The Late Shift (comic story)
The Late Shift was a standalone one-page Jenny Everywhere comic story written by Rob Cave and drawn by Nelson Evergreen, designed as an introduction to the character circa 2004. It is fifth in the official order of the original Barbelith Jenny Everywhere stories (fourth counting both halves of Damn Fine Hostile Takeover as one story) and is also the earliest known Jenny Everywhere story to contain a link to the Doctor Who universe in homage to the inspiration provided by the Doctor for the character of the Shifter herself.
Contents
Plot
While about to be executed by a firing squad, Jenny Everywhere begins introducing herself, noting that her current predicament is nothing for her to worry about. She proves this by shifting away from the burning, war-torn city in an instant. As she is dematerialising, she notes that "there are many people who get in more trouble than [her]", as evidenced by the fact that a blue box is even now materialising in front of the firing squad in her stead.
Resurfacing in another body, Jenny continues to expound on her nature and abilities. As she uses her scarf as a lasso to escape from the jaws of a T-rex, she mentions that her scarf and goggles belonged to "her mom", who was apparently a famous air-pilot before she disappeared. Mid-explanation, Jenny ends up in a different body, at the controls of a biplane herself, and in the middle of a dogfight at that — whereupon she laments that she does not actually know how to fly a plane herself.
As she is coming down using a parachute, she realises that she is late for something, and hurries back into this particular consciousness's original body — a retail worker who is late for her shift! Ironically, although she does not appear to notice, a few of the Jennies whose bodies she borrowed during her explanation appear to be waiting in the queue, too…
Worldbuilding
Jenny
- Jenny Everywhere speaks about her scarf and goggles, and about "her mom", in a way which suggests they are constants across all versions of her.
- She displays the ability to shift mentally to another Jenny in another dimension, all while causing the body she was previously inhabiting to disappear from wherever she was before.
- Jenny notes that she cannot actually fly a plane.
- Four different Jennies appear in body in this story.
- The one whose consciousness is focused on is a retail worker with the standard Asian look, short, straight black hair, and a checkered shirt.
- A Jenny with Asian features but short pale hair, and wearing a tiger-stripes jacket is in the middle of an adventure in the Third Universe.
- A black-skinned Jenny with braids is having an adventure in a prehistoric Earth, meeting a dinosaur.
- Finally, one Jenny who has the standard look but wears square goggles is in the middle of a WWI-style biplane dogfight.
Universes
- In this story, Jenny shifts between four universes:
- The first one seen is home to the Doctor's TARDIS. Only one location is seen, a city in flames where Jenny was facing a firing squad.
- In “Universe B”, Jenny explores a prehistoric jungle where she meets a T-rex, although it's not clear if she is simply in that universe's past or if it is significantly different from “normal Earth” in its present.
- Similarly, what is seen of “Universe C” is a WWI-style biplane dogfight, but it is not clear if time-travel was involved or if it is a retrofuturistic world even in the 21st century.
- In “Universe D”, a seemingly non-supernatural world aside from Jennies' visits, Jenny is a retail worker in some sort of bookshop.
Other
- Jenny Everywhere's mother was a famous pilot until she disappeared.
Continuity
- COMIC: The Death of Jenny Everywhere alluded to the biplane-pilot Jenny, suggesting that she had died in the plane crash, although she appears to parachute to safety.
- This story's main Jenny, as seen in the title illustration, was one of the incarnations glimpsed by the Nommo in COMIC: Say The Word.
- While dazed and confused, Jenny Everywhere in PROSE: Paperback Writer mentions “her bi-plane”.
- The idea that Jenny got her scarf and goggles from her mother was echoed in PROSE: The Hermetic Garbage of Jenny Everywhere, where the mother in question is however not Amelia Earhart was originally implied, but the dimensional traveller Amelia Midnight.
- PROSE: A World of Pure Unimagination implies that the Jenny in this story, native to the Third Universe, was rewritten by the Unravel to become "Achron Everywhere", a male incarnation.
Behind the scenes
Read online
The Late Shift was originally available on JennyEverywhere.com, which is now offline. We thus reproduce the single page of The Late Shift below.
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