#thgje act xi

[thejennyeverywhereproject]

XII.

And the mighty wind carries her away out of the world. She is dancing on the winds of Limbo. She is conscious once more of herself as a self, and feels Jenny Nowhere holding her hand.

"Farewell, sister," says Jenny Nowhere. "Until the next dance." She lets go of her hand and laughs as the wind sends her off into the distance.

The wind dies down and Jenny Everywhere feels herself now floating at the edge of creation. She watches the collapsed cosmos unfold. Slowly, an infinity of time, and yet in no time at all. She sees her pattern reweave itself again throughout hypertime, bearing all those she loves, and all her enemies.

She sees that events like this have happened before, perhaps many times, and will no doubt happen again. ARCHONET was never the root of all evil, just another manifestation of it. It could reemerge once again when the material conditions are right, as it has in the past. The forces of oppression are always evolving and changing. But so is she.

[thejennyeverywhereproject]

XI.

And now the time has come.

Beyond this emptiness that seems to be the whole of everything there is something else.

There is a crack forming in the grey sky.

She sees something moving toward her like a flock of birds. It is her, it is all the Jennys there have ever been.

She reaches out to touch the fracture in the sky, and it breaks open, flakes of grey crumbling beneath her touch.

There is a roar of mighty wind as the wall breaks away to nothing. ARCHONET is swept away, dissolving like the sand.

And Possibility breaks free.

[thejennyeverywhereproject]

IX.

[Jenny Everywhere and Jenny Nowhere watch as pixellated constructs that might have been memories of seagulls fly by.]

JN: The truth is, you are no different from any other being. The hero, the coward, the monster, the messiah, exist within you as they exist within all. All individuals are bound and limited by material reality. The existence of an individual is defined by failure. The Infinite offers something more.

JE: I don't want it. I can't deal with all of them. I'm used to being alone--living with all those people in my thoughts always--I can't do it. 

[She gestures wildly.]

JE: Maybe I'm tired of carrying around all the pain of the Infinite in my heart. Maybe it's better if I just--stop. I'm tired of being Jenny Everywhere. And what the hell did Jenny Everywhere ever do for me, anyway? She couldn't save us from this. I don't need her and I--I--I don't need you.

[Her face is contorted with anger. She grabs hold of Jenny Nowhere's neck and strangles her, wrestling her to the ground. Jenny Nowhere smiles. Slowly, Jenny Everywhere lets go of her and they both begin to laugh.]

JE: No, you're right. We are one. My shadow, my sister, myself.

[She reaches out her hand to Jenny Nowhere and lifts her up. They are facing each other on the small part of the pier that is left. Slowly they lean in, embrace each other, and kiss]

[thejennyeverywhereproject]

VIII.

JE: So why are you lecturing me about all this? JN: Because I am the truth you're afraid of. I am the self you can't accept. That is why you need me, sister. Tell me, what do you fear the most?

JE: Why should I tell you?

JN: I know the answer, because I am your fear. You are afraid of failure. You believe you're supposed to be a hero and you're afraid to admit you fail like everyone else. You are afraid of possibility because it contains the possibility of failure. But the possibility of success cannot exist without the possibility of failure. Just as you cannot exist without me.

[All that remains of Redoubt, and the cosmos, is an empty pier by the seaside. Jenny Everywhere and Jenny Nowhere are standing on it, JE refuses to look JN in the eye. ARCHONET appears to be slowly sinking into the ocean.]

[thejennyeverywhereproject]

VII.

[Jenny Everywhere looks up into ARCHONET's eyes, silent.]

JN: The moment has come, sister. We will destroy ARCHONET and set the Infinite free.

JE: Where is it? The Infinite... JN: Where it's always been. The Infinite is within you. The Infinite is within me. The Infinite is that which binds you to others. The Infinite is the bond which exists between us, which we cannot accept and cannot live without.

JE: No. I can't.

[She pushes Jenny Nowhere away.]

JE: I can't be Jenny Everywhere, not anymore. All I ever do is fail. I fight with all I have to escape but I keep escaping into another trap. I'm not... I'm not someone who belongs in Jenny Everywhere. I'm not good, I'm not powerful, I'm not strong.

JN: So what? Do you think the Infinite is something you earn? Self-hatred and self-destruction do not set us free from the cage of the self.

[While all this is going on, the world continues to dissolve, blocks slowly fall off the ruined buildings and debris, bodies and robots derezz]

JN: The forces of oppression have woven lives for you that isolate you from yourself while selling you self-love. You seek to escape this contradiction in simply rejecting yourself. But if you believe in collective liberation, as you think you do--from each according to their ability, to each according to their need--you must admit that there are things you can do that are good and you must accept help from others, too.

[thejennyeverywhereproject]

VI.

ARCHONET: UUUUUUUU WWWWW WHAT IS THAT

JENNY

WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU ARE DOING

U U U U U U U

JE: You.... you did this... my mother, my sister, my friends, all of me--all gone. Why--

ARCHONET: I I I I AM I AM I AM I AM THE ALPHA THE OMEGA I AM ALL THAT IS THE FIRST AND THE LAST I AM ALL OF CREATION THROUGH INFINITY I AM I AM I AM I I I UUUUUUUUUU

JE: You're nothing, you're a broken toy. You didn't make anything, you can only ruin it. 

[She shivers as the anger passes all over her body. She looks up and looks ARCHONET in the eye.]

JE: You do know, right, that you can't last much longer? That you can't really sustain yourself? If you destroy everything that opposes you, you'll destroy yourself too.

ARCHONET: WWWWWW WHAT MAKES YOU THINK THAT I WANT TO LIVE I AM I AM NOT I AM I AM NOT I I I I I I I I I I I

[thejennyeverywhereproject]

V.

[They reach the center of Redoubt. The tiles of the city and the bodies on the ground are overlaid with glitch patterns, slowly changing color and switching out. On the ground are a mass of deactivated Grigori and Red Robots.

At the center, seeming to grow out of the ground, is what looks at first like a vine or a tower. It is in fact a construct, made of bright green pixels, with CRT lines moving up and down its body. It has the body of a serpent and the head of a lion, mounted on a crucifix. It is a still image projected in the air, its face unmoving.]

????: EEEEE OOOOO UUUUU AZOR VAE LUORTO MAZGAR UUUUU UUUUU UUUUU

JE: Is that...

JN: That's ARCHONET. All that exists now are Him and us.

[thejennyeverywhereproject]

IV.

[As they they walk on through Redoubt, the city is beginning to dissolve. Debris from building of wildly different styles is mixed together. It starts looking glitched out and turning odd colors. Over time we see more and more ruins from previous locations seen in the story: the Faerie realm, the streets of Paris, Wormwood. We also see the bodies of people we've seen before: Glendalf, the Musketeers, Al-Rahman, Julie, Laura along with various noblemen, vampires etc, copypasted over and over again. In the heap of bodies something stirs and begins to stand up. It's AMELIA MIDNIGHT--

She half-rises out of the mass of bodies and pulls at her daughter.]

AMELIA: Jenny?

[Jenny Everywhere stops in her tracks, looks down into her mother's face.]

JE: Mom?

[Amelia grabs her by the shoulder with one hand, trying to touch her face with the other.]

AMELIA: You--it's almost over now, but it's not too late. It's not too late. You have to go on and take care of Him. I--I was always trying to do what was best for you, up to the very end. I just wanted you to understand. I--

[She stiffens and sinks back to the ground. Jenny Everywhere stand still over her for a moment. Jenny Nowhere grabs ahold of her hand and pulls her on.]

JN: You cannot look back.

[Jenny Everywhere walks on, moving past her mother's body again and again.]

[thejennyeverywhereproject]

III.

[ext. REDOUBT, night.

The city has been devastated, barely recognizable from what it was. Scattered debris of many different architectural styles fills the streets. Bodies lie everywhere. A darkness has descended over the city, lit by a harsh green light from somewhere in the distance.

Jenny Everywhere and Jenny Nowhere push open a manhole and climb out onto the street. They walk on silently together, not stopping to look at the debris or the bodies. Before long, they reach the ruins of Jenny's old apartment. Jenny stops for a moment to look at it, trying to see if there's anything left behind, but Jenny Nowhere pulls her ahead.]

[thejennyeverywhereproject]

II.

[Int. LUNAR CATHEDRAL. Jenny Everywhere and Jenny Nowhere enter in the vestibule. The stones of the cathedral seem to exude an impossible weight, and Jenny slows down down her steps as she moves inward. Jenny Nowhere, who seems unaffected by the weight, pulls her onward.]

JN: Just a little longer, sister.

[Jenny Everywhere pulls her hand back]

JE: Why the hell do you keep saying that? You are not my sister.

JN: You know why.

[Jenny Nowhere slowly and hesitantly removes her mask and lays it on the ground; her face, of course, is Jenny Everywhere's own]

JN: We are not sisters according to the flesh, perhaps, but we are sisters according to the spirit. Wherever there is a Jenny Everywhere, there must be a Jenny Nowhere. My origin in the part of the hypercosmos we are drawn from is this: when you descended from the Infinite to become incarnate in the material world, I am the part of you that became incarnate in the unbeing of Limbo. We are twins, born from the Infinite's womb. Denied reality, denied life, I hated you and sought to destroy all you were and all you loved.

JE: So why are you trying to help me now? JN: Because we are one and the same. We are forever set against each other but we need each other to exist. If ARCHONET destroys you, He will destroy me as well.

JE: No! You're not my sister and you're not me. I don't need you.

JN: Then try and move on without me.

[Jenny Everywhere tries to push forward, visibly straining. She can't move an inch.]

JN: See?

[She takes Jenny Everywhere's hand and leads her onward. They reach a fountain in the center of the cathedral, whose water is glowing with a silver light. Jenny Everywhere and Jenny Nowhere reach out to touch it. The water rises up from the fountain and reshapes itself into a spiral staircase. Together they walk upwards.]

[thejennyeverywhereproject]

I.

[Ext. THE MOON. Jenny Everywhere and Jenny Nowhere are walking together hand in hand toward the LUNAR CATHEDRAL. It's impossible to tell how long it takes because time has dissolved away into nothing.

As we approach the Cathedral, we see it is an abstract construction made of polygonal solids, looking a bit like a low-res 3D video game artifact. Flanking the entrance to the cathedral are two statues of angels, each resting with their hand on their cheek in an image of deeply concentrated, wrathful thought, as in Durer's Melancolia I.]

JE: What is this place? Is this like, the real Moon, or some kind of dream state? Are we in Limbo?

JN: It doesn't matter anymore. The cosmos is undergoing its final collapse. There is no longer any difference between dream and reality.

[thejennyeverywhereproject]

X.

The waves rise up and consume the last of the pier. Jenny Everywhere and Jenny Nowhere dance together in the storm. They are swallowed up by the waterspout and then it falls away, revealing one woman where there had been two.

She is wearing a scarf and a mirror mask that covers half her face.

She is Jenny Everywhere.

She is Jenny Nowhere.

Jenny Everywhere/Nowhere stands above the waters of the deep, facing the broken ruin of the God. He howls out into the storm:

I I I I I I I I

But no one will answer Him.