Back in April’s prose meeting, I was quite proud of the 87+ page script I had finished, however also dismayed that scripts do not by their nature lend well to reading allowed. For May, with nothing new under my belt, I decided to remedy this situation by transcribing what is basically the first scene of the first episode of the first story in the Tyme Flies series, my high flying, two fisted, pulp aerial adventure. I extrapolated on the dialog, sounds and production notes of the script and managed to flesh it out much more and add more depth to it. In the end, I’m afraid I may have made Justin a little more hardboiled than he’s intended to be. Carmen, however, pretty much came across as her flirty femme fatale self, and quite nicely at that.
Edit: Due to rewrites and an aggressive campaign of plot hole filling, the page count is now nearly 100.
The scenario presented certainly isn’t new by any means, but it does make a grand send off to the series and adequately sets the tone for what you can come to expect. I don’t plan on prose-ifying anything more past this first scene; it was written for the sole purpose of giving me something to present, but I think it’s worth holding on to as a sort of promo to the series.
And so, without further ado…
Justin Tyme & The Devil in the Clouds
Episode 1, Act 1, Scene 2
1935, Dominion Ontario
McKenzie Suspended For Fighting, declared the headline of the sports page, Will sit out rest of season. I snorted, something wasn’t right with that heading. I read it twice more and didn’t find anything apparently wrong with it, it just sort of rolled off the tongue. Then I realized it. It was mid afternoon and I was reading the paper to myself aloud. Was I really that bored? Apparently.
The ceiling fan spun lazily above me, doing it’s best to ward off the humidity brought about by the storm just passed. It wasn’t too hot, by August’s standards, but it was hotter than I liked. I was really hoping the rain would’ve cooled things down, but instead all it meant was a spell of stifling inactivity. The rain kept everyone inside. It made them think, “Oh, I’ll just do that little errand tomorrow, I think.”
Storms also caused delays.
The radio was on in the corner, tuned to some American station, I think. I wasn’t really listening, my ears were tuned to detect the subtle squeak of tires, the soft patter of an engine idling down; anything to herald the return of one or more of my co-workers. Company rules: someone has to hold down the fort, and that unlucky someone was me. I envied them. Once you get a thousand feet into the air, it cools down pretty quick. And today I was itching to get back up into the big blue again.
Heck, I’d probably throw out the Company rule book and just take off any ways. ‘Least I would if there was a job to be done, something I could justify my absence with.
A job. I snorted and flipped the page, forcing myself not to read it to the empty office. I mulled over the thought and considered calling one of our usual clients, just to check if they happened to have anything that needed to be sent out to Montreal or Toronto. I was scraping the bottom of the barrel here, just looking for a reason to leave.
“What I wouldn’t give for a nice simple job,” I breathed lowly. Something quick, something paying well enough to make breaking the rules worth it. I looked up at the girlie calendar hanging by the window and made an amendment: “preferably, something delivered by a leggy brunette.”
From the opposite side of the counter came a click and with a glacier-slow creak, I watched the door open from the corner of my eye. My jaw dropped.
“Good afternoon,” she said. She being five-foot something in a grey rain coat and a simple white hat with a red band, under which a waterfall of mahogany hair framed sparkling blue eyes. She smiled in an in-charge-of-the-world sort of way.
I forced myself to blink and figured I’d try again: “What… I wouldn’t give for the Dragoons to take the cup this year?”
“Excuse me?” She tilted her head.
“Uh, never mind, it was worth a try.”
Pushing back the chair and dropping my copy of the Dominion Gazette, I stood and stepped up to the counter, absently pulling together the usual paper work from it’s respective cubby holes.
“Good afternoon, miss. How can I help you.”
“I have a parcel I’d like delivered and I’m prepared to pay for expedited service; as soon as possible, if’n you please.” Her voice held the same self confidence she projected, but two fold. Her speech and movements were mercury smooth and equally precise, like she’d spent a week planning the minutiae of day to day life.
I nodded to a small paper-wrapped packaged I noticed clutched in her left hand, “Is that the item?”
“It is,” she deposited it neatly on the counter top, I automatically weighed it and did some figuring.
“Easy enough to do.”
“And you can send it out immediately?”
“Not quite. Earliest I can have it flown out is… four hours maybe, as soon as another pilot returns.” Damn the storm. Last I heard, Taylor was running three hours late.
“Oh,” Her mouth tightened and I was sure I’d said something wrong.
“Is that a problem?”
“Sorry, I thought you were a pilot.” I explained that I was and that the rules didn’t permit me to take off until someone else got back. Even though I was considering flaunting said rules, it was a bad idea to admit to it in front of a customer.
“I see,” she nodded once and stepped closer, folding her arms on the counter top. “When I said expedited, I meant expedited, as in, I need it there yesterday. Surely you must have some… procedure to accommodate this situation?”
“Ma’am, I’d really like to help you, but-”
Thump.
Before my eyes, a neat stack of paper in muted ink had appeared in front of me. She tapped a delicate finger on the stack to emphasize it’s sudden existence.
“Five hundred dollars.”
“Five hundred?” I asked, my mind not fully comprehending yet.
“Five hundred.”
“But, I haven’t even given you a quote yet-”
“Keep the change,” she answered without missing a beat, “Put it on the ledger, take it for yourself, I don’t much care. I just want this package sent out pronto.” Her voice dropped in register and took on more of a purring quality to it, “Surely you can do this for me, eh Flyboy?”
“You haven’t even told me where It’s going yet,” I struggled.
“You’re right, I haven’t. And I won’t.”
Clearly my expression alone was enough to convey how unimpressed I was about where this was headed.
“You see Mr…”
“Pilot Justin Tyme, at your service.” She snorted at my name; probably wasn’t sure she heard right. I get that a lot.
“Mr. Tyme, this money is not just for the delivery, I also consider it a down payment on discretion. I want no official quotes, no receipts, no manifest, nothing.” She gave the paper in my hands a withering glare and I pushed it aside. With the offending paperwork gone, she produced a plain envelope from her coat and placed it next to the money.
“This envelope contains where you are going and the route I’d like you to take to get there. I’ve taken the liberty of plotting the course myself. I trust you to follow it’s instructions to the letter and that you will not open it until you are in the air.”
At that point I had to laugh. I wondered if someone was putting me on, but she didn’t seem to be part of a joke. Five hundred dollars to fly some mysterious package who knows where; I think I’d seen that in a motion picture, once.
“Do you think this is funny?” She demanded.
“I’m sorry, I really am. It’s just that your not the first person to walk in here and ask us to deliver something to some remote corner of the country, no questions asked. And, please don’t take this the wrong way, but whenever we do get such a request, the customer’s affairs really aren’t that interesting.”
“My affairs are none of your business, Mr. Tyme, but as a matter of fact, they are interesting.” She paused and took in the sights of our office, her gaze noticeably lingered on the picture of my father and his squadron, taken in France, 1917. “Would it help if I told you this parcel is of some importance to national security?”
“If that were the case, than shouldn’t it be going with the air force or army or the Mounties? Surely the government has it’s own couriers better suited to this task?”
She nodded twice and looked me in the eye. “In five minutes, a pilot in Ottawa will be handed an identical package at the aerodrome and given instructions to take off and make a bee line for High River. We have reason to believe that somewhere within our company or the government, or maybe even both, there is a security leak. We’ve had some… incidents lately. That package is a decoy and this is the genuine article.”
“Why are you telling me all this if it’s so sensitive? Aren’t you afraid I’ll steal whatever secrets you’ve just put before me?”
“I’m telling you this because if you were a threat, you would have done something by now. The parcel, the envelope and my five hundred dollars are right there. Nothing is stopping you from taking all three and making a run out the back door.”
“That’s a good point.” I accepted.
“And,” she continued, “you have nice eyes.”
“And I have- What?”
“Eyes. Nice. You have. Understood?” She clarified.
“Uhm, uh…”
With a precise, fluid movement, she picked up the blank manifest I had been prepared to fill out, tore off a corner and lifted the pen from it’s holder.
“My name is Carmen, Mr. Tyme,” her words paced with the quiet scratching of the pen, “And this… is my address. If the package arrives safely – and I will know if it arrives safely or not – look me up when you get back.”
She slipped the paper across to me as I stared back at her like an idiot.
“Okay.”
She turned on her heals and pushed the door open, pausing only once to call over her shoulder: “Oh, and flyboy? Close your mouth or you’ll swallow a bug.”
With the clicking of her heels receding to the parking lot, she was gone. I assessed the situation that had just transpired: “Well, that’s certainly never happened before.”
I looked down at the counter; the address, the envelope, the package and a stack of portraits of the King and Queen in denominations of twenty-five glared back at me. I looked over my shoulder at the daily rag siting where I’d left it.
I had a delivery to make.
