Redshirts

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

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