Encroachment

He couldn't believe what he'd just heard.

"What did you say?", Blake asked.

"I said I'd take you to your dad's workplace. Now get in."

Blake didn't move. Something was making him hesitate.

"...Why?", he asked.

"Well, I wasn't going to help you at first. But then I found this in the bag you gave me."

Ethan held up the flash drive. 

"You know more than we do about the stasis bomb at this point. So, in exchange for your cooperation, I'll take you where you want to go."

Once finished explaining, Ethan fell completely silent.

Because of this, Blake had no choice but to sit with his thoughts for a bit. Normally he would have jumped at the opportunity immediately, so why wasn't he now?

You want this. Just go. It's your only opportunity. The wind blew in his face as he kept reassuring himself in his mind. 

So many thoughts filled his head: You need to find the second key. The stasis bomb is your responsibility. But one thought prevailed over all others. 

You need to see this through to the end.

His hand clenched into a fist. He'd made his decision. 

*Vroom*
Blake sat quietly in the passenger's seat, positioned awkwardly around a pair of crutches. He'd just finished explaining everything to Ethan.

"A key, huh? And you think you'll find the other two at your dad's lab?"

"I think we'll find a clue about their locations. But the keys themselves? I think it's pretty unlikely."

"Why do you figure?"

Blake pondered the question for a little while before answering.

"...Because the apple doesn't fall far from the tree."

*Splash*
The puddle rippled beneath the man in the trench coat as he stepped onto a college campus and entered a certain building. He found himself looking down a long white hallway with multiple doorways on both sides of him. 

To him, it looked different from usual. Though, his mind could have just been playing tricks on him. Anything could be the possible after what he saw earlier. Whatever the case, the man walked onward, the sounds of his footsteps echoing loudly down the hall as he did.

Finally, he stopped in front of one door in particular and he pulled out a key to open it. Inside was the stereotypical lab with multiple desks as well as pieces of equipment and papers littered all over those desks. He paid none of these things any mind as he headed directly towards a bookshelf sitting in the corner of the room.

There was one book that looked ever so slightly different from the rest. And pressing it lowered the bookshelf into the floor, revealing a secret elevator.

*Humph*
The elevator made a ton of noise as it descended into a circular room, a dark one at that. Everywhere you looked, there were columns of lockers stacked and lined up against the wall. The only other object in the room was a standard desk sitting at the center of it.

As the man approached it, he reached into his pocket and brought out the object weighing it down. It was a crystal-clear pocket watch. One that looked so fragile on a surface level yet was able to survive that massive fall from earlier. 

He spent a couple of seconds just staring at the thing, unsure of what to do. Eventually though, curiosity got the better of him. He pulled at the latch at the top of it. And a light shone out of the trinket's opening. 

It was bright, brighter than anything he'd ever seen in his life and just as terrifying. The wider it opened, the brighter the light shone until eventually, the man's fear trumped his curiosity, and he closed that which he'd opened himself. 

His legs gave out, and he slumped against the leg of his desk. Clasping both of his hands around the pocket watch, he raised it to his forehead as if praying. Just from that light, he knew. But before he could fully relax, yet another surprise was headed his way.

*Humph*
The sound of the elevator. Someone was coming down here.

The doors opened, and Ethan hopped in on his crutches. He took a solemn look around the place as if reminiscing about something, before speaking. 

"This is it. Four hundred and seventy-two lockers and counting. And all of them have their own key."

He pulled out a large ring of keys from his pockets and handed it to Blake. Then, he retrieved another set of keys from his pockets for himself.

"I don't even have half of them. So, we won't be able to check every locker, but this is our only lead so better check each one we can thoroughly."

Blake nodded and with that, the two of them got to work. Because of his condition, Ethan could only take the bottom lockers, whereas Blake had the more difficult job of climbing up ladders to reach the ones that were higher up. 

They opened locker after locker. A lot of them had a bunch of dusty documents inside, which were a pain to sort through and determine whether or not they were at all what they were looking for. 

Others had some lab equipment inside. While, not exciting by any means, it was a great joy to discover one of these after box after box of nothing but similar looking documents. But not as big of a joy as just seeing an empty locker that they could just close and then move on to the next one.

However, none of that changed the fact that they were spending a large amount of time on a repetitive and tedious task that they were becoming less and less motivated to do. It was unbearable, and striking up a conversation was the only thing they could do to stave their boredom. 

"Do you remember our first conversation?", Blake inquired.

Ethan rifled through some papers as he responded.

"...What about it?"

"Well, back then, I asked you about my father's work. And I just remembered you never answered me."

No response.

"I'm pretty sure I already have a good idea of what he did. But if there's anything you could add, I figured I'd better get as much information as I can."

"Hmm? Well, it's only natural that you're curious."

For the first time, Ethan's hands stopped moving.

"Fine. I'll tell you. But odds are you won't hear anything you don't already know."

He closed the locker he was searching and moved onto the next.

"The only thing you need to know is that he was a scientist employed for weapons development by a certain organization. One that was led by Eva."

Blake simply listened as he continued his own search.

"And her being... her, you can guess what kind of weapon she wanted. So, he was hired to create that weapon, he did it, and that's how things ended up the way they did."

He shut yet another locker as he finished speaking.

"And you? How did you play into all this?", Blake asked.

"I was a mole; sent to infiltrate the organization and..."

He hesitated before speaking again.

"And get eliminate any problems."

The two fell into silence again as they continued to search locker after locker.