Redshirts (28 page)

“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.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

No, no, I’m just fucking with you.

They all lived happily ever after.

Seriously.

CODA I:

First Person

CODA I: FIRST PERSON

Hello, Internet.

There isn’t any good way to start this, so let me just jump right in.

So, I am a scriptwriter for a television show on a major network who just found out that the people he’s been making up in his head (and killing off at the rate of about one an episode) are actually real. Now I have writer’s block, I don’t know how to solve it, and if I don’t figure it out soon, I’m going to get fired. Help me.

And now I just spent 20 minutes looking at that last paragraph and feeling like an asshole. Let me break it down further to explain it to you a little better.

“Hello, Internet”:
You know that
New Yorker
cartoon that has a dog talking to another dog by a computer and saying, “On the Internet, no one knows you’re a dog”? Yeah, well, this is that.

No, I’m not a dog. But yes, I need some anonymity here. Because
holy shit,
look what I just wrote up there. That’s not something you can just say out loud to people. But on the Internet? Anonymously? Might fly.

“I am a scriptwriter…”:
I really am. I’ve been working for several years on the show, which (duh) has been successful enough to have been around for several years. I don’t want to go into too much more detail about that right now, because remember, I’m trying to have some anonymity here to work through this thing I’ve been dealing with. Suffice to say that it’s not going to win any major Emmys, but it’s still the sort of show that you, my dear Internet, would probably watch. And that in the real world, I have an IMDB page. And it’s pretty long. So there.

“Who just found out the people he’s been making up in his head are real”:
Yes, I know. I
know
. Didn’t I just say “holy shit” two paragraphs ago about it? Don’t you think I know how wobbly-toothed, speed freak crazy it sounds? I do. I very very very
very
much do. If I didn’t think it was completely bugfuck crazy, I’d be writing about it on my own actual blog (if I had my own actual blog, which I don’t, because I work on a weekly television series, and
who has the time
) and finding some way to go full Whitley Strieber on it. I don’t want that. That’s a lifestyle. A whacked-out, late night talking to the tinfoil-hatted on your podcast lifestyle. I don’t want that. I just want to be able to get back to my own writing.

But still: The people I wrote in my scripts exist. I know because I met them, swear to God, right there in the flesh, I could reach out and touch them. And whenever I kill one of them off in my scripts, they actually die. To me, it’s just putting down words on a page. To them, it’s falling off a building, or being hit by a car, or being eaten by a bear or whatever (these are just examples, they’re not necessarily how I’ve killed people off).

Think about that. Think about what it means. That just
writing down
“BOB is consumed by badgers” in a script means that somewhere in the universe, some poor bastard named Bob has just been chased down by ravenous mustelids. Sure, it sounds funny when I write it like that. But if you were Bob? It would suck. And then you would be dead, thanks to me. Which explains the next part:

“Now I have writer’s block”:
You know, I never understood writer’s block before this. You’re a writer and you suddenly can’t write because your girlfriend broke up with you? Shit, dude, that’s the
perfect
time to write. It’s not like you’re doing anything else with your nights. Having a hard time coming up with the next scene? Have something explode. You’re done. Filled with existential ennui about your place in the universe? Get over yourself. Yes, you’re an inconsequential worm in the grand scope of history. But you’re an inconsequential worm who makes shit up for a living, which means that you don’t have to lift heavy boxes or ask people if they want fries with that. Grow up and get back to work.

On a good day, I can bang out a first draft of an episode in six hours. Is it good? It ain’t Shakespeare, but then, Shakespeare wrote
Titus Andronicus,
so you tell me. Six hours, one script, a good day. And I have to tell you, as a writer, I’ve had my share of good days.

But now I have writer’s block and I can’t write a script because
fuck me I kill people when I write
. It’s a pretty good excuse for having writer’s block, if you ask me. Girlfriend leaving you? Get on with it. You send people to their deaths by typing? Might give you pause. It’s given me pause. Now I sit in front of my laptop, Final Draft all loaded up, and just stare at the screen for hours.

“I’m going to get fired”:
My job is writing scripts. I’m not writing scripts. If I don’t start writing scripts again, soon, there’s no reason for me to be kept on staff. I’ve been able to stall a bit because I had one script in the outbox before the block slammed down, but that gives me about a week’s insurance. That’s not a lot of time. You see why I’m nervous.

“Help me”:
Look, I need help. This isn’t something I can talk to with people I actually know. Because, again:
Bugshit crazy
. I can’t afford to have people I work with—or other writers I know, most of whom are unemployed and would be happy to crawl over my carcass to get my television show writing staff position—think that I’ve lost my marbles. Gigs like this don’t grow on trees. But I have to talk to someone about it, because for the life of me I haven’t the first damn clue about what I should be doing about this. I need some perspective from outside my own head.

And this is where you come in, Internet. You have perspective. And I’m guessing that some of you might just be bored enough to help out some anonymous dude on the Internet, asking for advice on a completely ridiculous situation. It’s either this or Angry Birds, right?

So, what do you say, Internet?

Yours,

Anon-a-Writer

*   *   *

So, the good news is that apparently people are reading this. The bad news is people are asking me questions instead of, you know,
helping me
. But then again when you anonymously post on the Internet that the characters you write have suddenly come alive, I suppose you have to answer a few questions first. Fine. So for those of you who need it, a quick run-through of the most common questions I’ve gotten so far. I’m going to paraphrase some to keep from repeating questions and comments.