Paper Girls, Issue #29

* Part 4 of 5 of the Paper Girls Volume 6 storyline *

Welcome to Ghostliness & Nerfherders Presents: Paper Girls, Issue #29! In the previous installment…

Tiff is urged to start communicating with her contemporaries, but a sudden rift in time has caused a massive amount of distrust. She sees KJ through a portal and things blow up.

Mac watched Braunstein die and then jumps into her time capsule, setting a course for November 1, 1988. Then things blow up.

KJ hangs out with Jude a bit and sees Tiff through a portal. And then things blow up.

Erin argues with Jahpo for about two minutes before he shoots one of those crazy upside-down pyramids. Something blows up.

You’re not going to understand any of this! Read the series yourself and then come back.

Paper Girls, Issue #29 [June, 2019]
Written by: Brian K. Vaughan

Mac’s time capsule is zip zip zooming through time and space and she’s fucking yelling and flailing. “Warning: AppleX User Terms and Conditions have been updated. Our arrival point has been altered by a second party.”

Mac doesn’t know what any of that means, but she sighs defeated. “I’m never getting back to Stony Stream, am I?” she grumbles.

“…next stop, Stony Stream,” the computer chirps and unfurls a parachute. “Error 717: We are approaching the requested geographical location, but the incorrect temporal designation.”

Ah, so Stony Stream in a different time period, huh? What else is fucking new? “Time Capsule, what year is it? Are there gonna be goddamn dinosaurs when I step out there?”

It’s August 2, 1831. It’s about noon, but everyone in the town is asleep. Welcome, and enjoy your stay. Mac walks out onto the street, unnerved, cane at the ready for walloping anyone who tries any funny business. She asks the capsule how long it will take to get to 1988, but the capsule needs to preserve its remaining battery life for Qanta Braunstein’s last will and testament. “Confirmed, delivering to primary beneficiary,” it says before closing its door and vaporizing into thin air before Mac’s eyes.

She barely has time to process being stuck in 1831 when a kinda familiar faces pops in to say hi. “Thank goodness you made it, Mac. If your bad ass hadn’t survived to join us, the entire third dimension would have shattered like a… a… what do you call the top of a crème brulée?”

Old Tiff helps Mac off the ground.

Would a lobotomy really be so bad? You get to have ice cream afterwards! …or is that a tonsillectomy? Does it really matter? Bring it on.

“Tiffany! You’re not dead yet!” Mac smiles profusely. 19 Erin clarifies Tiff’s claims a bit. They’re not trying to hurt anyone. They’re just as invested as the girls are about getting back to 1988. Some memories need to be adjusted, is all. Everything that happened happened, but none of them can continue their lives with the information they’ve gathered over the last few days. Why? Because neither Older Erin nor Double-Oh Tiff recognized their past selves. So the forgetting part actually happened! So it has to happen regardless. Understand? Yes? Good!

Mac asks if all that means she’s still going to die soon anyway. They all shift nervously. Tiff starts yelling again. “If you’ve got this higher-than-high tech, why don’t we go way back, stop us from ever finding that stupid time machine in the first place?”

Older KJ says they did try that. Millions upon millions of times. Millions. The best they could actually do was change the date that Mac met Tiff by a few weeks or something to that effect. The current of time is so strong that there’s nothing to prevent the four of them from finding that capsule in the basement.

No. Not fair not fair. None of the four of them want to forget one another! And it’s like, sorry toots, it’s going to be that way anyway. Plus, they’re all fucking twelve years old. They’re gonna make a million new and better friends! And–

“How did I not notice it?” Mac interrupts, looking right at Older KJ. “You’re… you’re her, aren’t you? Only,” she squints, “old and stuff?”

Think of me as the stunt double who has to do all the nasty shit that KJ doesn’t actually want to do. Like, for example, all this time-travel bullshit with you bitches.

After Older KJ explains who she is, she looks at her watch. 12-year-old KJ should be joining them all in about three… two… one…

KJ pops through her portal. Tiff is about to celebrate, but Mac holds back. “Careful. How can we be sure this isn’t another evil mimeograph of her?”

KJ continues walking through into 1831. “Because I know you taste like cigarettes and Ultra Brite toothpaste.”

Ha, okay, she’s in the clear. They share another kiss…

…but then get interrupted by Erin and Jahpo coming through their own portal. “What is wrong with you kids? Can’t you leave anything well enough alone?!” Gun in one hand, dragging Erin by the other, a furious Jahpo heads toward the rest of the group.

The duplicate Erins whip out their own ultra-futuristic Super Soaker 9000 guns. “Steady on, Old-Timer. We come in peace, but we didn’t come unarmed.” Yeah, baby.

“Peace, you blew up the Cathedral, killed every last soul aboard!” Jahpo cries. Yeah, baby.

“Actually, your actions caused the ship’s destruction, but before your people could perish, we safely transported all of them back where they belong,” Older KJ informs the crying bearded bastard. Yeah, baby.

Jahpo doesn’t believe that shit! Why won’t they do that to young Erin over here? Or the rest of the papergirls? Get them the fuck out of here, know what I’m sayin’?

Apparently, Jahpo “Pops” Grand Father isn’t meeting these time crusaders on his end of the bargain. Meanwhile, Tiff is gripping a small iPod as hard as she can – hard enough to draw blood – and repeating the same mantra over and over again: “We’re not just papergirls, we’re friends.”

Jahpo ain’t gonna play nice anymore. “After all the friends I lost on C-Day, I won’t negotiate with terrorists, not even when the very continuum is on the line.”

WHO ARE THE REAL TERRORISTS HERE?! This is still something I’m struggling to actually grasp. Where’s the big ol’ twist where Jahpo and Co. are actually doing the good and the nice guys are actually doing the bad? Huh?! I’m waiting for it…

“This isn’t a negotiation, it’s a blood oath,” Older KJ grits her teeth. Everyone needs to agree to stop moving through four-dimensional space. They’ll stop if Jahpo stops. If even so much as a MOLECULE of Jahpo’s dick traverses through four-dimensional space, then it’s still the WILD, WILD WEST.

“But,” Jahpo’s eyes get wide and sad. “You’re talking about the end of time travel.”

Erin is crying. “Don’t you want this stupid war to end?”

“I do,” Jahpo closes his eyes. “Which is why I’ve fallen for empty gestures from our descendents before.” He lifts his gun and says “I’m sorry”, which fans may recognize as the only future vision from KJ that we hadn’t yet observed.

Old Tiff and Older KJ apologize too, because it wasn’t just Jahpo and Erin that they whisked away from 2016… wait for it… ha! A fucking Editrix! How do you like them apples, huh? *humps the air*

The Editrix shoots him in the shoulder with a laser blast. It looks like it hurts. That’s the only commentary I have about that.

Kids these days and their lack of appreciation for not being killed by crazy four-dimensional pyramid monsters…

While Jahpo rants, the Editrix wraps itself around his arm. Editrixes are the visions-of-the-past flavor of monster, as we’ve seen with Tiff and her Arkanoid flashbacks. Jahpo sees visions of his life in reverse order: Old Wari, what I assume is C-Day, basic training, a WATCH recruitment poster, he and Wari as children eating lunch with Braunstein, and toddlin’ and babyin’ in 11,706 BCE with Young Wari.

Jahpo’s old eyes become as big as dang ol’ moons. “I’ll be damned.”

He wasn’t the man he thought he was, if you could even call him a man! He gets on his knees. “The Stones were wrong. Time isn’t on anyone’s side, is it?” Maybe next he should go kick Mick Jagger’s ass.

Jahpo begrudgingly agrees to the terms. That’s it. It’s done. No heroic final battle. No boss fight. Disappointment abounds. “Does that mean we get to go home?” Erin asks. Yes, they will be kicked to the curb in 1988, November 1, a few hours after they discovered the time capsule. No memories of their adventure will exist, they’ll move on with their lives, their older counterparts will be very surprised when their young counterparts show up, etc. etc.

Yee-haw, motherfuckers!

“I know it sounds like a lot, but removing all of the trauma you were exposed to is actually the least we could do,” Jahpo says, looking tired as all get-out. To reiternate, none of them want that. They all had a lot of fun! KJ likes mackin’ on Mac. Also hover boots.

Nope, gotta get rid of the memories. “Anything you picked up during your travels has to stay behind,” Older KJ touches her forehead, “including what’s in here.”

Don’t forget that KJ killed someone. She doesn’t want that weighing on her conscious for the rest of her life, right! In cold blood, too. Just like “fuck you” and bang goes the gun.

Mac tells the time travel gurus to just get on with the memory wiping already. If anything, it’ll be nice forgetting that she’s going to die in a few years. KJ looks sad, but Mac has accepted that what needs to be done needs to be done. “And who knows?” Mac continues her train of thought as the all hold each other’s hands, “Even if the four of us are destined to lose touch, at least we’ll have–”

She doesn’t get to finish that sentence! ZAP! Mac gets vaporized in a brilliant violet light, gone back to 1988.

“I… I didn’t even get to say goodbye!” KJ cries.

“And all the pain you’re feeling is about to disappear, too,” Old Tiff says. Then ZAP!

“We’re not just papergirls,” Young Tiff repeats her mantra, “we’re–” ZAP!

Before Erin gets ZAP!ped, she muses on Eve and the apple. Eve was right all along, she wasn’t evil. She was smart.

“Does anyone know what the hell she’s talking about?” 19 Erin asks. Ah yes, the Bible. “That’s just another silly old story… written by a bunch of dudes.”

ZAP!