Jenny Everywhere: Auntie Matters
Mar. 22nd, 2024 01:31 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
scott_sanfordThis week, an action scene!
I think I'm about done with a certain crossover theme for a while – I never planned to do this much of it at all! – but for now, let's get on with the story.
Jenny Everywhere has no clue about
Auntie Matters
by Scott Sanford; March 2024
Once again there was someone weird in the building.
Not one of the residents; most of them were very colorful people in one way or another, but they were also well known to each other.
Eric hadn’t really expected to see anyone out in the hall as he left his apartment; he might have thought little of a stranger obviously coming or going, but he didn’t recognize the woman in motorcycle leathers who was standing in the hall examining a strange device she held.
Unfamiliar people might go unremarked but any decent mad scientist will notice unfamiliar machinery.
He paused outside his door but she took no notice of him. He figured it was up to him.
“Um, hello,” Eric ventured.
She looked up and regarded him without any particular reaction.
“Hello,” she repeated, a bit later than most people would have.
“Can I help you with anything?” he asked, stepping a bit closer. This would seem polite and also let him get a better look at her gadget.
It was clearly electronic and homemade, with several unlabeled controls and a readout display he couldn’t see. He’d built enough things like that and he wanted to know what hers did.
“I doubt it, young man.”
That didn’t sound encouraging and he wasn’t at all sure he liked her. But if he just left he wouldn’t find out what she was doing.
“Are you here visiting someone?”, he tried.
“No,” she answered coldly. “Or maybe yes. My niece has been here, or she will be. It’s hard to tell with her. I’m looking for her mother and she is much easier to track down to one place than her mother.”
The woman glanced down at the device she held, and Eric guessed it could be some kind of tracking device or navigation system.
“Oh, your niece, huh…”, Eric stalled.
He quickly tallied the obvious features: She was a tall blonde white woman, with a magazine model figure, who was wearing dark sunglasses on a not very bright day. She was probably fairly intelligent, since she was using custom electronics. She also gave him the feeling that she was something dangerous that walked around only pretending to be an ordinary human being – which was disconcerting, but he’d experienced that a few times as well. For anyone who knew the residents of the building there was an obvious answer.
“I think you want apartment eight, upstairs,” he told her.
“Do I? Mm. Perhaps.”
“I don’t know know if she’s home, though.”
“Home? She’s established a nest here? Well, we’ll see about that...”
Scowling, the woman turned and stalked up the stairs.
Eric watched her go. It occurred to him he could take his time locking the apartment door in case something interesting happened.
One floor up he could hear low voices; she’d apparently found someone at home up in apartment eight. They were talking and he could almost make out the conversation. He moved a little down the hall, figuring he could listen without being seen if he were a little careful.
Suddenly the leather clad woman flew down the stairs and slammed into the far wall, dropping to the carpet with a heavy thud. Eric yelped in alarm.
She scrambled frantically and managed to propel herself out of the way before his neighbor Kim from apartment eight landed on the carpet where she had landed. The stranger rushed past Eric and flung herself over the railing to the stairs down the street.
“Eric!” Kim shouted at him, “Tell Jenny and David a Nowhere is here! Then take shelter!”
Nowhere? A Nowhere? He didn’t have time to ask; Kim ran past him and down the stairs. Recognizing there was an emergency, Eric ran upstairs after reinforcements.
At the bottom of the stairs the woman called Nowhere had regained her orientation and stopped in the entry hall to make her stand. She drew her pistol.
As her opponent came down the stairway she gave the other woman a double tap, then again for good measure. Two rounds into center of mass usually do the job, much less four. The noise of the gunshots thundered through the lobby and stairwell. Her pursuer tumbled down to the foot of the stair – and exploded upwards, one fist driving impossibly hard into her torso body armor.
She flew backwards out through the glass front door and onto the sidewalk, coming to a stop against a parked car.
The breath was knocked out of her and things might have gone badly if the local woman hadn’t stopped at the entry to pick up something.
Then she stood up and Nowhere saw that the woman held her own pistol. Things were going very badly.
Nowhere pushed herself into motion and ran for the street corner. Her motorcycle was where she’d left it, the only luck she’d had in the last few minutes, and she wasted no time getting aboard and in motion.
Once she was moving she looked back to see if she needed to worry about being shot with her own gun.
The other woman was not shooting, but chasing her on foot. And she wasn’t falling behind.
Nowhere hit the gas, ignoring a stop sign and blasting through the cross street – nobody was coming, she got away with it – and accelerated.
She barely saw the man who charged out from between two parked cars to body slam into her motorcycle.
She went flying, airborne again, and raised her arms to protect her head. She hit the street hard; she bounced, rolled a few times and came to a stop, her armor abraded but her body mostly intact. The motorcycle was down on the street behind her with a strange man lying on it, and the woman with her pistol was still running after her.
Running away in this universe was out of the question. Nowhere was not completely out of options and it was time for the next one.
Rolling painfully to her feet she summoned a dimensional portal and lurched forward as quickly as she could manage through the gateway of shimmering energy and into another world.
Kim cursed when she saw the portal disappear. The Jenny Nowhere was gone.
“That’s very dramatic,” David observed, picking himself up off of the motorcycle.
“I think it’s all over for now,” she said.
“I’d hope so; I almost ran over young Eric when I heard the shooting. So… what’s all this about, now?”
“One of Jenny’s problems. They call themselves Jenny Nowhere.”
“I didn’t know things were that rough in the music industry,” he said dryly.
Kim laughed quietly.
“But the problem is bad enough to be shooting people in broad daylight?”, he asked pointedly.
“Oh, the pistol? It was hers, the Nowhere had it. And shot it. I don’t really need another 1911 but better me than her.” Reminded that she was still holding a large pistol, Kim tucked it away under her clothes, which didn’t conceal it well but was better than carrying it in her hand.
“Fair enough.” David paused diplomatically and added, “I can see that the other person was the one shooting. You’re going to need a new blouse.”
Kim looked down at her front and said, “Oh.”
“It happens. Well, to people like us it happens.”
“Better me than someone else…” Kim sighed and considered her bullet-riddled blouse, which was obviously beyond saving.
“Heh, yes.” He looked up and down the street and mused, “All this, and nobody’s come out to see?”
“I don’t know how long we’re going to stay lucky. I should leave before someone sees me and asks awkward questions.”
“Both of us, I think, and the motorcycle too.”
“Good idea. I think if we put it back where it was we can ‘notice’ it in a few days and call it in as abandoned,” Kim suggested.
She bent over, lifted it upright, and commented, “It’s a thing from another world, all right. Look at the license plate.”
David did so and wondered aloud, “Wintlevania? Where is that?”
“Jenny Everywhere might know, but I’m sure it’s not any place you or I could get to on a motorcycle.”
Read other Jenny Everywhere stories
The readers know who that woman’s niece is but nobody’s told the characters yet.
Eric made a perfectly reasonable wrong deduction, but it worked out well enough in the end.
That trick of Kim’s of “falling” down the stairs is a thing Sykes and Fairbairn did, like very dangerous Willy Wonkas. I wonder where she picked it up?
How did David get out ahead of Nowhere without being seen? That’s a good question, and one not answered in this story.
The character of Jenny Everywhere is available for use by anyone, with only one condition. This paragraph must be included in any publication involving Jenny Everywhere, in order that others may use this property as they wish. All rights reversed.
I think I'm about done with a certain crossover theme for a while – I never planned to do this much of it at all! – but for now, let's get on with the story.
Auntie Matters
by Scott Sanford; March 2024
Once again there was someone weird in the building.
Not one of the residents; most of them were very colorful people in one way or another, but they were also well known to each other.
Eric hadn’t really expected to see anyone out in the hall as he left his apartment; he might have thought little of a stranger obviously coming or going, but he didn’t recognize the woman in motorcycle leathers who was standing in the hall examining a strange device she held.
Unfamiliar people might go unremarked but any decent mad scientist will notice unfamiliar machinery.
He paused outside his door but she took no notice of him. He figured it was up to him.
“Um, hello,” Eric ventured.
She looked up and regarded him without any particular reaction.
“Hello,” she repeated, a bit later than most people would have.
“Can I help you with anything?” he asked, stepping a bit closer. This would seem polite and also let him get a better look at her gadget.
It was clearly electronic and homemade, with several unlabeled controls and a readout display he couldn’t see. He’d built enough things like that and he wanted to know what hers did.
“I doubt it, young man.”
That didn’t sound encouraging and he wasn’t at all sure he liked her. But if he just left he wouldn’t find out what she was doing.
“Are you here visiting someone?”, he tried.
“No,” she answered coldly. “Or maybe yes. My niece has been here, or she will be. It’s hard to tell with her. I’m looking for her mother and she is much easier to track down to one place than her mother.”
The woman glanced down at the device she held, and Eric guessed it could be some kind of tracking device or navigation system.
“Oh, your niece, huh…”, Eric stalled.
He quickly tallied the obvious features: She was a tall blonde white woman, with a magazine model figure, who was wearing dark sunglasses on a not very bright day. She was probably fairly intelligent, since she was using custom electronics. She also gave him the feeling that she was something dangerous that walked around only pretending to be an ordinary human being – which was disconcerting, but he’d experienced that a few times as well. For anyone who knew the residents of the building there was an obvious answer.
“I think you want apartment eight, upstairs,” he told her.
“Do I? Mm. Perhaps.”
“I don’t know know if she’s home, though.”
“Home? She’s established a nest here? Well, we’ll see about that...”
Scowling, the woman turned and stalked up the stairs.
Eric watched her go. It occurred to him he could take his time locking the apartment door in case something interesting happened.
One floor up he could hear low voices; she’d apparently found someone at home up in apartment eight. They were talking and he could almost make out the conversation. He moved a little down the hall, figuring he could listen without being seen if he were a little careful.
Suddenly the leather clad woman flew down the stairs and slammed into the far wall, dropping to the carpet with a heavy thud. Eric yelped in alarm.
She scrambled frantically and managed to propel herself out of the way before his neighbor Kim from apartment eight landed on the carpet where she had landed. The stranger rushed past Eric and flung herself over the railing to the stairs down the street.
“Eric!” Kim shouted at him, “Tell Jenny and David a Nowhere is here! Then take shelter!”
Nowhere? A Nowhere? He didn’t have time to ask; Kim ran past him and down the stairs. Recognizing there was an emergency, Eric ran upstairs after reinforcements.
At the bottom of the stairs the woman called Nowhere had regained her orientation and stopped in the entry hall to make her stand. She drew her pistol.
As her opponent came down the stairway she gave the other woman a double tap, then again for good measure. Two rounds into center of mass usually do the job, much less four. The noise of the gunshots thundered through the lobby and stairwell. Her pursuer tumbled down to the foot of the stair – and exploded upwards, one fist driving impossibly hard into her torso body armor.
She flew backwards out through the glass front door and onto the sidewalk, coming to a stop against a parked car.
The breath was knocked out of her and things might have gone badly if the local woman hadn’t stopped at the entry to pick up something.
Then she stood up and Nowhere saw that the woman held her own pistol. Things were going very badly.
Nowhere pushed herself into motion and ran for the street corner. Her motorcycle was where she’d left it, the only luck she’d had in the last few minutes, and she wasted no time getting aboard and in motion.
Once she was moving she looked back to see if she needed to worry about being shot with her own gun.
The other woman was not shooting, but chasing her on foot. And she wasn’t falling behind.
Nowhere hit the gas, ignoring a stop sign and blasting through the cross street – nobody was coming, she got away with it – and accelerated.
She barely saw the man who charged out from between two parked cars to body slam into her motorcycle.
She went flying, airborne again, and raised her arms to protect her head. She hit the street hard; she bounced, rolled a few times and came to a stop, her armor abraded but her body mostly intact. The motorcycle was down on the street behind her with a strange man lying on it, and the woman with her pistol was still running after her.
Running away in this universe was out of the question. Nowhere was not completely out of options and it was time for the next one.
Rolling painfully to her feet she summoned a dimensional portal and lurched forward as quickly as she could manage through the gateway of shimmering energy and into another world.
Kim cursed when she saw the portal disappear. The Jenny Nowhere was gone.
“That’s very dramatic,” David observed, picking himself up off of the motorcycle.
“I think it’s all over for now,” she said.
“I’d hope so; I almost ran over young Eric when I heard the shooting. So… what’s all this about, now?”
“One of Jenny’s problems. They call themselves Jenny Nowhere.”
“I didn’t know things were that rough in the music industry,” he said dryly.
Kim laughed quietly.
“But the problem is bad enough to be shooting people in broad daylight?”, he asked pointedly.
“Oh, the pistol? It was hers, the Nowhere had it. And shot it. I don’t really need another 1911 but better me than her.” Reminded that she was still holding a large pistol, Kim tucked it away under her clothes, which didn’t conceal it well but was better than carrying it in her hand.
“Fair enough.” David paused diplomatically and added, “I can see that the other person was the one shooting. You’re going to need a new blouse.”
Kim looked down at her front and said, “Oh.”
“It happens. Well, to people like us it happens.”
“Better me than someone else…” Kim sighed and considered her bullet-riddled blouse, which was obviously beyond saving.
“Heh, yes.” He looked up and down the street and mused, “All this, and nobody’s come out to see?”
“I don’t know how long we’re going to stay lucky. I should leave before someone sees me and asks awkward questions.”
“Both of us, I think, and the motorcycle too.”
“Good idea. I think if we put it back where it was we can ‘notice’ it in a few days and call it in as abandoned,” Kim suggested.
She bent over, lifted it upright, and commented, “It’s a thing from another world, all right. Look at the license plate.”
David did so and wondered aloud, “Wintlevania? Where is that?”
“Jenny Everywhere might know, but I’m sure it’s not any place you or I could get to on a motorcycle.”
The readers know who that woman’s niece is but nobody’s told the characters yet.
Eric made a perfectly reasonable wrong deduction, but it worked out well enough in the end.
That trick of Kim’s of “falling” down the stairs is a thing Sykes and Fairbairn did, like very dangerous Willy Wonkas. I wonder where she picked it up?
How did David get out ahead of Nowhere without being seen? That’s a good question, and one not answered in this story.
