Encroachment

Rin remembered being inside the wreckage of a truck. The stasis bomb gleamed in his hand.

-A trophy, he thought. 

It was a reminder of everything he'd accomplished today. Comparing the rest of his life to this single afternoon, Rin couldn't help but let out a faint but uncontrollable fit of laughter. Not out of relief or even some sense of satisfaction, but a feeling of pure euphoria and adrenaline. 

*Beep, beep*
The sudden noise brought Rin back to reality. Looking around, he spotted a car honking its horn at him. Its window rolled down revealing Klein to be in the driver's seat.

"I heard you wanted to see your father's workplace.", he said.

Rin hesitated before responding.

"So what?"

"...Get in. I'll take you there."

Rin's eyes widened in response. He couldn't believe what he'd just heard.

"What did you say?", he asked.

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

Rin 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."

Klein 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."

After finishing his explanation, Klein simply waited for a response.

Normally Rin would have jumped at the opportunity immediately, so why wasn't he now?

-You want this. Just go.  

The wind blew in his face as he reassured himself in his mind. 

-It's your only opportunity. You have to do this.

So many thoughts filled his head.

-You need to find the second key. The stasis bomb is your responsibility. The fate of the world is at stake here.

But one thought prevailed over all the others. 

-You need to see this through to the end.

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

***

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

"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? Not a chance."

"How do you know?"

Rin pondered the question for a bit 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. 

He could have sworn it looked different than 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 as he did.

Finally, he stopped in front of one door in particular and 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 them. He paid none of these things any mind as he headed directly towards a bookshelf sitting in the corner of the room.

One its books 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 walls. The only other object in the room was a standard desk in the middle.

As the man stepped forward, he reached into his pocket and brought out the object weighing it down. It was a crystal-clear glass pocket watch. One that looked so fragile 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, causing the device to open up. A blinding light shone out of it.

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 had opened himself. 

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

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

***

The elevator's doors opened. Klein 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 pocket and handed it to Rin. Then, he fished out another set of keys 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."

Rin nodded and with that, the two of them got to work. Because of his condition, Klein could only take the bottom lockers. Rin on the other hand, 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 related to what they were looking for. 

Others had some lab equipment inside. While not particularly 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 it wasn't quite as big of a joy as seeing an empty locker that they could just close and move on from immediately.

Though, none of that changed the fact they were spending a large amount of time on a repetitive and tedious task 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?", Rin asked.

Klein 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."

Silence.

"I already have a pretty good idea of what he did. But if there's anything you could add, I figured I might as well ask."

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

For the first time, Klein'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 he was a scientist employed for weapons development by a certain organization. One that was led by Eva."

Rin simply listened as he continued his own search.

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

He shut another locker as he finished speaking.

"And you? How did you play into all of this?", Rin 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.