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Call Me Nowhere was the title of Chapter Two of the Jenny Everywhere webcomic Jenny and the Multiverse, created by Aristide Twain.
Contents
Plot
Lying on Laura Drake's couch in Drake Manor, Jenny Everywhere is telling Laura (who has bamboozled her into thinking she has a psychiatry degree) about a recurring dream she's been having, in which she sees herself as a butterfly flying through an iridescent void, and being drawn to a group of other butterflies which she somehow knows represent other versions of herself. Before she gets to the end, Laura interrupts her and reveals that she has come to a conclusion: Jenny has been lying about no longer having any shifting powers.
Startled, Jenny abruptly shifts onto the roof of the Manor, then to an alien landscape, to the countryside, and finally back into Laura's living room. Unbeknownst to her, her wanderings are being remotely monitored by a dark figure in a high-tech lab. Back at Drake Manor, Laura explains that she's simply concerned about Jenny's safety — something Jenny alleviates by showing her that she's been practicing and can now reliably aim her shifts, at least when she's emotionally stable — and that she feels hurt that Jenny kept this a secret from her even though they'd originally planned to study her powers together, prior to them supposedly “disappearing”. Jenny apologetically explains that, while she still wants to trust Laura, she finds it more difficult to face the prospect of sharing her secrets with her new employers at the Altern Corporation.
Indeed, the dark figure, revealed to be the Man in Grey, is none other than the CEO of Altern. Concerned that Jenny may be swaying Laura away from Altern, the Man in Grey orders Colonel Major to pay her a visit to threaten her back into line. He also tells the Colonel to summon Nowhere and have her take Jenny into custody as “her powers are advancing faster than [the Man in Grey] expected”.
Two hours later, Jenny and Laura are hard at work testing the limits of Jenny's powers in the living room, with Jenny filling it up with clutter as she summons randm objects to her. Laura is so deeply engrossed by the notes she's taking that she entirely fails to notice as a menacing-looking woman in elegant blue clothing first rings the doorbell, then, losing patience, shifts directly into the living room. She introduces herself as “Nowhere” and asks Jenny to come with her to meet “Elias Altern”. When Jenny makes to refuse, Nowhere instantly pulls a gun on her; Jenny shifts it right out of Nowhere's hand, but this only annoys Nowhere further, and, grabbing onto Jenny's forearm, Nowhere abducts her in a two-person shift. Only after they've vanished from the room does Laura look up and wonder where Jenny's gotten to.
The pair rematerialise in an eerie void dotted with hovering discs of various colours and sizes, which Nowhere explains is the Unfinite: “[her] place… or [her] no-place, perhaps”, an empty dimension where only Nowhere's powers work. Jenny is confused at the thought of another shifter, as she still believes she got her powers in a freak accident when she was shocked by the damaged Triangular Bisector; Laura laughs off the notion, explaining that shifters are born, not made, with the accident only having awakened Jenny's latent potential. Nowhere was born with the same potential, which she believes makes the two of them “sisters, of a kind”.
Meanwhile, back at Drake Manor, the doorbell is rung again. Laura rushes to the door, wondering if Jenny shifted again by accident. Instead, she finds the Colonel, who explains that he works for Altern, much to Laura's dismay. Strolling right in, the affable but pushy man then asks where she keeps her dishes.
In the Unfinite, Jenny has agreed to listen to what Nowhere has to say. Nowhere explains the nature of the Multiverse and shifters to Jenny, speaking of her own miscellany of counterparts. Stating that it is a “rare and valuable gift”, she tells Jenny that Altern's founder, the Man in Grey, is himself a shifter — the oldest on “this plane” — who created the company as a front to allow shifters to look after one another. Jenny cautiously accepts this account of Altern's motivations, but still remains guarded, chastising Nowhere for pulling a gun on her so quickly if her intentions really were benevolent.
In Laura's kitchen, the Colonel is busy proving Altern's untrustworthiness as he calmly smashes all of Laura's dishes. After finishing, he asks Laura why she hasn't tried to stop his vandalism, and, when she tries to dodge the question, interrupts her to spell out the point of the exercise: she knows that, as an agent of Altern, he can do whatever he wishes to her without fear of her fighting back, lest she incur Altern's wrath.
Things in the Unfinite reach a boiling point as Nowhere's attempts to persuade Jenny of the Man in Grey's good intentions flounder in the face of Jenny's continued scepticism. Finally, one of Jenny's sarcastic quips burns through the remainder of Nowhere's temper and she sends a burst of shifter energy at Jenny, intending to send her directly to the Man in Grey. Jenny leaps out of the way just in time, and the beam hits one of the discs instead. This only buys her a short respite as Nowhere teleports closer to her and forcibly shifts her once again after grabbing on to her neck; however, when they arrive at Altern HQ, they find that the disc materialised at the Man in Grey's exact location — and fatally crushed him. Now able to use her powers for herself, Jenny takes advantage of Nowhere's distress to shift away.
When she rematerialises back at Drake Manor, Jenny is feeling rather under the weather, commenting that “that shift was rough”, to the point that she “might have forgotten a month of [her] life, there. And how to ride a bike”. Laura is extremely startled by her reappearance, and begins bombarding her with worried questions; Jenny is confused, explaining that if she should be concerned about anyone, it's Nowhere and the boss she apparently shared with Laura herself. Laura is confused at Jenny believing Elias Altern to be dead: unbeknownst to Jenny, seconds after she left Altern HQ, the Man in Grey's mangled body reformed in a blaze of magical fire, immediately jumping to calmly threatening Nowhere with dire consequences if she fails him again. Back in the present, Laura gradually realises that there is a crucial point of which Jenny has no awareness: while she believes herself to have come directly from Altern HQ, from Laura and the rest of Mystepolia's perspective it's actually been over a year since she disappeared with Nowhere.
Worldbuilding
Jenny Everywhere
- This story stars the 775th Universe's Jenny Everywhere. Her full civilian name is revealed to be Jenny Smith, and it is established that she grew up as an orphan.
- In a dream sequence which puts her in contact with her other selves, Jenny has a vision of a crowd of other Jennies. These include:
- A green-skinned Jenny with pointy green hair and pointy ears, appearing to be a goblin, who wears purple strap-less goggles over her eyes and a light red scarf;
- A brown-haired, light-skinned Jenny with a pink scarf and square goggles, wearing her hair in a bun.
- A round-faced, Asian Jenny somewhat resembling the original Jenny as depicted in COMIC: Tribute. She wears a dark red scarf and blue-tinted goggles with a gray strap.
- A red-haired Jenny with a cowlick, strongly resembling a female Tintin and wearing a small, azure-blue scarf.
- A long-faced Jenny with an aquiline nose and short black hair, wearing a striped orange-and-red scarf, silver-rimmed goggles with a green strap, and a forest-green green button-up coat.
- The “Reality Z-25 31-H” Jenny Everywhere introduced in COMIC: Ghost Story and subsequently seen in The Cosmic Beholder and Kaza's Mate, Gwenna with some regularity. In allusion to her repeated appearances in nudist webcomics, she is only wearing her red scarf anf purple-strapped goggles, although the blocking of the scene preserves her modesty from the reader's perspective.
- A short, dark-skinned Jenny with a large nose and short, curly hair, wearing a checkered orange scarf, large blue-tinted goggles which conceal her eyes, a vermillion T-shirt or sweater, green trousers, and blue shoes.
- The Parallax Universe's Jenny Everywhere as seen in Scott Sanford's Jenny Everywhere stories.
- A Jenny who appears to be a radically-non-humanoid winged, serpentine dragon or wyvern with blue scales, still wearing a pair of goggles.
- The 38167th Universe's Jenny Everywhere as seen in The Crew of the Copper-Colored Cupids, wearing her original standard outfit.
- A Jenny who appears only as a distorted, blue-green, gaseous image of a smiling face with a goggle and scarf, perhaps reflecting a gaseous version of the character.
- A Jenny with pointy pink hair and light blue skin, atypically not wearing a visible scarf or goggles.
- A Jenny who appears to be an earthworm wearing a green scarf and blue goggles, evidently an allusion to the “Would you still love me if I was a worm?” meme.
- The Westbrook, Wisconsin Jenny of COMIC: The Jenny Everywhere Chronicles makes a cameo on one of the monitors in the Man in Grey's laboratory.
Laura Drake
- This story features the 775th Universe's version of Laura Drake.
Jenny Nowhere
- This story properly introduces the 775th Universe's Jenny Nowhere, revealing a woman in the audience at Laura's demo in COMIC: The Demon and the Butterfly to have been her. She appears as a pale-skinned woman with piercing azure-blue eyes, with blonde hair cut in a 1920s-style bob, and sporting heavy purple make-up. She wears a blue skirt and cape whose clasp is adorned with a blue gem, as well as a bluish-purple, shirtless vest, a light blue ascot, and dark purple boots with pointy toes. She is shown to be an elite agent of the Man in Grey, who raised her since childhood; an orphan like Jenny Everywhere, she believes the Man in Grey set up the Altern Corporation as a front to allow shifters to help one another.
- Multiple versions of Jenny Nowhere are pictured when the primary one discusses the existence of her infinite counterparts:
- A Jenny Nowhere with very short, light-green hair and white skin, wearing dark blue clothing and pinkish-red goggles.
- A Jenny Nowhere with blue skin and stringy, flaxen hair, similarly wearing a dark blue turtleneck.
- A Jenny Nowhere with ordinary light skin, very light straight blond hair, and glowing red eyes.
- A more elderly-looking Jenny Nowhere with unkempt flaxen hair and grayish skin, who also sports pointed ears and forest-green outfit with a golden clap and a large collar.
- A smiling Jenny Nowhere wearing a lighter blue sweater, with ordinary white skin, normal eyes, and electric-blue hair.
- The Vertginite Jenny Nowhere from COMIC: The Jenny Everywhere Chronicles.
- A Jenny Nowhere with blank eyes and gray skin, whose outfit strongly resembles the climactic look of Jobu Tupaki in the film Everything Everywhere All at Once, a character who has often drawn comparisons to Jenny Nowhere.
- The 38167th Universe Jenny Nowhere as introduced in The Crew of the Copper-Colored Cupids.
- An bestial, gold-furred Jenny Nowhere 7 with bared fangs and intensely blue eyes, wearing a gothic, Dracula-esque cape.
The Man in Grey
- This story introduces the 775th Universe's version of the Man in Grey. Operating under the name of Elias Altern, he is shown to be reclusive CEO of the Altern Corporation. He appears as a gaunt, completely monochrome man with pointed ears and white hair, wearing a grey, military-style cassock. His right eye has a dark grey sclera and dark grey iris, while his left eye has the reverse. Notably, he has five fingers on each hand, unlike the rest of the Mystepolian cast.
- After he is seemingly killed, the Man in Grye's body erupts into yellow-green flames, charring his remains down to the bones before he reforms the rest of his body around it in a few seconds, until he is exactly identical to how he was before his accident.
- Jenny Nowhere states that the Man in Grey is a shifter, the oldest living one in the 775th Universe, and that he founded Altern to protect others of his kind, taking Nowhere herself in when she was a child; she states that he raised her and “made [her] all that [she is]”. Though she believes him to be a “good man”, his treatment of her is less than affectionate.
Universes
- This story takes place in the 775th Universe and in the Unfinite.
Other
- On Laura Drake's wall is a small painting of a blue hand with a single eye, surrounded by beams of light, labelled as Gosh. The characters swear by “Gosh” several times in dialogue; the implication is that this is an actual deity within Mystepolian religion, rather than a euphemism for “God”.
Continuity
- The story picks up after the events of COMIC: The Demon and the Butterfly, and connects to it in multiple specific ways:
- The identity of Laura's new employers, mentioned on the last page, is established.
- Two of the people in the crowd are revealed to have been Jenny Nowhere and Colonel Major.
- Laura notes that Jenny's powers sometimes cause minor fluctuations in her own person, such as her clothes or her eye colour; this was foreshadowed in The Demon and the Butterfly where Jenny's bowtie inexplicably changed colours between pages.
- Jenny refers to her belief that she got her powers in “the accident with the Bisector”, which a brief flashback visual of Jenny being shocked by its energy being included in her speech bubble.
- Versions of both Jenny Everywhere and Jenny Nowhere from COMIC: The Jenny Everywhere Chronicles make cameos in glimpses of other realities, with art from the earlier comic being incorporated into the new compositions.
- The Unfinite, Jenny Nowhere's equivalent of the Infinite, originated in the discontinued Quark Time webcomic.
Behind the scenes
Read online
This comic is and remains available on ComicFury. It is also reproduced here with permission.
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