Jarod stared at the file in his hands with utter revulsion, his fingers defiantly tracing the coded file number as if its text were born of delicate silk. A large portion of his subconscious mind had mercifully prayed that this file did not exist, creating a great sense of imbalance between Jarod's fingers' curiosity and his eyes' disgust. Feeling his stomach sinking to a new low with every breath of anticipation for the secrets the file held buried, Jarod tucked the unwelcome find securely inside his black leather jacket, ensuring its aging contents were safe from the volatile weather outside.

  Lightly pushing the heavy filing cabinet drawer closed, its mental mass infinitely more taxing than its physical, Jarod watched a soft blanket of freshly stirred dust settling over his recent tracks. The sight of the phenomena, Jarod mused, being quite metaphoric of his presence being continually covered by the Centre, yet always lying just beneath the surface.

 Re-directing his flashlight and consequently, his thoughts, back to the air vent that had permitted his access to this particular file volt in the first place, Jarod expertly navigated his way back across the aging dust covered floor, without leaving so much as a inclining that his presence was ever felt on SL-23. Climbing into the aluminium-alloy vent with a particularly heavy heart, Jarod prayed that somewhere at the bottom of this latest discovery, his own pithos, was a hope that he could hold on to, just as Pandora had.