Redshirts

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

“So what now?” Duvall asked. The four of them were in the mess, picking at their midday meal.

“What do you mean?” Hester asked.

“I mean, what now?” Duvall said. She pointed to Hester. “You’re transplanted into a new body”—her point changed to Dahl—“he’s back from the dead, we’ve all come back from an alternate reality to keep ourselves from being killed for dramatic purposes. We’ve won. What now?”

“I don’t think it works like that,” Hanson said. “I don’t think we’ve won anything, other than being in control of our own lives.”

“Right,” Hester said. “After everything, what it all means is that if one day we slip in the bathroom and crack our head on the toilet, our last thoughts can be a satisfied, ‘Well, I and only I did this to myself.’”

“When you put it that way, it hardly seems worth it,” Duvall said.

“I don’t mind cracking my head on the toilet,” Hester said. “As long as I do it at age one hundred and twenty.”

“On your one hundred and twentieth birthday, I’ll come over with floor wax,” Duvall promised.

“I can’t wait,” Hester said.

“Andy? You okay?” Hanson asked.

“I’m fine,” Dahl said, and smiled. “Sorry. Was just thinking. About being fictional, and all that.”

“We’re over that now,” Hester said. “That was the point of all of this.”

“You’re right,” Dahl said. “I know.”

Duvall looked at her phone. “Crap, I’m going to be late,” she said. “I’m breaking in a new crew member.”

“Oh, the burdens of a promotion,” Hester said.

“It’s hard, it really is,” Duvall said, and got up.

“I’ll walk with you,” Hester said. “You can tell me more of your woes.”

“Excellent,” Duvall said. The two of them left.

Hanson looked back at Dahl. “Still thinking about being fictional?” he said, after a minute.

“Sort of,” Dahl said. “What I’ve been really thinking about is you, Jimmy.”

“Me,” Hanson said.

“Yeah,” Dahl said. “Because while I was recuperating from our last adventure, something struck me about you. You don’t really fit.”

“That’s interesting,” Hanson said. “Tell me why.”

“Think about it,” Dahl said. “Think of the five of us who met that first day, the day we joined the crew of the Intrepid. Each of us turned out to be critical in some way. Hester, who didn’t seem to have a purpose, turned out to be the key to everything. Duvall had medical training and got close to Kerensky, which helped us when we needed it and made him part of our crew when we needed him. Finn gave us tools and information we needed and his loss galvanized us to take action. Jenkins gave us context for our situation and the means to do something about it.”

“What about you?” Hanson asked. “Where do you fit in?”

“Well, that’s the one I had a hard time with,” Dahl said. “I wondered what I brought to the party. I thought maybe I was just the man with the plan—the guy who came up with the basic ideas everyone else went along with. Logistics. But then I started thinking about Kerensky, and what he is to the show.”

“He’s the guy who gets beat up to show that the main characters can get beat up,” Hanson said.

“Right,” Dahl said.

“But you can’t be Kerensky,” Hanson said. “We have a Kerensky. It’s Kerensky.”

“It’s not about Kerensky getting beat up,” Dahl said. “It’s about Kerensky not dying.”

“I’m not following you,” Hanson said.

“Jimmy, how many times should I have died since we’ve been on the Intrepid?” Dahl asked. “I count at least three. The first time, when I was attacked at Eskridge colony, when Cassaway and Mbeke died. Then in the Nantes interrogation room with Finn and Captain Abernathy. And then on deck six when we returned to the Intrepid with Hester. Three times I should have been dead, no ifs, ands or buts. I should be dead, three times over. But I’m not. I get hurt. I get hurt really badly. But I don’t die. That’s when I figured it out. I’m the protagonist.”

“But you’re an extra,” Hanson said. “We all are. Jenkins said it. Charles Paulson said it. Even the actor playing you said it.”

“I’m an extra on the show,” Dahl said. “I’m the protagonist somewhere else.”

“Where?” Hanson said.

“That’s what I want you to tell me, Jimmy,” Dahl said.

“What?” Hanson said. “What are you talking about?”

“It’s like I said: You don’t fit,” Dahl said. “Everyone else served a strong purpose for the story. Everyone but you. For this, you were just around, Jimmy. You have a backstory, but it never really entered in to what we did. You did a few useful things—you looked into show trivia, and talked about people, and occasionally you reminded people to do things. You added just enough that it seemed like you were taking part. But the more I think about it, the more I realize that you don’t quite add up the way the rest of us do.”

“Life is like that, Andy,” Hanson said. “It’s messy. We don’t all add up that way.”

“No,” Dahl said. “We do. Everyone else does. Everyone else but you. The only way you fit is if the thing you’re supposed to do, you haven’t done yet. The only way you fit is if there’s something else going on here. We’re all supposed to think we were real people who found out they were extras on a television show. But I know that doesn’t begin to explain me. I should be dead several times over, like Kerensky or any of the show’s major characters are supposed to be dead, but aren’t, because the universe plays favorites with them. The universe plays favorites with me, too.”

“Maybe you’re lucky,” Hanson said.

“No one is that lucky, Jimmy,” Dahl said. “So here’s what I think. I think there’s no television show. No real television show. I think that Charles Paulson and Marc Corey and Brian Abnett and everyone else over there are just as fictional as we were supposed to be. I think Captain Abernathy and Commander Q’eeng, Medical Officer Hartnell and Chief Engineer West are the bit players here, and that me and Maia and Finn and Jasper are the people who really count. And I think in the end, you really exist for just one reason.”

“What reason is that, Andy?” Hanson said.

“To tell me that I’m right about this,” Dahl said.

“My parents would be surprised by your conclusion,” Hanson said.

“My parents would be surprised by all of this,” Dahl said. “Our parents are not the point here.”

“Andy, we’ve known each other for years,” Hanson said. “I think you know who I am.”

“Jimmy,” Dahl said. “Please. Tell me if I’m right.”

Hanson sat there for a minute, looking at Dahl. “I don’t think it would actually make you happier to be told you were right about this,” he said, finally.

“I don’t want to be happy,” Dahl said. “I just want to know.”

“And even if you were right,” Hanson said, “what do you get out of it? Aren’t you better off believing that you’ve accomplished something? That you’ve gotten the happy ending you were promised? Why would you want to push that?”

“Because I need to know,” Dahl said. “I’ve always needed to know.”

“Because that’s the way you are,” Hanson said. “A seeker of truth. A spiritual man.”

“Yes,” Dahl said.

“A man who needs to know if he’s really that way, or just written to be that way,” Hanson said.

“Yes,” Dahl said.

“Someone who needs to know if he’s really his own man, or—”

“Tell me you’re not about to make the pun I think you are,” Dahl said.

Hanson smiled. “Sorry,” he said. “It was there.” He pushed out from his chair and stood up. “Andy, you’re my friend. Do you believe that?”

“Yes,” Dahl said. “I do.”

“Then maybe you can believe this,” Hanson said. “Whether you’re an extra or the hero, this story is about to end. When it’s done, whatever you want to be will be up to you and only you. It will happen away from the eyes of any audience and from the hand of any writer. You will be your own man.”

“If I exist when I stop being written,” Dahl said.

“There is that,” Hanson said. “It’s an interesting philosophical question. But if I had to guess, I’d guess that your creator would say to you that he would want you to live happily ever after.”

“That’s just a guess,” Dahl said.

“Maybe a little more than a guess,” Hanson said. “But I will say this, though: You were right.”

“About what?” Dahl said.

“That now I’ve done what I was supposed to do,” Hanson said. “But now I have to go do the other thing I’m supposed to do, which is assume my post. See you at dinner, Andy?”

Dahl grinned. “Yes,” he said. “If any of us are around for it.”

“Great,” Hanson said. “See you then.” And he wandered off.

Dahl sat there for a few more minutes, thinking about everything that had happened and everything that Hanson said. And then he got up and went to his station on the bridge. Because whether fictional or not, on a spaceship, a television show or in something else entirely, he still had work to do, surrounded by his friends and the crew of the Intrepid.

And that’s just what he did, until the day six months later when a systems failure caused the Intrepid to plow into a small asteroid, vaporizing the ship and killing everyone on board instantly.