In the smog-choked underworld of 2068 Los Angeles, an aging inventor sacrifices himself to draw a swarm of Enforcer drones away from his twelve-year-old apprentice, leaving the boy to realize years later that his mentor had pre-planned the sacrifice long before the drones arrived.
Synopsis
Los Angeles, 2068. In a rain-soaked workshop on the swollen LA River, twelve-year-old Alexander helps his mentor Kahlil build the skeleton of a machine that doesn’t take orders. It reads what you mean. When six eyeless Enforcer drones drift in over the dock, Kahlil hides the boy beneath the floorboards, in freezing black water, and takes the unfinished Carpet into the sky to draw them away. Twelve years later, on a rooftop at dusk, Alexander tells the story he always tells, and then, for the first time, the part he never has.
“Six years of work, and the only word I’ve got for it is magic.”
Characters
Kahlil 60s
Inventor and mentor. The only person who ever told Alexander the truth without decorating it first.
Young Alexander 12
Strips copper wire on the workshop floor, and thinks a machine should just do what it’s told.
Alexander 20s
On a rooftop with the finished Carpet, telling the story he has told a hundred times.
From the script
Opening pagesSPARK
Written by Josiah Authier
FADE IN:
EXT. LOWER CITY ROOFTOP - DUSK
Thin smog, bruised orange. The city hums below, muffled and far away.
ALEXANDER (20s) sits on a low parapet. Leather jacket. Visor pushed up on his forehead. He is not going anywhere.
Beside him rests the MAGIC CARPET. Matte black, nano-fibers slack and still, like something asleep.
He isn't looking at it. He's looking out.
ALEXANDER (V.O.)
Everybody wants the version where I was brave.
A beat. He almost smiles. It's a practiced thing.
ALEXANDER (V.O.)
I've told it a hundred times. It's a good story. Gets you a drink, gets people to stop asking the next question.
He turns his hand over. Looks at his palm.
ALEXANDER (V.O.)
I was twelve.
SMASH CUT TO:
INT. KAHLIL'S WORKSHOP - LOWER CITY - NIGHT (2068)
Rain comes through a rusted corrugated roof and sizzles on exposed circuit boards. Outside, the swollen LA River slaps hard against concrete.
The workshop is warm in the way only a cluttered place can be. Scavenged light. Tools hung in an order only one man understands.
YOUNG ALEXANDER (12) sits cross-legged on the floor, stripping insulation off a length of copper wire. His rebreather is a child's model, gray tape peeling at the seal.
KAHLIL (60s) works above him at the bench. Wiry, unhurried. He isn't wearing a mask at all.
Between them sits THE CARPET.
Not the machine we know. A skeleton. Steel frame, exposed copper coils, loose bundles of matte black nano-fiber spilling out of the deck like raw nerves.
A soft HISS starts. The boy's seal has come loose.
He doesn't look up. He's used to it.
Kahlil hears it from the bench.
He doesn't say anything. Comes down off his stool, tears a strip of fresh tape with his teeth, and presses it flat around the boy's seal with his thumb.
Two seconds. He doesn't meet the boy's eyes.
The hiss stops.
He goes back to the bench.
YOUNG ALEXANDER
It doesn't do anything.
KAHLIL
It doesn't do anything yet.
YOUNG ALEXANDER
Rasheed's uncle has a lifter that runs off a nav-grid. You tell it where. It goes.
Kahlil sets down his tool. This is the conversation he's been waiting for.
KAHLIL
And what happens when somebody else tells it where.
Young Alexander doesn't have an answer.
KAHLIL (CONT'D)
A nav-grid takes an order. And anything that takes an order can take one from somebody else.
He crouches beside the deck.
KAHLIL (CONT'D)
This one doesn't take orders. It reads what you mean. And meaning something is a spark -- it's over before their grid finishes the sentence.
He holds his hand flat above the loose fiber. Waves his fingers, slow, like a man calling a dog.
The fiber stirs. Lifts. Follows his hand.
He's showing off, and he knows it.
KAHLIL (CONT'D)
Six years of work, and the only word I've got for it is magic.
YOUNG ALEXANDER
That's not a real answer.
KAHLIL
(almost laughing)
No.
(beat)
But it's true.
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