Redshirts

is recursive and meta,” Duvall said.
    “I think that’s probably what it is,” Hester said. “We’ve already established whoever is writing us is an asshole. This sounds like just the sort of thing an asshole writer would do.”
    “I have to give you that,” Duvall said.
    “This timeline sucks,” Hester said.
    “Andy,” Hanson said, and motioned away from the table. A cargo cart was rolling up to the table they were sitting at. Inside of it was a note. Dahl took the note; the cargo cart rolled away.
    “A note from Jenkins?” Duvall asked.
    “Yeah,” Dahl said.
    “What does it say?” Duvall asked.
    “It says he thinks he’s come up with something that might work,” Dahl said. “He wants to talk to us about it. All of us.”

CHAPTER FOURTEEN
    “I want to warn you that this sounds like a crazy idea,” Jenkins said.
    “I’m amazed you feel the need to say that anymore,” Hester said.
    Jenkins nodded, as if to say, Point . Then he said, “Time travel.”
    “Time travel?” Dahl said.
    Jenkins nodded and fired up his holographic display, showing the timeline of the Intrepid and the tentacles branching down, signifying the collection of episodes. “Here,” he said, pointing to a branching node of tendrils. “In the middle of what I think was this show’s fourth season, Abernathy, Q’eeng and Hartnell took a shuttle and aimed it toward a black hole, using its gravity-warping powers to go backward in time.”
    “That makes no sense at all,” Dahl said.
    “Of course it doesn’t,” Jenkins said. “It’s yet another violation of physics caused by the Narrative. The point is not that they violated physics in a nonsensical way. The point is they went back in time. And they went back in time to a specific time. A specific year. They went back to 2010.”
    “So?” Hester said.
    “So, I think the reason they went back to that year was because that was the current year of this show’s production,” Jenkins said.
    “Science fiction shows had their people going back in time all the time,” Hanson said. “They were always having them meet famous historical people or take part in important events.”
    Jenkins pointed his finger excitedly at Hanson. “But that’s just it, ” he said. “If a show goes back to a specific time in its actual past, they’ll usually key it to a specific important historical person or event, because they have to give the audience something it knows about history, or else it won’t care. But if the show goes back to the present, then it doesn’t do that. It just shows that time and the characters reacting to it. It’s a dramatic irony thing.”
    “So if the show just has them wandering around a past time, if they meet someone famous, it’s the past, but if they don’t, it’s the present,” Duvall said. “Their present.”
    “More or less,” Jenkins said.
    “That’s some great show trivia,” Duvall said, “but what does it have to do with us?”
    “If we go back to the present, we can find a way to stop it,” Dahl said suddenly.
    Jenkins smiled and touched his nose.
    Duvall looked at the two of them, not quite getting it. “Explain this to me, Andy,” she said, “because right now it just looks like you and Jenkins are sharing a crazy moment.”
    “No, this makes sense,” Dahl said. “We know when the present is for the show. We know how to time travel to get back to the show’s present. We go back to the present, we can stop the people who are making the show.”
    “If we stop the show, then everything stops,” Hester said.
    “No,” Dahl said. “When the Narrative doesn’t need us, we still exist. And this timeline existed before the Narrative started intruding on it.” He paused, and turned to Jenkins. “Right?”
    “Maybe,” Jenkins said.
    “Maybe?” Hester said, suddenly very concerned.
    “There’s actually an interesting philosophical argument about whether this timeline exists independently, and the Narrative accesses it, or whether the creation of the Narrative also created this timeline, causing its history to appear instantly even if to us on the inside it appears that the passage of time has actually occurred,” Jenkins said. “It’s very much a corollary to the Strong Anthropic Principle—”
    “Jenkins,” Dahl said.
    “—but we can talk about that some other time,” Jenkins said, getting the hint. “The point is, yes, whether it existed before the Narrative or was created by it, this timeline now