Dirk Gently and The Ghosts of Time

A New Coat of Red Paint

Bart sat in her room, cross legged, deep in thought, staring at the white wall with her symbol, alone. Completely and utterly alone. She hated it. Every second of it. She hated every second of every day.

Eight months of nothing. Sitting alone all day, except for her brief visits with Ken, doing absolutely nothing. Nothing... until today.

This morning she got the news from Ken.

Ken walked into the room, smiling. Smiling was concerning.

"Good morning, Bart!" He sat down at the table.

She cautiously walked over, "Ken, you're smiling. You haven't smiled in months."

"I KNOW! You'll never guess what happened!" He laughed.

"Ken, you're scaring me."

"We found something! Something exciting! And we think it can lead us to Icarus!"

"Dirk?"

"YES!"

And for some reason, somehow it felt as if it was all her fault. Everything. All those people she killed, did they have to die? What if she wasn't supposed to kill some of them?

Or possibly worse, were there people she should have killed but didn't? She knew of two people who fit that description, one of them was imprisoned in an alternate dimension for all of time, and the other was in the same building as her.

"You know I really want to kill you right now, right?" She stared at her lap.

"I'm well aware."

"No," she looked up, "I always say, every day, 'I should have killed you when I had the chance.' Today I'm saying 'I want to kill you.'"

"Well, what's the difference?" He raised his eyebrow.

"I'm saying... what's stopping me? Why haven't I done it?"

But she didn't. She never did. Today she came very close.

"Hm?"

"Like, what if I did it right now?"

And she kicked herself that she didn't.

"What if, I walked over to the other side of the table, and took my hands, and I just strangled you? What if I did that?"

"Then the guards would come in and kill you."

"They can't. So what's stopping me?"

"I think you're stopping you."

And... he was right.

"I'm not stopping me."

He bent over the table, "I think that you're stopping you, and I think you know it."

"Why would I be stopping me?"

Because...

"You care about me."

"I do no-"

"You do."

She did. And it killed her. It killed her. And she screamed, she screamed at the top her lungs and punched her pillow.

"Goodbye, Bart. See you tomorrow." He got up and left.

"See ya."

But what she didn't know? She wouldn't see him tomorrow. Sitting there, all alone, screaming at herself for her stupidity, a fly flew through a vent. A fly, that wasn't a fly. No, not a fly at all, but: