Watchmaker
Rating: T
Summary: Jenna Osterman laments her life on Mars. Ozzy/fem!Manhattan. Mix of movie and comic.
Disclaimer: Watchmen belongs to Alan Moore and DC.
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The photograph is in my hand. It is the photograph of a man and a woman. They are at an amusement park, in 1959. In twelve seconds time, I drop the photograph to the sand at my feet, walking away. It's already lying there, twelve seconds into the future. Ten seconds now. The photograph is in my hand. Nineteen years ago, it was kept in a frame, placed in the drawer of my nightstand. It's still there, nineteen years into the past, in the darkness of the cluttered drawer. I ignore the silent pulses it sends throughout the bedroom – pulses only I can sense because they're all in my head – as I slide my arms around my new husband, and kiss him softly.
The photograph is in my hand. The man takes a piece of popcorn between thumb and forefinger. The Ferris wheel pauses.
It's October, 1985. I'm sitting on Martian soil. It's July, 1959. I'm in New Jersey, at the Palisades amusement park.
Four seconds. Three.
I'm tired of looking at the photograph now. I open my fingers. It falls to the sand at my feet. I am going to look at the stars. They are so far away, and their light takes so long to reach us…. All we ever see of stars are their old photographs.
I am twenty-seven million kilometers from the sun. Its light is already ten minutes old. It will not reach Pluto for another two hours.
Two hours into my future, I observe meteorites from a glass balcony, thinking about my father.
Twelve seconds into my past, I open my fingers. The photograph is falling.
I am watching the stars. Halley's Comet tumbles through the solar system on its magnificent seventy-six year cycle.
My father admired the sky for its precision. He repaired watches.
It's 1945. I sit in a Brooklyn kitchen, fascinated by an arrangement of cogs on black velvet. I am only sixteen years old.
It is 1985. I am on Mars. I am fifty-six years old.
The photograph lies at my feet, falls from my fingers, is in my hand. I am watching the stars, admiring their complex trajectories, through space, through time. I am trying to give a name to the force that set them into motion.
It is August 7th, 1945. The Brooklyn morning is humid and the fire escape door has been left open. My father's voice rings loudly through the apartment.
"Jenna? Where are you?"
My response is far softer. I hear him pad into the kitchen. "In here. I'm practicing on your old pocket watch, before it's time for school."
"Forget pocket watches!" he exclaims. "Have you seen the news?" I cannot tell if he is distraught or overjoyed. As he speaks he whirls his hands in tremendous windmills of emotion, and I raise my brows at my father's uncharacteristic enthusiasm.
"News?" I am apprehensive. Father seems more distraught than overjoyed.
He thrusts the newspaper at me, making a blubbering noise which I decipher to be disbelief. "They dropped the atomic bomb on Japan! A whole city, gone!" He lets out a stifled shout. "These are no times for repairers of watches! This changes everything! There will be more bombs!"
His voice rises and falls. It is clear to me that my father is not all there. "They are the future. Shall my daughter follow me into an obsolete trade?"
Father snatches the black cloth from my desk, stalking to the fire escape. I am puzzled, fearful. "Father? What are you doing?"
"I am doing what is best for you. This atomic science – this is what the world will need! Not pocket watches!" His footsteps are cumbersome, but I am too slow, my words floating from my seat instead of my person.
"Hey!" I cry. "Give me that baack!"
"Professor Einstein says that time differs from place to place. Can you imagine?" He is standing on the fire escape. I remain in the doorway, having found the courage to follow him after a moment. "If time is not true, what purpose have watchmakers, child?"
"Wait! Don't!"
I am too late. He drops the cloth, and he insists, "My profession is a thing of the past. Instead, my daughter must have a future."
Forty years ago, cogs rain on Brooklyn.
One hundred and fifteen minutes into the future, the meteorites hail down through the rarefied atmosphere of Mars.
It is 1948, and I am arriving at Princeton University. It is 1958, and I am graduating with a Ph.D. in atomic physics.
The cogs are falling…
It is May 12th, 1959: my first day at Gila Flats. Professor Glass is shaking my hand, asking Wally Weaver to show me around. The scent of his Turkish cigarette is thick in the cramped closet. I am thirty years old.
Wally is friendly, exuberant. Being the introvert that I am, I'm not quite sure how to deal with him. "So you're the new gal from Princeton we heard about, huh? Say, wasn't Einstein at Princeton?"
I dip my head shyly, hands clasped behind my back. Had my skirt contained pockets, my hands would have been buried deep inside them. "Not while I was. Heard him lecture once, though."
Wally chirps on, oblivious to my reluctance to talk. "Gee, that musta been somethin'! Y'know, I heard he argued with his wife. Crazy, huh? A guy like that, a genius, even he couldn't figure out women."
My cheeks flare, ashamed on behalf of my sex. I hadn't realized we were so complicated. Instead, I reply softly, "Well, I guess he's human. Like everybody else." I give a quick look around the room we've just entered, and my curiosity overwhelms my reticence. "What's this place?"
"Ahh, this is where they're doin' the intrinsic field experiments. It's like, what if there's some field holdin' stuff together, apart from gravity?" he explains, his tone retaining every ounce of gregariousness. "Beats the hell outta me, but I'm only an assistant."
I run a manicured, red-nailed finger along the cold door of a metallic chamber. "And this?" I ask.
"This is our time-lock test vault, so that when they're tryin' to separate objects from their intrinsic fields. No radiation gets out," Wally answers, already moving toward the door. "We got a lot o' new safety features like that here.
"But hey, listen – nobody at Gila gives a damn about this junk. C'mon. I'll show you where the real heavy-duty thinkin' gets done around here." He leads me out of the facility, toward a tiny shack off to the side. "It's called the Bestiary."
It is May 12th, 1959, and Wally steers me toward the bar, grabbing a young man's hand and shoving it to me, forcing the two of us to shake hands. "Johnny Slater," Wally crows, smile as broad as ever, "meet Jenna Osterman. Jenna's from Princeton."
I study the man's – Johnny's – face. He is extremely handsome, with high, pronounced cheekbones, and piercing electric blue eyes. I am mesmerized by his beauty.
"Ohhh," he says, and his voice is amazing to me, melodious. "The new girl! You're replacing Hank Meadows, right?"
I'm at a loss for words for a moment before recovering myself. "I am?"
"I guess," he grins. "Hank died last fall. There's his picture behind the bar. There – the guy with the glasses." Johnny Slater pauses, eyes running up and down my body, and I feel myself flush under his scrutinizing gaze. "Y'know, you're pretty young for a research scientist."
"Well, you know," I mumble, "my dad sort of pushed me into it. That happens to me a lot. Other people seem to make all my moves for me." The words flow effortlessly, despite their lack of volume, and I start to feel at ease around Johnny Slater.
"Mm," he hums, resting his cheek on his hand, elbow digging into the bar so hard it starts to slide a bit. "I'll bet. Can I get you a drink?"
He buys me a beer, the first time a man has ever done this for me. As he passes me the cold, perspiring glass, our fingers touch.
It's 1963, we're making love after an argument, our tenderness in direct proportion to its violence.
It's 1966, and he's packing with calculated silence, pent-up rage radiating off him in massive waves.
The photograph lies in the sand at my feet.
It's July 1959. I'm returning to New Jersey on vacation, visiting old university friends. Johnny shares the trip from Arizona. His mother lives in jersey.
By then, we've been together for a month.
He calls home from the station, but nobody answers. We visit the amusement park, killing time until his mother returns.
A photographer grabs my arm and yanks me in front of him, dragging Johnny with my by effect. "There!" he laughs. "That's just beautiful. A beautiful picture, particularly of the lady!"
I am flustered while Johnny is clearly amused, but I manage a smile just as the bulb flashes. The photographer gives us an address where we can pick up 75-cent prints, and we walk off toward the tilt-a-whirl.
By the shooting gallery, my watch snaps. Before I can pick it up, a fat man steps upon it. Johnny offers to fix it, or at least to get someone to fix it, but I decline, saying that I know perfectly how to all by myself. He is skeptical, and this is the first time I've ever told him about my past without omitting important details.
His mother still isn't answering, and we decide to call again from my hotel. We both know what's going to happen. Events mesh together with soft, careful precision.
We reach the hotel. He calls again. His mother still isn't home.
He asks if I can really fix the watch. We sit at the edge of the bed, examining the damage.
It's 1959. A pulse flutters in his belly just beneath my cheek.
It's 1966. The suitcase won't shut and he is still silent with rage.
It's 1985. In one hundred minutes, the meteorite shower begins.
It's August, 1959. We've been back from Jersey for a month. In my future, the accident is waiting for me.
Johnny and I are in the Bestiary, and my bare foot nudges ankle underneath the table.
"Jenna?" he says suddenly. "Did you fix your watch yet?"
My face lights up, remembering it is in my lab coat pocket. "Yes! As a matter of fact, it's – oh…"
"What's wrong?"
"Nothing," I say. "I left it in my lab coat when were resetting the I.F. chamber this morning. You wait right there."
I cross the square to the intrinsic field center. My coat's inside the test chamber : I can see it through the foot-thick window.
The accident is almost upon me now, the door clicking shut, so softly that I don't notice it until I turn around.
The others return from lunch, and I ask them to let me out, laughing at my own stupidity.
Nobody else is laughing. Wally starts to turn white. He explains that the door has locked automatically while generators warm up for this afternoon's experiment :removing intrinsic fields from concrete block 15.
I ask him what happened to the other fourteen, and he tells me.
Only one word tears itself from my throat. "No!" I repeat over and over, volume and pitch of my rising with each time the word escapes me. I press myself up against the glass, pounding the lead-lined walls to my left and right. I curse the world, my luck, and everything around me. Still, I accept my fate.
I have yet to tell Johnny Slater I am pregnant with his child.
"I – I'm sorry, Jenna!" Wally cries. "The program's locked in and we can't override the time-lock. It's… It's a safety feature."
Ironic. The one feature from the chamber meant to keep my colleagues and I safe is the one that will now lead to my disintegration.
"Oh, God!" Johnny gasps, shoving colleagues aside. "Lemme out o' here!"
"Johnny?" I scream, obviously distraught. "Don't leave me! I need you!"
He ignores me, lunging out of the center without a second glance, his lab coat flying behind him in his frantic escape.
I sob, falling to my knees as he leaves me. As he leaves our child.
I hear the shields sliding out, the generators working up and whirring, the canons powering up. I feel a light weight in my coat pocket.
My watch. Good as new.
The air grows too warm too quickly, and I want very much for a handsome man to hand me a cold glass of beer. All the atoms in the chamber are screaming. The light – the light takes me to pieces.
It's September.
They hold a token funeral, but there is nothing for them to bury.
It's October, and Johnny frames our Jersey photo instead of placing it in the Bestiary next to Hank Meadows's picture.
It's November, and a disembodied nervous system appears in the ladies' room.
November 10th. A circulatory system decides to take a stroll through the kitchen.
The 14th of November. A partially muscled skeleton is spotted in the hallway, screaming for thirty seconds before vanishing.
On November 22nd, a miracle occurs.
I'm back. Blue. Naked. Omnipotent.
It's October 1985. I'm basking in two million year old light of Andromeda. I'm witnessing the supernova discovered by Ernest Hartwig in 1885.
It's Christmas 1959. It occurs to me that Johnny is scared. He tells me so. He insists I call him John, saying that he feels that my 'godly presence' demands more seriousness and formality. He's scared that I'll leave him. Maybe for some handsome blonde, blue-eyed businessman, or some tall, dark, and handsome rogue.
I tell him that he will be the only man I will ever love, that I'll always want him.
As the lies falls from my lips, I hear his angry shouts in 1963, and the quiet anger seeping through his every pore in 1966. My fingers open. The photograph is falling…
In February 1960, everything freezes. I am constant, but everything around me changes. And I am powerless to stop this.
The government decides to turn me into the plaything as well as their secret weapon. They call me Dr. Manhattan. They explain that the name has been chosen for the ominous associations it will raise in America's enemies. They are shaping me into something gaudy and lethal.
Now, June rolls around. I'm sent to a press event – a charity event with several costumed heroes making appearances.
The youngest, Ozymandias, catches my eye. He is smart, observant, motivated. I like him. A lot.
November comes and the press call me a crimefighter, so I must be a crimefighter.
September, 1961. John Kennedy firmly shakes my hand and asks me what it's like to be a superhero. I say that he should know. He laughs, clapping me on the back. He is a good friend.
Two years later, two shots ring out. His head snaps back and forth.
It's 1966. I'm in a room full of people wearing costumes. Ozymandias meets my gaze again, a smile gracing his lips, and I smile back, feeling a bolt of electricity between us.
This doesn't go unnoticed by Johnny.
It is 1975, and Adrian Veidt and I are pronounced husband and wife.
It's 1966. The costumed people are shouting, arguing, bickering, and Johnny demands that we leave, and I give Ozymandias one last look before I teleport Johnny and myself back to our apartment.
Adrian is beautiful, but distant. With every warm kiss that he presses against my lips, he follows it with a short pause, as if gathering some distance before kissing me again. It seems obvious that he needs his space. I don't mind. Space isn't something that Johnny's ever given me.
It's 1966. The masked people still argue.
As Johnny and I leave, he is furious. He accuses me of chasing malebait (clever play on words, but Adrian is only ten years younger than me), asking if my recent lack of interest is because he is growing older.
He's right.
I am constant, and he is changing.
It is May, 1966. Ozymandias and I are patrolling New York City. As we walk along the roof of an abandoned building, the back of our hands touch. The look on my face as I raise my eyes and smile speaks of shyness, yet and feel anything but.
"Do you have a real name?" Ozymandias asks, a smile directed straight back at me, and I see stars. "I'm Adrian – Adrian Veidt."
"Yes," I answer, my hand brushing against his once more, for the twenty-eighth time tonight. We come to a stop by the edge of the roof, taking a seat and letting our legs dangle over the ledge. "My name's Jenna."
"Jenna," Ozyman – Adrian repeats, testing my name on his tongue.
My hand slides onto his thigh, squeezing gently as I stare into his eyes, and he returns my gaze. Our faces drift closer and soon our lips touch. He tells me later that it feels like kissing a battery. Johnny has told me the same, though I wonder how the both of them know how it's like..
It's 1959. Johnny is handing me the glass.
It's 1966, and he is packing – silent, but shaken with anger at being betrayed.
The photograph lies at the sand at my feet.
In 1969, I'm receiving news of my father's death. In 1959, he's opening a telegram from the military informing him of his daughter's accidental disintegration. I never correct their mistake.
Gila Flats closes down in 1970. On Adrian's thirty-first birthday, we move into our new Washington penthouse. I've revealed my true name to the public. After Father's death, there seems little point in concealing it. Adrian doesn't reveal his name until five years later.
In January, 1971, President Nixon is asking me to intervene in Vietnam, something his predecessors would've never done.
It's March. I'm in Saigon, being introduced to Edward Blake, the Comedian. He works mostly for the government now. I suppose I do, too. Blake is interesting. I've never once met anyone so deliberately amoral. He suits the climate here, the madness, the pointless butchery.
As I come to understand Vietnam, and what it implies about the human condition, I also realize that few humans will permit themselves such an understanding.
Blake's different. He understands perfectly.
And he doesn't care.
It's May, and I've been here for two months. The Vietcong are expected to surrender within the week. Many have given themselves up already, and they often ask to surrender to me personally. Their terror of me is balanced by an almost religious awe. I am reminded of how the Japanese were reported to have viewed the atomic bomb in Hiroshima.
It's June, V.V.N. night, and the Comedian is sliding a gun from its holster, blood streaming from his lacerated face. As I stare at the woman on the floor thirty seconds later, I am reminded of the fate of my child with Johnny. Oddly, I feel no sadness.
It's October, 1985. Deciding to create something, I turn away from the stars that may have burned out aeons ago. I no longer wish to look at them. I no longer wish to look at dead things.
It's 1975. The papers are full of the president's proposed constitutional amendment, allowing him to run next year for a third term. Amidst all this, Adrian's retirement goes almost unnoticed.
After the revelation of his identity, Adrian and I retire to his Antarctic retreat. He invites Laurie Juspeczyk, the second Silk Spectre, to visit us. Within an hour, both Laurie and I are acquainted with Bubastis, and Laurie becomes my best friend.
"I hadn't realized eugenics was so advanced now," she laughs, still petting Bubastis, the genetically altered lynx.
"It's leapt forward in the last fifteen years," Adrian explains. "Everything has, from quantum physics to transport. For example, I understand that fast and safe airships may soon be economically viable." He steps up beside me, kisses the top of my head as he fingers my engagement ring, his grip on my hand gentle. "And we owe it all to you, darling. Together, our scientists are only limited by their own imaginations."
"And by their consciences surely?" I ask, tilting my head up to kiss his jaw.
"Let's hope so." Adrian's eyes are sad and knowing. Our servants bring us Indonesian food, and he talks about his business plans, all the time feeding scraps to his beautiful monstrous cat.
It's 1985. Choosing a spot to begin my creation, I sit down. Pink sand lies in my blue palm. This deserted planet: it is so wonderfully, completely silent.
In 1977, a city is shouting. Claiming that costumed adventurers are making their job impossible, the police are on strike. Everyone is frightened, scenting anarchy. Below me, Laurie hauls the ringleaders from the crowed, but the process is futile.
"Look at her!" someone shouts. It is obvious they are speaking of me. "Look at that freak! It's against God!"
"Pay attention!" I bellow. "You will all return to your homes." I'm trying not to vaporize someone. I would feel no remorse.
"Oh yeah?" another says defiantly. "And what if we don't, ya big blue fruit?"
"You misunderstand me," I hiss. I'm not angry. But I'm doubting these people are worth protecting. "It was not a request."
.42 seconds later, the mob finds themselves in the ocean. If they can't swim…
Too bad.
August 3rd, 1977: the emergency bill proposed by Senator Keene has been passed. Vigilantism is now illegal again, as it was before they altered the laws to accommodate strategically useful talents such as myself. As long as I continue to work under U.S. government orders, I am exempt from the law. They can hardly outlaw me when the defense of their country rests in my hands.
Blake is also exempt, since he works solely for the government. Later, after his handling of the Iranian hostage situation, even his harshest critics fall silent. Laurie still hates him, however.
She herself doesn't exactly consider the Keene Act's effect as forcing her to retire. She's always liked the private life better – she's told Adrian and me as much. Her mother is more disappointed than she is.
The new Nite Owl has stated he will be retiring as well, but he does not intend to disclose his identity to the public. Laurie's good friends with him as well. She says his name is Dreiberg.
The only other active vigilante is Rorschach, real name unknown. He expresses his defiance by leaving the cadaver of a serial rapist outside of the police headquarters with a brief note. He makes his point.
It's 1981 now. Adrian insists I have some company while I work at the Rockefeller Military Research Center, so Laurie moves in with me. It's well-equipped for the work I will be doing, but Laurie and I can no longer have any private 'girl-talk.' I know Adrian means well, and hope that he loves me, but I am also aware that he is completely unwilling to find any block in his packed schedule to spend time with me. We've been married for six years now.
Laurie would like it Mars.
Through my blue fingers, pink grains are falling, haphazard, random, a disorganized stream of silicone that seems pregnant with the possibility of every conceivable shape. But this is an illusion. Things have their shape in time, not space alone. Some marble blocks have statues within them, embedded in their future.
In New York, Adrian and I go walking. The streets smell of ozone rather than gasoline. Flat intangible blots of grey slide across the summer sidewalks, the shadow of overhead airships advertising Pyramid Transnational.
In 1959, a child is weeping for its lost balloons. Any moment now, my watchband will break. Somewhere, the fat man is already lumbering around, toward the shooting gallery, steps heavy with unwitting destiny.
It's August, 1985. I'm walking through Grand Central Station with Adrian as we wait for a business associate of his. We stop at a newsstand and buy a magazine commemorating Hiroshima Week. On the cover there is a damaged pocket watch, stopped at the instant of the attack, hands frozen.
It's Saturday, October 12th, 1985, and we are being informed of Edward Blake's murder. Laurie's mood seems restless for the rest of the weekend.
Wednesday the 16th. Laurie is visiting her mother while Adrian and I attend Blake's funeral. A thin man in a black coat leaves roses and then walks away. Do I know him?
Saturday the 19th now. I pretend to listen to Laurie complaining about Blake – one of me, at least.
In 1966, the costumed people are arguing as I lock my eyes with the man known as Ozymandias.
In 1959, I am telling Johnny I will always want him.
It's later. My best friend is walking out on me. My husband blows me a kiss from Antarctica.
On a rooftop in the past, he pulls me closer to him, and I inhale his cologne. A little bit later than that, Laurie and I take Bubastis on a walk around the Antarctic retreat. Just as how I hold Adrian, as Laurie and I talk, I don't want her to leave me, knowing that she, like Adrian, will.
Later still, in the crowded T.V. studio, I am being accused of killing those closes to me. The word "cancer" spreads through the audience like wildfire.
I am tired of this word; these people. I am tired of being caught in the tangle of their insignificant lives.
In New York, I'm taking the old photo out of its frame in my drawer, and then I'm gone.
Gone to Mars. Gone to a place without clocks, without seasons, without hourglasses to trap the shifting pink sand. Below me, in the sand, the secret shape of my creation is concealed, buried in the sand's future. I rise into the thin air.
I am ready to begin.
A world grows up around me. Am I shaping it, or do its predetermined contours guide my hand?
In 1945, the bombs are falling on Japan, the cogs are falling on Brooklyn, seeds of the future, sown carelessly.
Without me, things would have been different. If the fat man hadn't crushed the watch, if I hadn't left it in the testing chamber. Am I to blame? Or the fat man? Or my father for choosing my career? Which one of us is responsible?
Who makes the world?
Perhaps the world is not made. Perhaps nothing is made. Perhaps it simply is, has been, will always be there. A clock without a craftsman.
I am landing on a balcony of pink sand, hardened to glass. It glitters in the ten-minute old sunshine. The light of two hours past will just be reaching Pluto. If they have strong telescopes there, they can see me; the photograph in my hand, falling, lying in the sand at my feet.
I am standing on a fire escape in 1945, reaching out to stop my father, take the cogs and flywheels from him, piece them back together. But it's too late, always has been, always will be. Too late.
Above the Nodus Gordii Mountains, jewels on a makerless mechanism, the first meteorites are beginning to fall.