It was times like these when one small dot in a million really mattered.

Especially when that one small little insignificant dot appeared one day without any information on how the hell it did.

Agent Forest was not an agent that anyone would note to be a particularly high-ranking one, just an average coffee-drinker with his feet up on the desk at least ninety percent of the time, leaning back and not even really paying attention to his screen.

Except, of course, if someone walked into his office.

The doorknob rattled, and the rather stout man quickly swung his feet on the floor, picked up his spectacles that lay discarded on the desk and pretended like he had been doing so for the last four hours he had been at work.

Having lots of practice at the routine, the messenger walked into Forest's office, unknowing that the agent had just been slacking.

"Update requested from Agent Coulson," the messenger asked politely, wanting to let the man go back to his hard work as soon as possible.

Agent Forest replied in a monotone voice, the one he always used when some messenger came in to bother him. "Nothing new."

The messenger nodded, turning to leave, except tripping on a side table and spilling all of her letters and papers on his floor. She turned red while bending down to pick them up, and agent Forest was forced to stare even longer at the screen. He squinted at the large map of the United States and connecting countries that showed hundreds of nice green dots, signifying that S.H.I.E.L.D. had all of their information on a file that stated everything from their birth date to the person's favorite color.

Back when he first got the job, Agent Forest used to pull up random files and read them, until he nearly got caught one day, and he realized that some of these people's lives were not interesting enough to write a novel about.

Pulling at the collar of his neck where a tight suit hugged him so tightly it was difficult to breath, he tilted his head to the side, and from the mixture of the angle and his pained expression that included a squint, he caught a flash of red somewhere near Nevada.

He straightened, suddenly wary, but the flash disappeared beneath a carpet of green dots.

The embarrassed messenger left with a click of the door, but Agent Forest was too absorbed for once in his career to relax until he uncovered the mysterious red dot.

Tilting his head once more he saw only a flash, and he tried to grab it with his mouse, but instead clicked on a green dot and opened up the file. Closing the file who belonged to someone name Darcy Lewis, he concentrated even more, his mouse poised over the spot where he saw it.

Another try, and he had finally pulled up the file he was looking for.

He read what little information it offered, which wasn't much.

"The woman's name is Lea Johnston. Birth place, unknown. Parents, unknown. Religion, unknown." He scrolled down, the file only giving key information like her physical features, but most of it was unknown. Forest's sweaty brow creased in thought and worry. How long had he missed this person? He stared at her picture thoughtfully. How had no one found this out yet? It was impossible, yet there it was in front of him.

He noticed a small video file at the bottom, and clicked on it. A small window showing a little gas station opened at the top of his screen, and he found it difficult but not impossible to see through the gritty camera quality a woman opening the door. He grabbed his headset and put it against his ear in case there was any sound.

A younger woman outside yelled into the woman, "Hurry up, Lee! I'm starving out here!"

The woman didn't even look back, she just continued counting the money she held in her hand. She looked up, smiling at the cashier and apologizing for no apparent reason, and buying some road food. Nothing expensive, though Forest doubted there was anything good in that shabby place.

She paid for everything and even let the man keep the change. She was leaving, waving to the cashier with another smile, and opened the door so she could join her presumed friends outside.

Suddenly the cashier was yelling, and Forest had to rewind that bit and pay it slower, because he didn't catch what happened. In slow motion the man who was behind the woman reached over the counter and grabbed a fistful of lighters for some strange reason, but he did it with inhuman speed. The cashier started to yell, "Thief" loudly, but there were only the three people in the store, and the man was at the exit in about three seconds. There was no chance that he could be stopped.

The woman at the door who was outside by then was seemingly holding the door open for the thief, but before the man could step a foot outside she slammed it shut with such force, it hit him on the head and sent him reeling backwards to a stand of bookmarks which went tumbling down with him.

Then the screen went blank.

Forest cursed aloud and tried to mop up the ever-increasing puddle on his forehead with his sleeve. His job was certainly on the line for missing this one.

Yet as much as he didn't want to be fired, he had to tell someone.

Standing up so fast he saw stars he stumbled to the exit and threw the door open.

He already dreaded the look on Coulson's face when he explained what had happened.

"Darcy, could you get the mail?" Jane called to her intern who was lazing about on the sofa while flipping channels aimlessly. "Thanks."

Darcy sighed heavily while getting up and trudging to the door. "I'm not a slave, you know."

"That's the first time I've asked you to do anything today!" Jane walked out of her office as if the room was on fire, desperately needing a break. She opened and closed her left eye like it needed stretches to not stay closed after it was for all those hours she spent looking through her telescope.

Darcy pulled a face when Jane wasn't looking, but still she opened the door and yanking the mail out of the rusty and old box it was held in. Darcy went through them, making two piles.

"Junk, junk, bills, junk. . ." Darcy stopped, confused at the last letter, which didn't have a return address. "Hey, Lee. This one's for you."

"Who's it from?" Lea emerged from her room as well, looking tired as ever and a bit dusty from going through all of the boxes of Jane's equipment.

"It doesn't say."

"That's weird." Lea walked over and took the letter Darcy held out to her. She noticed it was very formal indeed, with a stamp that showed an eagle, and the envelope was also decorated nicely, but the decorations were morphed from the bulging of the actual letter inside. "Let's check it out."

Lea tried to tear open the letter with her hands, but eventually pulled out her exacto-knife that was stuffed in her pocket and sliced it open. She leaped back in surprise as the contents started flooding out, and there was a lot.

She bent on the floor to pick it up, but got confused. Most of the papers were blank.

Darcy bent frown as well, picking up a random paper and reading it. "Hair color, brown. Eye color, blue. Height, five foot six. This is creepy." Darcy turned over the page before setting it down. "It's all about you!"

"Creepy is right," Lea got up, putting most of the papers on the table. "Why did someone send me this?"

"It's like a government file sort of," Jane picked up her own paper and read it over. "Yeah, it kind of is. The government is supposed to know everything. Birth country, unknown. Actually, there's a lot of unknowns." Jane took a few papers and scanned though them quickly. "Almost all of them are unknowns!"

"But the government makes notes about every single person," Darcy said. "How did they miss you?"

Lea stayed silent.