INT. WORKSHOP-FLAT - DAY
A small, cramped living space cluttered with tools and brass parts. The air is gray and still.
The only window is a thick, opaque sheet of ice. The frost on the glass is not delicate; it is a tumor growing inward.
THERESA (28), face smeared with grease, canvas trousers stiff with grime, stares at the central machine of the room: the COGITATOR.
It is silent.
Theresa’s breath CLOUDS in front of her face. A ghost of warmth in a tomb.
She shivers. A violent, full-body spasm.
Her fingers, red and clumsy, grip a wrench. She jams it into the cogitator's housing.
With a grunt of effort, she twists. Metal SCREECHES against metal.
She pulls out the GOVERNOR GEAR. It is a small brass sun, now ruined. Two teeth are bent back. A third is ground to dust.
Theresa drops the gear. It CLATTERS on the floor. Useless.
She reaches into her pocket. Pulls out a meager handful of scrip coins. She counts them. Stops. Counts them again.
She looks at the cogitator. Then at the window. The ice seems thicker than it was a minute ago.
She looks at the heavy wool coat hanging by the door.
Theresa grabs the coat.
EXT. TENEMENT HALLWAY - CONTINUOUS
The hallway is a wind tunnel of riveted iron.
Theresa steps out, wrapped in the coat, a scarf binding her face until only her eyes are visible. She pulls worn leather gloves over stiff fingers.
The wind HOWLS, channeling through the cracks in the building's shell.
She moves to the metal stairs. Her boots CRUNCH on the frost coating the steps.
She descends.
INT. UNDERCROFTS - CONTINUOUS
A maze of service tunnels. The air here is thick, yellow, and smells of unrefined coal and boiled cabbage.
Jury-rigged gas lamps HISS and flicker, casting long, dancing shadows.
People huddle around braziers made from oil drums. Their faces are smudged with soot.
Theresa navigates the crowd. She keeps her head down.
She stops at a cavernous alcove behind a decommissioned pressure tank.
OLD MAN LAMPE (70) sits on a crate. His face is a roadmap of frostbite scars. One eye is a milky white orb.
He holds a pair of pliers over a sputtering stove. A rat on a stick sizzles in the heat.
He doesn't look up.
No scrip, no service. No trades for trinkets.
I need a governor gear. Series Three.
Lampe turns his head. The milky eye fixes on her. He scans her jacket. Her boots.
He points with the rat-skewer toward a heap of brass and iron.
You see a Series Three, you're welcome to it. Fifty scrip.
Theresa freezes. She looks at the pile, then back at him.
Fifty? The Guild price is three hundred.
Found it in a slag heap. No Guild stamp. Might work for a year, might work for a minute. You buy junk, you take your chances.
Theresa kneels by the pile. She digs through the metal.
Chipped gears. Warped cogs. Stripped bolts. A graveyard of failures.
Her hands shake. The cold is still in her bones.
These are all stripped.
Lampe sighs. A sound of wet gravel.
He sets the rat down. Shuffles to a locked chest in the shadows. He unlocks it with a GRINDING screech.
He pulls out an object wrapped in oily canvas.
Special stock. Not Series Three. But it'll fit.
He tosses it to her.
Theresa catches it. She pauses.
She peels back the canvas.
The GEAR is dark, burnished bronze. Covered in etching so fine it looks like organic growth.
It HUMS. A low, sub-audible vibration that trembles the air around it.
Theresa brings it closer to her face. She takes off a glove. Hovers her hand over it.
It radiates heat.
What is this?
Deep-ice surveyor drone tech. Maybe. Pre-Freeze.
It's humming.
It does that. Has its own power source. Unregulated.
Theresa looks up sharply.
That's a transportable offense.
Freezing is a terminal offense. Seventy-five scrip.
Theresa stares at the gear. The warmth pulses against her skin. The HUM is a siren song.
She looks at her shaking hands.
She dumps her coins into a rusty can on Lampe's crate.
INT. WORKSHOP-FLAT - LATER
The room is dead. The cold is stagnant, heavy.
A mug of tea on the workbench is a solid block of brown ice.
Theresa bursts in. She throws the dark gear onto the bench.
She works frantically. Wrenching bolts. Her breath comes in ragged puffs.
The housing of the cogitator GROANS as she forces it open.
She grabs the dark gear. The HUM is louder now.
She hesitates. The filigree seems to shift in the gray light.
A spasm of cold racks her body. Her teeth CLATTER.
She shoves the gear into the axle.
CLICK. A perfect fit.
She slams the housing shut. Tightens the bolts. Fast. Sloppy.
She grabs the main steam valve wheel.
She twists it open.
Silence.
Theresa stares. Her chest heaves.
THROOOOM.
A vibration hits the floorboards. Dust jumps.
The HUM deepens into a ROAR.
The pipes connecting the machine to the wall begin to glow. Dull red. Then angry orange.
A wave of heat BLASTS outward. It distorts the air.
The frost on the window doesn't melt. It VAPORIZES with a sharp HISS.
Theresa stumbles back, shielding her face.
The cogitator SCREAMS. A high-pitched mechanical shriek.
Molten metal drips from the housing seals. It hits the floor. Smoke billows instantly.
Theresa lunges for the steam valve.
She grabs the wheel. Her glove SMOKES.
She pulls. It won't budge.
She grabs a wrench. Raises it to strike.
She stops.
Through the inspection grate, the GEAR is visible.
It is no longer bronze. It is a spinning vortex of pure white light.
The metal of the housing ripples like water. The gear is expanding. Eating the machine.
The floor shakes violently. Tools rattle off the bench.
CRACK.
A seam in the housing splits. A jet of white-hot steam blasts the ceiling.
Theresa drops the wrench.
She turns to the door.
She runs.