​Darwood & Smitty - Chapter 1

The brown van with gold lettering was known by children worldwide as “the goodie truck,” because it was the only one that delivered packages anymore. It was also a symbol of communism and capitalism collapsing into one gangly heap when government went global and certain compromises had to be made.

Among these was the loss of rights for competition in package delivery. The government handled envelopes only. The company of brown and gold gained control of all else. They took on a new name at that time, of course. They became Earth Express, and their famous “E2” logo — a play on the concept of “Energy Squared” — was now emblazoned on every van and truck.

Of course that name stuck even after the Jovians arrived as the new, international police force and the Martians took over interplanetary delivery. Earth technology still just allowed ships to putter from planet to planet, so the Martians landed a fifty-year Earth contract for Solar shipments. It hardly mattered, though, to the average Joe — only the government traded with other planets, mostly for raw materials.

It was on a non-descript day of patchy clouds and mostly sun that a single brown van of the Earthwide fleet glided along an average street ramp toward a sizeable parking lot. The two passengers, long in the game of delivery, looked to one another in surprise. “I didn’t know this address was the Jersey Penitentiary — did you?” asked one.

“Well, no. You’ll probably remember that I don’t have much prison time under my belt, and I’ve yet to get so bored by life that I’ve memorized prison addresses. Besides, prisons are supposed to be on a separate delivery route. What gives?”

The first man shrugged. “Eli, contact base.” All the vans of Earth Express were known as Eli — taken from “delivery” — as a way for their riders to address them. It wasn’t exactly inventive, but it worked.

“This is base. What’s going on Eli 2130?”

“Emma, this is Darwood. Eli just pulled onto the exit for the Jersey Penitentiary. We don’t have any deliveries here. Are we supposed to be on package pick-up?”

“Let me check.” It took only a moment for her eye movements and brain activity to guide her computer to their file. “Yeah, says right here: ‘Darwood and Smitty on contract pick-up from Jersey Pen.’ It should’ve been in your contract bin. Did you check it?”

Darwood looked to Smitty, who shook his head. “Uh … no,” said Darwood. “There’s never anything in our contract bin. Why wouldn’t they just have the regular delivery guy pick it up?”

“Beats me. Not my job to know, guys. All I know is that they pay us extra for contract deliveries, that they get to pick their truck … and that you’re supposed to check your contract bin every day so you don’t waste my time on a call like this. Got it?”
“Yes Emma,” the two said together. Smitty’s tone was playful, but Darwood’s was downright flirtatious. In her sixties, Emma might be twice his age, but flirting always seemed to cool people off. The two could hear her grumble before the transmission went out.

Eli was pulling into the delivery area already and, after the van shut off its magnetic field, Darwood and Smitty stepped from it and into the glaring sun. Darwood was the shorter of the two, a couple inches shy of six feet, but certainly the brawnier of the two as well. At times a bit under shaven, his short, thick dark hair matched his dark brown eyes. Yet the dark stopped there and gave way to a decidedly light-hearted personality.

Smitty was the more somber of the two because he was more widely studied. A few inches taller than his friend, he was sparse with thin, light brown hair and likewise thin-wired glasses. Maybe it was the glasses; maybe it was the worry; but most people would have pegged him a few years older, though the two graduated together a decade back.

Both brought their hands above their eyes to block the sun as they looked up the towering wall of the prison, barred windows across the face of it. “At least they give the prisoners windows,” quipped Darwood.

“Same as any office building,” Smitty observed. “You’ve probably got a few of the privileged with windows and the rest have rooms inside lit by sun-bulbs. Keeps ’em alive, but they’re missing out on the air and the morale of seeing the outside world.”

“Always the pessimist, eh Smitty?”

“Not depressed by it, Darwood. I just notice it. Come on, let’s get this done.”

They walked to the front doors and each stood before an iScan.[1] The device mapped their eyes, the light went green, and the doors unlocked. They walked inside. “Darwood and Smitty,” said a man approaching them in the lobby. “I’m Warden Holdem. Good to see you here,” he said as he reached them and shook their hands. The deliverymen looked at one another. It was almost too much not to comment on his name, but they didn’t have much experience with wardens and figured they’d better just shake hands and attend to their job.

“Well, you know who we are, Warden, so I presume you know what we’re picking up? Because frankly … we don’t.”

“Yes yes, I know what it is. It’s just a package that needs delivering. But as you can imagine, some deliveries are a bit more … sensitive than others. Understand? So sometimes the people hiring you have done a little research, to make sure you’re the right men for the job, hey? Not me, mind you. I know you gentlemen by name, but that’s about it. But the people you’re delivering for seem to believe you’re right for this job.”

“Look,” said Smitty, “we’re deliverymen, not smugglers. We don’t get into anything illegal. Last thing we want is the orange and blue after us.”

The warden laughed and patted the mild fellow on the shoulder. “My dear Smitty, there are plenty of secrets in this world, and they’re not all bad. Of course some that are bad, aren’t illegal. And some that aren’t bad, are illegal. Got it?” Smitty nodded and looked with a little confusion at Darwood. “No, Gentlemen, there’s nothing wrong with this job. It’s just that … this one needs to be hand-delivered to the president.”

“The president of what?” the men asked together.

The warden cocked his head to one side. “Earth, of course. President Keane.” Darwood’s eyes went wide. Smitty’s eyes went narrow. “Come on, gentlemen … not really so surprising is it? You’re deliverymen. Someone has to deliver things to the president. Why not you?”

“Because if anything’s sent to him, it’s sent to the Apex, and it’s delivered by staff. Not by outsiders he’s never heard of.”

“But he has heard of you two. He’s expecting you with this delivery. Look … if you have any problem getting into the Apex to see him, then you can have your doubts, ok? But if you find them expecting you, just as I was, then you know the job’s legit, right?”

“Barely, but ok,” said Smitty. “Where’s the package?”

“I don’t have it,” said the warden. “And I don’t have any more details, either. You’ll have to see the man in the basement.”

The warden led them down a long hall straight to the heart of the building where a few elevators and a single stairway resided. They headed down the stairs.

“Not too big a package I hope?” asked Darwood, thinking about hefting something back up the stairs.

“No no. Quite small.” They made it down two flights, and that’s where both the stairway and the elevators stopped, but the warden took out a key and opened a locked door. On the other side, the stairs headed down one more flight. “Solitary confinement, see?” said the warden.

Darwood and Smitty looked in confusion at one another, then looked to the man leading them down the stairs. “The person with the power to research us and send a package directly to the president is in solitary confinement?”

They reached the bottom of the stairs and the warden turned and looked at them seriously. “Yes,” he said. And that was all. He turned again and led them down a dim hallway until they neared a single, well-lit cell. Then he gestured broadly with his arm: “Gentlemen, he’s all yours. When you have the package, simply head back up this way.”

Smitty was suspicious. Why would he leave them in solitary confinement? Why wouldn’t they have escorts? They could just as easily be locked down here against their will if the warden left before them. Was it a trap? But who would bother trapping a pair of deliverymen? He eyed the warden as the man retreated, but it just didn’t make sense that someone would want them captured. He decided to let it go and see what this whole thing was about.

Darwood had already started toward the lone prisoner, who was sitting in a clean cell. There was a toilet in one corner, lid down; a sharply made twin bed; and a wooden writing desk of all things — well-kept, but apparently antique and definitely made of wood. Both men wondered why a convict would be treated so well as to have such a nice desk. But with the ability to put something into the president’s hands, this was obviously no ordinary prisoner.

The man had dark hair, dark eyebrows, and blue eyes. He was tall — at least 6'2"; and there was something regal in his appearance. In fact, if you squinted, you might just say he resembled the president himself, though not so closely as to guess that they were brothers, which might have explained a lot. “Darwood and Smitty — I’m so glad to see that you’ve made it. Wonderful! Please, come closer. I’d like to shake your hands.”

They were already in the realm of bizarre, so his buoyant manner couldn’t be thought too extraordinary. They approached and shook his hand. “Really, dynamite to see you fellows. Look, I’ve got this package that I need delivered.”

“Yeah,” said Darwood. “We got that message. But to the president. Are you related?”

“Oh!” exclaimed the man. “No, not at all. At least, I don’t think so. No, it would be entirely impossible I think. But I have met him and, because of the nature of my work, he is most interested to receive samples of what I do. Hand-delivered, mind you. He understands that it’s sensitive stuff, so he makes exceptions to security in this case. But he has the White House run background checks to find delivery people that they can trust. For whatever reason, you fellows were picked as trustworthy, so it’s my good fortune to meet you and request that you get the package into his hands.”

“Even though you’re a convict,” pointed out Darwood.

The man in the cell laughed. “You know, there are a lot of reasons for a person to land in a prison cell. Don’t judge me too harshly for that. But my goodness … I don’t want to be remembered as the guy in the prison cell. My name — where are my manners? My name is Charles Halworth. Call me Charles. That’s a whole lot better than ‘man in prison,’ isn’t it?”

“What kind of work do you do?” asked Smitty, ignoring the man’s eccentricity and stepping a little toward the cell for a better look at the desk and its contents.

“Oh … just scribbles of my journal notes there. Nothing important. My work is in computer programming, and by its nature, it can potentially have some Earth security applications, so the president likes to see what I develop, and I like having the chance to land a sale paid for by the pockets of ten billion humans.”

“You’re this important to the government but you’re still jailed down here … in solitary no less?”

“Come on guys. Outside the rebel prison camps, the courts did away with solitary confinement years ago. Too cruel and unusual, you know? But can you imagine doing this kind of work in a normal prison environment? Thanks to the president, I get my own little area down here. I’ve got my computer in the desk drawer so I can work whenever I like in total quiet. And … I never said I was that important to the government. I’ve never made a sale yet. But I hope to. So if you can just get this to the president ….” He held out a small package, not much bigger than an envelope.

“There’s a chip inside,” Halworth continued. “The chip is small but I package it into a box for Earth Express instead of using the postal system. Who do you trust more — a corporation or the government? That’s never an easy question!” The man laughed while Darwood grinned at Smitty. But Smitty still looked suspicious.

“Here. The package if you don’t mind,” said Charles.

Smitty reached for the package tentatively, then snatched it from Charles’ hand. He kept eyeing the man, but the man simply smiled and seemed congenial enough. “This doesn’t get us into trouble the moment we glide into New York does it? Because we’ll be contacting base before we get there with details about this whole event. We’re not getting ourselves pulled down as rebels.”

“Gentlemen!” cried the prisoner. “Don’t you think about it; don’t you worry! It is a package that will be well-received, I assure you. Your company is well-paid for it. And you will find that there is the small matter of a tip for the two of you when the package is delivered.”

“That’s against compa ….” Darwood kicked Smitty in the shin. “Dammit!” said Smitty.

“Don’t mind him, Mr. Halworth. The package is in good hands.”

“I know it is, Darwood. That’s why you’re here. And it’s Charles — call me Charles.”

Darwood grabbed Smitty by the back of the collar. “So, if there’s nothing more for us to know, we’ll get your package moving.”

“Nothing more. To the Apex. Tell them it’s from Halworth. They’ll lead you in from there. Do the job well and you’ll find yourselves down here often. Thanks, gentlemen.”

Darwood was pulling Smitty down the hallway already when Smitty dug his feet in. “Wait!” he said. “Mr. Halworth —”

“It’s Charles.”

“Mr. Halworth, what happened to your other riders? Who was delivering before us? Why aren’t they delivering now?”

Charles looked at him cannily. “They didn’t do the job well enough,” he said plainly. “So we needed someone new to do the job.”

“What do you mean they didn’t do it well enough? All they had to do was deliver a package.”

“And it wasn’t getting through,” said the prisoner. “Getting the package delivered is rather an essential part of delivery. Wouldn’t you say?”

*****
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[1] Apple somehow terminated a good deal of creative thought in the rest of the marketing world after the birth of the iPod and iPhone. For several years, far too many products became “i” or “e” something. But of course in this case, an eye scanner called the iScan made sense.

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