The young gentleman pulled the brass welding goggles from his eyes and put them on the mahogany work-bench to his side. Running his hand through his soaking hair, he heaved a great sigh.

They had told him it could not be done. He had been cast out of every great establishment he had dared to take his ideas to. From the Great Universities of the South to the engineering yards of the Midlands, they had all laughed in his face.
They had all said he could not do it. So he had set out to prove them wrong. He had created himself a laboratory the like of which had never been seen before. Great domes of glass, bookshelves of the finest redwood, and great boilers that made those of normal steam engines seem like toys.

As he walked to the podium above the workshop for the last time, a faint laugh began to escape his lips. By the time he reached the large red valve, this laugh had become deafening…. almost animal.

He turned the valve, and in a huge cloud of steam, the machine reared it’s head.

“IT’S ALIVE!”