A slow hum of the phone's ring tone woke Akari up from her sleep, before picking up the call she took in her surrounding and instantly remembered what had happened a night before. She took in a deep breath and answered the call, Ratz was calling her, he informed her about the church service which was going to be held near Black Gate Security campus and which is also attended by Emily's family. Akari thanked him and look at the time, she had to hurry if she wanted to attend the service.

Akari's pov

After waking up I realised that I drank way too much yesterday, regardless of my issues I came here to investigate the disappearance of Emily. What happened between me and Nicole was in past and clearly, after meeting with her and her husband there is nothing more left to say. I decided it would be best if I can wrap up the investigation here as soon as possible and head back, staying here will just bad for me and my mental peace.

I quickly took a bath and put on formal clothes and gathered my phone and purse and went out of the room after locking it, while going down the lift I wanted to avoid Nicole at all cost, therefore, I left the lift only after ensuring that she was not at the reception. I somehow managed to get out of the hotel without encountering her, I took a cab and asked the driver to drop me a the church. In the cab my mind instantly diverted towards Nicole, sometimes it feels like my brain's default setting is set at her, always circling at her. I know instead of avoiding her I must use this strange circumstance and try to find some closure but knowing Nicole I know she would just end up hurting me more, though unintentionally but in the end when the dust settles, I would be the one suffering and I cannot afford to go down that path now, not again. 

After 20 mins the cab stopped at Church's entrance and I found myself in awe of the architecture of the building, the place was heavily crowded and I barely found a seat at the end. Shortly after the crowd had settled the sermon began. Being an atheist I quickly lose interest in that and decided to snoop around the place. I get up from my place in a pretext to use the washroom and went out of the main hall towards the corridor. The corridor was long and had a large coloured window at one side and offices and rooms on the other. I followed the signs and went to the library, it was very huge and had book stacked on two floors, walled bookshelf covered the entire wall and movable ladders were placed on each wall to access the upper bookshelf, I went on the second floor and went to the section which contained books related to Centuria or Black Gate campus, while I settled with books on a nearby table I observed that there where many cameras in the library, every corner has one camera, entry and exit points and heavily covered. I picked a couple of books and sat on the table before me and texted Ratz to send me the blueprint of the church as it would be nearly impossible for me to scan this whole church by myself. After sending the text I resumed scanning the camera points and the more I saw their position the more suspicious I grew, why someone would install this much security in a church. I flipped through some books and got bored, then I decided to snoop around more, the library indeed had books, literature transcending generations from the renaissance age to the latest books of Obama. I was in awe of the collection and was admiring the books when I heard a thud from across the shelf, however, there was no door on the wall and it was entirely covered with bookshelves, I thought maybe my mind was playing tricks on me because of hangover and insomnia and decided to ignore the sound and got back to my table.

As soon as I sat on the chair, I got a text from the Ratz, telling me about the unused portion of the church which is present in the old blueprints but was conveniently shown as demolished in the recent blueprints given to the city record bureau. I asked him to mail me both blueprints, the library was indeed splendid because there were computers available, I quickly logged into one and checked the blueprints. A large part of the library was demolished during the reconstruction which happened after a fire broke out at church 20 years back and Black Gate security became the major Patron of the church and funded the reconstruction entirely. It was enough for me to dig more here, I studied the blueprints again and the demolished area was somewhere near the area where I heard a thud before, it can't be coincident, I went to that area again and then I noticed there are no cameras here, the whole library has cameras but none in this area. There must be something here which the church is hiding, I looked around the books on the shelf, thinking they might give me some clue, the whole rack was filled with the histories of illuminates and the conflict between church and science. I remember reading about illuminates and as far as I remember they were the group of enlightened mind who revolted against church dominance and the struggle involved a lot of bloodsheds. These kind of books are not generally kept in churches, however, when I looked there was a layer of dust settling on the books and on the wooden rack, it's no surprise that no one reads these books, people come here to reaffirm their faith not to question it. The church choir was singing a prayer song, the sermon must be coming to an end, I think I would have to come again to search this place out. I made my way out from the library and joined the main hall, the sermon was almost ending, I still had a lot of time and therefore decided to visit the Black Gate security campus after here.

I took a cab to the Black Gate campus, it was huge, it was just like an army base which I visited a couple of years ago. My cab was stopped at the entrance by a security check post, they were asking the purpose of my visit. I told them that I am looking for Emily whose father and brother are currently stationed here. The guard asked me to wait and went aside to talk it over with someone over the telephone. When he returned he asked me to head towards the officer's colony and go to mansion number 7. I asked the cab driver to take me to the house, my gut was telling me to be cautious that something was not right and I should get out of this place as soon as I can.