Infinity Train
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TITLE “Infinity Train” by Owen Dennis*
STUDIO/SCHOOL Cartoon Network
The story is set on the eponymous Infinity Train, one of possibly infinite length and internal dimensions. Some of the cars, while of relatively normal size, are filled with puzzles that need to be solved to open the entrance to the next car; others contain entire kingdoms and vast landscapes. The train cars are inhabited by various kinds of creatures, from robots to talking dogs.
Tulip, a young girl, has been trapped on the train for about a week when the story begins in medias res, without directly explaining how she came to be there; she is trying to make her way through the train in hopes of finding a way off and getting home. She is accompanied by a robot companion she met on the train, One-One – the size and shape of a basketball. He is actually two separate hemisphere-shaped robots that can combine to roll around: the "Glad-One" is utterly exuberant and optimistic, and the "Sad-One" is utterly morose and pessimistic. Tulip also has a glowing green number "53" on the palm of her right hand, but she has no idea how it got there or what it means. Despite the surreal nature of the infinity train, Tulip is adamantly rational and logical, insisting that there must be some underlying explanation for her predicament.
The whole of the pilot focuses on Tulip and One-One’s journey through one particular train car, which houses a kingdom of Corgis known as Corginia. Though Tulip hopes to pass through to the next car swiftly, the king Atticus asks for her help in warding off a shadowy monster that has been causing the kingdom's river to flood into their city for about a week, the same amount of time the glowing number has been present on Tulip's palm. She decides to help Atticus in the hopes of finding answers.
Tulip, One-One and Atticus cross the water and, searching for the monster, discover it to only be a spider's shadow cast by a floodlight, with the door to exit the train car nearby. While initially happy to have progressed further, Tulip becomes much more upset when she realizes the number on her palm has not changed, implying she is no closer to going home. Atticus attempts to comfort her, suggesting that she just needs the right push.
Her mood lightened, Tulip begins to suspect that Corgenia's problem hasn't been solved at all - a spider's shadow should not have caused any change in water level, and there was no apparent reason for the presence of the floodlight on which it resided. Upon investigating a light in the distance, the trio discovers a broken pipe and an odd being (referred to as "the Steward" in the credits) composed of a coiling mass of metal tentacles with a motionless mask for a face. Glad-One cheerfully greets the creature, hoping to talk to it, and the Steward opens fire on them through machine guns placed behind its eyes. Atticus charges at the creature and is swiftly knocked away by it into the broken pipe. Tulip attempts to help him, but is attacked and restrained by the Steward, who orders her to "return to [her] seat." Atticus shuts off the broken pipe, momentarily distracting the Steward, which gives Tulip a chance to hit it with the door. After a short struggle, just before it can resume its attack on Tulip, the Steward sees One-One and inexplicably flees through a hole in the "sky" of the train car. As it goes, the number on Tulip's flickers rapidly and changes from "53" to "49". Realizing this, Tulip remarks that she thinks she has received her push.
