Excerpt: Redshirt - Being the Bad Guy so You Don't Have To

“How are you, Redshirt?” she said finally.

“Alright, I guess.” I answered cautiously, guessing that she wouldn’t break the habit of a lifetime in asking me that question if she didn’t actually want to know. “The burns are healing, like I said… and the ribs. Mordred broke like three of them, but they’re okay now.”

“I never complimented your work with Mordred.”

That was unexpected. “Well…”

“He really was a very difficult –“

“Who are you and what have you done with Britannia?” I said. “And I do mean that literally. Clone? Alien? Robot? If you cut me a good enough deal, I won’t tell the others.”

Britannia watched me talk impassively. “Very well. I understand this is unusual –“

“It’s not just unusual, it’s unnecessary.” I leaned a little further down on the bench and glared at her through my eyespots. “I work for you because I have to, not because I like you. So just tell me who you want me to kill.”

At this point her face was so screwed up it was like having a business meeting with a sleepy pug. We don’t use the k-word, you see. Or the m-word, and we definitely don’t call me an a-word or a b-h. The last one is inaccurate anyway, there is no bounty. I work for them because I have to, not because the pay is good.

She relaxed her face carefully, probably realising that showing up with crow’s feet at press conferences would cause problems and getting some kind of a super-botox injection would cause more. Then she said, “The Cape.”

I said the m-f word. I think that’s allowed, if frowned upon. But, given the circumstances - I mean, The Cape. The Cape…

“You mean Chris Carson?” was the next thing I said. “Carson is not a Costume any more. Also, hesthefuckingcape. Why?”

She sighs, like she does every time I ask that question. Usually I don’t have to. I mean, Mordred? Supervillain and murderer. Dr Todd? Supervillain who used people in sick experiments. Peter Crystal? Serial rapist with mind control. Every bit as nasty as they sound. Part of the deal is that I get reasons, and Britannia gets to feel a little bit better about herself when I agree with her that these people need to go. This one had me doubting her sanity as well as her PR skills.

“Well, pick one, Redshirt. He can’t be both ‘not a costume’ and ‘The fucking Cape’.”

“Okay, he’s retired, and he’s The fucking Cape. He’s a good guy. He’s the Good Guy. The only reason he didn’t write the book on being a good guy is that he was too busy rescuing buses full of nuns to get round to it.”

“Okay then.” This is Britannia’s ‘Redshirt is simple, use words of one syllable’ face. “You’re aware of the problems people like us are having in America.”

There’s a huge difference between people like her and Carson and people like me, but I decided not to push it. “Yes.”

“We want to make sure it doesn’t happen here.”

“So? The Ion Knight was killed. The guy who killed him was killed. The Cape retired. That’s not enough?”

“There’s still unrest. Look, this is difficult but I… we believe that we need both of them out of the way to end this for good. And you’re the only person who would even consider doing what has to be done. You’re not compromised, right?”

I sighed. “No. Crystal got my mask off… was he surprised. But he’s dead. So no.”

“So you’re still our best shot. Go on… be a hero.”

I stood up and glared down at her. “We don’t use the ‘h’ word.”

I left.