Chapter 8 - Temporary Peace
It was morning, as the golden rays of the sun shone through a small window in
Steve's room. Steve layed on the bed with his arms stretched upwards, and his legs were stretched aswell.
He was laying with his back in the mattress, his lighter bluish-green underbelly showing.
His blankets laid in a complete pile on the floor, leaving him completely naked on the bed. The bedroom door opened with a soft creak,
and Haylen popped her head in. She smiled, and walked in, closing the door behind her.
"Steve...?" she whispered. Steve said nothing; his face had a stern-asleep look that kind of looked asthough he ate a sour lemon. She giggled as she eyed his large underbelly. Her eyes then travelled up to his face. "Must be asleep still..." she thought , "...but, he slept long enough!" She walked up to him, then glared at his chest and belly again.
She smirked, as her heart guided her emotions. "Hmm... It's too bad you got dragged into all of this." she sighed. She reached her hand down, and rubbed Steve's chest. Unlike the rougher
scales on his back, the belly was soft... like the skin of someone who had just dried off after a shower. Or like... some sort of velvet.
She raised her hand away from Steve's belly, then glanced at his face. On it was a big smirk now. Haylen giggled a bit. "Ohhh... so you WEREN'T asleep!"
she thought. She kept an eye on his face as she slowly lowered her hand...
Then, with a quick jab, she reached down and tickled him on the belly. Steve suddenly burst out laughing, laughing so hard his
tyrant throat caused him to snort and gag. Haylen laughed too as she tried to continue tickling as Steve tried to curl up
and protect his belly, laughing and snorting.
"Tried to fake it, did 'ja? Ha ha! Kootchie koo!" she laughed. Steve roared with laughter, trying to tell Haylen to stop...
soon he managed to. "Ha ha... *snort* H-Haylen... stop!!" he growled while he laughed.
Haylen giggled as she stopped tickling him. "It's 11:20 lazybones, get up!" she laughed "I'm generous with sleeping in, but not THAT generous!"
Steve chuckled, holding his stomach, as he rolled over in his bed, shuffled to the edge, then stood up.
"Did... you make breakfast without me? Or... are you too generrrrous?" he grunted. "What!? Why would I make breakfast without you? I have it all set up for us!"
Haylen replied.
She punched Steve playfully in his spike-less shoulder. "Come on, let's go." she said.
Haylen and Steve both sat at the kitchen table, helping themselves to the breakfast. Steve ate his audibly while Haylen ate hers calmly and mannerfully. Of course, she wasn't disgusted by the way Steve ate or anything. I mean, it wasn't his fault. She completely understood his situation.
She smiled as she took a drink from her orange juice. "Steve," she laughed "I'm sorry about this morning. I hope you
don't get the image of me hitting on you." Steve shrugged while he dipped his toast into his egg with difficulty.
"Good. Because, eventhough I think you're cute and all..." she chuckled "I am WAY too old for you. And anyways, whoever heard of
a romance between a woman and a B.O.W... right?" Steve then looked at her oddly, but didn't say anything.
Haylen shook her head. "Sorry. Maybe I spiked the orange juice."
Steve smirked, then opened his mouth to say something... but then the phone rang. "Damn it! Who could that be?" Haylen asked, picking up her napkin and wiping up her face.
She stood up from the table, and answered to phone.
"Hello?" She asked. There was no response. "Hellloooo?" She tried again. Then, her face lit right up.
"Hey!! Ginger!! It's been a while! Yeah, uh-huh. You got my message right? Oh good. Yeah, I didn't expect it either, I mean, Umbrella of all things... Yeah, he's ok... Sorry, my call was so late... uh-huh. Wait, can you hold on for a second? Thanks."
Haylen turned to Steve, her hand over the reciever. "Steve, I'll be downstairs if you need me, ok?" she said. Steve nodded, as she pat his head, and went downstairs into the basement.
Steve continued to eat his sausages. He sighed happily. Maybe Haylen was right, maybe things would go uphill from here. Sure, he was a tyrant with close to nil chances of being human again, but in the long run, it was becoming very rewarding.
He really liked it here, and besides, his parents never did stuff like this for him. For once in his life he felt... important.
He grunted, and drank more of his apple juice, then scarfed down five more sausages. His eyes glanced at Haylen's bag.
Curious, he picked it up, then plopped it on the floor beside him. He grunted again, popped open the buckle that sealed it shut, and looked inside.
'Files?' he thought to himself. Looking oddly at it, he picked up a folder titled "T-Veronica T-008 Discovery Photos". Steve grunted and opened it up.
The folder was littered with pictures of himself, things they found in the Antarctic base, notes, data profiles, and loads of other stuff aswell.
There were also plastic bags containing T-Virus samples including moth wing clippings, Bandersnatch nails, Hunter scales samples, zombie skin samples, chips taken off from Steve's spikes on his shoulder....
He then put these back in the folder and looked at the pictures. Some were of dead zombies found, a large moth's nest, the corpse of an insanely
large spider, blood stains on the walls, and some of Steve when he was unconscious (mostly of his body characteristics).
Steve grunted again, then closed the file. As he went to put the file back in the bag, a smaller photo slipped out,
and fluttered to the floor. Steve looked at it oddly, reached down, and picked it up. On its white backside there was scribbly writing in pal blue ink that read:
"Unknown Photo : Found 65 Ft. Away From T-008 Specimen"
He flipped the photo over, and smirked lightly. "Huh. Unknown photo..." he thought. It was a picture of him, with his
mom and dad for a family photo. He remembered that he had it in his jacket pocket the entire time he was with Claire. It must've fallen out when he transformed or something...
Steve smirked, then put it on the table. He closed up the bag, and put it in the corner of the room. Haylen then returned from the basement, and put the phone back onto its wall mount.
"That was my good friend Ginger." She said, sitting back down at her seat. "She's a scientist... er, physicist too. She works for
a place called B.O.W tech... its a LOT like the place I used to work for, but its governmently funded..." Steve watched her as she paused to drink her juice.
"Of course, because of THAT there's no room for double crossing! Besides, Ginger's getting me a job there! Isn't that great?" she cheered. She then looked at Steve. "Huh? What is it?" she asked.
Steve smirked, and handed her the picture. "Look at this." he growled. Haylen looked at him oddly, then picked up the photo.
She gasped. "I-Is this you!? The red-head in the middle?" she asked, pointing to the photo. Steve nodded. "You still have your face."
She laughed. She looked up at Steve, then back down at the photo. "You're very cute, Steve." She said, clearing her throat as her cheeks became a light pink.
"A-Anyways, when I was talking to Ginger about you, she said you sounded like the sweetest tyrant!" she said. Steve wiped his hands and face with his napkin. "I'm gonna link up with her on MSN tonight, so I can tell her what happened in detail.
I didn't have enough time today." Haylen continued. Steve sighed. "What are we going to do, though?" he asked.
Haylen jolted. "Huh?" she asked. Steve shook his head. "Grr.... we can't hide here forever. What if they find us?" Steve growled. Haylen turned away, her face becoming ill with uncertainty.
"I don't know..." she sighed "We'll have to wait and see..."
Meanwhile, at the B.O.W Sweeper Labs...
Wilson toppled over Robert's desk in frustration. "What the fucking hell!? I cen't believe it!! ROBERTS!! How could you let Haylen somehow get away with T-008??" Wilson yelled. Roberts stood innocently near his office door. "Wilson, calm down..."
"I AM CALM!!" Wilson screamed back, as he threw papers all over the floor. "Look Roberts, Umbrella will have my HEAD if they don't get T-008!!" He screeched, as now he was toppling over file cabinets.
He took a few breaths, then turned quickly to Roberts. "I'm going to get something to eat. Can you find Haylen's address? Its on the database or something. It's registered on there." He hissed. "I know that." Roberts moaned, but Wilson didn't hear him.
He had already stormed out of the room.
Roberts sighed, and turned on his desktop computer.... which luckily he had moved to another desk the day before. He waited a while for it to start up, then he went into the database. Sure enough, there was Haylen's full address.
"Haylen, if you wanted to be unknown when you took Steve, you always have to remember to erase your home address aswell... oy..." He thought, as he sighed again.
"So forgetful..." he whispered. He then pressed 'delete' on the window where the address was shown, and eventually the address was wiped off the entire B.O.W Sweeper Database. Roberts shook his old weary head as he now turned off his computer.
"Good luck... Dr.Haylen."