Redshirts

“What do you mean?” Dahl asked.

“About me,” Hester said. “You and Duvall and Hanson and Finn all are interesting, because you had to have interesting backstories, so you could all get killed off in a contextual way. Finn getting killed by someone he knew, right? You, about to be killed when you go back to Forshan. But I didn’t have anything unusual about me. I’m just some guy from Des Moines who had a B minus average in high school, who joined the Dub U Fleet to see some of the universe before he came back home and stayed. Before I came on the Intrepid I was just another sarcastic loner.

“And now that makes sense, because I was never meant to do anything special, was I? I really was an extra. A placeholder character who Paulson could pour his kid into until his kid got bored with playing actor and went back to school to get a doctorate. Even the one thing I can do—pilot a shuttle—is just something that got stuck in because the show needed someone in that seat, and why not give it to the producer’s kid? Make him feel special.”

“I don’t think it’s like that,” Dahl said.

“It’s exactly like that,” Hester said. “I’m meant to fill a spot and that’s it.”

“That’s not true at all,” Dahl said.

“No?” Hester looked up at Dahl. “What’s my first name?”

“What?” Dahl asked.

“What’s my first name?” Hester repeated. “You’re Andy Dahl. Maia Duvall. Jimmy Hanson. Anatoly Kerensky, for Christ’s sake. What’s my first name, Andy? You don’t know, do you?”

“You have a first name,” Dahl said. “I could look on my phone and find it.”

“But you don’t know it,” Hester said. “You never used it. You never call me by it. We’re friends, and you don’t even know my full name.”

“I’m sorry,” Dahl said. “I just never thought about calling you anything other than ‘Hester.’”

“My point exactly,” Hester said. “If even my friends never think about what my first name might be, that points out my role in the universe pretty precisely, doesn’t it?” He went back to looking at Matthew Paulson, in his coma.

“So, what is your first name?” Dahl finally asked.

“It’s Jasper,” Hester said.

“Jasper,” Dahl said.

“Family name,” Hester said. “Jasper Allen Hester.”

“Do you want me to call you Jasper from now on?” Dahl asked.

“Fuck, no,” Hester said. “Who wants to be called Jasper? It’s a ridiculous fucking name.”

Dahl tried to stifle a laugh and failed. Hester smiled at this.

“I’ll keep calling you Hester,” Dahl said. “But I want you to know that inside, I’ll be saying Jasper.”

“If it makes you happy,” Hester said.

“Jasper Jasper Jasper,” Dahl said.

“All right,” Hester said. “Enough. I’d hate to kill you in a hospital.”

They returned their attention to Matthew Paulson.

“Poor kid,” Hester said.

“He’s your age,” Duvall said.

“Yeah, but I’m likely to outlive him,” Hester said. “There’s a change for one of us.”

“I suppose it is,” Dahl said.

“That’s the problem with living in the twenty-first century,” Hester said. “In our world, if he got in the same accident, we could fix him. I mean, hell, Andy, think of all the horrible things that happened to you, and you survived.”

“I survived because it wasn’t time for me to die yet,” Dahl said. “It’s like Kerensky and his amazing powers of recovery. It’s all thanks to the Narrative.”

“Does it matter why?” Hester said. “I mean, really, Andy. If you’re just about dead and you survive and are healed by entirely fictional means, do you really give a shit? No, because you’re not dead. The Narrative knocks us off when it’s convenient. But it’s not all bad.”

“You were just talking about how it all made sense you were a nobody,” Dahl said. “That didn’t sound like you were in love with the Narrative.”

“I didn’t say I was,” Hester said. “But I think you’re forgetting that this meant I was the only one of us not absolutely fated to die horribly for the amusement of others.”

“This is a good point,” Dahl said.

“This show we’re on, it’s crap,” Hester said. “But it’s crap that sometimes works to our advantage.”

“Until it finally kills us,” Dahl said.

“Kills you,” Hester reminded him. “I might survive, remember.” He motioned to Matthew Paulson. “And if he lived in our world, he might have been saved, too.”

Dahl was silent at this. Hester looked up at him eventually to see Dahl looking at him curiously. “What?”

“I’m thinking,” Dahl said.

“About what?” Hester said.

“About using the Narrative to our advantage,” Dahl said.

Hester squinted. “This involves me in some way, doesn’t it,” he said.

“Yes, Jasper,” Dahl said. “Yes it does.”

CHAPTER TWENTY

Charles Paulson opened the door to the conference room where the five of them sat, waiting, followed by another man. “Sorry about the wait,” he told them, and then motioned to the other man. “You wanted to see the show’s head writer, here he is. This is Nick Weinstein. I’ve explained to him what’s going on.”

“Hello,” Weinstein said, looking at the five of them. “Wow. Charles really wasn’t kidding.”

“Now, that’s funny,” Hester said, breaking up the slack-jawed staring four of the five of them were doing.

“What’s funny?” Weinstein asked.

“Mister Weinstein, were you ever an extra on your show?” Dahl asked.

“Once, a few seasons ago,” Weinstein said. “We needed a warm body for a funeral scene. I happened to be on the set. They threw a costume on me and told me to act sad. Why?”

“We know the man you played,” Dahl said. “His name is Jenkins.”

“Really?” Weinstein said, and smiled. “What’s he like?”

“He’s a sad, crazed shut-in who never got over the loss of his wife,” Duvall said.

“Oh,” Weinstein said, and stopped smiling. “Sorry.”

“You’re better groomed, though,” Hanson said, encouragingly.

“That’s probably the first time anyone’s ever said that about me,” Weinstein said, motioning at his beard.

“You said you had something you wanted to talk to me and Nick about,” Paulson said, to Dahl.

“I do,” Dahl said. “We do. Please sit.”

“Who is Jenkins?” Kerensky whispered to Dahl, as Paulson and Weinstein took their chairs.

“Later,” Dahl said.

“So,” Paulson said. His eyes flickered involuntarily over to Hester every few seconds.

“Mister Paulson, Mister Weinstein, there’s a reason we came back to your time,” Dahl said. “We came to convince you to stop your show.”

“What?” Weinstein said. “Why?”

“Because otherwise we’re dead,” Dahl said. “Mister Weinstein, when you kill off an extra in one of your scripts, the actor playing the extra eventually walks off the set and goes to get lunch. But where we are, that person stays dead. And people are killed off in just about every episode.”

“Well, not every episode,” Weinstein said.