| Jamie Alexandra Clancy | |
 |
|
| Portrayed By | Dakota Fanning |
|---|---|
| Gender | Female |
| Date of Birth | December 11, 1997 |
| Age | 12 |
| Zodiac Sign | Sagittareus |
| Aliases | Undine |
| Place of Birth | Unknown |
| Current Location | Sullivan Bros. Carnival |
| Occupation | Ring Acrobat |
| Known Relatives | James Clancy (Father, missing), Anne Clancy (Mother, deceased) |
| Significant Other | None |
| Known Abilities | Aqueous Form |
| First Appearance | How come you call me cherry? |
Once an acrobatic prodigy, she performed with the Clancy Carnival with her mother, Anne, as well as a safer solo act. She went missing when her mother was murdered, after which the Carnival went out of business. Eventually her father, James Clancy, was arrested on the belief he was involved in the murder and his daughter's disappearance. (See below for details.)
History
For a life that would one day be filled with tragedy, adventure, and strange powers, Jamie’s life started out pretty ordinary. Well, as ordinary as one can call being born in a circus. Clancy Carnival was one of the few travelling circuses left in the country, and it was owned by Jamie’s father, James Clancy.
Jamie’s mother, (Anne), on the other hand, was one of the performers. An acrobat, Jamie spent the first few years of her life wanting nothing else but to be an acrobat like her mother. And she had talent too. By the time she was six she was able to balance on a balance beam, (though a wire was still beyond her reach), while juggling, and rope-climbing and contortion acts. By eight she was doing performances on the high wire with her mother, though her mother did the most difficult stuff.
Jamie never went to school, she never had time with the performances and the travelling. However, her mother taught her to read and write and do basic addition and subtraction. Most of their time, though, was spent learning and practicing new acts, since Jamie’s talent at such a young age was one of the few things drawing an audience.
Jamie loved her father, but it was her mother she was the closest too. She even knew her mother’s secret, something that even her father didn’t know. When Jamie was in the bath, her mother would make the water take forms, and move around like puppets.
Then, while the circus was visiting New York City, performing in the Central Park, tragedy struck. A pair of thieves struck their tent while Jamie was changing after her solo act, getting ready with her mother for the trapeze. Hearing them coming, her mother had Jamie hide in a trunk.
Jamie could hear the entire conversation. The thieves told Anne that she’d be fine if she just let them take what they wanted. And she did, until they moved for the trunk that Jamie was hiding in. When Anne refused to let them take it, they shot her.
They took the trunk without looking inside. Jamie stayed hidden, terrified, while it was loaded onto a truck. It was only as it was driving off that she snuck out of the trunk. As soon as the truck stopped to make a turn, she jumped off and ran. And ran some more.
Had she made her way back to the circus, she would have found her father alive and well. Traumatized, though, she felt that everybody must have died at the circus, and she went into hiding. After a couple days, something clicked in her mind. If she’d been braver, she thought, she could have let them know she was in the trunk, and they wouldn’t have shot her mother. What followed wasn’t a conscious decision, but from that moment on she never let fear get in the way of doing something. Anything.
She took to freerunning first, using her acrobatic skills to allow her to keep moving past obstacles. At first it was just for the thrill of it, finding joy in life again. She still wanted to be famous, though, and found that her stunts impressed the other kids, she worked on getting better. She also did unrelated stunts, like jumping the gaps between buildings and other such dangerous things.
Back at the circus, her father refused to report her missing, thinking any authorities that found her wouldn’t bring her back but send her to a foster home. So he kept the circus in town, and the entire group would go out looking for her. But New York is a big city. After a few months, the circus went out of business and her father finally reported her missing, but once the police found out how long she’d been missing they didn’t have much hope of finding her, and arrested her father on suspicion that he’d done something to her and tried to cover it up.
Jamie lived on the street for a while, getting attention first of the other kids by her daredevil stunts, and then later by criminals. She got a job working for a man, ‘Curly Joe’, nicknamed that because of how he looked like Curly from the Three Stooges. He was a lot more intelligent, though, and used Jamie as a runner. By this point, few adults could keep up with her, especially on a course with a lot of obstacles, allowing her to make deliveries and to even get away if anybody suspected her.
It was shortly before she turned ten, an hour before she was to show up to Joe’s to make a run, that she tried her biggest stunt ever. She’d jump from one building, across the alley below to catch the ladder of a fire escape and then ride it down. Unfortunately, she failed, not jumping far enough. In a panic on the way towards the ground, she screamed, and then everything changed.
Her audience, gathered on the roof she jumped from, ran to the side to look. Only to see, far below, her clothes lying on the ground, with water splattered everywhere like a big water balloon had gone off. Confused and scared, the kids ran off.
Little did they know that the water splashed everywhere *was* Jamie. Not that she really understood it herself at the time. That first time, it took her hours to figure out how to bring herself together again from her droplets splattered all over. She learned to move, flow around as a liquid, and then finally, how to take human shape again. By that point someone had taken her clothes, but she found something to wear in a nearby dumpster and then ran back to Joe’s.
She told Joe when she got back, to explain why she was late, but of course he didn’t believe her, just sent her on her assignment before she could go rest. She did the work, and then found a dumpster to curl up in and slept for almost a day.
She kept practicing, turning herself into a liquid and learning how to move around in it. A couple times she got lost exploring the drains and the water pipes of the city, and once she even got trapped in someone’s water heater. She flowed out the bathroom tap when a tub was being filled, terrifying a poor girl a little younger than her when a portion of her bath water slithered out of her tub and out of the bathroom.
Just after her tenth birthday, a couple weeks before Christmas, she was at Joe’s when he was threatening to punish a teenager that worked for him who had messed up. The teen, in a panic, grabbed a gun and took a few wild shots. One would have hit Jamie, but she turned into water just before it could hit her.
Joe suddenly took an interest in Jamie. The timing wasn’t suspicious to the girl, he said that he’d come to think of her like a daughter and she believed him. Desperate for a family again, when he took her in she was happy. The fact that he helped her, setting up situations to practice her power only sealed the deal. He helped her figure out how to take human form again inside her clothes (so she could reform fully dressed), and how to navigate the city’s water system. It took a lot of practice, but by the end of January he deemed her ready.
He had one of his employees take her out to a house in the suburbs, and had her work her way down through an outside drain, through the pipes and back up through the house’s kitchen sink. She went to the front door and opened it for him, and he’d rob the place. The best part, for Jamie, was returning back and getting praise and hugs from Joe. Every few days they did this. Jamie occasionally taking something from the houses for herself, as well.
A couple months passed and Jamie continued to do the robberies. When she wasn't doing the jobs, she was free to wander the city, and it was during these wanderings that she met two people who helped her see what she was doing was wrong.
The first was a reporter, Sierra. She was the one who convinced Jamie that the people being robbed wouldn't really like what she was doing. Still, she felt too loyal to Joe to stop.
The second was a radio DJ, Alyssa 'Ali' McAlister. She had the unique ability to get people to do what she said, just by ordering them. She was so upset to see Jamie being used she asked (without using her powers) for the girl to take her to see Joe, and Jamie complied. When they got there, she ordered Joe to tell Jamie what he really felt about her. Finding out Joe thought of her as nothing more than a tool practically shattered her, so much she didn't even really notice when Ali made Joe believe he didn't need Jamie anymore.
Jamie went to stay with Ali and her roommate, the TV soap star Erin. After finding out Jamie's father was in jail (a surprise to Jamie to be sure), Ali filed for and was granted foster parent status, and for a while things were happy. Jamie rebuilt her confidence over time, and her optimism returned even faster.
Ali started Jamie at school, which turned out to be a bit of a disaster. Except for the school's gymnastics program, Jamie didn't fit in at all. Sitting still for long periods of time just went against her nature, and being enclosed in a building instead of outside free to go where she wanted, she felt stifled. After changing into water once accidentally, though, she did make one friend at the school, a boy who would hold her secrets as long as she was at the school.
At home, things were going better, however. Ali had been digging into the case against Jamie's father, and with the help of a lawyer friend was able to find holes in it. The case had been built around the fact that Jamie was presumed dead. Now that she was confirmed alive, the lawyer was able to file to have him released.
The court case took months, requiring a number of appearances by Jamie (who absolutely hated being put in a dress for them). The lawyer, a hobby musician, kept Jamie agreeable by offering frequent guitar lessons. Finally, in the end they won not only his release, but a large settlement as well.
James got an apartment and Jamie moved back in with him. He started spending a lot of money on Jamie, giving her more gifts than she'd ever had before in her life. And, he tried to reform the carnival, but he couldn't get in touch with enough of the old gang to put it back together, and even the settlement didn't cover the costs of building one from scratch.
Jamie, meanwhile, continued having problems at school. On one stressful day she felt the need to escape and climbed to the school roof during lunch to practice her acrobatics. Thinking she'd gone up to try to commit suicide, the school sent her to a psychologist, Sydney, who became the first to get the full story of her mother's death out of Jamie, and to figure out that she blamed herself. Sydney would become a weekly visit for quite some time.
Time passed, and the settlement ran out, and still James hadn't found a new job. He went to a loan shark, unknowingly one in the service of Curly Joe. After another month of no job and being unable to pay him back, Joe sent people out to get Jamie. She could earn money to pay the debt back easily enough.
What started as a normal day at home turned into a blackmail/kidnapping. Joe's guys came in, threatening to kill Jamie's father unless she'd go with them. So, of course, she went.
So, for the next few weeks she was back working for Joe again, but this time he didn't have her just hitting small houses. They went after mansions, jewelry stores, banks, anything they could use her ability to get past the security of.
Finally, a man showed up in a jewelry store they were hitting, catching her inside before she could unlock the security. He gave her a way out. He worked for a company that watched out for the Evolved like her, keeping them safe. He told her that her father had vanished, that Joe couldn't reach him, and she could go with him to safety. His name was Saul and he offered to take her in until they could find her father. Grateful for the rescue, she quite happily accepted.
Saul took her to his home in Mexico, and for a while they (and Saul's wife Marie) lived as a happy family. As seems to be destined in Jamie's case, the happiness wasn't to last.
In September of 2009, soldiers broke into the house, surprising Jamie and Saul and tazering them so fast Jamie didn't even have time to change forms. They drugged them, and the next thing Jamie knew she was strapped to a table, a tube in her nose feeding her drugs that kept her weak and unable to use her ability. She was in a room with a number of other people, and though time went oddly as she slipped in and out of consciousness, more people were being added to the room all the time.
The next few weeks were the worst of her life. Unable to move, and worse, unable to change forms, it was basically torture for her. One day they woke her up enough to walk out to a truck, though she was masked and still drugged too much to change form. From the truck she was taken to a train, strapped onto a table again. All of those like her, all Evolved, who were captured were being shipped somewhere, but luckily they never found out where.
Outside of those captured, others had found out what was going on. A technopath 13-year-old going by the alias Rebel used the internet and text messaging to assemble a force, a resistance, to fight back against a government turning on those with abilities. He guided this force to the train, and they intercepted it. Though the battle was intense, including a helicopter being brought down to crash on one of the more powerful members of the resistance, Peter Petrelli, Jamie didn't see much of it. She just found herself rescued, waking up in a clearing with a number of others who had been prisoners and a few of the rescuers.
This group wandered for a time, just trying to stay ahead of search parties looking for them, and eventually were able to hide out at a farmhouse whose owners appeared to be on vacation. They stayed there about a week, allowing most of the former prisoners to recover. Though it only took Jamie an hour in the tub to heal herself up, most of the required exercise and good food to get their bodies going again.
After about a week, Matt, one of the rescuers, got in touch with Rebel who sent a teleporter to take the group to a safehouse, an orphanage in Germany that had been hiding powered kids for years. At this safehouse, Jamie met the boy who was going by the name Rebel, Micah Sanders, and befriended him.
After some discussion, they decided the only way to stop the government was to get the general populace on their side. So, Micah used his powers to hijack every television station across the United States, and broadcast a taped video of Jamie using her powers to turn into water and then back again and giving a speech about their troubles.
This, though, raised the concern that Jamie would now be recognized and be a danger to the orphanage, so she was brought back to the United States, where she was reunited with Saul and placed into a live-in school run by the Company. She stayed there from Thanksgiving, past her twelfth birthday, until New Years.
A New Years prank once again brought stability to an end. Not allowed to go out and see the fireworks, Jamie got another boy staying at the school to use his power to create a fireworks display over the school. The fireworks display didn't actually bring any attention, but Jamie was confined to her dorm room outside of school hours in punishment anyway. After her time confined to a table in what she'd since found out was called Alpha Protocol, this was terrifying to her. So, she fled through the school's pipes.
She searched through the network of pipes until she found a house with a girl about her size. Waiting until the girl was off to school she snuck out and stole some of her clothes to wear, and ran past the girl's startled mother as she escaped.
It took her a little while, but she finally made it back to New York, ending up at the docks, only to stumble into a man about to be executed by someone talking in another language. She never found out what it was about, the executioner shot her through the heart. If it wasn't for her ability to turn into water, she'd have died right there. As it is, police are probably still looking for the body of the girl whose bloody clothes were found at the scene.
Jamie was in shock, and it took a while for her to regain her senses. She slipped into the water finally and once submerged she 'slept' for an unknown length of time. Perhaps a day, maybe two, but eventually she recovered and she'd taken on enough water to be fully healed.
Still terrified, Jamie slipped into the New York pipes through a sewer drain, and she wandered. Finally, she heard a voice that brought her back to a feeling of safety: Sydney. She almost gave the poor psychologist a heart attack when she came up from the sink. Once Sydney got her something to wear, Jamie told her story.
Sydney believed the story, she'd developed her own ability to read and manipulate emotions, and she could tell Jamie was telling the truth. She had Jamie retreat through the pipes and meet her at the mall, in the ladies' room. Sydney bought some clothes to disguise herself and some clothes and a wig for Jamie, and once the room was free of anybody extra Jamie came out of the sink and dressed quickly in the clothes and wig.
So disguised, they went to an old high school friend of Sydney's, Fred. They stayed there for a few weeks, Sydney even taking in a homeless boy who would become Jamie's best friend. Life was good until they discovered that Fred was working with the Alpha Protocol under cover, and was putting his cover (and his life) on the line for Sydney and Jamie.
After some arguing and Sydney revealing just how bad Jamie would take it if someone else got hurt because she didn't act, they left and went to stay with one of Sydney's former patients, who happened to be the girlfriend of a congressman working with Rebel to resist the Protocols.
Finally, Jamie had some stability, for a few months again at least. Jamie would never find out what happened to end the Protocols, only that the President hadn't known about them and shut them down once he finally found out.
With the world safe for Jamie again, Sydney called Saul and arranged for him to pick Jamie up. Saul decided that after everything they'd been through, he and Jamie both deserved a vacation. So, arranging the flight, Saul took Jamie to South America.
The plan was for them to spend a few days at a high class (and rather crowded) resort, and then they'd fly out to a smaller resort out in the middle of the jungle to spend another couple weeks away from any danger. The plan didn't really work out.
The first few days at the luxury resort were fantastic. Jamie spent much of the time enjoying the pool and taking a few trips through the resort's 'adventure hike', which not only was a nature hike but included activities like riding a Zip Line and crossing a rope bridge high over a ravine. Things turned bad in the plane ride to the other resort, however.
Other than Saul and Jamie, the other passengers on the small plane were part of an expedition by a website called The Mysterious Truth, who investigated weird stories and cryptozoography around the world. Unknown to most of the public, the founder of The Mysterious Truth, known as Mark Scotts online, was actually Mark Lane, son of Thomas Lane, the CEO of Lane Industries.
Thomas had been conflicted with his son for many years. The fact that Mark had helped the resistance against the Protocols and he had been helping them set some final things in motion. Mark wasn't just in the jungle to investigate reports of walking trees, but to get to the bottom of some of his father's more nefarious activities. Thomas, in response, ordered his son killed.
About halfway to the resort, the plane started having trouble. Soon they were crashing. Jamie survived by turning into water during the crash, but Saul was sucked out of the plane and two others were killed.
Jamie started travelling with the other survivors as they tried to make it through the jungle to safety. They found the Lane Industries research facility that Mark had been coming to investigate, where evidence indicated that they'd been planning to attack a local tribe who had an Evolved they wanted to capture and study. One of the research team, an old friend of Mark's, rebelled and killed everybody from the small facility instead.
The team sent to kill Mark found them and chased them through the jungle until they met the tribe and Mark's friend, who was with them. The tribe took them in, welcoming them and their Evolved (or Blessed, as they called her) healed the wounds of those that were injured.
The tribe saw all the Evolved with Mark as blessed by the spirits, except for Jamie. In her case, because she could turn into water, they thought she was a water spirit given human form. They took her in like none of the others. They didn't worship her, but they made her feel like she belonged, and they accepted her abilities. If she could speak the language, she might have even tried to stay with them long-term.
However, the team from Lane Industries was coming, and the tribe needed to evacuate. Mark and his team volunteered to help fight them off until the tribe was safe, but Mark insisted on sending Jamie on to another tribe who had outside contact, one who then arranged for Jamie to be sent home.
Saul never showed up again, so for a time Jamie stayed with the Company, with various sitters assigned to look after her. Nothing permanent was arranged, as right around this time there was an eclipse that stopped all powers for a few weeks, keeping everybody busy trying to figure out why. Jamie almost went nuts during this time, but when her abilities came back she was even stronger than before, now able to absorb enough water to shoot water like a super-soaker instead of like a water pistol.
Finally, a Carnival came to town, the Sullivan Bros. Carnival. They weren't an ordinary carnival, but one made up of Evolved. Jamie asked and was allowed to join, returning to her roots as an acrobat but now adding her ability to her finale. She finally found a place she belonged.
Power
Overview: Jamie can turn herself into water in the blink of an eye. When in water form she can move around, flowing as fast as water can but defying the usual limitations, (flowing up and over the edge of a tub, for example), can flow through drains, cracks in doors, or anywhere water can move. She can also apply some force to manipulate objects through water pressure, but it's only as strong as she is physically in human form. When in her water form, she can only be hurt by electricity which damages the bond keeping her in control of the water molecules that make her up. Freezing her will make her unable to act, and turning her to steam will leave her able to float around as a cloud but otherwise unable to act until she condenses back into liquid, but she's still alive. When she's in a body of water in her aqueous form, she's completely undetectable, and can move much faster than any normal human swimming.
Potential: Someday, she'll be able to take on water and bulk herself up, allowing her to fight as a 'water elemental', but for right now she can only take on enough water to heal her own injuries, and even that is still difficult for her. Eventually she'll also be able to blast high-pressure water in a type of attack by taking from herself, but right now she can only squirt about as effectively as a water gun.
Weaknesses: First of all, as stated earlier, electricity will harm her, damaging her control over her molecules and issuing damage that will show as burns on return to human form. (These can be healed by her submersive healing techniques.) If she's frozen in her aqueous form when she returns to normal, even though she'll need to have melted to make the transformation back, her body will show signs of mild hypothermia, which can only be healed by warming up. Just the same, if she's vapourized while she's in her aqueous form, on return to human form she'll have symptoms of a fever until she can cool down.
Power Stunts
Squirt Gun: When in either form she can send a blast of water at someone with about the strength and mass of a regular old-fashioned water gun's blast. This does no damage but will of course make someone wet.
Transform: The key to her whole power. Transforming is easy for her almost instinctual at difficulty Terrible. She's completely unable to transform anything but her body so she can't take clothes with her but she's practiced and can transform back to human into clothes that are lying around except for shoes and socks. She's practiced this enough that she can do this as long as clothes are available with no extra difficulty.
Water Heal Me: When submerging in another source of water in her liquid form she can take in water to heal herself of any injuries she sustained when in physical form. This is difficult for her though at difficulty Mediocre. She can make another attempt for every hour submerged.
Absorb: Jamie can now absorb water from a source directly like standing in a puddle as long as her skin or a bit of her water when she's water form comes in contact with it. This is limited to twice her body mass and it does not heal her as when she submerges in water and absorbs that way. This stunt ties in with 'water blast' and 'can't touch me' stunts.
Can't Touch Me: When she has extra water stored within her from absorbing it Jamie has the ability to instinctively react to any kind of attack by partially transforming any area that will be touched by the attack. This requires her to be able to know there's danger coming but not necessarily to register it consciously. Each attack stopped this way costs her a bit of her extra supply of water and if she is reduced to her human-form mass in stored water the ability stops functioning and she'll have to fully transform to protect herself. Note this will not protect against electrical attacks.
Water Blast: When Jamie has stored extra water in her system by absorbing it she can expel this water at great force. This is much like her 'squirt gun' stunt but packing a much larger punch and able to knock over a grown man though is unlikely to cause any actual injuries beyond perhaps minor bruising. This is limited by the amount of extra water stored in her and if she's reduced to her human body mass she's unable to expel more than a squirt at a time.
Timeline
- February 2, 2008 - Jamie meets a reporter in the park: How come you call me cherry?
- February 3, 2008 - Jamie has her interview: Burger and a Crazy Story
- February 5, 2008 - Jamie shows off and gets her picture painted: It's All Fun and Games
- February 6, 2008 - Jamie talks about her powers in public: Can't Keep a Secret
- February 8, 2008 - Jamie finds out someone has powers a lot like hers: Just Like Me
- February 10, 2008 - Jamie runs into Sophie yet again, and gets to meet someone new too. I See You Everywhere
- February 11, 2008 - Jamie tries to skip in line to a big event. Line Jump Brain Dump
- February 12, 2008 - Jamie has a Quick Chat and Cocoa with Sierra.
- February 16, 2008 - Jamie's a Pretzel Kind of Person.
- February 17, 2008 - Jamie meets a new friend! Fox Meets Puddle
- February 18, 2008 - Ali rescues Jamie from working for Joe: Truth is Unkind, As You Do Unto The Least Of Them
- February 20, 2008 - Jamie meets Ali's roommate, Erin: Child Support
- February 22, 2008 - Ali takes Jamie on a Shopping Trip
- February 25, 2008 - Ali and Jamie talk about some serious stuff, while Jamie learns how to use Chopsticks, then go to investigate and then go get some dinner: Library and Diner
Quotes (To Come)
- "Memorable quotes!"
Trivia
- Jamie can't keep a secret. Seriously. If you want something to remain secret, don't tell her. The only secret she's ever successfully kept was her mother's powers.