Porter sat down in his room, listening to the door slide shut and lock. For the most part the lock functionality on the student dorms was meant to help them keep out annoyances while studying. In this case, Porter was about to do the most intensive work in his entire academic career...and it had nothing to do with school.

An array of displays were strewn around Porter's desk, each one containing the same files, the ones acquired from Earth in the library of Beijing. Porter took in a deep breath and held onto it for a moment, his chest tight and stomach spinning. This was the next step in his search for Carter Veillon and in understanding what had happened to Ardwen's brother.

The student's fingers played over the different devices, and each one ignited, shooting out a virtual display of files. There were six screens in total, which Porter had had to obtain by "borrowing" them from classrooms around the academy. Each one was currently listing the different articles, documents, and reports that had been downloaded from the terminal in the library, and Porter cried a little inside as he skimmed through the daunting list.

Still, this had to be done. This was a promise to himself and a silent one to Ardwen, a goal that he was so close to achieving. Indeed, it was quite possible that Carter's name had been erased by glitch, a technical error, after being executed, and that his was all a wild chase but the teenager would not rest until he had exhausted every single option and read every last damn word. And so began a very meticulous process of going through the records during the time that Carter Veillon was imprisoned.

First came the easiest part. Searching through every document for just the mention of the words "Carter Veillon." Aside from the prisoner lists though, this yielded no results. There was nothing in a single newspaper clipping or court document or doctor's note that said Carter Veillon. That wasn't surprising though. Porter did find, however, that Carter had been assigned the prisoner number 11407, which would probably provide a more profitable return when searched.

As the computers went through the fifth sweep, Porter took a moment to look at the clock. It was starting to get late for the academy, approaching his usual sleeping hours. Hopefully he could find at least one thing before he normally went to bed. Wouldn't want to lose out on precious time for sleeping. The search stopped, completed, and showed a list of results. They were the same each time Porter looked: medical records, work reports, change in prison roommates, letters concerning exchanging Carter in a normal prisoner trade with the Enian Federation. None of them showed much more than what Porter could have guessed before he started all this.

Predictably, all of the records for Carter Veillon ended at the same time his name disappeared from the prison listings, as if he just stopped existing. Of course that was quite likely after all. It seemed that the majority of prisoners eventually died, were traded, or were sold as slaves into society. While Carter's complete absence was an abnormality, it had too many possible explanations for this to be much more than a technical glitch.

More hours went by. Porter continued to comb through results with his hopes dwindling as each minute ticked away. He leaned back in his chair, letting out a deep breath that shot out above him and swirled around in the air. He had an assignment due on the history of Enianism, a report to complete on the specifications of Mongoose-class Goliaths, and an essay to be written on critical thoughts towards strategic implementations of close combat weapons and he was putting them all aside just to stare at screens. It was starting to hurt his eyes. And his brain.

His searching still provided no answers and no results. He knew this because the noise the computers made as they finished woke Porter up from his nap on his desk. His head snapped back in surprise; last he had checked he had been awake just a moment ago. Foggy eyes went over the empty list once more and Porter slapped himself to wake up a little. Still nothing.

"Why don't you try broadening what you're looking for?" came a familiar voice over Porter's shoulder. The teen jumped at the sound, his shoulder clipping Rick in the chin as Porter shot out of his chair. The Circuit Breaker stumbled back and fell onto Porter's bed, his eyes spinning in circles from the accidental blow he had received.

"Wh-what on Earth are you...? How did you? Why are you? Rick, what are you doing in my room?!"

"My lady requested I keep an eye on you. She's been a bit worried since you disappeared." Rick rubbed his jaw as he sat up, shifting it from side to side as the feeling came back.

Riya thought of me? Porter mused, beaming on the inside. "But that's kind of creepy for you to be hanging out in my room invisible. What if I had changed clothes?" Porter was struck with a list of other different things a boy alone in his room could have done. "What if I had done other things!"

"Do not worry, my head unit has an automatic censorship module built into it to prevent just such occurrences." Porter visualized his private parts being blurred and shook his head. "But again, if you are going to search like this, you should broaden the search options. Trying to just find a person in a crowd won't work. You need all the options."

"How would you know?"

"Well, when you're a Circuit Breaker they do train you in this sort of stuff. We are intelligence agents on top of being assassins and so it was quite common for us to have to do background checks or hunt people down. What you want," Rick explained as he leaned over Porter and began to manipulate the computers, "is to find out what is happening at the same time. What is going on around your target during the time frame. Sometimes you can link it to their disappearance."

"What's happening around them," Porter echoed as he watched newspaper headlines begin to flash by the screens. Rick was using one computer to begin to plot a timeline while on another he collected a list of relevant occurrences. The line started to solidify, forming a string of events surrounding Carter Veillon leading up to and after the vanishing from the list.

"Interesting," Rick stated, though his voice didn't indicate any interest or feelings.

"What's interesting mean?" Porter flipped his head back and forth between the screens and Rick, trying to comprehend.

"Well notice this point right here, about four year ago." Rick's finger trailed along the timeline before stopping at a single moment. "The shift in Goliath design. They use different Goliaths here."

"Yes, I know that already Rick, I study this kind of stuff in class you know." To emphasize his point, Porter pulled out an electronic pad containing his notes. He showed some to Rick but the Circuit Breaker brushed them aside.

"Yes, they changed Goliaths. But where did they get the technology from? How come they just make this sudden breakthrough during this year?"

"Because people are smart?"

"Or..." Rick moved his finger back a little along the line, letting events pop up under them in the form of newspaper headlines. "If they were making advancements, why isn't it in any of the documents? There aren't even classified papers with information regarding this. Well classified ones that the library has access to. You'd think that general military advancements show up from time to time." Rick's eyes flicked down to Porter, who nodded to indicate he was still following along. "Normally, people would overlook these sorts of details but us well-trained Circuit Breakers know that nothing just suddenly happens. Things come from somewhere."

"Alright mister well-trained super spy," Porter snorted, his voice laced with sarcasm. "Where does it come from then."

Rick's finger moved back some more, then forward, and then it shook a little in place before the man sighed. "I don't know."

"You just know it's wrong."

"Yes."

"But you don't know why."

"Yes."

"Well some help you are." Porter folded his arms and leaned back in his chair. "Look for the bigger things. That didn't work at all. Maybe we still need to search for the smaller things." Porter brought up some of the articles in the days and weeks prior to the major shift in Goliath design. "Parade, holiday, battle, war, victory, nothing. There's nothing to do with Carter or anything or anyone."

"There's still no explanation for the change," Rick chipped in, convinced he was not wrong.

"Other than that, you know, people are smart and discovered something," Porter spat back.

"What if..." Rick placed his index finger on his chin, tapping it as if he were in deep thought.

"You've got nothing."

"I've got nothing." Rick sat down on Porter's bed, holding his head in his hands. "Sorry, I thought it would be a bit easier than this when I cut in."

"Well at least you tried," Porter mumbled over his shoulder as he continued to sift through files. "You are kind of right though. You'd think something that big would have some build up to...it..."

"Porter?" Rick stood back up again as the teenager trailed off, his excitement rising a little in his chest.

"What's this?" Porter had brought up a very small file from the timeline and was reviewing it. Rick eyed the screen from over the youth's shoulder, taking in every detail and saving it using his head unit's systems. The particular file was a memo, a military one, that was a quick report between an officer and his base of operations. It said very little and barely took up half of a page, mostly due to large spaces between sentences.

Begin...

Package exchange complete, transfer finished

Confirm device

Device confirmed

Prisoner relinquished and properly accepted

Accepted

Return to home, remain low

Confirmed. Jahari transaction complete

It was at the final sentence that both Porter and Rick stopped. It was at just one word in the sentence that both of them were stuck. Jahari. Everyone in the academy was well aware that the Jahari were now confirmed as real. In the morning announcements the state of the battle had been declared and a victory celebrated. They used to be rumours and legends and tales and now they weren't just real but they were being bartered with?

Porter re-read the whole thing once more and exchanged a glance with Rick, who was doing the same thing. This couldn't be real, could it? Prior to the Jahari surfacing and causing a war, the Eastern United States not only knew about them but worked with them?

"Well, making a lot of leaps of logic," Rick began, gulping down the nerves in his stomach, "this would explain the sudden discovery of a new form of Goliath."

"And the complete disappearance of just one prisoner," Porter finished and then slumped in his chair a bit.

"But then that means this Carter person would be long gone now. There is no way to trace the movements of a race we didn't even think existed."

"I know," Porter said softly, his eyes staring straight ahead at the wall above the computer screens.

"Porter?" Rick asked, leaning over to look the youth in the his blank eyes. "Are you ok? At least you have closure on them right?"

"Yes...closure." Porter grabbed one of the little projectors, twisting his body and whipping it at the wall. It smashed in a shower of sparks, pieces flying onto the floor and bed. Rick flinched a bit, backing away slowly towards the door to leave the troubled teen alone for a while. "Closure," Porter mumbled.

A/N: Carter Veillon's disappearance is finally accounted for...somewhat. Will we ever find out where the general went or what happened to him?!