THE THUNDER ROLLS
AN RE WRITERS SONGFIC CHALLENGE
Just a quick note: This fic is based around Garth Brooks' Hit "The Thunder Rolls," except I've modified it to fit around the world of Resident Evil. This was done as a "Challenge" on the Resident Evil Writers ML at Yahoo. Interested in joining? Just drop by http://groups.yahoo.com/group/residentevilwriters and sign up today!
(Three-thirty in the morning. Not a soul in sight,) Keith Hammond thought as he drove through the streets of Modesto, California. (Place gets like a ghost town, sometimes,) his mind added. Oh, well. Better for him. At least there were none of Andrea's little spies walking the streets. Because if the chief operating officer of the Umbrella, Inc. Western Research Division found out where he was going at these late night hours…what he was doing…well, it would be the last time, now wouldn't it? He heard the splatter of some raindrops on the BMW's windshield. Another storm system moving south from the Bay Area. Might help to cool things down just a little. The summer heat could be a bitch. But as much as he tried to concentrate on the storm, his mind kept wandering back to the conversation he had with Chris Redfield that evening…
"Just why do you want to help me?" he had asked Keith when the two sat in the back booth of the restaurant. Keith could remember looking at his watch then. It was eight o' clock. "We're enemies."
Keith had laughed. "Chris, we're not enemies. I want to see these people go down just as much as you do. As strange as it sounds, I know, but I hate Umbrella with a passion." Chris gave him a curious stare.
"Yet you do their dirty work, huh?" he shot back. "In fact, how do I know that they haven't sent you here to kill me?"
"You don't," Keith replied. "But I'm no good with a gun, and I certainly can't kill a man with just a file folder."
"No, you let your experiments do the work for you," Chris sneered back.
"Look, either you want my help, or not," Keith shot. "Think about it, Redfield. Your arch-enemy has a defector in the ranks: me…I can give you any information, blueprints, hell, I could even acquire a sample of the virus. This kind of stuff didn't happen in the Cold War. Now, I want to help you to take these bastards out." Chris Redfield sat in silence for a moment, considering the option.
"OK, Dr. Hammond," he finally concurred.
"Please, call me Keith."
The two had begun talking about the different materials that he had procured from his office in the large Umbrella building in the center of town, and before he knew, six hours had passed. And now, driving in the rain, he wondered. (Why do I have such a bad feeling about this…why do I feel like someone's waiting for me?)
And the Thunder rolls…
Andrea Sanders stood in Hammond's office, every light on. (Why the hell hasn't that little bastard called in, yet? He left six hours ago.) She could feel the anger rising to her face. Hammond had been acting like a strange little prick lately, keeping to himself an awful lot. He'd taken to using a cellular phone instead of the company phone in his office, and people had seen him with some…strange company. Even though her suspicions kept growing, she would never believe that he would be capable of betraying the company. She looked out the large window in the office. It was raining rather hard now, and she saw a flash of lightning.
The telephone on the desk began to ring loudly. She wandered over, and answered it.
"Hammond's office," she said.
"Is…Dr. Hammond in yet?" she heard a…strikingly familiar voice say.
"Just one moment," she replied. She put the phone on hold, turned on Keith's computer, and opened a voice analyzer. She hit "record", and picked the receiver back up.
"I'm sorry, but Dr. Hammond has gone home for the evening," she curtly answered.
"Damn," she heard the mystery voice growl. "Uh…OK. Thanks." And the phone went dead. Andrea hung up the phone and began to laugh.
"So, Chris Redfield is calling here for Hammond, huh?" she erupted. "I guess I'll have to take care of that."
And the Thunder Rolls…
He parked the BMW in his assigned parking spot and jogged up to the building. He swiped his ID card through the electronic reader and entered the office facility. A couple of night guards greeted him as he walked to the elevator, but he paid them no attention. He was terrified that somehow, his cover had been blown, and that the wrong people would find out. As the elevator finally stopped on the fourth floor, he slipped out a curse and walked down the hall into his office. He closed the door, put his coat on the rack, and saw Andrea Sanders, branch Director, waiting for him.
"Evening, Keith," she greeted. "Or…rather, morning?"
"Look, I got caught up with a business dinner tonight," he said, telling the half-truth. "With a guy from that new marketing group." he added in blatant dishonesty.
"Hmmm…well, our little 'marketing' friend just called here ten minutes ago," she mused. "And since when have the S.T.A.R.S. gone into marketing?"
Keith froze in his tracks. His phone was a secure line…that is, until someone else answered it. If Chris had called, and Andrea answered…then it was all over with.
"I…don't know what you're talking about," he stuttered.
"So Chris Redfield just picked your name out of a hat, hmm?" she questioned as she reached beneath her lab coat, revealing a Browning 9mm handgun. "I don't believe that. You've sold out the company, and now, you're going to get your just desserts." She cocked the pistol and took it off safe. Keith started to panic. He began walking backwards, trying to find the door. He tripped over an office chair, and collapsed to the floor.
"Andrea, please," he pleaded. "I didn't do anything!"
Too late, Keith," she growled. Keith felt a chill race down his spine as Andrea leveled the pistol at his head. He was going to die…but not without a fight. He rolled back under his desk as she fired the pistol. Wood splintered from the desk leg, but the shot was nowhere near Keith. He reached up and pushed a red switch under the desk, and was greeted by a chime from the computer.
"What did you just do?!" Andrea screamed.
"I've just sent every file on our little network to a central processor used by the S.T.A.R.S.," he said, standing up. "And once the last file's been sent, the network will crash. Literally devoured by a bug of my own creation. Hope you have enough money in the budget to replace it, or maybe to try and cover up the paper trail. You may kill me Andrea, but face it. You've lost."
He set his jaw and steeled himself for the final shot from the Browning.
They say you never hear the shot that kills you.
They're wrong.
And the thunder rolls.