Predestination 2015

In the midst of chaos on a fateful March day in 1975, a seasoned agent (character) finds himself entangled in a desperate struggle to prevent a bombing in a public building in New York City. His valiant efforts are rewarded with severe burns as the bomb detonates, and in a surreal twist, an unseen benefactor aids him in activating his time-travel device. As he hurtles through the years, the agent finds himself transported to 1992, where he is met with the stark reality of his mission’s failure. The “Fizzle Bomber,” a cunning serial-bombing fugitive, remains at large, leaving a trail of destruction that would ultimately claim over eleven thousand innocent lives.

As the agent recovers from his injuries in the following years, his appearance and voice are forever altered by the brutal ravages of facial reconstruction surgery and vocal cord damage. His superiors, driven by concerns for the safety of those who engage in reckless time travel, hasten his retirement, citing the perils that come with delving into the fabric of time. Meanwhile, a shroud of secrecy envelops the agent’s true mental state, as diagnosed symptoms of psychosis and depression are kept hidden from prying eyes.

The agent is dispatched on one final mission, sent back in time to 1970 New York City where he assumes the guise of a bartender. As he navigates the city’s vibrant undercurrents, he strikes up a conversation with a enigmatic customer who pens true confession articles under the pseudonym “The Unmarried Mother.” The reticent individual, worn down by the weight of their own secrets, slowly begins to open up, sharing the poignant tale of their life.

Born as an enigmatic hermaphrodite in Cleveland’s orphanage system, Jane grew up with an uncanny blend of intellectual prowess and physical strength. Her plain appearance belied a deep sense of isolation, as she was forever relegated to the fringes of society, never adopted or truly loved. It is here that Robertson, a shrewd recruiter for SpaceCorp, a spaceflight organization masquerading as a R&R companion program for male astronauts, identifies Jane’s unique qualities and sets her on a path that would lead her down a treacherous road.

As the years unfold, Jane falls deeply in love with a chance encounter, only to be cruelly abandoned by her lover. Robertson’s true intentions are finally revealed: SpaceCorp is merely a front for a clandestine government agency, seeking operatives with no ties to recruit and train for their own nefarious purposes. But Jane’s journey takes another devastating turn when doctors discover her true nature as a hermaphrodite during a botched Caesarean section. As a result of subsequent gender reassignment surgeries, she is left with a sense of disconnection from her past, forever changed by the loss of her child at birth and the mysterious abduction that followed. Resentment towards her former lover simmers beneath the surface as Jane assumes the persona of John, eventually relocating to New York City.

As the agent’s proposal unfolded before John, he was presented with an extraordinary opportunity: to exact revenge on his former lover without consequence, in exchange for assuming the agent’s mantle. This tantalizing offer led the agent and John to embark on a journey through time, landing them in Cleveland in 1963, where the agent revealed that they were affiliated with Robertson’s clandestine Temporal Bureau. This organization utilized time travel to prevent crimes and preserve the integrity of the timeline. Under the agent’s guidance, John was tasked with locating Jane in the past, but their mission took an unexpected turn as John unwittingly fell deeply in love with his younger self. The agent’s true intentions were gradually revealed: they had orchestrated this entire scenario to ensure that John would become Jane’s lover.

The agent’s personal agenda became even clearer when they deviated from their original mission, illegally traveling back to March 1975 to confront the enigmatic Fizzle Bomber once more. Despite being outmatched in combat, the agent was forced to bear witness as his earlier self succumbed to the bomber’s attacks. The agent expected to meet a gruesome end, but Robertson intervened, sparing their life and defying the Temporal Bureau’s protocols.

The agent’s mission continued as they brought Jane’s infant child, born from her remarkable self-fertilization by John, back in time to the Cleveland orphanage in 1945. This bold move created a paradox of predestination, where Jane, John, and their baby were ultimately the same person. The agent returned to 1963, convincing John to abandon Jane at the predetermined point in time, before inducting him into the Temporal Bureau in 1985 and completing their mission.

As the agent looked back on their accomplishments, they couldn’t help but feel a sense of regret for failing to stop the Fizzle Bomber. However, Robertson credited the bomber’s efforts as the driving force behind the Bureau’s growth and success. The agent retired to New York City in 1975, just before the March attack, and decommissioned their time-travel device as instructed. However, the device remained operational, waiting for its next purpose.

The agent’s retirement was short-lived, as they received an exact location and time from Robertson regarding the Fizzle Bomber’s whereabouts. Upon arrival, they discovered that their future self was the bomber, who claimed to have averted greater calamities in alternate futures. The bomber also revealed that Robertson had orchestrated this path for them. Vowing to resist their own destiny as the Fizzle Bomber, the agent confronted and eliminated their older self, refusing to succumb to the same fate.

As the narrative unfolds, a stunning revelation is revealed: the enigmatic agent’s physical form now bears the unmistakable markings of John’s surgical scars, irrevocably linking the two characters in a complex web of identity and deception. This shocking discovery confirms that Jane, John, the agent, and the elusive Fizzle Bomber are, in fact, one and the same individual, their personas blurring together like the edges of a fragmented mirror.

Meanwhile, Robertson’s masterful machinations have orchestrated the very existence of this double agent, precipitating both his own conception and eventual demise. The gravity of this revelation is underscored by a haunting audio recording left for John, in which the agent’s philosophical musings raise profound questions about the malleability of time and the limits of human agency: can the course of events be altered, or are we forever bound to the predetermined path that lies before us?