Redshirts: A Novel Part 25

"Right," Dahl said. "Which is why we offer the following solution."

"I stay behind," Hester said.

"So, you stay behind, pretend to be my son," Paulson said. "You make a miraculous recovery, then we make the episode where you play my son, and we make you well."

"Sort of," Hester said.

"What is it with these 'sort ofs'?" Paulson snapped. "What's the problem?"

Dahl looked over at Weinstein again. "Tell him," he said.

"Oh, s.h.i.t," Weinstein said, straightening up in his chair. "This is about that atom thing, isn't it?"

"Atom thing?" Paulson said. "What 'atom thing'?"

Weinstein grabbed his head. "So stupid," he said to himself. "Charles, when we wrote the episode where Abernathy and the others came back in time, we did this thing where they could only be here six days before their atoms reverted to their current positions in the timeline."

"I have no idea what that means, Nick," Paulson said. "Talk normal human to me."

"It means that if we stay in this timeline for six days, we die," Dahl said. "And we're already on day three."

"It also means that if Matthew goes to their timeline, he only has six days before the same thing happens to him," Weinstein said.

"What a stupid f.u.c.king idea!" Paulson exploded at Weinstein. "Why the f.u.c.k did you do that?"

Weinstein held his hands out defensively. "How was I supposed to know one day I'd be here talking about this?" he said, plaintively. "Jesus, Charles, we were just trying to get through the d.a.m.n episode. We needed them to have a reason to get everything done on a schedule. It made sense at the time."

"Well, change it," Paulson said. "New rule: People traveling through time can take as much f.u.c.king time as they want."

Weinstein looked over at Dahl, pleadingly. "It's too late for that," Dahl said, interpreting Weinstein's look. "The rule was in effect when we came through time, and besides, this isn't an episode. We're acting outside the Narrative, which means that even if you could change it, it wouldn't have an effect because it's not being recorded. We're stuck with it."

"They're right," Paulson said to Weinstein, motioning at the Intrepid crew. "The universe you've written sucks." Weinstein looked cowed.

"He didn't know," Dahl said to Paulson. "You can't blame him. And we need him, so please don't fire him."

"I'm not going to fire him," Paulson said, still staring at Weinstein. "I want to know how we fix this."

Weinstein opened his mouth, then closed it, then turned to Dahl. "Help would be appreciated," he said.

"This is where it gets a little crazy," Dahl said.

"Gets?" Weinstein said.

Dahl turned to Paulson. "Hester stays behind," he said. "We take your son with us. We go back to our time and our universe, but he"-Dahl pointed at Weinstein-"writes that the person in the shuttle is Hester. We don't try to sneak him in or have him be another extra. He has to be central to the plot. We call him out by name. His full name. Jasper Allen Hester."

"Jasper?" Duvall said, to Hester.

"Not now," Hester said.

"So we call him Jasper Allen Hester," Paulson said. "So what? He'll still be my son, not your friend."

"No," Dahl said. "Not if we say he isn't. If the Narrative says it's Hester, then it's Hester."

"But-" Paulson cut himself short and looked at Weinstein. "This makes no f.u.c.king sense to me at all, Nick."

"No, it doesn't," Weinstein said. "But that's the thing. It doesn't have to make sense. It just has to happen." He turned to Dahl. "You're using the shoddy world building of the series to your advantage."

"I wouldn't have put it that way, but yes," Dahl said.

"What about this atom thing?" Paulson said. "I thought this was a problem."

"If it was Hester here and your son there, then it would be," Weinstein said. "But if it's definitely Hester there, then it will definitely be your son here, and all their atoms will be where they should be." He turned to Dahl. "Right?"

"That's the idea," Dahl said.

"I like this plan," Weinstein said.

"And we're sure this will work," Paulson said.

"No, we're not," Hester said. Everyone looked at him. "What?" he said. "We don't know if it will work. We could be wrong about this. In which case, Mister Paulson, your son will still die."

"But then you will die, too," Paulson said. "You don't have to die."

"Mister Paulson, the fact of the matter is that if your son hadn't gone into his coma, you would have eventually killed me off as soon as he got bored being an actor," Hester said, and then pointed at Weinstein. "Well, he would kill me off. Probably by being eaten by a s.p.a.ce badger or something else completely asinine. Your son is in a coma now, so it's possible I'll live, but then again one day I might be on deck six when the Intrepid gets into a s.p.a.ce battle, in which case I'll be just some anonymous b.a.s.t.a.r.d sucked into s.p.a.ce. Either way, I would have died pointlessly."

He looked around the table. "I figure this way, if I die, I die trying to do something useful-saving your son," he said, looking back at Paulson. "My life will actually be good for something, which it's avoiding being so far. And if this works, then both your son and I get to live, which wasn't going to happen before. Either way I figure I'm better off than I was before."

Paulson got up, crossed the room to where Hester was sitting and collapsed into him, sobbing. Hester, not quite knowing what to do with him, patted him on the back gingerly.

"I don't know how I can make this up to you," Paulson said to Hester, when he finally disengaged. He looked over to the rest of the crew. "How I'm going to make it up to all of you."

"As it happens," Dahl said, "I have some suggestions on that."

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE.

The taxi turned off North Occidental Boulevard onto Easterly Terrace and slowed to a stop in front of a yellow bungalow.

"Your stop," the taxi driver said.

"Would you mind waiting?" Dahl asked. "I'm only going to be a few minutes."

"I have to run the meter," the driver said.

"That's fine," Dahl said. He got out of the car and walked up the brick walkway to the house door and knocked.

After a moment a woman came to the door. "I don't need any more copies of The Watchtower," she said.

"Pardon?" Dahl said.

"Or the Book of Mormon," she said. "I mean, thank you. I appreciate the thought. But I'm good."

"I do have something to deliver, but it's neither of those things," Dahl said. "But first, tell me if you're Samantha Martinez."

"Yes," she said.

"My name is Andy Dahl," Dahl said. "You could say that you and I almost have a friend in common." He held out a small box to her.

She didn't take it. "What is it?" she said.

"Open it," Dahl suggested.

"I'm sorry, Mister Dahl, but I am a little suspicious of strange men coming to my door on a Sat.u.r.day morning, asking my name and bearing mysterious packages," Martinez said.

Dahl smiled at this. "Fair enough," he said. He opened the package, revealing a small black hemisphere that Dahl recognized as a holographic image projector. He activated it; the image of someone who looked like Samantha Martinez appeared and hovered in the air over the projector. She was in a wedding dress, smiling, standing next to a man who looked like a clean-shaven version of Jenkins. Dahl held it out for her to see.

Martinez looked at the image quietly for a minute. "I don't understand," she said.

"It's complicated," Dahl admitted.

"Did you Photoshop my face into this picture?" she asked. "And how are you doing this?" She motioned to the floating projection. "Is this some new Apple thing?"

"If you're asking if I've altered the image, the answer is no," Dahl said. "And as for the projector, it's probably best to say it's something like a prototype." He touched the surface of the projector and the image shifted, to another picture of Jenkins and Martinez's double, looking happily at each other. After a few seconds the picture changed to another.

"I don't understand," Martinez said again.

"You're an actress," Dahl said.

"Was an actress," Martinez said. "I did it for a couple of years and didn't get anywhere. I'm a teacher now."

"When you were an actress, you had a small role on Chronicles of the Intrepid," Dahl said. "Do you remember?"

"Yes," Martinez said. "My character got shot. I was in the episode for about a minute."

"This is that character," Dahl said. "Her name was Margaret. The man in the picture is her husband." He held the projector out to Martinez. She took it, looked at it again and then set it down on a small table on the other side of the door. She turned back to Dahl.

"Is this some kind of a joke?" she said.

"No joke," Dahl said. "I'm not trying to trick you or sell you anything. After today, you won't see me again. All I'm doing is delivering this to you."

"I don't understand," Martinez said again. "I don't understand how you have all these pictures of me, with someone I don't even know."

"They're not my pictures, they're his," Dahl said, and held out the box the projector came in to Martinez. "Here. There's a note in the box from him. It'll explain things better than I can, I think."

Martinez took the box and took out a folded sheet, dense with writing. "This is from him," she said.

"Yes," Dahl said.

"Why isn't he here?" Martinez asked. "Why didn't he deliver it himself?"

"It's complicated," Dahl repeated. "But even if he could have been, I think he would have been afraid to. And I think seeing you might have broken his heart."

"Because of her," Martinez said.

"Yes," Dahl said.

"Does he want to meet me?" Martinez asked. "Is this his way of introducing himself?"

"I think it's his way of introducing himself, yes," Dahl said. "But I'm afraid he can't meet you."

"Why?" Martinez asked.

"He has to be somewhere else," Dahl said. "That's the easiest way to put it. Maybe his letter will explain it better."

"I'm sorry I keep saying this, but I still don't understand," Martinez said. "You show up at my door with pictures of someone who looks just like me, who you say is the person I played for a minute in a television show, who is dead and who has a husband who sends me gifts. You know how crazy that sounds?"

"I do," Dahl said.

"Why would he do this?" Martinez said. "What's the point of it?"

"Are you asking my opinion?" Dahl asked.

"I am," Martinez said.

"Because he misses his wife," Dahl said. "He misses his wife so much that it's turned his life inside out. In a way that's hard to explain, you being here and being alive means that in some way his wife's life continues. So he's sending her to you. He wants to give you the part of her life he had with her."

"But why?" Martinez said.

"Because it's his way of letting her go," Dahl said. "He's giving her to you so he can get on with the rest of his life."

"He said this to you," Martinez said.

"No," Dahl said. "But I think that's why he did it."

Martinez stepped away from the door, quickly. When she came back a minute later, she had a tissue in her hand, with which she had dried her eyes. She looked up at Dahl and smiled weakly.

"This is definitely the strangest Sat.u.r.day morning I've had in a while," she said.

"Sorry about that," Dahl said.

"No, it's fine," Martinez said. "I still don't understand. But I guess I'm helping your friend, aren't I?"