Blake unlocked his phone again, thumb hovering over the screen for a second before he finally typed.
Black gem.
Hundreds of images flooded the screen. Rings, necklaces, polished stones, rough minerals, even fake jewelry ant to look expensive. He scrolled slowly at first, then faster.
But none of them matched.
"Seriously, it can’t just be a random rock," he muttered.
He zood into a few pictures anyway. Obsidian. Onyx. Black diamond. Jet. Nas he barely cared about. So were glossy, so matte, so looked almost oily under the light.
But none had that strange reflection.
That faint, almost unnatural glint he rembered from the picture.
Blake leaned closer to the screen, squinting.
"No, that’s not it either."
He tossed the phone beside him, then imdiately grabbed it again. He wasn’t done. Not even close.
"If it’s not the stone itself, then where it ca from? Not that it really changes anything, but..."
Black gem origin.
But there was nothing useful.
He clicked another tab.
Mining locations near .
Now, that gave him sothing.
A list appeared. Too many at first, scattered across regions he didn’t recognize. He narrowed it down, adjusting filters and scrolling past irrelevant results.
Then one entry made him pause.
Near Velmark city, there was Poleucy.
’That’s not that far, only about a hundred kiloters away.’
Blake clicked it.
The page took a second to load. When it did, the information was minimal.
Basically inexistent.
There was a big, isolated piece of land, owned by AOP.
Blake frowned.
"AOP...?"
He tapped the na. Another page opened, but it didn’t help much.
AOP was listed as a subsidiary of AL-TECH.
Still, there was barely anything written about it. No detailed history, no employee count, no major projects listed. Just a vague description and a few official lines that said nothing.
"That’s weird."
He scrolled down to the images.
There were only a few.
The building itself looked normal. Maybe a little bit too normal, considering the money behind them.
A short structure, plain walls, nothing eye-catching. It didn’t look like the kind of place hiding anything important.
Blake stared at it longer than necessary.
"No way that’s all there is."
His eyes narrowed slightly.
"But if it was sothing big, it wouldn’t look like that, right?"
He leaned back slightly, phone still in hand.
He opened another tab and searched again, this ti more specific.
AOP history.
This ti, sothing ca up, but it still was not much, to be fair.
AOP had been established nearly fifty years ago.
Blake blinked.
"Fifty...?"
He read the line again, slower this ti.
At its conception, AOP had collaborated with a company nad Ennica.
"Ennica, sounds awfully enough like Ennora."
He tapped it imdiately, and another page.
Ennica was listed as a gem source company. Extraction, processing, distribution. It was old, established and with a long history.
Images of gemstones appeared. Bright ones, mostly. Blues, reds, greens. Most especially, they were impressively expensive.
Blake narrowed his eyes again.
"Co on... where are you?"
He searched within the site itself.
Black gem.
But there was really nothing.
He also tried variations: dark gemstone, rare black crystal, unknown mineral. But none of them ga results.
Exhaling slowly, he leaned back in his chair.
"So it’s not listed..."
Which ant either it wasn’t public...
Or it wasn’t supposed to exist.
He stared at the ceiling for a mont, eyes unfocused.
"This is getting ridiculous."
Then again... what exactly wasn’t ridiculous about this situation?
Blake shifted in his chair, arms resting on the sides as his thoughts started lining up, piece by piece.
"SSRT tower..."
That place had been around for about eighty years.
With renovations, modifications, upgrades... sure. But the base structure was old.
"Then the blueprints..."
Were conceived twenty years after that?
He frowned deeply.
"That makes nosense."
Why would blueprints exist decades after construction?
Why draw sothing that already existed?
"Maybe they weren’t ant to represent the building at all?"
Blake didn’t like how easily it slipped into place.
He rubbed his face with both hands, dragging them down slowly.
"That sounds like a conspiracy theory."
But it didn’t feel wrong, and that was the problem.
He leaned forward again, elbows on his knees, staring at the floor.
He had searched the tower already.
Every accessible and non accessible area.
Every hallway, every corner he could reach without raising suspicion.
But there was nothing.
No hidden passage. No underground access. No trace of anything unusual.
’I an, it’s not like I had that much ti to roam around.’
He had wasted effort there.
’Going back won’t change anything.’
Blake exhaled sharply through his nose.
"So... what’s left?"
He picked up his phone again, thumb tapping the screen until the AOP page ca back up.
’That place.’
An isolated, private property.
No public access.
No visitors allowed.
No reason for anyone to be there unless they belonged there.
"I’d stand out imdiately."
No uniform.
No ID.
And, most importantly, no excuse in case he got caught.
He zood into one of the images.
The structure didn’t even have visible security from the outside. No obvious guards. No fences in the fra.
"As if."
It was a place that didn’t need visible security, because maybe, whatever mattered... wasn’t above ground.
"Underground..."
The word surfaced again. Blake leaned back, letting his head rest against the chair.
"Then those blueprints weren’t for the tower at all, probably."
Blake tapped his fingers slowly against the armrest.
’If Ennica supplied sothing... and AOP started with them...’
He stopped.
Then continued the thought carefully.
’Then whatever that stone is... it could’ve co from there.’
It wasn’t confird or proven.
But it was the first theory that didn’t break apart imdiately.
He leaned forward again, more focused now.
Everything pointed to one place now, whether he liked it or not.
"And I already checked everything else."
SSRT was useless.
Searching randomly was useless.
Waiting for Spoon to talk again was useless.
Blake’s jaw clenched.
"Yeah, that’s not happening."
Blake stood up slowly, stretching his arms before pacing once across the room, grabbing his phone again, opening the map this ti.
He traced the route with his finger.
"There has to be sothing."
No place was completely sealed, right?
Not realistically.
Deliveries.
Maintenance.
Employees.
There was always so kind of movent.
Even in isolated places.
Blake zood in further, studying the area around the building, but it was just empty land.
He had to do this. He had to find those blueprints and understand what Myles was searching for, to understand him.
’Besides, if Spoon is pushing this hard... then I don’t have the luxury to ignore it, either.’
He grabbed his jacket from the chair, pulling it on without much thought.
"Guess that’s it, then."
Blake paused for a mont, standing still.
Then he let out a quiet breath.
"Breaking into a private property. I’m about to beco a bad guy"
He reached for the door, then stopped.
"Guess I really am doing this."
Then, he opened the door.
"Like a spy."
He had to do it fast... at least everything had to be done before the date.
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