Delivery Boy

Who: Brett and Simon
Where: Eidolon City Prison
When: Afternoon

For all that Brett had spent over a decade as a cop, he actually wasn't familiar with the layout of the city's prison. As far as he had been concerned, he only saw criminals on the streets, and his job had been to get them off the streets. Going to see them once that had been achieved hadn't been anything he'd done. He knew the prison was there, it simply held no interest for him. From that point of view, nothing much had changed in the last three years. The prison still held no interest for him - save for the idea of staying out of there, of course. That was much more on his mind these days than when he'd lived on the right side of the law.

Unfortunately, his 'employers' had different ideas. Today's station on the long line of tasks Brett inevitably ended up with was 'messenger boy'. Brett didn't actually know what he was delivering. Most he knew was that it was a brown paper parcel about the size of a shoe box. He'd been given the name of some guy in administration at the prison and told to make sure that it got there - no questions asked.

Of course, it would have been easier if they'd actually told him how to find the guy, but Brett knew how this went. First time you got a new job, they liked to make it difficult, see how you fared. See whether you were suitable to do something like that again. Brett always ensure that he was good at the things that he wanted to repeat, or need to repeat, and that anything he really didn't want to be doing, he screwed up just enough to make them think twice. In any event, today was a new task, and they'd made it difficult. He had a name, but no clue where to find the guy, and so, having managed to get himself into the prison okay, he was wandering, trying to find out where to go.

Simon, for his part, was finding his life just as unfortunate by the light of day as he had the night before. Even once he had stumbled up the six flights of stairs to the relative safety of his apartment, he'd had a hard time falling asleep. Fuming at the injustice of existence, he had replayed his encounter with Eris over and over, trying (although not very hard) to decipher what action of his had given her cause to pull a gun on him. None, he decided, over and over--but the scene gnawed at him.

So he was none too well-rested, and ill-prepared to meet with the trials of the day. One convict had choked--or pretended to choke--on a piece of uncooked cauliflower in the canteen. The exact instigation was unclear, but what was clear were the black eyes and bruises, and the newest cafeteria worker giving up his apron and hairnet in disgust at the job. Simon suspected that the entire incident was an attempt to undermine his efforts at getting more produce into the diets of the incarcerated. Warden Cole had left early for the day, a good twenty minutes before the great Cauliflower Contretemps, leaving Simon alone to sort out the blame and discipline and to try to cajole the injured cafeteria worker into staying on until they found a replacement.

He was returning to his own office from the wardens, loaded down with files of each of the involved parties and rough affidavits from various observers--when he saw a looming figure heading down the hallway in front of him. The guards tended not to hang about in this part of the building, and they tended not to be solitary wanderers anyway. A visitor? A lawyer? Simon cleared his throat. "May I help you?" His general exasperation made his tone more abrupt than gracious.

Well, wasn't that tone spectacularly full of a real and honest wish to help? Brett bit back the 'probably not' automatic gripe, the brush off and put down that sprang to his lips and instead stopped, eying the man. "Got to deliver a package," he said, indicating said package under his left arm. He kept the words to a minimum, and if this guy assumed like most others that he was lacking in the brains department, well Brett was just fine with that.

Simon started to say something cursory, then paused. This man was built like God betting on brawns over brains, but there was something in the way he was being eyed that made him second-guess that impression. Simon didn't like being eyed. It made him very uncomfortable, and he fought down the flush that tended to creep into his cheeks under scrutiny. Distract the man with a light-hearted quip? Why not? True, his track record with humor was fighting a falling average, but last night had probably been an outlier. "Well, if you're looking for the post office, it's the building that only keeps a dozen miserable people against their will, and they're all wearing blue collared shirts and selling stamps." He shifted the weight of the folders in his arms.

Brett raised a casual eyebrow and thought that possibly his first response might actually turn out to be the one he should have used. "And here was I thinking that the bars were just to keep the mail in," he deadpanned, not showing even the slightest hint of amusement. Brett was generally pissed at the entire world for a good 99% of the time - today was no different. "So, given that we both know we're in a prison, and I'm not in the market for stamps, you know where I can find this guy or not?" Brett asked, thrusting a piece of paper with a name scrawled on it at the guy before him.

Simon's mouth slid sideways in a close-lipped grin, and took the paper. He looked at it, then turned it upside down before the scrawl made sense. "It figures. I'm forever being punished for my good deeds, it seems." He handed the paper back to Brett. "Warden Cole is indisposed today. I wish I were unable to tell you where he is and what he is doing, but somehow in the three years working with him, I've acquired the detailed burden of his entire medical history, past, present, and future. Purgatives. I won't tell you more, but he was very philosophical about their curative properties. Is the delivery business? I can sign for it, if it's to do with the prison."

"Sorry, no - I have instructions that the package must be delivered directly to Mr Cole," Brett said, not giving an inch. Actually, he didn't have those instructions, but he'd been in this game long enough to know that if he was given a name, they meant that name - they didn't mean whoever this lackey was. "Who are you, anyway?" he asked, highly aware that he was being rude and not giving a damn about it. Brett had a tendency of being rude to people on purpose, and measuring their reactions to that. There was, unfortunately, no 'right' reaction that would be guaranteed to get him onside at all. At the end of the day, Trent was just a miserable bastard.

It was incredible, Simon thought dryly, how many mysterious packages Cole received at the office. "You have me a little confused, here. You'd have me understand that it's too personal to be opened by a prison administrator, but not personal enough that they would have given you his home address to deliver it to? I'm Simon Mandel," and he shifted the files to uncover his badge, which succinctly delivered his name, the name of the prison, and the word 'administration' in cheap gold-ish paint.

"Nice for you - but that doesn't tell me shit about who you are," Brett told him, reading the name badge in his peripheral vision, without seeming to look down at all, and completely ignoring that fact. Hell, for all he cared, the guy could assume he couldn't read. In actual fact, he preferred to hear things straight from the mouth, supporting the written evidence. And, possibly, he was still trying to needle the guy.

Simon sighed, impatiently. "Use your powers of deduction, man. I'm in a prison. I'm not being escorted, nor am I dressed in the uniform of incarceration. I am not armed, nor do I have the natural defenses that make men apt to be prison guards. Possibly, I am a guest, who either brought his own stack of personnel files to the party, or who is baldly making off with the prison's files in the middle of the day, for my own sinister reasons. And I'm not delivering packages. I admire your unwillingness to jump to conclusions, but really, if the clues weren't enough, the badge tells you that I work here. It's a safe assumption."

Brett still didn't look down. "So, you work in administration. That still doesn't tell me shit," he pointed out. "You could be anyone from a cleaner to the second in command for the big boss man. I asked who you were - I didn't ask whether you worked here or not."

"And for that matter, I told you who I was." Simon was getting bored with the delivery man's recalcitrance, and his tone didn't hide it. "Simon Mandel. I threw in where I worked for free. Second-in-command to the big boss man is as good a description as any, but honestly, if that means nothing to you, that is not my problem. You mind telling me who you are, where you work, and what you weigh? Unless you have business here, there are some men down the hall who are just as keen on throwing people out of prison as they are to throw them in." He jerked his chin at the security phone on the wall.

Brett gave him a look, but there was needling people and then there was shooting himself in the foot and honestly, playing delivery boy won out over being sent to beat the shit out of people any day, so he wanted to be able to do this job right. Which was also partly why he'd been keen to know who he was talking to - and know more than just the name that the little pedant seemed to decide to give him. "Trent, I work where they send me. As for my weight, well, I'll leave that one up to you," he said. "The matter of my business, I told that to you - I have a package for your boss. Just for your boss. Can I leave it in his office? Maybe a safe he has?" he suggested.

"Certainly you may leave it in his safe," said Simon, voice dry as winter. "Obviously you know the combination to the lock." What kind of delivery man was this, anyway? The ones of Simon's most common acquaintance had never been less than willing to toss their packages at anyone with a pulse, providing that they get a signature in return. The answer mob was echoing in the back of his head--there was very little about this man's ideas of procedure that weren't incredibly dodgy--but apparently he wasn't much of a thinker. "Except that I really can't just let you into his office, because offices are full of sensitive information and tacky-but-treasured personal possessions. I can sign for the package and secure it until Warden Cole can tend to it. Or you can do... whatever you want with it. Chase him down. Or what have you." He looked at Trent, an answer presenting itself. "This is a new job for you?" he asked after a pause, sympathetically.

Brett cursed himself that he'd picked a time when the warden was out - just his fucking look. He actually didn't have a clue what was in the package. He generally didn't ask questions like that. Not at this stage, anyhow. Eventually, if this turned into a regular delivery gig, then he'd start making sure he knew what the warden was receiving in likely backhanders - and then he'd work on finding out why. But at this stage, he found it better not to know. Now he had a choice - he could either leave it with this guy who seemed particularly keen to take it, and trust that it would get to its source - or he could leave and try again another day. He still had to make a decision on that one, when the question was asked. "Yeah, new job," he replied, bristling slightly at the sympathetic tone of voice. Brett never sort out sympathy and he never received it very well either.

Adorable, Simon thought with irony. But he endeavored to help. "Well, I don't know what kind of instructions you were given for this particular package, but Warden Cole has a parole meeting on his calendar tomorrow, so if you wanted to try in around 8:30 A.M., you have as good a chance of an ensured delivery as you can get, here. I can give you his home address, too, if you want to leave it there. It's public record, but this is easier than looking it up. You might end up having to leave in on his doorstop, but who knows? Maybe people who say they have medical appointments really just go home for the day. But I'd hate to assume the worst of anyone, so that's up to you.

"Or," and he paused. "Have you ever considered a nice, stable career in industrial food services? It includes a very nice pension." After all, he still needed a new cafeteria worker.

Brett actually smiled a little at that - just the barest amount. "Great, thanks," he said, actually appreciating the help. It took the decision out of his hands, which was definitely appreciated, and it meant that he could stick to the original plan - trying to deliver the package to the named recipient. Whatever was in it.

"So that's a no to trying a new job?" Disappointing, but not unexpected. Simon pulled a blank sheet of paper from under the affidavits and a pen from his pocket, balancing the files on one knee to scrawl down the warden's address. If Trent was mob, then Cole was in deep enough that they likely already knew where he lived--and that's what he got, for taking. If not, no harm done. He handed it over.

"All things considered - think I'll stick with this one - it's kind of a job for life," Brett replied, with the barest hint of humour. God, but that could be taken in more ways than one, and didn't he know it. He took the piece of paper. "'Preciate the help, sorry to have taken up your time."

Trent's lack of smiling had been like a brick wall, and so as far as Simon was concerned, the hint of humor was inordinately gratifying. "No trouble. Thousand thankless things for us all to do, but good luck with yours. You can find your way out of here?"

"Yeah, I'm good - got a decent sense of direction." That and there weren't that many places that he'd be able to go without hitting locked doors, or so he figured.

Simon was figuring about the same thing. "Well, don't fall in the shark tanks," he said, and turned to continue to his own closet of an office.

Brett snorted a quiet laugh at that, shaking his head. "Whatever you say," he agreed, dropping the wall more now the other guy had turned away. Not that he gave Simon much of a chance to react to that. Instead, he turned to head out, figuring he'd try the warden's home address - and if he didn't have any luck there, well, he guessed he'd be back here another day to try again.