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The Fizzle Bomber is the main antagonist of the 2014 sci-fi film Predestination.
A terrorist active during the 1970s, he is directly responsible for the deaths of thousands of people and millions of dollars in property damage; shunning the limelight, he makes no attempt to explain himself to the press, so is motivates are unknown at the start of the film, as is his identity. Even the time-travelling Temporal Bureau have been unable to discover who he is or apprehend him, despite managing to prevent one of his bombs from killing anyone. However, one Temporal Agent has set out to find and kill the Fizzle Bomber at any and all costs, thus paving the way for the finale of the film.
Due to the nature of the film, the Fizzle Bomber is portrayed at the various stages of their life by Olivia Sprague, Monique Heath, Sarah Snook, and Ethan Hawke.
Biography
Early Life
The individual that eventually became known as the Fizzle Bomber was born female in the late 1940s. A foundling, she was left on the doorstep of an orphanage, where she was taken in and given the name "Jane". No trace was ever found of her parents.
She soon proved quite different to the other children, proving more interest in reading about space than joining in when the others were at play, eventually becoming an outcast in the process. Deeply envious of kids with parents of their own, she once went so far as to sneak out of the orphanage just to spy on one such happy family, only to nearly get run over by a car while crossing the road, prompting Jane to punch out one of the car's headlights in a fit of temper, immediately earning her punishment from the orphanage staff.
Jane was widely known as an oddball and a troublemaker throughout her childhood. As the outcast of the orphanage, she often ended up getting into fights with the other boys and girls, and despite being smaller than most of her challengers, she invariably won (getting into even more trouble with her caretakers as a result). Her intelligence proved equally isolation, for though she rarely payed attention in class, she academically excelled and somehow always knew the correct answer to whatever question the teachers put to her, driving her even further away from the rest of the students.
She also developed an aversion to sex: witnessing two of her caretakers having sex just outside her dormitory late one night, she felt confused and unsettled by the experience, promising herself never to repeat whatever actions might have led to her being abandoned in the first place; if she were to have a child, she would guarantee that it had a parent.
Time went by, and Jane was never adopted: the brilliant, socially-awkward, temperamental girl was not an attractive for any prospective parents; nor did she find herself attracting boyfriends as she grew older, or friends of any kind at all. Believing that she was a freak, Jane eventually grew to despise herself, to the point that she couldn't even look at herself in a mirror or allow herself to be photographed, the end result being that little evidence remained of her appearance from childhood to full maturity; even her future iterations struggled to remember how she looked at the time.
Falling In Love
Not long after reaching adulthood, Jane found herself unexpectedly approached by a man named Robertson: representing a program known as Space Corp, he was a talent scout for a new and highly unconventional aerospace program (history apparently diverging significantly from known events at this time). Though women still weren't considered acceptable for astronaut training, a select number of female recruits were being allowed into the program in order to become sex workers for their male counterparts. Such candidates would need to be virgins and open to providing comfort for deep-space personnel, but they would also require a proficiency in science and mathematics and sufficient strength and intelligence to actually work in space alongside them. Furthermore, there was an almost perfect chance of getting married to a spacer at the end of her career. Realizing that this was her best chance to see the stars and find love, Jane eagerly accepted Robertson's offer of placement.
Jane once again found herself as one of the highest-achieving members of the program, excelling in strength, stamina, intelligence and aptitude. Furthermore, she actively enjoyed the training, continuing to jog on the treadmill for hours even as all other recruits collapsed, progressing gleefully through the use of the flight simulator even while her fellows broke down vomiting under the stimuli. Unfortunately, this also made her an outsider yet again, and she didn't make many friends among the other trainees; indeed, she regarded them with barely-restrained contempt, dismissing fellow recruits as "hookers and neurotics," believing herself better than any of them. Combined with her perfect record, Jane's behaviour soon began to inspire anger from the others.
After yet another fight with her fellow students, Jane and her newly-beaten challenger were taken off to the infirmary for treatment, and during her stay, the doctor uncovered something interesting during a thorough physical examination of the offender. The results of this exam were shared only with Robertson and Jane didn't become aware of them until much later, but they were enough to disqualify her from the training; made to believe that she was being ejected from the program due to the fight, Jane was given Robertson's promise that he would submit an appeal on her behalf to the board and she might eventually get a chance to return.
She knew that she couldn't wait for Robertson to make good on his promise, however: for the time being, she was forced to support herself, eventually finding work as a mother's helper (essentially a household assistant). During her daytime hours, she worked around the house of her client, vacuuming, ironing and disposing of garbage - while also developing a taste for the true confessions magazines litter around the place. At night, she went to charm school in the dim hope of proving to the appeals board that she was working on her decorum.
In 1963, Jane was leaving the school one rainy evening when she bumped into a man waiting outside. He claimed to be waiting for someone, prompting Jane to remark on the old saying of "all things come to those who wait", only for the man to unexpectedly reply "but only the things left by those who hustle," an Abraham Lincoln quote that Jane had been thinking of at that very moment. Fascinated, Jane took an interest in the stranger, and eventually ended up falling head-over-heels in love with the man, even having sex with him at one point. The two of them were together for only a few months, unfortunately: one evening, the two were at a park when Jane's lover unexpectedly told her he had to leave for a moment, promising her that he'd be right back. She never saw him again.
Not long afterwards, Robertson approached Jane again and confessed that she hadn't been considered for Space Corps at all: he represented an organization that used Space Corps and other organizations as a means of recruiting individuals with special abilities, most commonly people with no families, no pasts and no ties to the future. He never stated what the exact purpose of the group was, but he revealed that Jane was eligible for recruitment.
Unfortunately, Jane soon found her life taking yet another unfortunate turn just when things were looking up: she was pregnant with her mysterious lover's baby. Robertson soon broke off contact with her, leaving Jane with no career, no prospects and only unmarried motherhood to look forward to.
The Unmarried Mother
Jane's pregnancy came with unexpected complications, and when she finally went into labor several months later, she had to be anaesthetized for a Caesarean section though she successfully gave birth to a healthy baby girl in the process, she suffered significant internal injuries that forced the doctors to perform additional surgery. It was here that they finally discovered what had been brought to Robertson's attention back at Space Corps: Jane was actually intersex, possessing an internalized set of male sex organs along with her female ones. Both were unfortunately still immature in comparison to the rest of her body, hence why the birth had became so difficult.
Over the course of her labor, Jane's ovaries and uterus had suffered irreparable damage and had to be removed. Through early-stage gender reassignment surgery, a male urinary tract was constructed to replace her lost female organs. In order for Jane to live a functional life, she would be given additional surgery and hormone therapy, at the end of which she would be male.
Though shocked by the news of this, Jane was determined to soldier on so she could give her newborn daughter a happy upbringing, even naming her Jane, just so she could keep the name in the family. Two weeks later, unfortunately, baby Jane was kidnapped from the hospital one night, taken directly from the nursery while the staff's backs were turned. No description of the kidnapper ever emerged, nor was he ever caught, and despite her parent's best attempt at finding baby Jane, no trace of the child could be found at any of the adoption agencies or orphanages in the area, as the baby was never seen again.
Jane was left to suffer through her therapy alone. Over the course of the next eleven months, she underwent multiple surgeries, took regular hormone therapy and gradually altered the pitch of her voice until all traces of her former appearance were gone except for the massive caesarean scar across her belly, and she could be legally classified as a male. Accordingly, he renamed himself "John.".
Ironically, he found himself being immediately accepted by the nurses around the hospital, who found him quite handsome in his new state, and the fact that John knew how to talk to women from personal experience made him even more attractive to them. The loss of his old identity was a devastating process, but eventually he came to terms with what had happened to him and tried to move on with his new life, first by seeking employment at Space Corps once again, this time as an astronaut instead of a sex worker. Unfortunately, John's former status automatically marked him down as "unfit for basic training," and the attending doctor only allowed him to get as far as the physical exam just so he could get a good look at the legendary medical case he'd heard so much about.
Having spent his life thus far angling for careers that were no longer appropriate for his new gender, John was lost for a time and left deeply bitter over everything that had happened because of his former lover. Eventually, he made his way to New York and sought out a fresh start. He found work as a fry cook, though he found the long hours and low pay difficult to deal with, eventually driving him to become a public stenographer. This also proved both unsatisfying and unprofitable, as John only managed to get through six letters and a manuscript in four months, but the latter gave John the idea of pursuing a writing career of his own; drawing upon his old love of True Confessions stories, he studied up on what made these articles successful, then started writing his own.
Under the pseudonym "The Unmarried Mother", John began writing stories of being abandoned and betrayed by lovers, once again drawing on personal experience to add a touch of authenticity. His work was immediately successful with True Confessions magazines thanks to his innate understanding of the female perspective, and ultimately proved profitable enough to keep himself alive, if not necessarily comfortable.
My Own Grandpa
It is at this point that the events of the film chronologically begin, in 1975. With the Fizzle Bomber's latest attacks causing panic throughout the city and prompting an exodus of terror-stricken people, John makes his way to near-deserted bar in search of distraction, where he finds a new barkeep at work. The two of them strike up a conversation, during which John reveals his profession as a writer and exchanges some half-hearted attempts at banter, before he bitterly admits to feeling sympathy with the Bomber, even remarking that some people deserve to die.
The Barkeep eventually challenges John to tell him something he hasn't heard before, promising him an entire bottle of booze if he wins, and after a bit of cajoling, John reveals his life story: his early life as Jane, the disastrous love affair, and the transition into a male. The Barkeep is surprisingly tolerant by the standards of the time, accepting every detail without question and remaining sympathetic throughout. He even congratulates John when it's revealed that, according to the doctors, his male sex organs have finally matured and he's now a fully fertile male specimen - making John capable of fathering children if he wanted to.
Just when it appears that John's story is over, the Barkeep unexpectedly offers him the chance to take revenge on the man who ruined his life all those years ago. John is immediately sceptical, given that he tried tracking down his ex-lover before and found nothing, but the Barkeep reveals that he's been sent by Robertson to recruit him into the secret organization; the test of John's suitability comes down to whether or not he can kill his lover. Though suspicious of this opportunity, John warily accepts and follows the Barkeep downstairs into the basement, only to watch in utter confusion as his guide gathers up two handguns and a violin case. The Barkeep gives John just enough time to learn that the violin case is actually a time machine known as a Field Kit before activating it, sending the two of them hurtling backwards through time.
Materializing in 1963, John is given a quick overview of the rules of time travel and informed that the organization that he's being groomed for is known as the Temporal Bureau, an agency created with the specific goal of preventing historical crimes and disasters through the use of time travel. The Barkeep then vanishes off into another period of history, but not before giving John a gun, telling him that his ex-lover is waiting outside the school, exactly where Jane met him all those years ago; if he hurries, he might be able to spare his younger self all the pain she suffered as a result of her abandonment.
John is left waiting outside the school that evening, looking for any sign of the man who was to ruin his life. Then Jane unexpectedly bumps into him; John distractedly remarks that he's waiting for someone, and Jane comments "you know what they say about good things happening to those who wait". Shocked, John realizes that he's found himself occupying the role of his own ex-lover, but nonetheless progresses through the conversation exactly as he remembers it, even telling Jane that she was beautiful.
Before long, the two of them are in a committed sexual relationship. If John has any qualms about having sex with his past self, he shows no sign of it; indeed, he seems to recognize that he and Jane are the only compatible partners that they have ever found, noting how Jane seems to believe herself superior to everyone around her in much the same way as he was contemptuous of his fellow citizens back in the seventies. For several months, the two are happy together.
One night, John and Jane are sitting together at a park when John happens to notice the Barkeep standing in the distance. Finally realizing that this could be the only reason why he would even leave the woman he loved, John storms off to confront the Barkeep in a fit of rage, even holding him at gunpoint over everything that's happened. The Barkeep points out that this element of history cannot be changed, and some events are simply inevitable; though John insists that he'll stay behind and be there for Jane when she needs him the most, history indicates that he will leave her.
What finally disarms John is the Barkeep's final revelation: he loves Jane as well - for a reason that immediately becomes apparent to John. Shocked, he allows the Barkeep to take him to Robertson, transporting him forward in time to the Temporal Bureau headquarters. There, the shock of travelling so many decades through time at once almost instantly incapacitates John, and he is taken away for medical attention. When he finally awakens, he is ready to begin his training as a Temporal Agent.
However, the Barkeep is gone; though he leaves behind a cache of prerecorded messages for John to study, the man himself is never seen again.
The Rooster
John soon makes a name for himself as a highly-effective agent, stopping numerous disasters and crimes across the span of history the Bureau monitors. Eventually, however, the Bureau soon finds itself pitted against the Fizzle Bomber, and even their technology proves ineffective in the face of the terrorist's cunning. As a result, it's not long before is sent in to try to stop the Bomber's reign of terror.
At some point during the 1970s, John arrives at a building that the Fizzle Bomber has targeted for destruction and is able to catch his target in the act of setting up a bomb in the basement. The two exchange gunfire, and though John is struck in the shoulder, the Bomber is quickly forced to flee the area before his face can be seen. With this out of the way, John attempts to dispose of the bomb before it can detonate, but he is distracted by a noise in the distance that he initially mistakes for the terrorist returning to attack again, wasting precious time. The explosive detonates just as he places it in a disposal container, and though the container prevents it from doing any damage to the building itself, the closing lid channels a gout of fire directly into John's face.
Horribly burned and in agonizing pain, he tries to reach for his Field Kit, but is too weak to get close enough. However, a mysterious figure then emerges from the shadows and pushes the Field Kit back within his grasp, allowing John to transport himself back to Bureau headquarters.