Welcome to Ghostliness & Nerfherders Presents: Paper Girls, Issue #23! In the previous installment, Wari is an old woman hanging out in 2171. She and Jahpo are siblings, as it turns out (or at least as Wari is leading him to believe). He gets word that his team has narrowed down the whereabouts of the girls and only a few more pieces of the puzzle remain. Suspense!

Meanwhile, Tiff accidentally breaks the Tree of Knowledge while kicking the librarian’s ass, so now they need to figure out what to do next. The girls split up with walkie-talkies; Mac/KJ together, and Erin/Tiffs on the other team. At the end of the issue, Mac and KJ hear a distress call over the walkie-talkie. A voice cries for help because someone’s dead!

“Who… who was that?” Mac asks.

“How do you not recognize that voice?” KJ responds. “It was you.”

Chills!

Paper Girls, Issue #23 [August, 2018]
Written by: Brian K. Vaughan

Seven of Nine on the cover trying to sell you her black market antiques! Get an 8-track tape while you still can!

Looks like the peddler woman and the police didn’t actually kill each other. She’s running around the deserted streets of downtown while the police fly around the buildings looking for her. Her zap gun is at the ready.

She overhears the voices of preteen girls…

“Careful,” Tiff says as they approach one of those Futurama suicide booths. “I wouldn’t go in there if I was you.”

“Yeah, well, I’m kind of the only person in this trio who isn’t you, Tiffany,” Erin snaps back haughtily.

Erin thinks she has stumbled upon a phone booth, but the Tiffs are not at all confident. “Maybe it’s another time machine? Like in Bill & Ted’s.

Come on, Double-Oh Tiff. Don’t you know Bill & Ted doesn’t come out until 1989? She thought for sure she had seen it by the time she was 12, but I guess not.

ANYWAY, the booth starts filling up with gas, and panic from all parties ensues. When Tiff readies to throw her walkie-talkie at the glass, the peddler stops her. “U crays 1ah bringbak de BluLifes?!”

Those two owe me $12 for that album by the Shaggs I sold them six years ago.

The Tiffs are like “hey, we thought you were dead, that’s funny” while Erin bangs on the glass angrily. “Ducalm. Yusta KleenBox,” the woman assures her. It’s for bugs. Like lice. Giant lice. I guess that’s a problem in the year MMCLXXI? “U3 talklike Cherch kin. Wear u btchz frum?”

She hits a button and starts speaking 1988. The girls ask her if she knows a woman named Wari. Yeah, she knows a Wari all right. Fuck Wari.

“The Wari we met was Jahpo’s mother,” Erin says, confused, when the woman calls Wari his sister. She ain’t got no dang clue where one can find her, although the newspaper did a story on her a few months ago. The woman opens up her coat to reveal a photo of Wari smiling with the city in the background. Erin recognizes one of the buildings.

No time for talking anymore. The police are still giving chase! “Scatter!” the woman yells, and then she runs off. Doesn’t matter, Erin is content with the conversation. She got what she needed! Now to just–

*kzzt* “Michelangelo to Donatello, can you hear me Donatello?” *kzzt*

Tiff is Donatello. Michelangelo is Mac BECAUSE OF THE ORANGE HAIR, GET IT? I figured that out by context! Mac wants to know if the others heard anything weird on the radio just now. They answer in the negative. Over and out.

Mac shrugs this off completely, while KJ is still very much concerned like a normal person. The ambulance they were chasing was left open by the paramedics, so they start moving to sneak into the vehicle to see if they can find some cancer cough syrup.

“I’m just saying, if that really was some kind of… of future broadcast, the person you were saying was dead was probably me,” KJ says, not letting it go. It’s like, come on! Let it go! Mac’s gonna die next, don’t you get it. Cancer cure, remember! Let’s GO. Plus, if KJ had the visions then she would know what’s gonna happen, right?

“Were either of us dead in your vision?” Mac asks pointedly.

“Uh-uh,” KJ answers, looking down. “We were… romantic.”

UGGHHHH. GODDAMNIT, KJ.

“The two of us?” Mac squints. “As in, you and me…?”

“Yeah.”

…

“That’s disgusting.”

KJ apologizes, but Mac shoves her away and tells her not to touch her. KJ looks heartbroken. Mac looks equally sad for a panel, but then reverts back to angry. “If you want to grow up to be a pervert, I can’t stop you. But it’s got jack to do with me, got it?”

“Got it,” KJ says, standing back up.

Mac runs into the hospital. KJ, trailing, grabs a future-scalpel from the ambulance and follows her in.

Time for KJ to cut a bitch.

Using controlled Folding procedures (VUR VUR VUR VURRRRRR), Alister has safely travelled to November 1, 1988 where this all started (and he’s gonna get hella killed because we’ve already been through this).

“True to form, it looks as if the little thief and his accomplices have been pilfering archaic hardware from each area they’ve invaded,” Alister reports as he rummages through a sack of electronics, include Tiff’s walkie-talkie. I must reiterate that this is some first storyline shit. Alister calls for backup, and backup comes in the form of a hella violet sky. This is just about the time that Erin gets shot, fans will remember! And I’m a fan!

Erin and the Tiffs are taking an elevator in a high-rise and checking the hallways of one floor at a time. “Trust me, this is definitely the right place,” Erin says as all evidence points to the contrary. There ain’t anything here, Erin. Stop being so confident, Erin.

They all go down the hallway arguing until they’re stopped by Wari’s eyeball caretaker. “Good evening. How are you, Erin Tieng?”

Why does this eyeball know her? And it doesn’t know the Tiffs, so it takes its arms and starts strangling the both of them against the walls. “LET THEM GO!” Erin screams insomuch as Erin can scream. It’s pretty loud these days. She takes out a trusty pocket knife and starts considering cutting the robot arms off, but then Wari appears to call off her robot. “Stop it, goddamnit. Turn yourself off, machine.”

It gladly does.

Wow! Wow! It’s the old hag! Things are going to fine now!

“Wari, it’s me, Erin. I don’t know if you remember, but we met, like, thousands of years ago. I was the girl from the future? Well, it used to be the future, but now I guess it’s–”

Cork it, Erin. Wari remembers. In fact, according to her, Erin was just here the other day! And it’s like, buh-what?! Why is everything crazy in the future? This shit is crazy! What’s going on here! BLUBB BLUBUBUBUB! BLBUBBBUB!

Ain’t I a stinker?

The hospital is full of really injured people. It looks like an emergency room. A doctor enters a room that says “STAFF ONLY – NO PATIENTS” and finds a couple of girls who are definitely not STAFF ONLY.

“You speak Olde English?” the doctor says after KJ tells him that who they are is none of his concern. “And you do too, huh?” Mac replies. “Awesome, ‘cause I’m just looking for some kind of booster shot, and then I promise we’ll be out of your hair.”

The doctor, who has no hair by the way, tells Mac to open her mouth. She complies. “That’s what I thought,” he says. “There’s nothing I can do for you.”

It’s because she doesn’t have an insurance chip lodged in her whatever. He can’t help she who is not covered. I guess health care is still shitty in the year 2171. KJ pulls out her scalpel and threatens the doctor with the ol’ slice and dice. “You wouldn’t be the first guy I’ve killed, understand?” He understands. “Cool. You help my friend stay alive, I do the same for you.”

Mac looks at her like she’s gonna kiss her. “Badass,” she smiles.

Final Thoughts

That’s right, Doc! You just go ahead and give her some of those good cancer pills. Real nice like. That’s a good lad.