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.