THE ABYSS AN ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY BY JAMES CAMERON August 2, 1988 Director's Revision ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ THE ABYSS OMITTED 1 OMITTED 2 TITLE: THE ABYSS -- ON BLACK, DISSOLVING TO COBALT BLUE EXT. OCEAN/UNDERWATER -- DAY 3 Blue, deep and featureless, the twilight of five hundred feet down. PROPELLER SOUND. Materializing out of the blue limbo is the enormous but sleek form of an Ohio-class SSBN ballistic missile submarine. INT. U.S.S. MONTANA -- DAY 4 In the attack center, darkened to womb-red, the crew's faces shine with sweat in the glow of their instruments. The SKIPPER and his EXEC crowd around BARNES, the sonarman. CAPTAIN Sixty knots? No way, Barnes... the reds don't have anything that fast. BARNES Checked it twice, skipper. It's a real unique signature. No cavitation, no reactor noise... doesn't even sound like screws. He puts the signal onto a speaker and everyone in the attack room listens to the intruder's acoustic signature, a strange THRUMMING. The captain studies the electronic position board, a graphic representation of the contours of the steep-walled canyon, a symbol for the Montana, and converging with it, an amorphous trace, representing the bogey. CAPTAIN What the hell is it? EXEC I'll tell you what it's not, it's not one of ours. BARNES Sir! Contact changing heading to two-one-four, diving. Speed eighty knots! Eighty knots! EXEC Eighty knots... BARNES Still diving, depth nine hundred feet. Port clearance to cliff wall, one hundred fifty feet. FRANK (simultaneously) Still diving, depth nine hundred feet. Port clearance to cliff wall, one hundred fifty feet. Tension builds in the attack room as the Montana surges to intercept the intruder. The exec tensely watches the vector-graphic readout for the side- scan sonar array. The sub is running uncomfortably close to the cliff walls. EXEC (low, to Captain) It's getting tight in here. CAPTAIN We can still give him a haircut. Helm, come right to oh six niner, down five degrees. HELMSMAN Coming right to oh six niner, sir. Down five degrees. NAVIGATOR Port side clearance one hundred twenty feet narrowing to seventy-five. Sir, we have a proximity warning light. EXEC That's too damn close! We've gotta back off. BARNES Range to contact, two hundred. Contact junked to bearing two six oh and accelerated to... one hundred thirty knots, sir! EXEC (really freaked now) Nothing goes one thirty! Suddenly the control room lights dim almost to blackness. EXT. U.S.S. MONTANA 5 We see only the effect, not the source, as a large diffuse light passes rapidly under the sub's hull. Moments later a shockwave, like an underwater sonic boom, impacts the sub, slamming it sideways. INT. U.S.S. MONTANA 6 The bride crew are knocked off their feet, as the ship is buffeted. EXEC Turbulence! We're in its wake! SIRENS. Everyone shouting at once. The power flickers low. CAPTAIN Helm, all stop! Full right rudder! HELMSMAN All stop. Full right rudder. Hydraulic failure. Planes are not responding, sir! Power returns in time for the sonarman to get a glimpse at the side-scan display... AS THE SHEER CLIFF WALL LOOM BEFORE THEM. HELMSMAN Hydraulics restored, sir. EXT. U.S.S. MONTANA 7 The cliff wall materializes out of the blue limbo off the port bow with nightmarish slow-motion. The sub slams into it with horrific force, scraping along and bouncing off. One tail stabilizer is sheared off and the big screw prangs the wall with an earsplitting K-K-KWANG! INT. PORT TO TORPEDO ROOM 8 With the outer tube-doors torn off, seawater slams in, busting the inner hatches. Two-foot thick columns of water, like fire-hoses of the gods, blast into the room. Everything vanishes instantly in white spray. INT. CONTROL RM/ATTACK CENTER 9 Everyone is hurled off his feet. The planesman flights to recover control of the yoke. CAPTAIN Collision alarm! Collision alarm! Lighten her up, Charlie! NAVIGATOR The torpedo room is flooded, sir! CAPTAIN Blow all tanks! Blow everything! HELMSMAN Passing twelve hundred feet... EXEC Blowing main tanks! HELMSMAN Twelve hundred fifty feet... EXT. MONTANA 10 The great sub is being hauled down by the mass of its flooded bow section, its flanks rushing past us like a freight train headed for Hell. INT. MONTANA CONTROL ROOM 11 The command crew fights futility for control, everyone shouting and terrified. EXEC Main forward tanks ruptured! HELMSMAN Passing thirteen hundred feet... EXEC Too deep to pump auxiliaries! CAPTAIN All back full! All back full! HELMSMAN Answering all back full. Passing thirteen hundred fifty feet... fourteen hundred... fourteen fifty... The Captain locks eyes with the Exec amid the din... CAPTAIN We're losing her. Launch the buoy! The Exec opens the door to a small box and punches a button. A red light comes on. The Captains takes a deep breath. EXT. MONTANA 12 A tiny transmitter is ejected from the sub's hell and begins its long ascent to the surface. A second later the sub slams down like a piledriver onto a ledge, tearing open its pressure hull. INT. MONTANA 13 VARIOUS QUICK CUTS, just flashes and impressions, as... Seawater blasts down the corridors -- Explodes across the control room, hurling men like dolls -- Floods the cavernous missile bay in seconds -- Bursts through hatches into the reactor room -- Blasts men OUT OF FRAME in a micro-second. EXT. OCEAN/UNDERWATER 14 In the cobalt twilight we see the Montana slide down the sea cliff, its hull SCREECHING like the death agonies of some marine dinosaur. Descending in an avalanche of silt, it finally disappears into the blackness below... a blackness which continues almost straight down, 20,000 feet to the bottom of the Cayman Trough. The abyss. EXT. OCEAN SURFACE -- DAY 15 Above, in the world, the Caribbean rolling gray under a stormy sky. The Montana's emergency buoy pops to the surface, transmitting. CUT TO: EXT. OCEAN/20 MILES AWAY -- DAY 16 LONG LENS SHOT: three massive Navy Sea King helicopters thundering straight at us, FILLING FRAME. REVERSE, as they barrel OVER CAMERA toward a lone civilian ship... an ugly but very sophisticated deep-sea drilling support ship, the BENTHIC EXPLORER. It is a twin-hulled monstrosity with a central opening in its deck, around which crouch enormous cranes, winches and other arcane equipment. The first Sea King settles onto the helipad, disgorging a contingent of Naval officers, technicians, and a squad of armed seamen. A pantomime in the rotorwash, we see the Benthic Petroleum "company man" KIRKHILL greeting COMMODORE DEMARCO, the on-scene commander. INT. BENTHIC EXPLORER/BRIDGE -- DAY 17 The bridge is state-of-the-art, with computers and sophisticated navigation and communications gear, looking like mission control with its bank of video monitors. The Drilling Operations Supervisor, LELAND MCBRIDE, and BENDIX, the crew chief, watch the invaders swarming the deck below. MCBRIDE Does not look good at all. TIGHT ON VIDEO SCREEN (MINUTES LATER) showing divers working in total blackness around some sort of installation on the bottom of the ocean. They move through the harsh floodlights in dreamlike slow motion, looking like space-suited figures with their helmets and umbilical hoses. DEMARCO (V.O.) No light from the surface. How deep are they? MCBRIDE (V.O.) Seventeen hundred feet. WIDER, showing the Navy contingent crowding the control room. DeMarco is hardcore military, brusque and efficient. Kirkhill is a small man with pinched features, wearing a shirt and tie, which on a drill ship means company man and/or dickhead. DEMARCO I need them to go to over two thousand. KIRKHILL They can do it. (to McBride) Get Brigman on the line. CUT TO: EXT. UNDERWATER -- DAY (TOTAL DARKNESS) 18 1700 FEET BELOW. A submersible oil-drilling platform, DEEPCORE II, an island of light in the vast blackness. Its main framework connects two "tri- modules" consisting of three cylinders each. These contain living and work areas in a pressurized environment. An umbilical cable, thick as a man's thigh, runs up from the oil rig into the darkness, to the Benthic Explorer at the surface. In a bubble-like dome port window we see the rig foreman, or "toolpusher," BUD BRIGMAN. He's talking (via headset) with two divers working outside... 'CATFISH' DE VRIES, AND LEW 'BIRD-DOG' FINLER. BUD Hey, you guys are milking that job. CATFISH (Kentucky drawl) That's cause we love freezin' our butts off out here sooo much, boss. OMITTED 19 INT. DRILL ROOM 20 Bud turns from the window and crosses the drill floor. The working heart of the rig. THUNDEROUS MECHANICAL ROAR. The drill crew, in hardhats and mud- plastered overalls, tend the massive spinning turn-table in the center of the chamber. The semi-automated system requires only five men to operate. The others are LUPTON MCWHIRTER, DWIGHT PERRY, JAMMER WILLIS, and TOMMY RAY DIETZ. Bud hears his names called above the din by Jammer, a massive roughneck/diver who stands a good head taller than the rest. JAMMER (yelling) Bud! Hippy's on the bitch-box. It's a call from topside. That new company man. BUD Kirkhill? That guy doesn't know his butt from a rathole. Hey, Perry! One of the roustabouts, a wiry Texan, turns to him. BUD Do me a favor and square away the mud hose and those cable slings. This place is starting to look like my apartment. Perry chuckles and sets to the task cheerfully. Bud EXITS, ducking his head through a low watertight hatch. INT. CORRIDOR/TOOLPUSHER'S OFFICE 21 Bud tromps down the narrow corridor, his work boots gonging on steel. P.A. (HIPPY'S VOICE) BUD, PICK UP THE TOPSIDE LINE URGENT. BUD I'm coming. Keep your pantyhose on. He enters his office, a tiny cubicle with stacks of paperwork, dust- gathering tech manuals and waterstained Penthouse fold-outs. He picks up the phone... punches down a line. BUD Brigman here. Kirkhill? What's going on? (pause) I am calm. I'm a calm person. Is there some reason why I shouldn't be calm? HOLD ON Bud's expression, darkening, as he listens. INT. CORRIDOR/CONTROL MODULE 22 The control module is a long narrow cabin like the inside of a Winnebago, packed with instrumentation. At the end is a small bay with multiple viewports. Outside, at a 'Christmas tree' pipe installation, a lone diver can be seen welding. He is accompanied by a large submersible, FLATBED, and by a Remotely Operated Vehicle, or ROV, call LITTLE GEEK. Little Geek is an underwater robot which operated on the end of a cable-like control TETHER. It has a single video 'eye' in front, by which the operator pilots the little machine. The rig's ROV pilots is ALLEN 'HIPPY' CARNES, who stands by the window twiddling his joysticks and drinking coffee. His pet white rat, BEANY, crawls contentedly around his shoulders. The door BANGS OPEN. Hippy jumps, slops his coffee. Bud strides in. Not calm. BUD Son of a bitch. He kicks a chair out of the way and slams his palm down on a switch marked DIVER RECALL. A SIREN, blasting through the water from a big hydrophone loudspeaker. BUD All divers. Drop what you're doing. Everybody out of the pool. EXT. DEEPCORE/CHRISTMAS TREE A22 Flatbed's pilot, LISA 'ONE NIGHT' STANDING, can be clearly seen behind a bubble canopy. She is a no-nonsense lady who holds her own in the mostly male environment by being one of the best submersible drivers in the business. She controls a hydraulic manipulator arm, assisting the diver, ARLISS 'SONNY' DAWSON, in his work. Little Geek hovers around them like a tiny helicopter. One Night moves the Flatbed arm to Sonny and hands him the pipe. ONE NIGHT Here you go, hon'. SONNY Just in time, sugar. They react to Bud's recall, looking toward him up in the control module. ONE NIGHT Dammit, we just got out here. SONNY There was a time when I would have asked why. One Night makes a grab for his butt with the manipulator claw, which he narrowly avoids. CUT TO: EXT. DEEPCORE/UNDER SUB-BAY 23 Flatbed moves underneath the rig, a few feet above the seafloor, with Sonny riding on its top deck. It passes under a lit opening and rises toward the surface of the water in the chamber above. Little Geek follows like an obedient dog. INT. SUB-BAY/MOONPOOL 24 The opening is called the moonpool, and Deepcore's submersibles are launched through it. From inside the sub-bay it looks just like a swimming pool. Flatbed surfaces, nearly filling it. The chamber also contains CAB ONE, a similar submersible. Jammer, Perry, and some of the other drill-room boys are helping the divers out of the water. The water at this depth is only about six degrees above freezing, and these folks are cold and prune- fingered. Finler pulls off his demand-helmet, revealing a round, boyish face. FINLER What's goin' on? How come we got recalled? SONNY Hell is I know. One Night jumps 'ashore' from Flatbed's broad deck and joins them. Catfish is unzipping his bulky dry-suit. CATFISH Just follow standard procedure, will ya... flog the dog till somebody tells us what's happening. JAMMER Hey, Catfish, I'll sell you my October Penthouse for twenty bucks. ONE NIGHT Save you money, darlin'... the pages are all stuck together by now. Bud enters, approaching the group. JAMMER What's goin' on, Boss? BUD Folks, I've just been told to shut down the hole and prepare to move the rig. SONNY She-hit. BUD We're being asked to cooperate in a matter of national security. Now you know exactly as much as I do. So just get your gear off and get up to control. There's some kind of briefing in ten minutes. CUT TO: INT. DEEPCORE/COMMAND MODULE 25 The whole rig crew is somehow jammed into the room for the video briefing. DeMarco is on the main monitor, with his aides and Kirkhill visible b.g. DEMARCO At 09:22 local time this morning, an American nuclear submarine, the USS Montana, with 156 men aboard, went down 22 miles from here. There has been no contact with the sub since then. The cause of the incident is not known. PAN AROUND the reactions of the various drill crew members... shocked, hushed, curious. DEMARCO Your company has authorized the Navy's use of this facility for a rescue operation. The code name is Operation Salvor. ONE NIGHT You want us to search for the sub? DEMARCO No. We know where it is. But she's in 2000 feet of water and we can't reach her. We need divers to enter the sub and search for survivors, if any. Bud's scowl has been deepening since DeMarco started to talk. BUD Don't you guys have your own stuff for this type of thing? DEMARCO By the time we get our rescue submersible here the storm front will be right on us. But you can get your rig in under the storm and be on- site in fifteen hours. That makes you our best option right now. Hippy, born suspicious and recently graduated to paranoid, leans forward... HIPPY Why should we risk our butts on a job like this? KIRKHILL I have been authorized to offer you all special- duty bonuses equivalent to three times normal dive pay. CATFISH Hell, for triple time I'd crawl through razor blades and shower off with lime juice. FINLER I'm here to tell ya', you could set me on fire and call me names. BUD Look, I don't know what kind of a deal you guys worked out with the company, but my people are not qualified for this... they're oil workers. DEMARCO A four-man SEAL team will transfer down to you to supervise the operation. BUD You can send down whoever you like, but I'm the toolpusher on this rig, and when it comes to the safety of these people, there's me... then there's God. Understand? If things get dicey, I'm pulling the plug. KIRKHILL I think we're all on the same wavelength, Brigman. Now let's get the wellhead uncoupled, shall we? CUT TO: INT. DEEPCORE/COMMAND MODULE AND CORRIDOR 26 Bud stands beside the hatchway as the others file out toward their tasks. They comment gravely as they pass... JAMMER When Lindsey finds out about this, it's not gonna be a pretty sight. ONE NIGHT They're going to have to shoot her with a tranquilizer gun. CUT TO: EXT. OCEAN -- DAY 27 A single Navy Sea King churns through the rain under massive thunderheads. The sea below is whipped by the storm. INT./EXT. SEA KING 28 PANNING ALONG BOOTED FEET, four pairs of black military size twelves line up, onto... a pair of Charles Jourdans fives under shapely ankles. WIDER, revealing the four-man team of Navy SEALs. And a slender woman in her early thirties. She's attractive, if a bit hardened, dressed conservatively in a skirt and jacket. Meet LINDSEY. Project Engineer for Deepcore. She's a pain in the ass, but you'll like her. Eventually. She's holding on grimly, sitting crammed in with the SEALs and a bunch of gear, getting tossed around by the storm. The SEALs are dressed alike in black fatigues. They are muscular, finely-tuned and extremely dangerous special-forces types. The leader of the SEAL team, LIEUTENANT COFFEY, makes his way forward to the cockpit. The pilot is white-knuckling his stick, trying to hold the great beast of a helicopter in position. Through the windshield, the deck of the Benthic Explorer can be seen below, pitching in a violent sea. PILOT No way I'm putting her down. I shouldn't even be flying in this shit. COFFEY (cool) Just hold it over the deck. Coffey goes back to the crew deck, moving easily in the bucking craft. He nods to the others SEALs, MONK, WILHITE, and SCHOENICK. In the open side door, Wilhite clips a 100 foot nylon rope to the airframe and throws out the coil. One by one the shoulder the gear-bags, grab the rope, and step out. Lindsey stands swaying in the chopper door, watching the SEALs fast-roping to the deck. One, two, three. Coffey looks at her. COFFEY You want to be on that ship, there's only one way it's going to happen. He's sure she won't go for it. It's his certainty that gets her. She sets her jaw. Opening her purse she takes out a small plastic bag, puts her shoes and purse in the bag, and grips the bag in her teeth. Then grabs the rope and slides down. EXT. BENTHIC EXPLORER/HELIPAD 29 Swinging wildly in the wind like a human pendulum, Lindsey fast-ropes forty feet to the deck. She steps away an instant before Coffey hits behind her. Lindsey crosses the rainswept deck with athletic strides. Her nylons are ruined. An air-crewman in the chopper lowers two additional equipment cases using the rescue sling. The SEALs catch them as they swing radically across the deck. They Navy chopper banks and seems to scurry away before the mounting storm. CUT TO: EXT. OCEAN BOTTOM 30 BLACKNESS. Then shafts of light become visible, above a ridge of rock. Flatbed appears, trailing two heavy two cables. Behind it, the mass of Deepcore emerges from the darkness, its forward lighting array blazing. Flatbed is towing it like a tug, aided by Deepcore's own mighty stern thrusters. INT. DEEPCORE/CONTROL MODULE 31 Bud, his feet propped up, uses joystick controls to 'fly' Deepcore, maneuvering against currents and around seafloor obstacles. He is guided by the side-scan sonar display, with Hippy assisting in the sonar shack. Through the front viewport, Flatbed can be seen out ahead. McBride appears on the bridge monitor, holding a sheet of weather-fax. MCBRIDE (on screen) Well, it's official, sportsfans. They're calling it Hurricane Frederick, and it's going to be making our lives real interesting in a few hours. INT. EXPLORER BRIDGE -- DAY 32 Bud responds via video. BUD Fred, huh? I don't know. Hurricanes should be named after women. McBride looks up as the bridge door opens. Lindsey enters in a blast of wind, wet as a wharf rat and twice as pissed off. Maybe Bud is right. CUT TO: INT. DEEPCORE/CONTROL MODULE 33 Bud is surprised to see Lindsey's face appear on the monitor screen. LINDSEY I can't believe you let them do this! BUD (unpreturbed, almost cheerful) Hi, Lins. I thought you were in Houston. LINDSEY I was, but I managed to bum a ride on the last flight out here. Only here isn't where I left it, is it, Bud? BUD Wasn't up to me. LINDSEY We were that close to proving a submersible drilling platform could work. We had over seven thousand feet of hole down for Chrissake. I can't believe you let them grab my rig! BUD Your rig? LINDSEY My rig. I designed the damn thing. BUD Yup, a Benthic Petroleum paid for it. So as long as they're hold the pink slip, I go where they tell me. LINDSEY You wimp. I had a lot riding on this. They bought you... more like least rented you cheap-- BUD I'm switching off now. LINDSEY Virgil, you wiener! You never could stand up to fight. You-- Bud hits the switch and the screen goes dead. BUD Bye. Hippy looks over him, trying very hard not to crack up. HIPPY Virgil? BUD God, I hate that bitch. HIPPY Yeah, well you never should have married her then. Bud nods fatalistically. CUT TO: EXT. EXPLORER DECK/LAUNCH WELL 34 Ten foot waves crash through the launch-well, sending up geysers of spray. Next to the launch-well, crewman have attached a lifting cable to CAB THREE, eighteen feet of ugly yellow submersible. It slams violently in its steel cradle as the drill-ship rolls. Coffey and Schoenick hand the gear bags in to Wilhite and Monk though the hatch under the rear of the submersible. Lindsey approaches, wearing a borrowed roustabout's coverall. She looks down at the larger of the two equipment cases brought by the SEALs, lying on the deck. Stenciled on it are the words: F.B.S./DEEP SUIT/MARK IV. Coffey and Schoenick push past her to pick it up. LINDSEY Let's go, gentlemen! We either launch now or we don't launch. Coffey looks up in surprise as she nimbly climbs the side of Cab Three and grabs the lifting shackle, circling her raised hand to signal the crane man. LINDSEY Take her up, Byron! Cab Three, with Lindsey riding its back, is pulled up out its cradle and starts to swing violently as Explorer pitches. The submersible is then swung out to the center of the launch well. It sways and gyrates above the furious water below. Lindsey drops into the upper hatch. INT. EXPLORER BRIDGE/D.O.C. 35 Kirkhill leans suddenly over the console to look out the window. KIRKHILL What the hell is she doing out there? Son of a bitch... (into microphone) Lindsey... get out of Cab Three. Bates is taking her down. INT. CAB THREE 36 Lindsey pulls her headset as she dogs down the inside locking levers of the hatch. LINDSEY Bates is sick. Besides I've got more hours in this thing than he does. (to Coffey) A little change of plan. The little sub is swinging like a pendulum on the cable, and the SEALs, jammed in with their equipment in the tiny space, are getting slammed into the walls. Lindsey is calmly flipping switches as she talks. COFFEY Lady, we better fish or cut bait. LINDSEY Just hold your water, okay? (to Kirkhill) So Kirkhill, we gonna do this or we gonna talk about it? INT. EXPLORER BRIDGE/D.O.C. 37 The plug is pulled on DeMarco's patience. DEMARCO I don't care who drives the damn thing. Just get my team in the water. KIRKHILL Alright, alright. Christ Almighty! He gestured dismissively to McBride. MCBRIDE Cab Three, you are clear to launch. INT./EXT. CAB THREE 38 Lindsey reaches up a grabs a red lever. LINDSEY Roger. (to Coffey) There's only one way it's going to happen... She pulls the lever hard. CLUNK-CLANG! The shackle-release drops the sub. It freefalls ten feet to the water with an enormous splash and keeps right on going after Lindsey floods the trim tanks. Coffey et al have been slammed hard. LINDSEY Touchdown. The crowd goes wild. Explorer... Cab Three. We are styling. MCBRIDE (filtered) Roger, Cab Three. Lindsey cuts on the floodlights and maneuvers the descending submersible so that the umbilical cable is a few feet ahead on her front port. Moving up through her lights, it will guide her down to the rig. Cab Three free-falls into increasing darkness. Soon it is a candle below us in the indigo. EXT./INT. FLATBED 39 One Night is driving the tug one-handed, pouring coffee from a thermos and rocking out to the great truck-driving song "Willing" on the beat-box she's got propped up on the sonar rig. Fighting white-line fever in the best tradition. INT. CONTROL MODULE 40 Bud and Hippy come in for a rousing chorus. BUD/HIPPY ... I've been driving every kinda rig that's ever been maaaaade... EXT. DEEPCORE 41 Lit up like a proud Peterbilt, the rig crossed the trackless wastes. We hear them singing, carried OVER. EXT. OCEAN DEPTHS/CAB THREE 42 In total blackness, the submersible descends along the rigorous line of the umbilical cable. Two hundred feet below it, the lights of Deepcore resolve out of the darkness. Now we can see the rig crawling over the ocean bottom like some monster lawnmower. LINDSEY (V.O.) Deepcore, Deepcore... this is Cab Three on final approach. HIPPY (V.O.) Gotcha, Cab Three. Who is that? That You, Lindsey? INT. DEEPCORE/CONTROL MODULE 43 Bud stop singing and snaps around at the mention of her name. LINDSEY (V.O.) None other. Bud's expression is nothing less than stricken. BUD Oh no... you gotta be kidding me. EXT./CAB THREE/DEEP CORE 44 Lindsey executes a 180 degree turn and cruises over the control module, back through the A-frame toward the docking hatch. The flange of Cab Three's lockout hatch settles over the pressure collar on the rig's back. There is a CLUNK as it mates up. INT. DEEPCORE/COMPRESSION CHAMBER/GAS CONTROL STATION 45 Lindsey drops down from the hatch into the small cylindrical pressure chamber. The SEALs drop down behind her, passing their gear through hand-over-hand. The chamber is spartan, with steel benches, a folding card table, breathing masks, and medical supplies. Catfish greets them through the tiny porthole at one end. CATFISH Howdy, y'all. Hey, Lindsey! I'll be damned! You shouldn't be down here sweet thing, ya'll might run ya stockings. LINDSEY Couldn't stay away. You running mixture for us? Good. Couldn't ask for better. CATFISH Okay, here we go. Start equalizing, y'all. HISSSS of inrushing compressed gas. The pressure in the chamber rises. The breathing mixture is composed of helium, oxygen and nitrogen. Catfish monitors it carefully from a station outside the chamber, watching the gauges with a practiced eye. Lindsey and the SEALs all grab their noses and start making funny faces... popping their ears with the familiar diver's 'equalization' technique. They continue as: LINDSEY Get comfortable. The bad news is we got six hours in this can, blowing down. The worse news is it's gonna take us three weeks to decompress back to the surface later. COFFEY We've been fully briefed, Mrs. Brigman. LINDSEY Don't call me that, okay... I hate that. Alright, from now on we watch each other closely for signs of HPNS... MONK (as if by rote) High-Pressure Nervous Syndrome. Muscle tremors, usually in the hands first. Nausea, increased excitability, disorientation. LINDSEY Very good. About one person in twenty just can't handle it. They go buggo. They're no way to predict who's susceptible, so stay alert. COFFEY Look, we've all made chamber runs to this depth. We're checked out. LINDSEY Oh... chamber runs. Uh huh, that's good. (Coffey turn away) Well, hey... you guys know any songs? They ignore her. Start going over some diagrams of the Montana's interior. It's going to be a long six hours. INT. GAS CONTROL STATION -- HOURS LATER 46 Catfish checks his watch, then reaches over and adjusts a value on the tri- mix manifold, watching the gauges. Satisfied, he leans over to the pressure window in the door, checking out the SEALs. Hippy has come down from the control deck for an advanced look are the interlopers. Jammer is in a chair, reading a Louis L'Amour paperback. CATFISH Those guys ain't so tough. I fought plenty of guys tougher'n them. HIPPY Now we get to hear about how he used to be a contender. Catfish hold up one calloused fist up in front of Hippy's face. CATFISH You see this? They used to call this the Hammer. JAMMER Hippy wasn't born then. INT. PRESSURE CHAMBER 47 It looks like the end of a long bus trip. Everyone silent... leafing through beat-to-hell magazines or just staring. Lindsey has her feet propped up on the smaller of the SEALs' two equipment cases. She casually toes open one of the latches, then the other. Glances at Coffey. He's reading. She begins to lift the lid with her toe. Gets a GLIMPSE INSIDE, of packing foam, and what looks like a SMALL BLACK METAL BOX. Then... WHAM! Coffey's foot comes down on the lid, slamming it shut. Startled, she looks up into his cool gaze. COFFEY Curiosity killed the cat. CUT TO: INT. GAS CONTROL STATION/CHAMBER DOOR -- LATER 48 TIGHT ON CATFISH'S hands... closing values... spinning the wheel on the chamber hatch. CUT WIDER as it cracks open with a virgin's sigh and swings aside. CATFISH Y'all'er done to a turn and ready to serve. Everybody okay? The SEALs nod peremptorily and shoulder their gear. Lindsey exists first, followed by Monk, Wilhite, and Schoenick. Coffey bends to relatch the small equipment case. He is alone for one moment in the chamber. He raises his hand and stares at it. The fingertips are trembling the slightest bit. He clenches them into a fist and walks out. INT. CORRIDOR 49 As Lindsey emerges into the main corridor of the rig, she bumps into a large, dark mass. LINDSEY Hey, was there a wall here before? I don't remember a wall here. Oh, Jammer! Hi. The 'wall' grins down to her. JAMMER Howdy, there, little lady. Coffey emerges behind them and, ignoring Lindsey, faces Jammer. COFFEY (to Jammer) Show us the dive prep area. We need to check out your gear. Jammer scowls, turns and leads the SEALs in the sub-bay. Catfish and Lindsey exchange a look. LINDSEY Those guys are about a much fun as a tax audit. CUT TO: INT. COMMAND MODULE 50 TIGHT ON HIPPY, bathed in the light of the sonar display. He is making kissing sounds at Beany, who has his inquisitive nose right up to Hippy's lips. LINDSEY Hippy, you're going to give that rat a disease. WIDER, as Hippy and Bud to see Lindsey leaning in the doorway. She and Bud size each other up. He opts for a jovial approach, his eyes wary. BUD Well, well. Mrs. Brigman. LINDSEY Not for long. Lindsey crossed past him, her eyes scanning the banks of equipment, almost unconsciously checking, checking... getting the pulse of her big iron baby. BUD You never did like being called that, did you? LINDSEY Not even when it meant something. (looking through the front port) Is that One Night up in Flatbed? BUD Who else? Lindsey leans past Bud to the gooseneck mike on the console. LINSEY Hi, One Night, it's Lindsey. INT. FLATBED 51 One Night mimes a puking motion, finger down her throat. Then she replies with sickening sweetness... ONE NIGHT Oh, hi, Lindsey. INT. COMMAND MODULE 52 Lindsey fives the sonar shack the once-over. She tweaks some knobs. BUD I can't believe you were dumb enough to come down. Now you're stuck here for the storm... dumb, hot-rod... dumb. LINDSEY Look, I didn't come down here to fight. She crosses past Bud and exits into the corridor. Bud bolts out of the chair to follow her and Hippy scrambles in to take over. INT. CORRIDOR/LADDER-WELL/LEVEL ONE LANDING 53 Bud catches up with Lindsey in the corridor, and through the following keeps pace with here as she make here inspection. BUD Then why'd you come down? She stops abruptly to look at a leaky pipe. He almost slams into her. She moves on, climbing down the ladder to the lower level. LINDSEY You need me. Nobody knows the systems on this rig better than I do. What is something was to go wrong after the Explorer clears off? What would have you done? BUD Wow, you're right! Us poor dumb ol' boys might've had to think for ourselves. Coulda been a disaster. On the lower level landing, Lindsey opens a hatch into one of the machine rooms. ROAR OF PUMPS AND COMPRESSORS. INT. MACHINE ROOM 54 Lindsey enters and moves expertly through the dark labyrinth of pipes and roaring machinery. Her eyes rove constantly over fittings, gauges, circuit panels. BUD (yelling) You wanna know what I think? LINDSEY Not particularly. Jeez, look where this is set! Morons. She scowls at a pressure gauge and turn a valve minutely. BUD I think you were worried about me. LINDSEY That must be it. Lindsey's on the move again, and Bud scrambles through the pipes to keep up. BUD No, I think you were. Come on, admit it. LINDSEY I was worried about the rig. I've got over four years invested in this project. BUD Oh, yeah, right... and you only had three years with me. She looks up at him. LINDSEY You've got to have priorities. CUT TO: INT. BUD'S ROOM 55 Darkness. The door opens and Bud snaps on the light. BUD My bunk's the only one I can guarantee won't be occupied. You can grab a couple hours before we get there. Lindsey slips past him into his tiny state-room, the only private bunk on the rig. Rank had its privileges. His hand on the door is just level with her eyes. She notices his wedding ring, a massive band of pure titanium (something your fiancee might have picked out if she had a degree from M.I.T.). LINDSEY What are you still wearing that for? BUD I don't know. Divorce ain't final. Forgot to take it off. Bud stays in the doorway. Lindsey takes a heaps of Bud's cloths off the narrow bunk. Start unconsciously straightening the room. LINDSEY I haven't worn mine in months. BUD Yeah, what's-his-name wouldn't like it. The Suit. LINDSEY Do you always have to call him that? The Suit? It makes you sound like such a hick. His name is Michael. Lindsey takes off her borrowed tennies and socks. Bud eyes her, sounding too causal. BUD So what about "Michael" then... Mr. Brooks Brothers... Mr. BMW. You still seeing him? LINDSEY No, I haven't seen him in a few weeks. BUD What happened? LINDSEY Bud, why are you doing this? It's not part of you life any more. BUD I'll tell you what happened... you woke up one day and realized the guy never made you laugh. LINDSEY You're right, Bud. It was just that simple. Aren't you clever? You should get your own show... Ask Dr. Bud, advice to the lovelorn from three hundred fathoms. She closes the watertight door, forcing him out. Locks it. She turns and throws her shoe hard against the far wall. LINDSEY AAAARRRGGH! She flops down on the bed, sitting... staring at the wall. Her armor is gone. She looks small and vulnerable. A long beat. She reaches over to the tiny sink. Amid the clutter is a bottle of Bud's aftershave. She unscrews it and takes a sniff. Catches herself. Tosses it. LINDSEY Shit. INT. QUARTERS/HEAD 56 Bud barges into the tiny head and puts some soap on his ring finger. He pulls the ring off roughly and throws it into the toilet. He reaches forward to flush. Can't do it. Now really pissed off at himself, he reaches into the toilet bowl, wrist deep in the chemical-blue water, and salvages the ring. He puts it on and washes his hands. The right hand stays faintly blue no matter how hard he scrubs. BUD Shit. CUT TO: EXT. DEEPCORE 57 The platform is stopped, hovering in place. Like a great spacecraft setting down on a barren planet, the rig settles into the bottom ooze. Flatbed releases its tow lines and heads back to its berth inside. CUT TO: INT. SUB-BAY 58 CLOSE ON A PHOTOGRAPH, actually a computer-composited down-looking scan from a towed LIDAR (laser imaging sonar) rig. It shows a faint, blurry outline of the Montana lying on her side on a ledge part-way down the canyon wall. There is no detail. A finger points to a flat ledge nearby. An "X" has been put on with a grease pencil. COFFEY (V.O.) This is us. We're just on the edge of the Cayman Trough. The Montana is here, on its side, 300 meters away and 70 meters below us. We think she slid down the wall, and lodged against this outcropping. CUT WIDE, showing the rig crew gathered around a worktable in the sub-bay. The divers, Bud, Catfish, Sonny, Finler, Jammer, and the four SEALs have their dry-suits on. The pre-dive briefing. Lindsey, One Night, and Hippy will crew the submersibles. Wilhite is going around clipping DOSIMETER BADGES on everybody. SONNY This tells us how much radiation we get? HIPPY Hey, whoah... I can't handle no radiation, man. Forget it! Include me out. CATFISH Hippy, you pussy. HIPPY What good's the money if your dick drops off in six months? COFFEY We'll take reading as we go. If the reactor's breached or the warheads have released radioactive debris, we'll back away. Simple. BUD Okay... Hippy's not going... McWhirter, you can run Little Geek. Bud pats the top of a small ROV, sitting next to its larger brother, Big Geek. HIPPY No way! No way! He can't fly an ROV worth shit. I'll go. Shit! COFFEY (to all) On the dive, you will do absolutely nothing without direct orders from me, and you will follow my instructions without discussion. Is this clear? Alright, I want everyone finished prep and ready to get wet in fifteen minutes. The rig crew disperses, picking up helmets and diving gear. Some are studying the diagrams of the Montana's interior layout. Bud takes Coffey aside as the others prepare. BUD Look, it's three AM. These guys are running on bad coffee and four hours sleep. You better start cutting them some slack. COFFEY I can't afford slack, Brigman. BUD Hey, you come on my rig, you don't talk to me, you start ordering my guys around. It won't work. You gotta know how to handle these people... we have a certain way of doing things here. COFFEY I'm not interested in your way of doing things. Just get your team ready to dive. End of discussion. Coffey is walking away. Burning, Bud crosses to his gear locker. Picks up his helmet. Finler is suiting out next to him. FINLER Hey, you know your hand is blue? BUD Shut up and get your gear on. NEARBY, Monk comes over to pick his helmet up off the worktable. Hippy points to the heavy equipment case that says F.B.S. DEEP SUIT/MARK IV. HIPPY I've been meaning to ask you what this thing is. Mink opens the case and shows them an unfamiliar diving suit, what looks like a space helmet, and a large backpack. MONK Fluid breathing system. We just got them. We use it if we need to go really deep. HIPPY How deep? MONK Deep. (shrugs) It's classified... you know. Anyway, you breathe liquid, so you can't be compressed. Pressure doesn't get to you. Catfish is grappling with the concept. CATFISH You're saying you get liquid in your lungs? MONK Oxygenated fluorocarbon emulsion. Monk take a clear plastic box full of O-rings off the shelf and dumps them out. He opens a valve on the backpack and allows some of the fluid inside it to drain into the box. Then he take Beany by the tail off Hippy's shoulder. HIPPY Hey! MONK Check this out. He drops Beany in the box and, before Hippy can protest, closes the lid. Beany is forced under the surface. He struggled for a second, and bubbles come out of his mouth. Then he casually swims around in there, completely submerged... breathing liquid. Catfish and the others stare into the box, amazed. MONK See? He's diggin' it. Monk takes Beany out and hold him by the tail for a few seconds to drain his lungs. Then hands him back to Hippy. The rat is annoyed, but otherwise alright. CATFISH This is no bullshit hands down the goddamnedest thing I ever saw. CUT TO: EXT. DEEPCORE/DROPOFF 59 Three sets of moving lights move outward from Deepcore. Cab One and Three, with Lindsey and Hippy at the controls respectively, and One Night in the Flatbed. Lindsey is in the lead. She approaches the cliff-like drop-off and starts to descend. LINDSEY Com-check, everybody. Flatbed, you on line? ONE NIGHT Ten-four, Lindsey, read you loud and clear. LINDSEY Cab Three? HIPPY Cab Three, check. Right behind you. LINDSEY (V.O.) What's you depth, Cab Three? HIPPY 1840... 50... 60... 70... LINDSEY Going over the wall. Coming to bearing 065. Everybody stay tight and in sight. ONE NIGHT Starting out descent. Divers, how're you doing? EXT. FLATBED 60 Eight divers ride the back of Flatbed like itinerant workers on the way to the fields. Bud and his civilian crew, Catfish, Finler, and Jammer... sit across from the SEALs. They are in their gear and breathing from umbilical hooked in Flatbed's low-pressure manifold. BUD Okay so far. JAMMER How deep's the drop-off here? CATFISH This here's the bottomless pit, baby. Two and a half miles straight down. COFFEY Knock off the chatter. Cab One, you getting anything? INT./EXT. CAB ONE 61 Lindsey consults her array of instruments. COFFEY Cab One, do you see it yet? LINDSEY The magnetometer is pegged. Side-scan is showing a big return, but I don't see anything yet. Are you sure you got the depth right on this? BUD (V.O., filtered) You should be almost to it, ace. She turns the submersible and... The spotlight flares back from the great brass screw of the Montana. It dwarfs Cab One, FILLING FRAME. LINDSEY Uh, yeah, roger that... uh, found it. EXT. MONTANA/SUBMERSIBLES 62 Cab One maneuvers along the flank of the enormous sub, while Flatbed and Cab Three move above it. Wilhite take readings with a hand-held neutron counter. COFFEY Cab One, radiation readings? LINDSEY Neutron counter's not showing very much. COFFEY Wilhite, anything? WILHITE Negative. Nominal. COFFEY Just continue forward along the hull. LINDSEY Copy that, continuing forward. You just want me to get shots of everything, right? COFFEY Roger, document as much as you can, but keep moving. We're on a tight timeline. LINDSEY Copy that. The great black hull of the Montana recedes into the darkness beyond the puny beams of their lights. It seems bigger than the Titanic and just as eerie in its final resting place. On it side, the sub's top deck becomes a wall along which the tiny submersibles are moving. Ahead, in the lights, is a white painted circle. COFFEY That's the midship hatch. You see it, Cab Three? HIPPY Roger, I see it. BUD Just get around so your lights are on the hatch. HIPPY Check. Then I just hang with these guys, right? COFFEY Right. ONE NIGHT How do you want me? COFFEY Just hold above it. Alright, A team. Wilhite, Schoenick, and Monk unhook their short whip-umbilicals from the central manifold and roll off the side of Flatbed. They maneuver down toward the sub's hatch. Hippy guides Cab Three in closer to the hatch area. INT. CAB THREE 63 Hippy turns to Perry back in the lockout chamber, ready to launch Little Geek. The ROV has a handheld neutron-counter gripped in its manipulator arm. MONK (V.O.) Stand by on the ROV. HIPPY Perry, stand by on the ROV. (to Little Geek) Sorry about this, little buddy. Better you than me, know what I mean? Hippy nods and Perry drops Little Geek through the hatch into the water and feed out a length of tether. Hippy picks up the control box and watches the video screen, guiding the ROV toward the Montana's hatch. EXT. MONTANA HATCH AREA 64 The three SEALs have unlatched the deck cover and revealed the hatch. They open the out hatch and Monk swims down into to narrow escape trunk. He bangs on the inner hatch with a wrench, listening carefully with his helmet pressed against it. MONK It's flooded. Alright, I'm opening her up. Straining hard in the confined space, he get the lower hatch open, then swims backs out immediately. He gestures to Hippy, via Little Geek's vision, and Hippy flies the ROV into the hatch. EXT./INT. CAB ONE/MISSLE DECK 65 Meanwhile Cab One and Flatbed have proceeded forward along the hull. Beyond Lindsey's front port, the great hatches of the Trident missile tubes roll toward us in procession. Several of the hatch covers have been forced partway open by the warping of the hull. COFFEY (V.O.) Radiation is nominal. The warheads must still be intact. LINDSEY How many are there? COFFEY (V.O.) 24 Trident missiles. Eight MIRVs per missile. LINDSEY That's 192 warheads... And how powerful are they? SCHOENICK Your MIRV is a tactical nuke, 50 kilotons nominal yield. Say times time Hiroshima. LINDSEY (V.O.) Jesus Christ... this is World War Three in a can. COFFEY (V.O.) Let's knock off the chatter, please. INT. CAB THREE 66 TIGHT ON VIDEO SCREEN -- LITTLE GEEK'S CAMERA. Passing through a hatch, into a large grotto filled with pipes and machinery. The engine room. MONK (V.O.) Getting a reading? HIPPY It's twitching but it's below the line you said was safe. EXT. MONTANA MIDSHIP HATCH 67 Monk moves into the opening. MONK Alright. Let's get in there. Wilhite and Schoenick follow him through the escape trunk, into the dark corridor beyond. EXT. MONTANA/BOW SECTION 68 Out of the darkness ahead emerges the trailing edge of the sail, big as a five-story building. Far below her, Flatbed moves along the edge of the ledge which supports the vast sub. Its lights, and Lindsey's strobes, reveal the tremendous damage to the forward section as they pass the sail. The torn and twisted hull looms above Flatbed as it sets down. Coffey indicated an enormous rent where the bow section is almost torn away from the rest of the hull. COFFEY We'll go in through that large breach. BUD Let's go, guys. Bud's team leaves Flatbed, swimming forward. The opening is a black mouth in their lights. Coffey moves inside. Bud attaches one end of an orange nylon line to a piece of pipe and moves into the wreck behind him. BUD Take it slow, stay on the line, and stay in sight. Watch for hatches that could close on you, or any loose equipment that could fall. Jammer, Catfish, Finler, and Sonny follow him inside. INT. MONTANA/FORWARD BERTHING SECTION 69 They find themselves in the forward berthing compartment with its rows of bunks. The room is twisted and disheveled, with bedding hanging from the bunks like the lolling tongues of dead dogs. Papers float in gentle eddying currents, letters, pages from paperback novels, photos of girlfriends. Bud pays out the line and follows Coffey forward. As they pass sealed doors, Coffey pounds with a tool, listening. All flooded. INT. ENGINE ROOM 70 Monk leads his team along a corridor, following Little Geek's tether. Through a hatch into the engine room. Their lights play over flooded machinery. INT. COMPANIONWAY/CONTROL ROOM AND ATTACK CENTER 71 From the berthing Coffey's team swims up a companionway towards the attack center. He pulls at a buckled watertight door. COFFEY It's jammed. Give me a hand. Jammer and Bud squeeze in around Coffey. Together they wrench the door open on its squealing hinges. It give way suddenly, flying open. The suction pulls SOMETHING THROUGH. It slams Bud's shoulder. He turns. A FACE... RIGHT IN FRONT OF HIM! He jerks back, gasping. Face to face with Barnes, the sonarman. The ensign seems unmarked, merely dismayed at his own mortality, judging from his wide eyes and mouth. Coffey reaches past Bud and pushes the ensign's body out of the way. COFFEY Alright, let's keep moving. We knew we were going to see this. They enter the control room. Their lights play over the high-tech wreckage. Floating debris and bodies make shifting shadows on the walls as they swirl in the currents. A languid, weightless waltz. They move through the carnage. Their lights pick out tableaux... the planesman still strapped in his chair, someone jammed into the ceiling pipes, hanging down. Dead faces, pale in the lights. Still. We see only glimpses. Coffey locates the captain's body and rolls it over. Removes the missile arming key which hangs on a chain around the dead man's neck. Moves on. All business. Bud turns back to his guys. Checking them. He notices Jammer is breathing so rapidly he's fogging his helmet. Catfish, Finler, and Sonny aren't much better. A wave a panic seems imminent. BUD How you guys doing? SONNY I'm alright, I'm dealing. CATFISH Triple time sounds like a lotta money, Bud. It ain't. I'm sorry... BUD We're here now. Let's get her done. We see Bud working, calming them, talking them through it. He's sweating rivers in his helmet, not looking too steady. His projection of calm to the others is his own salvation. Coffey pauses in the doorway to the communications room. COFFEY This part I do alone. Brigman, take you men and continue aft. Split up into two teams of two. Let's get moving... we head back in fourteen minutes. Bud leads his team into a narrow corridor. INT. CORRIDOR/ROOMS 72 They search the rooms along the corridor with their lights until they come to a vertical hatch, open. a pit of darkness below. BUD Okay, Cat, Lew, Sonny. You guys stay on this deck. Hook you line onto mine. Any problem, you tug my line. Two pulls. Jammer, you're with me. Bud drops down through the hatch to the level below, followed by Jammer, who barely fits through. Catfish hooks his safety line onto Bud's with a carabiner and move along the corridor with the others. EXT./INT. CAB ONE 73 Lindsey circles the hull, documenting, photographing. Her strobes sear the darkness, give glimpses of the dead leviathan's form as her tiny submersible circles it like a bee. INT. COMMUNICATIONS CENTER 74 Working from a plastic card, Coffey spins the dial on the wall safe and opens it. He removes several plastic binders... the code books. He also grabs handfuls of classified documents and orders, and a set of missile arming keys, all which he places in a pouch at his waist. INT. CORRIDOR 75 Bud leads Jammer through a long, claustrophobically narrow corridor, tapping on the walls and hatches periodically. After he taps, he waits a few moments. There are no answering taps. They open doors and shine their lights into the rooms. The are bodies, but they seem anonymous. Crumpled shapes in khaki or blue. They undog and open a hatch. Beyond it is the largest chamber of the sub, the... INT. MISSLE COMPARTMENT 76 The missile compartment is the large gallery a hundred and twenty feet long and forty feet high, with two rows of vertical launch tubes, 24 in all. The chamber is divided into three levels by a floor of open steel grillwork. JAMMER Where are we? BUD Missile compartment. Those are the launch tubes. They sweep their lights around the chamber. Jammer turns... his beam illuminating a body just beyond the door. A coveralled seaman turning slowly in the eddying current. Small albino crabs crawl slowly over the man's face. One scuttles out of his gaping mouth. JAMMER Lord Almighty. BUD Hey, you okay? Bud goes to him. Gets up close to his face. Sees that he's not. That he's hyperventilating. Fighting nausea. Bud grabs him by the shoulders. BUD Deep and slow, big guy. Deep and slow. Just breathe easy. JAMMER I... they're all dead, Bud. They're all dead. I thought... some of them... you know... BUD I'm taking you back out. JAMMER No! I'm okay now. I just don't... I can't go any further in. Bud sees that the big diver's breathing has stabilized. He looks at his watch. Checker Jammer's pressure gauges. BUD Okay, Jammer. No problem. You stay right here. I have to go there to the end... you'll see my lights. We'll stay in voice contact. Just hold onto the rope. Five more minutes. Okay? JAMMER Yeah, okay. Okay. He moves off through the center aisle of the gallery swimming between the huge cylinders. He pays out the lifeline as he goes. INT. COM-ROOM 77 Coffey is working rapidly and efficiently, moving from one rack of electronics gear to the next, setting thermite grenades at vital points. As the thermite ignites, it generates an intense arc-bright light and tremendous heat. The circuit chasses melt. Coffey works calmly in the infernal glare. INT. MISSLE COMPARTMENT 78 Bed negotiates his way through the tangle of wreckage near the far end of the missile compartment. He goes down a stairwell to the lower level. A HUNDRED FEET AWAY, Jammer loses sight of Bud's dive-lights. He starts to get nervous. Suddenly his own lights begin to DIM, flickering lower and lower. They become little orange candles, the filament barely glowing. The darkness closes in. JAMMER Bud? BUD?! You readin' me? BUD?!! BUD, at the same moment, is fiddling with the connector cables on his helmet lights, which are dimming and flickering. He hears nothing from his helmet transceiver. JAMMER, smacks the side of his helmet. Shakes the transceiver on his belt. Nothing... just static. Then even the static dies. Panic time. He grabs the safety line and pulls twice. Hard. It is snagged on a sharp metal edge ten feet from him. He pulls twice more, harder, hauling the thing. The line severs. Jammer stared at the frayed and floating toward him. His eyes bug. He looks all around in the darkness. Can't see Bud. Can't decide what to do. We can see hysteria revving up inside him like a flywheel. Then he becomes aware of a faint radiance flickering over the walls. It is a cold and ethereal light, unlike the warm-white of their dive lights. It grows brighter. He turns slowly toward it. The glow is moving beneath the steel grill of the deck, sending shafts of cold light flickering upward hypnotically, coming toward him. JAMMER Bud? Is that you? C.U. JAMMER, shielding his eyes, staring into the radiant source. Guess what, Jammer? It's not Bud. In the brightest center of the glow, SOMETHING is moving, a figure casting strange inhuman shadow across the walls. Jammer blinks against the glare, his face registering total, outright astonishment melting into terror. The glare pulses subtly, hypnotically. The shifting shadow falls across Jammer. He finally snaps out of his fixity... Screaming and gulping air he spins away and starts clawing hand over hand through the treacherous wreckage. His harness catches on a twisted pipe. He struggles, totally out of control... the big man reduced to a blind panic. Jammer heaves forward with all his adrenalized strength. He tears free of the entangling debris. Launches like a torpedo... slamming his backpack full force into the top sill of the hatchway. His tri-mix regulator takes the full brunt of the impact. ON BUD, swimming furiously back toward Jammer's position. The strange radiance is gone. His dive light flare back to full brightness. BUD Jammer? Answer me, buddy, JAMMER?! He reaches Jammer only to find him thrashing violently in place. A seizure. Bud grapples with him. BUD Hang on, big guy. Hand on! Catfish, Sonny, and Finler arrive from the corridor a moment later. They leap into the fray. BUD He's convulsing! CATFISH It's his mixture! Too much oxygen! Then they're all yelling at once, grappling with the big man, struggling with the valves on his breathing gear. FINLER Crank it down, man! We're gonna losing him... BUD SHIT, it's stuck... goddamnit! SONNY You got it?! You got it? BUD Yeah, yeah... yeah. It's turning. Jammer's convulsion ends. He goes limp. BUD We gotta get him out of here. Come on! (to Jammer) Hang on, buddy. They drag Jammer's slack form into the corridor, hauling their way rapidly back along the lifeline. INT./EXT. CAB ONE & MONTANA SAIL 79 Lindsey is approaching the monolith of the sail, maneuvering to clear the horizontal diving plane. Then her lights go dim and her thrusters loose power. Suddenly a bright corona breaks around the bulk of the sail and SOMETHING appears right in front of her, a glowing object moving like a bat out of hell right at her! It is slightly smaller than submersible and we only get a glimpse. What we think we see in the diffuse glow is a translucent ovoid, open at the front with a spinning vortex of light inside... like some hallucinatory jet engine. And it's hauling ass. Lindsey jinks left. The object jogs right. She fights the control as her sub slews around, slamming broadside into the sail. K-BAM! Her power comes back up. Righting Can One, she spins to look through the aft viewport in time to see the object racing away in a broad arc. It pulls a high-G turn and dives straight down. We see the object zip behind Flatbed. One Night can't see it. The thing spirals down into the darkness like a hit-and-run drunk, diving along the wall into the abyss until it is lost to view. HOLD ON Lindsey excited, amazed... dazed. Her hands are shaking. Suddenly Bud's voice blares out over the open frequency. BUD (V.O.) CAB ONE! CAB ONE! Meet me at Flatbed! This is a diver emergency!! Do you copy? Lindsey?! She has a hard time focusing on what he's saying. Finally... LINDSEY Copy you, Bud. On my way. CUT TO: INT. DEEPCORE INFIRMARY -- AN HOUR LATER 80 Jammer is unconscious on a folding cot set up in the tiny cubicle of the infirmary. Monk, who is cross-trained as a medic as well as a demolitions man, has hung an IV of something. Bud and the SEAL are in the room, the others hovering outside. BUD Whattya think? MONK I'm a medic, which is mostly about patching holes. This type of thing... there's not much I can do. The coma could last hours or days. Bud, torn by guilt, gazes at the big man lying pathetically on the cot. CUT TO: INT. CONSOLE MODULE 81 The SEALs, minus Monk, are all gathered inside, debriefing with DeMarco via closed-circuit video. DEMARCO (video) Did any of you see it? COFFEY Negative. But there was definitely a Russian bogey. The Brigman woman saw it. DEMARCO CINCLANTFLT's gonna go apeshit. Two Russian attack subs, a Tango and Victor, have been tracked within fifty miles of here... and now we don't know what the hell they are. Okay, I don't have any choice. I'm confirming you to go to Phase Two. Wilhite and Schoenick glance uneasily at each other. Coffey is silent. He is vibrating with tension... his fists clenched to prevent the shaking. He is wrestling with the moment, knowing it is, in a way, a point of no return. DEMARCO Is there any problem? COFFEY Yes... I mean no. Negative, sir. Coffey takes a deep breath. Lets it out. Phase Two is clearly a big deal. CUT TO: INT. MAINTENANCE ROOM B/DARKROOM 82 The maintenance room doubles as a camera workstation. An adjoining head serves as darkroom. Lindsey is glumly reassembling Cab One's camera housings. BUD Did you get anything on the cameras. Video or anything? LINDSEY No. Look, forget it. I don't want to talk about it. BUD Fine. Be that way. LINDSEY I don't know what I saw. Okay? Coffey wants to call it a Russian submersible, fine. It's a Russian submersible. No problem. BUD But you think it's something else. What? One of ours? LINDSEY No. BUD Whose then? Lindsey? Talk to me... Lindsey is wrestling with a feeling which is somehow also certain knowledge. LINDSEY Jammer saw something in there, something that scared the hell out him-- BUD His mixture got screwed up. He panicked and pranged his regulator. LINDSEY But what did he see that made him panic? BUD What do you think he saw? LINDSEY I don't know. I DON'T KNOW! Hippy comes pounding up, sticks his head in, gesturing animatedly. HIPPY Hey, you guys... hurry up, check this out! They're announcing it. They follow him into the corridor, trotting down to the mess hall. INT. MESS HALL 83 General melee as they rush in, everybody focused on the TV. CATFISH Quiet! Quiet! HIPPY Turn it up, bozo. ANCHORMAN ... the Kremlin continues to deny Russian involvement in the sinking of the Trident sub USS Montana. The Navy has not released the names of the 156 crewmembers, who are all presumed dead at this time. Civilian employees of a Benthic Petroleum offshore drilling rig-- HIPPY Hey that's us! CATFISH SSSSHHH! ANCHORMAN --are apparently participating in the recovery operation but we have little information about their involvement. On the scene now is-- FINLER BOOOOH! We want names! SONNY Hey, hey! There's the Explorer. A LONG LENSE VIDEO SHOT of the Benthic Explorer and the other vessels in a stormy sea CUTS TO a shot of BILL TYLER, the on-scene reporter, in rain gear, clutching his microphone. He is on the deck of a Navy support ship, being used as a staging area from the press, well away from the center of the operation. TYLER --there is a tremendous amount of activity. With Cuba only 80 miles away, the massive buildup of US ships and aircraft in the area has drawn official protest from Havana and Moscow and has led to a redirection of Soviet warships into the Caribbean theater. ANCHORMAN How would you describe the mood there? TYLER The mood is one of suspicion, even confrontation. A number of Russian and Cuban trawlers, undoubtedly surveillance vessels, have been circling within a few miles throughout the day, and Soviet aircraft have repeatedly been warned away from the area... HIPPY This sucks. INT. CORRIDOR/SUB BAY 84 Bud, Lindsey, and Hippy walking along the corridor, Hippy in a black mood of incipient paranoia. BUD What's the matter with you? HIPPY Now we're right in the middle of this big-time international incident. Like the Cuban Missile Crisis or something. LINDSEY Figured that out for yourself, did you? HIPPY We got Russian subs creeping around. Shit! Something goes wrong they could say anything happened down here, man. Give our folks medals, know what I mean? BUD Hippy, just relax. You're making the women nervous. LINDSEY Cute, Virgil. HIPPY No, I mean it. Those SEALs aren't telling us diddly. Something's going on. BUD Hippy, you think everything's a conspiracy. HIPPY Everything is. One Night is pounding down the corridor from the sub bay. ONE NIGHT Hurry up! Coffey's splitting with Flatbed! He got me to show him the controls, then his guys suited up and they're rolling. Bud breaks into a run, passing her. BUD Goddamnit! D'you tell him we need it right now? ONE NIGHT I told him we had to get the umbilical unhooked ASAP. INT. SUB BAY 85 Bud clears the door in time to see an empty moonpool, roiling with turbulence. He runs to the edge and looks down. Flatbed is a vague shape moving off. BUD Unbelievable. CUT TO: EXT. EXPLORER BRIDGE -- DAY 86 The sky is charcoal, the sea is a mountain range of gray slopes. Waves thunder over the foredeck, whipped by eighty-know winds. Men in life jackets scurry like insects. Off the port bow, the ASW destroyer ALBANY vanishes and reappears among waves sixty feet tall. McBride scream orders that can't be heard to the crewmen on deck. He staggers back along the bridge railing. INT./EXT. BENTHIC EXPLORER BRIDGE -- DAY 87 McBride steps into the quiet of the control room. He turns on De Marco. MCBRIDE We're trying to get unhooked and get out of here... and your boys go sightseeing! DEMARCO They'll be back in two hours. MCBRIDE Two hours?! We're gonna be getting the shit kicked out of us by our friend Fred in two hours! De Marco's expression is infuriatingly calm... icy. McBride looks at his watch and swears under his breath. CUT TO: EXT. USS MONTANA WRECK SITE 88 For a second time the black hull of the ballistic missile sub is illuminated by diver's lights. Tiny figures, the divers move like moths around a distant streetlight. Wilhite, Monk and Schoenick are clustered around an open missile hatch. Using a large lift bag, they are removing the frangible fiberglass, or 'diaphragm'. Coffey pilots Flatbed with increasing deftness, deploying the big arm to aid in the work. DOWN ANGLE as the diaphragm lifts away... revealing the blunt nose of the TRIDENT C-4 MISSLE. Like looking down the barrel of a gun at the bullet aimed right at you. CUT TO: INT. DEEPCORE/MESS HALL 89 TIGHT ON VIDEO SCREEN: A HELICOPTER SHOT of a warship burning, rolling ponderously as it sinks in stormy seas. NEWS ANCHOR (V.O.) Little is known at this hour about the events leading up to the collision. The US Navy guided missile cruiser Appleton apparently struck the Soviet 'Udaloy' class destroyer in low visibility conditions... VARIOUS CUTS of men in life jackets among huge waves... Rescue helicopters hovering. Shaky camera work. Wind blasting. INTERCUT WITH REACTIONS of the rig crew watching. NEWS ANCHOR (V.O.) In violent seas little hope remains for over a hundred Russian crewmen still missing after the sinking an hour ago. SHOT OF AMERICAN CRUISER, burning, listing to one side in heavy seas. Replaced by SHOT OF NETWORK ANCHORMAN. NEWS ANCHOR Soviet military spokesmen have claimed that the collision constituted an unprovoked attack. This was denied-- It continues. Bud looks at Lindsey. She turns to him, expression grim. LINDSEY Bud, this is big time. CUT TO: EXT. MONTANA WRECKSITE 90 The divers are working head-first in the missile's launch tube. Monk reads from a plasticized card, directing the other two step by step. The arcane litany is punctuated by the hissing rasp of their breathing. WILHITE (filtered) Separation sequencer disconnected. Next? MONK (filtered) Remove explosive bolts one through six in counterclock-wise sequence. SCHOENICK (filtered) Check... removing bolt one. INT. DEEPCORE 91 ON THE RIG CREW, watching. Bathed in the light of the video screen. NEWSCASTER (V.O.) ... just learned that Soviet negotiators have walked out of the strategic arms limitation summit in protest over the incident this morning. Bud switches the channel. ANOTHER NEWSCASTER ... US and NATO military forces have been put on full alert worldwide this morning in the wake of... BUD It's on every channel. Bud switches again. Reception is getting worse as the storm affect the satellite down-link to Explorer. THE SCREEN shows a reporter on a city street, stopping people at random. Their answers are edited together: YOUNG WOMAN You just feel so hopeless. You can see it coming, but what can you do? What can anyone do? CONSTRUCTION WORKER Hey, they don't want war any more than we do. You think about it, you say... hey, they love their kids too. So why are we doing this? He is replaced by a self-righteous, middle-aged woman. WOMAN If the Russians sank that submarine, they deserve what they got and a lot more, if you ask me, and you did. I think we've been pussyfooting around with them long enough. EXT. USS MONTANA 92 It is now clear what the SEALs are doing. Using large lift bags and Flatbed's big arm, they have pulled one of the Trident C-4 missiles partway out of its launch tube, and have partially disassembled the nose-shroud, exposing several of the MIRV warheads within. Moving very carefully, Wilhite and Schoenick ease one of the individual MIRVs out of its bracket. Hanging under a lift-bag in a jerry-rigged harness, the three-foot long warhead is move gently by the divers to the back of Flatbed. INT. DEEPCORE/VIDEO SCREEN 93 Another man in the street interview, tortured by static. MAN Scared? I'm scared ____-less. But if it happens it happens, nothing I can do about it. Right? So why think about it? CUT TO: INT. SUB-BAY 94 Flatbed surfaces in boiling foam. The rig crew are all waiting. Like a crack pit-crew Bud's people leap onto Flatbed while its deck is still awash and start to work on to Navy divers, unsealing their helmets and uncoupling their umbilicals. Hippy and Bud start to untie a cylindrical object wrapped in one of the SEAL's gear bags. Coffey emerges from the hatch. COFFEY Don't touch that. Just step away. Now! HIPPY Excusez moi. BUD Coffey, we're a little pressed for time. COFFEY Monk, Schoenick... secure the package. The two SEALs unlash the object in the black bag. Bud an Lindsey exchange a glance. He glares at Coffey as they pass each other. One Night nimbly climbs the hatch-tower and drops in. Bud swings the heavy hatch up, balancing it, and grins down at One Night. BUD This ain't no drill, slick. Make me proud. ONE NIGHT Piece of cake, baby. He swings the hatch closed with a CLANG. CUT TO: EXT. DEEPCORE 95 The big A-frame, massive as a railroad bridge, to which the umbilical from the Explorer is attached. Flatbed rises INTO FRAME arcing around the coupling mechanism F.G. One Night deploys the big hydraulic arm. It unfold from Flay bed like a huge steel spider leg, its claw-like 'gripper' opening. INT./EXT. BENTHIC EXPLORER BRIDGE -- DAY 96 An ALARM sounds stridently on the dynamic-positioning console. BENDIX We're losing number two thruster. Bearing's going. INT. THRUSTER ROOM TWO 97 Deep in one of the catamaran hulls, the positioning thruster motor is SCREAMING like a steel banshee above its usual roar. It EXPLODES with smoke and shrapnel. A roaring fire erupts. Crewmen run shouting in the smoke. INT. EXPLORER BRIDGE 98 Now a KLAXON is going off as the ship begins to slew in the high winds. BENDIX It's not holding. We're swinging out of position! EXT. EXPLORER'S DECK/LAUNCH WELL 99 As the ship slews, the umbilical is drawn off vertical. It goes tight as a bowstring. Pulled to the edge of the launch well, it rips down the side with a godawful screech, tearing loose ladders and floats. EXT. DEEPCORE/A-FRAME 100 Flatbed's manipulator has gripped the de-coupling mechanism when the cable suddenly pulls taut. The sub is jerked sideways, its grip dislodged. We see One Night get tossed around inside. INT. DEEPCORE 101 Lindsey is in the corridor with a cup of tea when the whole rig BOOMS LIKE A GONG and lurches sideways. She's wearing her tea when Bud tears through a doorway and goes pounding past her. The intercom blares... HIPPY (intercom) Bud to control! Emergency! Bud to Control! Bud claws his way up the ladder to level two. The rig BOOMS and shudders as... EXT. DEEPCORE 102 The rig begins to move. The enormous skid breaks loose. Start to slide, plowing furrows in the bottom. One Night junks the controls, pivoting her submersible as the A-frame looms toward her. INT. DEEPCORE/CONTROL MODULE 103 Bud runs in, past Hippy, and grabs the mike. BUD Topside, topside... pay out some slack, we're getting dragged! EXT. EXPLORER DECK 104 The winch man staggers along the railing, blasted by 80-knot winds. He sprints for the base of the enormous crane which supports the umbilical winch. A wave blasts him into the bulkhead. He half-crawls to the ladder going up to the winch-house. As he climbs the winch's heave-compensator slides up and down, FILLING FRAME behind him. It is bottoming-out with a sound like a piledriver, overloaded by the strain on the cable. It chooses that moment to fail. GRINDING CRASH OF METAL. INT./EXT. DEEPCORE CONTROL MODULE 105 Lindsey has joined Bud, looking out the front viewport. LINDSEY We're heading right for the drop off! EXT. EXPLORER DECK 106 The deck is ripped upward as the entire 40-ton crane is pulled over by the weight of Deepcore. It topples in the launch well with a roar of tortured steel that rivals the storm. An EXPLOSION OF WATER. UNDERWATER, the crane tumbles between the twin hulls. Trailing a vortex of foam and debris, it roars down on us, FILLING FRAME WITH BLACKNESS. INT. EXPLORER BRIDGE 107 McBride stares in shock at the churning cauldron of the launch well. Grabs the underwater telephone. MCBRIDE Bud! We've lost the crane! BUD (V.O.) What? Say again. MCBRIDE THE CRANE! WE'VE LOST THE CRANE. IT'S ON ITS WAY TO YOU!! INT. DEEPCORE/CONTROL MODULE 108 Everyone is stunned by what is happening. Lindsey fires up the sonar. LINDSEY Got it! It's dropping straight to us. She puts the signal over the speakers and the room fills with eerie PINGING. Bud shouts over the intercom. BUD Rig for impact! Seal all exterior hatches. Move it! Let's go! VARIOUS ANGLES, QUICK CUTS, as everyone runs to comply: The rig crew pounding down the narrow corridors. Diving through low hatchways. Hatches are closed and the wheels spun down. Hippy puts into a ZIP-LOK BAG and seals it. EXT. DEEPCORE 109 The umbilical drops down in slack loops out of the blackness above, draping itself over the habitat in large coils. One Night pilots her submersible feverishly among the falling loops. She banks and twists. A length of heavy umbilical slams onto her neck, tipping the sub. She manages to get out from under it a keep going. INT. CONTROL MODULE 110 Through the front viewport they can see the coils of cable piling up in front of the rig. The hull booms with impacts as the massive stuff hits. Everyone hold their breath as the sonar return-pings get closer... and closer. And closer... An ENORMOUS SHAPE plunged into the floodlight in front of the rig. K-WHAM!! The 40-ton crane hits like a flatiron thirty feet in front of them. A clean miss. Much WHOOPING AND CHEERING. Then... The crane topples slowly over the back. It rolls down the slope of the drop- off, gathering speed. Then tumbles over the cliff into the abyssal canyon. The coiled umbilical starts to pay out after it like rope after a harpoon. And they're still attached. LINDSEY Oh shit. An agonizing few seconds. Then... the cable pulls taut. K-BOOM!! The rig is slammed by the shock. Everyone is knocked off his feet, into walls and equipment. EXT. DEEPCORE 111 The rig begins to slide. It tilts over the embankment and grinds down the slope of the drop-off in a cloud of silt. The cable pulling it inexorably toward the cliff. The framework twists and slams into rocks. SCREECHING AND GROANING of tortured steel. INT. DEEPCORE/CORRIDOR/LADDERWELL/MAIN CORRIDOR 112 All hell has broken loose. SIRENS, SCREAMING, a KLAXON HOOTING moronically. Bud sprints from Control, bouncing off the corridor walls as the rig lurches and tilts. The lights go out. Emergency light come on. He trips and falls, scrambles up, running on. IN THE LADDERWELL of trimodule C, Lindsey runs toward the machine rooms. K-BOOM! A searing bright EXPLOSION in the electrical room. Flames roar through the doorway. She dashed to a seawater hose hanging nearby and starts to unroll it. She sees Coffey and Schoenick in maintenance, lashing down the mystery package. LINDSEY Hey! Get on this hose, you turkeys! INT. TRIMODULE C/COMPRESSOR ROOM 113 Monk is working in a spray of seawater, turning valves to stop the flow of ruptured pipes. Behind him, a wall of flame blossoms through the door from the electrical room, driving the back with the heat. A reservoir-tanks breaks loose from one of the compressor assemblies. In rolls at him, crushing his legs against machinery. The fire roars into the room. INT. SUB BAY 114 Hippy runs in. The place is going nuts. Water floods from the moonpool as the rig tilts. Wilhite is dancing across the deck, leaping over compressed- gas cylinders which are rolling around loose. Cab One jumps clear off its cradle and slides SCREECHING across the deck. Wilhite, running before the 12-tom juggernaut, had no place to go. The SEAL dives into the churning moonpool. Cab One slams into the end wall, then spins and rolls toward Hippy. He starts to run. Drop something. Looks back. Beany, in his zip-loc bag, is lying in the path of the slide submersible. Hippy runs back. Scoops up the baggie. Cab One FILLS FRAME behind him. He makes it through the door an instant before the thing hits behind him, buckling the steel doorframe. Wilhite is clawing up the sheep skirting of the moonpool. He gets his fingers over the top. Pulls himself up... A steel helium tank slams against his fingers, crushing them, and he falls back. More tanks bounce over the lip of the pool, hammering Wilhite down into the foaming water. He doesn't surface. EXT. DEEPCORE 115 The rig is sliding to the edge of the cliff. Beyond it... the bottomless pit of the Cayman Trough. It slams, crushing and twisting, into a rock outcropping and stops, hanging over the precipice. INT. TRIMODULE A/QUARTERS 116 Perry is trapped as the trimodule floods with stunning swiftness. He makes it through an emergency hatch between floors but can't get it closed. The inrushing tide blasts it open. He scramble upward to the next hatch. Spins the wheel. No time. He is slammed against the ceiling by the force of the water. OMITTED A116 INT. DRILL ROOM B116 Lew Finler, Tommy Ray Dietz, and Lupton McWhirter fight their way toward the door as the drill room floods rapidly. Ahead, the big automated watertight door is closing like a motorized bank-vault. They reach it just as it is closing, but can't prevail against the strength of the motors. FROM THE FAR SIDE, we can see them screaming soundlessly at the tiny pressure window in the door. We can hear the dull THUNK of their pounding. INT. TRIMODULE C/LADDERWELL AND COMPRESSOR ROOM 117 Coffey and Schoenick, in emergency breathing masks, are fighting the fire with a seawater hose and fire extinguishers. Smoke and steam choke the dark chambers. Nearby, Lindsey grabs Hippy's arm as he is running past and drags him into the blazing compressor room. Hands him her seawater hose. Wide-eyes, he starts blasting everything in sight with water. LINDSEY No! Hold it on me! She rushed into the teeth of the fire as Hippy blasts her with a spray of water, following her into the intense heat. She grabs Monk, who is semiconscious, and drags him out of the blazing room... Hippy dancing back with the hose, tripping, blasting her in the face. But it works. They get Monk clear. INT. DRILL ROOM CORRIDOR 118 Bud comes pounding down the flooding corridor in time to see the water in the drill room swirl above the pressure window, obscuring the faces of the trapped men. He claws futility at the door. The motors and the fail-safe latching mechanism are on the opposite side. Through the pressure window he watches helplessly as they drown. We don't see what he sees, but we know what he sees. Suddenly the bulkhead next to him gives way and a freezing torrent thunders in. Bud is blown off his feet a hurled along the corridor. He scramble up somehow, splashing waist deep toward the opposite end of the corridor where another of the hydraulic doors is closing inexorably. He's not going to make it. He reaches it a moment too late to squeeze through. Grabs the edge of the door and desperately tries to stop it from closing with the strength of this arms. It doesn't work. The steel door closes on the fingers of his left hand, pinning them in the doorframe. But something amazing happens. His wedding ring lodges between the door and frame, preventing his fingers from being crushed and the door from sealing and locking. It resists tons of pressure, denting but not collapsing. The freezing sea pours in until only his head is clear. BUD Heeyy!! HHHEEEYYY!! ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE DOOR, Catfish and Sonny come pounding up. They see his face at the tiny window and his hand jammed in the door. Sonny wedges a crowbar in the narrow opening and starts to pry. Catfish whips open his jackknife and slashes the hydraulic hoses on the door actuator. He is sprayed with red hydraulic fluid, machine blood. Together they force open the door. Bud is blown through in a torture of water. Sonny is thrown back into some pipes. Breaks his arm. Together they somehow heave the door shut manually, cutting off the flow. Catfish hammers the fail-safe latch home with the crowbar. Bud lies gasping and shivering... staring at the tiny band of metal that saved him. DISSOLVE TO: EXT. DEEPCORE/ONE HOUR LATER A118 LOOKING DOWN THE WALL of the canyon as Big Geek moves beneath us, tilting up to show Deepcore perched at the very edge of the abyss. The rig is twisted and dented, covered with loops of umbilical, trimodule-A a mass of wreckage. The ROV passes across the front of the control module. Through the front port, two figures can be seen in the light of a single emergency lamp. SONNY (V.O. static) Mayday, mayday. This is Deepcore Two calling Benthic Explorer. Do you read, over? INT. CONTROL MODULE B118 Sonny flips some switches on the UQC acoustic transceiver. Tries again. SONNY Benthic Explorer, Benthic Explorer. Do you read, over? This is Deepcore-- BUD Forget it, Sonny. They're gone. INT. TRIMODULE C 119 Bud walks down the corridor from control, slowly... as if carrying a great weight. The air is still thick with smoke. The power off... everything lit by emergency lights. Makeshift quarters have been set up in the mess hall, with blankets laid out on the tables, and with folding cots in the storage room across the hall. Jammer is still unconscious. Coffey and Schoenick bring Monk in on a stretcher, and set him up on a table. He is conscious but dazed with painkillers, his led splinted. BUD Did you find Wilhite? COFFEY No. He and Bud lock eyes. Bud bites back on his recriminations, but his gaze blames Coffey. He turns away. COFFEY Brigman. (Bud turns) I was under orders. I had no choice. Coffey's manner is subdued, contrite. A marked contrast to his previous brusque arrogance. He's wrestling with his own loss, a sever blow to the tight brotherhood of a SEAL unit. Bud's anger is not dispelled. But he can't address it now. He moves on. PAST THE INFIRMARY, where Sonny Dawson is rigging a sling over his own broken arm. He cries out in pain, cursing at himself. LOOKING DOWN THE CENTRAL WELL as Bud crosses. Down through the grill decking we can see the bottom level of the module is flooded. Catfish is down there welding, sending shivering reflections through the chamber. INT. MACHINE ROOM 120 Lindsey is working, up to her knees in water. She is covered with grease, tools scattered around. Bud puts his hand on her shoulder. She looks up, blows some hair out of her eyes. BUD What's the scoop, ace? LINDSEY I can get power to this module and sub-bay if I remote these busses. I've gotta get past the mains, which are a total melt-down. Rather than trigger anger and invective, the disaster seems to have affected her in a different way. She's accepted the situation, now that's it's done, and is immersing herself in technical tasks, which are for her therapeutic. BUD Need some help? LINDSEY Thanks. No, I can handle it. Bud... there won't be enough to run the heaters. In a couple hours this place is going to be as cold as a meat locker. BUD What about O-2? LINDSEY Brace yourself. We've got about 12 hours worth if we close off the sections we're not using. BUD The storm's gonna last longer than 12 hours. LINDSEY I can extend that. There's some storage tanks outboard on the wrecked module. I'll have to go outside to tie onto them. She goes back to her task, working efficiently with a socket wrench. BUD Hey, Lins... (she looks up) I'm glad your here. LINDSEY Yeah? Well I'm not. OMITTED 121 OMITTED 122 The sub bay is still a mess. Dark. A few battery-operated lamps. Flatbed is back, floating in the moonpool. One Night and Hippy are in deep concentration, piloting the two ROVs in a damage survey of the rig. Bud comes up behind them, check her screen first. BIG GEEK'S MONITOR shows a view of the aft section of the rig. The drilling derrick had collapsed across Cab Three, totaling it. A girder is jammed through its acrylic front dome. ONE NIGHT Right through the brainpan. Deader'n dogshit, boss. BUD (to Hippy) Where're you? HIPPY Quarters. Level two. INT. TRIMODULE A/QUARTERS A123 Little Geek rises up through the open central hatch, pivoting in a circle to scan the flooded interior. INT. SUB BAY/R.O.V. STATION B123 TIGHT ON VIDEO SCREEN, LITTLE GEEK'S POV. The interior of the structure is a shambles. The lights of the little robot fall upon a figure... Perry. Lying on the deck, almost looking like he's asleep. HIPPY That's Perry. BUD (lets his breath out slowly) That's it then. Finler, McWhirter, Dietz, and Perry. Jesus. HIPPY (gestured at the screen) Do we just leave him there? BUD Yeah, for now. Our first priority's to get something to breathe. CUT TO: EXT. DEEPCORE 124 Catfish and Lindsey, in suits and helmets, drop down from the glare of the moonpool onto the dark sea floor under the rig. Walking, they pull their umbilicals behind them and head out through the twisted wreckage. Little Geek follows along like a dog at their heels. They settle beside a valve assembly at the base of the wrecked module. LINDSEY Cat, you tie onto this manifold. There's some tanks on the other side; I'm gonna go check them out. CATFISH You watch yourself. He begins to attach one end of a coiled-up high-pressure hose to a manifold. She takes the other end of the hose and moves off into the darkness. Little Geek goes with her faithfully. INT. SUB BAY 125 Cab One is hanging from the overhead crane while One Nigh works to repair it. Bud is nearby, tending hose for the divers and handing her tools. Talking while they work. Hippy is across the moonpool running Little Geek. ONE NIGHT Gimme a three-eighths socket on a long extension. (he hands it to her) So there you were-- BUD There we were, side by side, on the same ship, for two months. I'm tool-pusher and we're testing this automated derrick of hers. So, we get back on the beach and... we're living together. ONE NIGHT Doesn't mean you had to marry her. BUD We were due to go back out on the same ship. Six months of tests. If you were married you got a state-room. Otherwise it was bunks. ONE NIGHT Okay, good reason. Then what? BUD It was alright for a while, you know. But then she got promoted to project engineer on this thing, couple years ago. ONE NIGHT She went front-office on you. Tighten that for me, right there. That's it. BUD Well, you know Lindsey, too damn aggressive-- Son of a--!! He's jammed his fingers with a wrench torquing down a bolt. Whips his hand out. BUD She didn't leave me... she just left me behind. She puts her arm around his shoulders, somehow managing to be fraternal, maternal and suggestive all at the same time. ONE NIGHT Bud, let me tell you something. She ain't half as smart as she thinks she is. She smiles and pretends to kink Lindsey's air-hose. ACROSS THE CHAMBER, Hippy scowls as Little Geek's screen starts to go haywire with interference. HIPPY Hey, Lindsey, you reading me? Over. OMITTED 126 EXT. DEEPCORE/TRIMODULE A 127 Catfish is working on one side of the wrecked module while Lindsey is on the other, out of sight. She is standing on the bottom at the base of the wreckage, checking valves on a rack of oxygen bottles amongst the wreckage. Right at the edge of the canyon wall. Behind her is a sheer drop to nothingness LINDSEY Yeah, Hippy, I read you. What's the matter? The reply is GARBLED by a wash of static. Then, for no apparent reason, Lindsey's helmet light begins to dim out. Little Geek's lights fade. His motors whine to a stop. ON CATFISH, as his lights drop to candleglows. INT. SUB BAY A127 The emergency lights are dimming, like a brownout. Bud grabs the diver intercom mike. BUD Lins, how're you doing? Lindsey? EXT. TRIMODULE A 128 ON LINDSEY, as she fiddles with her lights and transceiver pack. LINDSEY Catfish... I got a problem here. You there? Catfish? Behind her, SOMETHING rises from the depths. It is the little vehicle she almost collided with at the Montana wreck. It comes right up behind her. She doesn't know it's there. It hovers sideways like a hummingbird, as if curious, trying to get a better look. She becomes aware of the pulsing glow on the ground around her. She turns slowly. We see her react as the glowing, pulsing apparition is reflected in her faceplate. A more powerful glow washes up onto her from below. Her eyes go down. She gasps, absolutely stunned... Above the edge of the wall, AN ENORMOUS SHAPE RISES SILENTLY OUT OF THE DEPTHS. Over sixty feet across. It looks like a blown glass manta ray, its transparent outer hull housing interior structures of great delicacy and complexity, pulsing with a blue-violet glow. Lindsey stand before it, unable to move. Absolutely rapt. Captivated by its ethereal beauty. It begins to turn, majestically, one rounded wing passing only a few feet above her. She reaches up. Touches it as it passes over her. Lindsey is without fear, completely mesmerized. The thing completes its turn and dives gracefully down along the wall. She is gently lifted by a backwash of turbulent water. About that time, Lindsey remembers she has a still camera, a little Nikonos. She fumbles to set focus and exposure with her bulky gloves as the beautiful machine glides into the depths. Gets all set for a shot and... WOOSH! The little 'scoutschip' whizzes past her from behind, startling her. She completely misses the shot of the 'manta ship'. She pivots, trying to get a shot of the little one as it zig-zags down along the wall, fast as a meteor. CLICK. She get a shot a second before it disappears. From around the flank of the rig module, Catfish appears. Their com-sets come backs to life, along with their lights. LINDSEY You better not say you missed that. CATFISH Missed what? CUT TO: INT. DEEPCORE/MESS HALL 129 TIGHT ON SLIDE STRIP. Lindsey's fingertip in for scale. The shot is black with a little squiggle of light in the center. Pathetic. BUD Nice shot, Lins. SONNY What is that? You drop your dive light? WIDER, SHOWING THE GROUP huddled around Lindsey who has her freshly-processed slide roll laid out on the pinball machine, using it as a light table. LINDSEY Come on, you guys... look, this is the little one right here. You can see how it's kind of zigging around. BUD If you say so. It could be anything. LINDSEY I'm telling you what is there. You're just not hearing. The impulses somehow aren't getting from you ears to your brainpan. There's something down there. Something not... us. She looks around. Sees a lot of skepticism in the eyes around her. CATFISH Y'all could be more specific. LINDSEY Not us. Not human. Get it? Something non- human, but intelligent... HIPPY You mean like Coffey? Lindsey is reddening. Despite her conviction, this is really hard. LINDSEY A non-terrestrial intelligence. HIPPY Non-Terrestrial Intelligence. NTIs. Yeah, I like that better then UFOs. Although that works too... Underwater Flying Objects. Hippy is not really mocking her. He's actually into it. But it has that effect. Catfish is eyeing Lindsey like he's never seen her before. CATFISH Are we talkin' little space friend here? HIPPY Right on! Hot rods of the Gods. Right, Lins? Hey, no really! It could be NTIs. The CIA has known about them for years. They abduct people all the time. There was this woman I knew in Albuquerque who-- LINDSEY Hippy, do me a favor... stay off my side. Bud takes her firmly by the arm. Heads her out into the corridor. BUD Lindsey, will you step into my office for a minute... INT. CORRIDOR/LADDER WELL 130 He propels her along the corridor, away from the mess hall doorway. They face each other in the narrow space. BUD Jesus, Lindsey-- LINDSEY Bud, something really important is happening here. BUD Look. I'm just trying to hold this situation together. I can't allow you to cause this kind of hysteria-- LINDSEY Who's hysterical? Nobody's hysterical! They're talking across each other, not connecting. Bud weary and frustrated. Lindsey is cranked up with the afterglow of her encounter. BUD All I'm saying is when you're hanging on by your fingernails, you don't go waving you arms around. LINDSEY I saw something! I'm not going to go back there and say I didn't see it when I did. I'm sorry. BUD God, you are the most stubborn woman I ever knew. LINDSEY I need you to believe me, Bud. Look at me. Do I seem stressed out? Any of the symptoms of pressure sickness, any tremors, slurred speech? BUD No. LINDSEY Bud, this is me, Lindsey. Okay? You know me better than anybody in the world. Now watch my lips... I saw these things. I touched one of them. And it wasn't some clunky steel can like we would build... it glided. It was the most beautiful thing I've ever seen. Bud is stilled by her intensity. She moves close to him. Eyes alive and luminous. LINDSEY It was a machine, but it seems almost alive. Like a... dance of light. Bud, you have to trust me... please. I don't think they mean us harm. I don't know how I know that, it's just a feeling. BUD How can I go on a feeling? You think Coffey's going to go on you 'feeling'? LINDSEY We all see what we want to see... Coffey looks and he sees Russians, he sees hate and fear. Bud, you have to look with better eyes than