw from his nose to his lips.

"I am now adjusting the goggles to the setting we found them at on Dr. Whiney."

The rain drops dissolved into a crystalline glow that served to shed light on the rest of the scene, enhancing the colors to ever increasing reality and life. Next the green of the grass dissolved away, revealing in living detail the soil, stone and bedrock beneath. Each layer gave way enhancing the beauty of the next. The layers continued to melt away, until earth gave way to sky, sky to space and space dissolved into a brightness that at first was blinding.

Eric blinked his eyes trying to adjust to the light. What could Dr. Whiney have possibly been trying to see? No bunkers, no tunnels, no secret labs, instead he was gazing beyond galaxy and universe.

"It is beautiful," Wallace announced, his eyes no longer served him, but he felt. He felt with new senses that filled in the void in his mind. Slowly he turned looking around. "It is all around me a sea, an in infinite ocean."

"The boundless… I think you are seeing through to the boundless."
Eric could feel his heart rate slowing and his natural senses were lost to him as he began feeling and seeing with new senses. He became aware of his own body and soul. He felt the sea, the ocean around him, teaming with life. Never was anything more real to him.

From wave after wave that broke over his body he felt the life enter him. His body felt strong his soul became just as real.

Ella watched him as his breath became shallow and his descriptions became labored, she watched him search for words language to express what he saw. She raised her hand to his flushed face now wet with tears, trying to quiet him. He relaxed and his disjointed rants became a song without words.

Her chin began to quiver. Something about his song pierced her soul she thought of her father, but for the first time in years the image was not his screaming face in the midst of an explosion, but of a lullaby. He seemed present. The life Wallace was describing to her was invading her through his song. It was familiar; her father was in that life, in that song.

Wallace was being overwhelmed by the beauty and power of life found in the boundless. His body began to quake. He felt as though he was falling, then he saw Ella's beautiful face. He didn't realize that she had pulled goggles from his face. His senses were all still heightened and her beauty struck him, as it never had before. He smiled, completely at peace.

Ella looked at his eyes; they seemed to be gazing through her. She felt for a pulse, there was none. She lifted his head and pressed her lips to his, feeling a residue of the song of life he sang.

"Case file closed, no question what happened now," she announced to the recorder through deep breaths. Her shaking hand reached her communicator. "Agent down…"

As she looked at his face, felt the life of the boundless on her lips, all the anger, bitterness and disappointment drained from her body. She felt her father and forgot her end-game. With one hand she held Eric's head, with the other she caressed his chest, and then removed her glasses. Slowly and with breathless anticipation, she pulled the goggles over her head.

Anaximander's Goggles Part the penultimate

Take me to part 1

The night had emptied out the Midwest branch office of the DSC. Hallways were dark save the security lamps illuminating deco pillars up and down the hall. Through glass doors framed in brushed brass, a partly lit library with mahogany bookcases was home to the coffee and fatigue of agents Wallace and Forrester.

Eric Wallace growled as he looked up from a file rubbing his eyes. "Where are we?"

"Somewhere around square one," Ella replied without looking up from her stack.

Eric looked across the table at his colleague, tracing the curve of her jaw and neck with his eyes. Sitting back he asked "still nothing on this Anaximander?"

"No, Eric," she said suddenly looking up. "I've been thinking… maybe he was referring to the historical Anaximander."

Her enthusiasm and the light dancing in her eyes gave her such a powerful sincerity that Eric had to catch his breath. "How so?"

"Anaximander paints this image of the reality we know, the world, matter, everything, floating as a crust on an infinite sea he calls the boundless. He called the true work of philosophy getting under the surface."

"So maybe Anaximander was Dr. Whitney's inspiration?"

"Maybe… here is something you can relate to," Ella said with a coy smile. "The reason Anaximander looked for a boundless to be the source of everything is that if everything were made of just one of the elements, say water, it would mean that the world was founded on injustice. There had to be something greater, more primary behind it all."

"You thinking there is something more primary behind me?" Eric chuckled. "Now you really are getting out of your field of study. You know I read your file…"

"Is that supposed to surprise me?"

"Why did you do it Ella? Why join DSC anyway. You have a doctorate in Philosophy and another in Mathematics, and here you are playing damn good detective."

"If you read my file you know the answer." Ella's voice held a tension that cooled their playful mood.

"I know you lost your dad in the Omaha terrorist attack, but this is no place to get closure. You're smart enough to know that."

She flashed him a twisted smile, the light in her eyes retreating behind a cloud of some untold end-game. "I have my reasons," she said with a sigh throwing her head back. She stretched an took her hair down then said, "Lets get back to work."

She stood over Wallace's shoulder as they pursued again the moleskine of sketches.

***

Beep-Beep, Beep-Beep. The sound accompanying the red flashing light on the notepad on the table awoke agent Forrester. She had fallen asleep her head rested on her arm sprawled across the table. Wallace was on the rich leather of the couch, shoes kicked off, tie undone, collar open and white panama over his face.

Ella turned and whispered, "Eric, we have something."

***

Wallace, arrayed in a fresh suit, burst into the holding cell of the sleeping Gnomon lab tech throwing over a chair. Forrester also followed, fresh faced.

"You've been less than candid Clark!" Wallace punched the words into the air.

"Gnomon labs sent over your computer contents," Forrester chimed in.

"Seems once they learned what you have been up to, they were more than happy to cooperate."

"Especially when they found that your work was simply the ravings of a mad man," the beautiful Forrester laughed in his face. "You, crept your way into real scientists confidences so that you would have something to talk about. Does it make you feel important? Knowing all those secrets?"

"No you just like wearing the lab coat, isn't that right Clark?"

"No, No, I was Dr. Whitney's right hand man, I was his inspiration. He couldn't have done it with out me."

"I don't see it," Wallace said. "The good doctor did all he could do to get you transferred or fired, didn't he?"

"No! He needed me. He would never…"

"We found memos on your computer that you intercepted to save your own butt," Forrester lashed.

"I did that for him. He couldn't go on with out me. I am Anaximander. I am his Anaximander!"

"You'd like to think that wouldn't you. Your pathetic," Wallace turned a disgusted face.

"That's what Whitney told you isn't it?" Forrester said coolly.

"Is that why you killed him?"

"No! No." Clark, shaken sat sobbing quieting as the moments went by. "I needed him. I needed the goggles, when he crashed I knew my life was over."

"Who were you scared of? Bustamonte?"

"No, these men are dangerous, terrorists the lot of them. I knew they would kill me soon and that my life was worthless, that is why I came clean about Bustamonte."

"Not clean enough."