The Disappearance of Jenny Everywhere (short story)
The Disappearance of Jenny Everywhere was a standalone Jenny Everywhere prose story written by Lupan Evezan for Jenny Everywhere Day in 2021. In addition to Jenny herself, it featured numerous members of the Jenny Everywhere recurring cast.
Contents
Plot
Jenny Everywhere has disappeared — not just one of her but apparently all of her, every Jenny Everywhere in every reality! Her various friends and allies start looking for her. The first is Jenny Anywhere, who, convinced that Jenny Nowhere must be responsible, defeats one incarnation of her in combat and then tries to interrogate her. However, Nowhere makes it clear that she does not have the power to do such a thing, and wouldn't want to anyway; her existence would become meaningless if she had no Everywhere to oppose. Anywhere goes and checks her usual meeting-place with Everywhere one more time, in vain.
In another universe, Laura Drake is worried about her Jenny's unexplained disappearance. Using technology covertly borrowed from her employers, she creates an interdimensional portal guided by her thoughts and jumps in. After donning some protective equipment, she jumps in.
Meanwhile, the increasingly desperate Jenny Anywhere beats up a serpentine monster, trying to make it confess that it ate Jenny Everywhere (when, it fact, it has never heard of her). Hakhe, who has joined up with Anywhere, finally convinces her to stop her largely useless rampage. She proposes that they instead look for some way to check the Infinite to see if there are any remaining Jennies there.
Still falling through the Multiverse, Laura catches various glimpses of other dimensions and timelines, seeing that Jenny is missing everywhere, not just in her world. She also catches glimpses of various past adventures of the various Jennies. She begs the Multiverse itself to help her find Jenny, and — coincidentally or otherwise — a portal opens in front of her…
Elsewhere, aboard the Wilson, Michael Wherever and “Lit” discuss the matter of their own Jenny's disappearance. Michael has decided to try to force the ship itself to jump into the Infinite to look for Jenny, which should be impossible; although he has found a way to break in by pumping “a cache of Jenny's genetic make-up and a ludicrous amount of power” into the Wilson, the operation will still be dangerous. Despite Lit's doubt, they agree to go together.
Elsewhere still, an entity known as the Fallen One is stirring. Being “the gestalt consciousness of thousands of the many monsters felled by the Shifter — held together by hatred and vengeance and the all-consuming power of Chaos that blanketed this universe”, it plans to take advantage of Jenny's disappearance, although it did not cause said disappearance.
Anywhere and Laura meet up with Jenny Somewhere, who, as an imperfect clone of Jenny, should be able to help them make the jump to the Infinite if they combine her latent Jenny-ness with Anywhere and Hakhe's more accurate shift-aiming skills. They shift to the Void between universes, which Somewhere finds it easier to jump from if she is trying to reach a particular destination. However, they bounce off the edge of the Infinite when they try, despite coming close to said edge.
However, they find renewed hope when Laura joins them in the Void, having been deposited there by the portal that materialised in front of her. Using Laura's close connection to Jenny, they finally manage to enter the Infinite, finding it to be a stirring and unique experience. However, the Shifter herself is nowhere to be found, even after the Wilson joins the group of Anywhere, Somewhere, Hakhe and Laura.
In defeat, the group of Jenny's friends head to “small seaside town” which was apparently one of Jenny's favourite old haunts. Not finding any hint of Jenny even there, they begin to believe her to be truly gone, and to mourn her. As they sit, however, the city itself keeps getting gloomier, until they realise that they are surrounded by the Fallen One, who is intent on taking posthumous revenge on the Shifter by destroying her dearest companions. After a moment of despair, however, Jenny's companions agree that she would want and expect them to stand up to the darkness all by themselves, and a battle begins between the fierce interdimensional travellers and the formless, shapeshifting evil.
Although the creature manages (barely) to survive the onslaught from Jenny's companions, it finally vanishes when Jenny Everywhere herself drops out of the sky, finally returning to the universe. A little sheepish, she explains to her companions that, once every millennia, most of her incarnations retreat “for a week or so” to a “secret realm beyond Time” to “rejuvenate” their psychic connection, returning to the Multiverse afterwards with no clear memories of what precisely transpired in the secret realm. She congratulates them on how they held their own against the Fallen One, and promises not to disappear again without warning them first, finishing off with a toast (of literal toast rather than alcohol) to “the Shifters! And to every story we’ve had — and will have!”.
Worldbuilding
Universes
- One universe is home to a “rain-soaked city” where Jenny Everywhere often meets up with Jenny Anywhere on a particular bench.
- In another world (previously seen in PROSE: Jenny Everywhere and the Lord of Hell), Laura Drake and Jenny Everywhere studied together and remain best friends.
- Characters visit the Void and the Infinite.
- A certain seaside town in one universe was the first place several incarnations of Jenny took Laura Drake or Jenny Anywhere upon first showing them her shifting powers. Within the timeframe of the story itself Jenny's friends congregate there to mourn her when they believe her dead.
Jenny Everywhere
- While “tumbling through the Multiverse”, Laura catches sight of many incarnations of Jennies in the middle of various adventures, including “fighting off villains — liberating entire planets — riding a dragon — taming a comet — flying with Amelia Earhart — doing anything and everything imaginable”.
- Incarnations of Jenny discussed at specific length include Laura's friend who once helped her defeat a Demon, Michael's friend above the Wilson, and an incarnation who is good friends with Jenny Anywhere and often meets up with her in one universe. The Jenny who reappears physically at the end is not formally identified.
Jenny Anywhere
- Jenny Anywhere wears a “scarlet overcoat”. Jenny Nowhere derisively refers to her as a “knockoff” and a "copycat”. She suggests that Anywhere usually seeks Everywhere's approval.
Jenny Nowhere
- Jenny Nowhere appears in an incarnation fully integrated into the psychic network of Nowhere counterparts, allowing her to check all of her other selves' memories.
Laura Drake
- Laura Drake knows about Jenny's shifting abilities (but not, apparently, about there being other Lauras in other Jennies' lives). After they finished with their studies, Jenny helped Laura get a job with the Altern Corporation, one of the leading scientific innovators in their world.
Other
- Michael mentions that “the synchs” can't detect any version of Jenny.
- Laura Drake has invented a Heat Ray.
Continuity
- Jenny Anywhere uses shift-proof chains to bind Jenny Nowhere in place. Such chains were previously seen in PROSE: Jenny Everywhere and the Lord of Hell. The versions of Jenny Everywhere and Laura Drake primarily featured are also the ones from that story.
- Micheal Wherever and the Illumination were created by Benj Christensen for The Jenny Everywhere Chronicles, where they crewed aboard the Wilson with a Jenny Everywhere. The characters also visit the Infinite, which was first seen in that story, and Chaos is mentioned as potentially being an aspect of the Fallen One.
- The “seaside town” which is “one of Jenny's oldest haunts”, and is noted to be home to a pier and a coffee shop which were both places where Jenny would often hang out, is a transparent allusion to Right-On By The Sea, the setting of two of the earliest Jenny Everywhere stories ever: COMIC: Name's Not Down and COMIC: Damn Fine Hostile Takeover.
- Michael Wherever demonstrates an apparently recently-acquired ability to teleport in bursts of purple smoke, previously seen in Benj Christensen's 2010 Jenny Everywhere Day comic.
- The premise of all Jenny's incarnations disappearing at once was later followed up in PROSE: The Absquatulation of Jenny Everywhere.
Behind the scenes
Read online
This story is available on the Jenny Everywhere Day website. It was also re-released in a slightly-edited form on the Jenny Everywhere Stories website.
