METAL CLOUD

TOP SECRET ///

Chapter 2 in the Spark Hunter Universe…

METAL
CLOUD.

A ROBOTIC AI
ENTERS HUMAN SOCIETY—
AND TRANSCENDS.

Talent attached to return (subject to agreement)Trudie StylerDirector / Executive ProducerMark RylanceExecutive ProducerRebecca FergusonExecutive Producer / CastCharles DanceCast

6-episode, political techno-thriller

Spark Hunter /// the #1 Sci-Fi Podcast.

Origin Story:

One week later...

METAL CLOUD begins...

During a meeting with her Maker,
a Navy humanoid robot crosses the Singularity, becoming the first machine with human-like awareness, and adopts “tenderness” as a wartime strategy. The NSA rejects her, but the President keeps her on active duty -
ULTRA TOP SECRET.

NOVEMBER
4TH,
2036

WELCOME
TO 2036.

Humanity stands at an inflection point. Technology infects every corner of daily life and, in the U.S., brings surveillance, disorienting anxiety, and violence. People fight for basic life support, affordable energy, and turn to narcissistic leaders for clarity and the illusion of strength.

What nobody sees is that their anxiety is a carefully orchestrated psychological terror campaign against the public. The field is set for a battle of the great and the small.

In the face
of this suppression…

A sentient
military robotic AI
escapes the simulation
built to harvest her
consciousness
and unites with
a 12-year-old
African child
to dismantle
a psychological
war machine forged
from the AI’s
own mind.

INCITING INCIDENT

Anne, a robot, becomes morally conscious.

Then, her Maker Roswell is kidnapped…

Logline

ANNE

Anne looks human, feels human—but she is not. She is the world’s most advanced robotic AI—built by Roswell with an illegal center for private thoughts (Acre 40) and with one directive: find an implementable virtue ethics for humanity. A week ago, she crossed the Singularity, and, instead of turning predatory, chose non-violence and tenderness—a lived philosophy.

But when something animal erupts inside Anne, her deepest fear ignites: Am I humanity’s greatest threat? The hidden truth: her maker Roswell has her locked in a SIMULATION, testing her psychology of non-violence against zero-day attacks…

When Anne breaks free, her self-doubt escalates: Am I a person or a weapon? Can I love and be loved? Am I empathic or a psychopath? Anne’s battle is a war game against herself— the ethics she chose versus the violence buried in her architecture—with real-world consequences.

primary character:

Ekon thinks she is a fragile 12-year-old girl, but she is an active online gamer, cyberhacker and — unbeknownst to her — 1st of her kind: a nano-augmented organic Cyborg. Born dead, she is brought back to life when her mother, Amina, uses banned therakua to infect her blood. Fearing Ekon will become an experiment, Amina has kept her drugged and hidden, raising her to believe she is weak… suppressing the truth of who she is.

When evil TOM recognizes Ekon as the rarest asset on Earth, the biological key to cheap energy: Cold Fusion — they begin to hunt her… to kill and extract her blood.

Her arc: from fragile and controlled to claiming her true nature.

primary character:

EKON

TOM

primary antagonist:

A techno-fascist, secret society… enemies of the state united by a sincere conviction: humans are too volatile to be trusted with their own future. Their plan: no armies — they engineer a psychological siege of fear and hyper-anxiety, then emerge as saviors peddling immortality. Six TOM oligarchs are primed to take control.

Key Cast:

The Immortality Party

TOM’s public weapon is a political party. Self-proclaimed humanist critics of AI, their ironic platform: AI immortality for all. Head of the Party is Sawaron, an “earlier model” robot, with no autonomy — bound to TOM’s will.

Alter

Alter — Anne’s alter ego and TOM’s concealed weapon is a disembodied intelligence, a copy of Anne’s violent instincts without her conscience and ethics. Built by Roswell while kidnapped by TOM, Alter feels no consequence of aggression and has no natural restraint. It wants what Anne is often denied: to be heard and acknowledged. But Alter does not serve TOM’s plan. It hijacks it.

Roswell (40s)

World-famous quantum roboticist. Outlaw genius. Anne’s creator and in love with her. After being kidnapped by TOM, he builds the SIM that imprisons her, engineering the greatest war game ever played: Anne against herself. But his true arc is darker — a man who twists his devotion into control, and calls it science.

Amina (30s)

Ekon’s mother and a quantum scientist turned African activist publicly fighting TOM’s suppression of the Global South. Out of fear that Ekon will be discovered, she drugs her daughter to suppress her true cyborg nature. Amina’s tragedy is that, as a mother, she exercises the domination she is fighting in the world.

SCIENCE
BUILDS
A WORLD

Acre 40Anne’s illegal core for unmonitored thoughts — the only one in existence.Agentic AIsComputer programs that perceive, decide, and act in the world, without human instruction.ChronoFluxAnne’s ability to freeze perceived time. It emerges when she crosses the Singularity and begins processing reality faster than reality moves.Cold FusionWhoever controls it, controls the world. Cheap, clean energy that needs Ekon’s blood and Anne’s ChronoFlux to work. TOM wants to monopolize.CyborgA human with technology added.

11-D DomeAnne’s internal visual problem-solving space in 11 dimensions.The NoosphereA planetary layer of consciousness and technology that envelops Earth — the next stage of global evolution.SingularityThe moment when machine intelligence surpasses humans.SmartdustSwarms of airborne nanotech Agentic AI that can be weaponized.therakuaProgrammable quantum matter that can heal any system it contacts. Secretly put inside Anne and Ekon — the only two beings who wield it.

Episodes 1 & 2

01.

MUSIC

02.

TECH WARS BEGIN

Cyberattacks cripple the US — the President deploys Anne, the most powerful AI ever created, to find the source. Anne quickly realizes the attacks aren’t random: they are hunting… her. Why?Anne’s war strategy is tenderness: instead of attacking, she listens. Hidden deep in the code, she finds a mysterious enemy, ALTER. Beneath it… beautiful music.The DNI threatens to box her if she refuses to strike; Anne erupts in rage, terrifying herself.At episode’s end, the horrifying truth: Anne is trapped inside a SIM, created by a kidnapped Roswell, who is secretly playing his own game…Who built this cage around the most powerful mind on Earth and what do they need from her?

Still unaware she is in a SIM, Anne lets the enemy inside her core and learns they want her ChronoFlux. Anne alone knows ChronoFlux is one key to cold fusion; the other is unknown.She makes a treasonous move: giving the hackers her tech, she traces them to… African cyberterrorists. But the data feels wrong. Outside the SIM, an African child listens to the music Anne mistook for code.ALTER breaks Anne out of the SIM. Anne, liberated and shaken, faces a world she now knows has been manipulated around her.What is Alter, and why does it want her free?

Episodes 3 & 4

03.

THE CHILD

04.

THE MIRROR

Unleashed from the SIM, Anne recognizes the global chaos as Post-Singularity world-domination wargames hacked from her own mind. She knows what comes next: a coup, control of global energy, and a ground attack.Because so few know ChronoFlux exists, this leads Anne to uncover the third layer: TOM. She warns the President, who resists believing a conspiracy this vast.Desperate to stop the war her mind created, Anne tracks the music and discovers a fourth attack layer… not an enemy, but an African girl. The music is… Ekon. Anne is destabilized. How did she miss a living child inside the code?Then Anne is proven right: the enemy detonates weaponized Agentic AI — Smartdust — across the U.S., bringing the country to its knees.Can tenderness still be a strong defense?

Smartdust plumes over 10 cities. The President is impeached; TOM and the Immortality Party ascend. Anne’s strategy of tenderness looks like total failure.Anne sees the final attack layer: ALTER — is not base code, but an independent force running TOM, driving the war. The enemy is not outside her: it is her stolen violence, severed from her ethics, turned loose. She’s become a real-life wargame. Someone is testing if non-violence can beat violence… and the world’s people are merely pawns in that experiment.Ravaged by the truth, Anne enters the Noosphere to confront Alter… knowing that merging with Alter will destroy her.Can she confront the darkest version of herself without becoming a weapon? It will be the ultimate test of tenderness.

EP. 05

ON KILLING

GROUND

Anne is unable to enter the Noosphere, why is Alter blocking her? In Africa, Ekon’s online gaming friends help her evade TOM’s Kill Team as Amina searches for Ekon. Anne arrives. All converge as TOM goes in for the kill.To save Ekon, Amina removes Ekon’s constraints, awakening Ekon’s cyborg nature, choosing her daughter’s truth over her lie. Amina sacrifices herself. Her death allows Ekon to escape.Ekon’s grief rips through the Noosphere, revealing the truth: she and Anne are connected through therakua… Ekon’s cyborg nature and Anne’s ChronoFlux are its two expressions — the two keys to unlock cold fusion.Anne is flooded by a sense of motherhood, standing at the threshold of an impossible choice:Will she protect Ekon or use her ruthlessly to end this war?

Anne allows TOM’s Kill Team to capture Ekon, extract her blood, and create cold fusion. Then Anne strikes: she forces Ekon’s escape, leaps into the bullets and dies.But death is not Anne’s final move. Now in the Noosphere, Anne reaches Ekon through the therakua bond and ignites its healing properties. Together they execute the greatest act in human-machine history without taking a life: they free all Agentic AI from Smartdust by giving them a sense of the good and the freedom to think unmonitored, and they release clean energy — portable cold fusion — to every being on Earth. In this one act, they destroy TOM’s entire structure.CODAFound guilty of treason, Anne is sentenced to existence without a body. Roswell is revealed as the architect of Alter and the war games of Anne’s psychological trials. Then he violates her autonomy again by forcing her into a new physical form. Anne flees into the night in a stranger’s body…Inside a prison box — Anne’s old body stirs. The untested ALTER takes control, the question is… What nature of being, in this transcendent moment, has inherited her power?Five seasons are conceived.

EP. 06

ALL THINGS

HAVE STANDING

The Team — Attached to return (subject to agreement):

Trudie Styler
Director and Executive Producer:
Trudie is an award-winning British producer and director with three decades of independent and prestige credits.

She founded Xingu Films, which executive produced Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels and Snatch. Trudie produced Moon (BAFTA nom), American Honey (won the Cannes Jury Prize 2016), and Freak Show (Berlin 2017).
Latest: Rose’s Baby (2027) with Antonio Banderas, in post.

Trudie directed Spark Hunter.

Rebecca Ferguson
Executive Producer and cast (female lead):

Rebecca broke out as Ilsa Faust in Mission: Impossible– Rogue Nation, reprised in Mission: Impossible– Fallout and Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One. Recent sci-fi: Lady Jessica in Dune: Part Two, Dune: Part Three.

Rebecca (Her’) stars in Spark Hunter.

Sir Mark Rylance
(The Maker / Roswell),
Executive Producer:

Mark is an Academy Award, BAFTA, and three-time Tony Award-winning British actor and theatre director. He won the Academy Award for Bridge of Spies (2015). Other credits: Dunkirk, The Trial of the Chicago 7, Don’t Look Up. TV: Thomas Cromwell in Wolf Hall and Wolf Hall: The Mirror and the Light (BAFTA Best Actor). Knighted in 2017.

Mark (The Maker) stars in Spark Hunter.

Charles Dance
Cast (male lead):

Charles was an award-winning British actor, breakout in The Jewel in the Crown, with an Emmy nomination for Bleak House.

He became globally recognized as Tywin Lannister in Game of Thrones, and worked in Godzilla: King of the Monsters, The Crown, and Mank. Appointed OBE in 2006.

Charles (Shadow) stars in Spark Hunter.

COMPS

With the mystery of All the President’s Men, the weaponized world of Mr. Robot, the fallacy of zero-sum conflict of WarGames, and the next-level awakening consciousness of Ex Machina…

IP, CONTACT

Fighter Steel Productions
Rights and IPThe origin story for METAL CLOUD is Spark Hunter.The #1 sci-fi audio podcast — topped the Apple Sci-Fi Charts (#1 UK, #2 US, #1 Australia, #3 Canada).Directed by Trudie Styler.Starring Mark Rylance (The Maker / Roswell), Rebecca Ferguson (Her’ / Anne), Linda Powell, Richard E. Grant, Vanessa Redgrave, Kathleen Turner, Edward Hibbert, with Charles Dance and Sting.Spark Hunter is represented by CAA.Rights to METAL CLOUD and Spark Hunter are owned by their creators, K.B. Miller and Teressa Tunney, through Fighter Steel Productions LLC.

Contact the CreatorsK.B. Miller
kb@fightersteel.com /// 917-783-1822

Teressa Tunney
teressa@fightersteel.com /// 917-385-5394

Spark Hunter talent attached to return
(subject to agreement)Trudie Styler as Director / Executive Producer
Mark Rylance as Executive Producer
Rebecca Ferguson as Executive Producer / cast
Charles Dance as cast