Doctor Who: The Watchmen Paradox
Prologue: Curiosity
Frank Milford had always been too inquisitive and curious for his own good. On his 3rd birthday, he had wondered what the jumpy and floaty yellow things on his candles would feel like. A mere ten seconds after that question crossed his mind, Frank's mother was frantically running his little hands under a cold tap while he wailed like a banshee with toothache and a news reporter on the television offered different theories regarding the shooting of President John Kennedy. At age 10, Frank was trying to think of quick and efficient ways to kill the wasps invading his backyard in the baking hot summer of 1970. Apparently clapping both hands around one to squash it was not a good idea, as he managed to get a stinger embedded in his tender palm, and ran into the house screaming himself hoarse, much to the shock of his father, who had just been reading a newspaper article bearing the news that Doctor Manhattan had revealed his real name, that being Jon Osterman, to the public. At age 14 he was left home alone, while his parents were out at work, and he felt a sudden urge to go into the backyard and try out his father's shotgun. The shock of the impact when he fired the gun knocked him onto his back and left him with a large and painful bruise on his shoulder.
Now, in 1985, he was a freakishly skinny 25-year-old man with a height of 5 foot 10 who had just started working for Adrian Veidt. He was a mere cleaner in Veidt's offices in New York, but, once again, found he needed to see more than other people's muddy shoe marks being cleaned away by his mop and bucket.
Luckily for him, he was given the night shift on his sixth day on the job and left to clean the reception area after his colleagues had gone home for a good night's sleep. As soon as he was sure there was nobody else in the building but him, he left his trusty bucket and mop next to the reception desk and bounded happily into the elevator. He pressed the button that would take him down to the basement, and stood in the elevator grinning like a scrawny, ginger-haired clown. Rumours had been flying around that Veidt and his scientists were working on a special project down in the basement, away from journalists, the public, and, most of all, insignificant cleaners. The doors slid open with a satisfied electronic whirr and Frank stepped out into the vast, chilly basement to find it was pitch black and he couldn't see a thing. Of course, he had expected this. So he had wisely come prepared. He pulled a powerful flashlight out of his faded denim jacket and scanned the concrete floor, steel walls and steel ceiling. There was really nothing to see here except for a wooden crate about 7 feet tall, 2 feet wide and 2 feet long. If there's nothing worth looking at in there, I'm gonna be so damn pissed, Frank thought. His hand closed around the lid, which had already had its seal broken, and he began to slowly lift it up.
A loud BANG and a flash of blue light to his left made him jump out of his skin and drop his flashlight. The flashlight clattered to the concrete, where it lay and cut a beam of light through the indifferently black floor. The beam slanted in the right direction to show Frank that a steel door had been ripped off its hinges (or blasted? Frank thought, taking into account the flash of blue light). Talking of blue light, Frank noticed a small circular dark blue light slightly bigger than a human eye glaring at him out of the darkness on the other side of the door. It was about half a foot higher than the top of Frank's head, and somehow he knew this glowing blue circle belonged to something. It's an eye, part of his mind whispered. A murderous robot's eye. Run while you still can, you crazy son-of-a-gun. But that was ridiculous. Frank guessed he'd been watching too many crappy sci-fi movies. But his heart bashing persistently against his ribcage suggested otherwise. Suddenly a voice came from the direction of the blue light. It was a shrill electronic screech, not in the least bit human. "Locate!" it bawled through the darkness. It was moving towards Frank now, as the metallic base of whatever this thing was cut into the flashlight beam. "Intruder detected!" The sweating, panicking Frank just had time to remember a wise warning from his father ("Curiosity killed the cat, son") before the blue circle shot a beam of light right towards his face. That was the last thing he ever saw. Frank Milford was, in fact, dead before he even hit the concrete.
