The Abyss Page #21

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LINDSEY:

Look, this water is only a couple degrees above

freezing. I drown. I go into deep hypothermia...

my blood like icewater. I can maybe be revived

after ten, fifteen minutes. You got all the

stuff to do it on the rig.

Bud stops moving and looks into her face, inches from him. The water is up

to their necks. He knows that, as always, infuriatingly, Lindsey is right.

BUD:

It is insane.

LINDSEY:

It's the only way, Bud. Now trust me.

She takes a deep breath. Before her nerve fails she busies her hands on his

suit, rehooking everything.

BUD:

Jesus, I don't believe this is happening.

She raise his helmet. Water up to their chins. They lock eyes, inches

apart. He can feel her breath on his face... maybe for the last time.

BUD:

Oh God, Lins... I--

LINDSEY:

Tell me later.

He grabs her head in both hands and pulls her mouth to his. They lock

together in a fierce kiss, fueled by passion and terror... the naked

realization of love hanging over the abyss of death.

She breaks away at the last possible second and quickly pulls his helmet

over his head. Seats is down over the neck ring. Lock the bail-out handle,

sealing it. Even with her head press up into the highest point of the

ceiling, Lindsey's mouth is barely above water. She give a scared little

laugh.

LINDSEY:

This is maybe not such a great plan, is it?

She is half-paralyzed with the cold, shaking pathetically. Puts her face to

the glass of his helmet. Seconds to go.

LINDSEY:

Hold me. Hold me, Bud... I'm so scared...

He can't hear her, but he read her lips. They clutch each other desperately.

The embrace last while the water rises over her mouth and nose. She starts

to choke. Her hands grip his shoulders like claws. She bucks and thrashes.

Bud holds her, and a scream tears loose from him, a pure agony of the soul.

BUD:

NOOOOO!!!

The freezing seawater races into her lungs. Her finger go slack, and her

hands float lifelessly.

Bud stares, transfixed, as the last tiny bubble trickles out of Lindsey's open

mouth. He kicks himself into gear, fingers frenzied as he spins the wheel of

the lockout hatch.

CUT TO:

INT. DEEPCORE/COMMAND MODULE 191

TIGHT ON VIDEO SCREEN, one of the outside cameras. A ghostly figure swims out

of the darkness, towing something.

ONE NIGHT:

It's Bud. Oh my God... that's Lindsey!

BUD (V.O./faint)

Deepcore, Deepcore, do you read?

HIPPY:

Read you, Bud. We're here.

EXT. DEEPCORE 192

Bud swims with long, powerful kicks, towing Lindsey. Her arms and legs float

as gracefully as seaweed waving in a gentle current. Bud's voice comes in

short rasps, breathing hard, but icy with control.

BUD:

Go to the infirmary... get the cart .. oxygen...

de-fib kit... adrenaline in a... ten cc

syringe... and some... heating blankets.

You got all that?

HIPPY (V.O.)

Got it. Over.

BUD:

Meet me in the moonpool. Move fast.

INT. INFIRMARY 193

The door crashes open and Jammer thunders in. He picks up the CPR cart, meant

to roll on wheels, and carries it out past Hippy, Catfish, and One Night, who

are crowding in to get the rest of the equipment. They ransack the place in

about ten seconds, grabbing everything they might need and half of everything

else.

EXT. DEEPCORE/UNDER THE MOONPOOL194

Bud moves up toward the rectangle of light, towing Lindsey to the diving

platform. Through the surface we can see the others arrive at the edge,

looking down.

INT. SUB-BAY195

Hippy and Catfish are setting up the cart and the oxygen kit, dropping things,

making mistakes. One Night is teaching herself how to fill a syringe from a

bottle of adrenaline.

SONNY:

Here he comes!

Jammer and Sonny leap into the freezing water, waist deep on the submerged

diving platform. Bud bursts to the surface. Together they haul Lindsey

across the platform, out of the water, and onto the deck. Her skin is blue-

white, her chest still.

Bud rips his helmet off in a near-frenzy, like a man possessed, a man with a

mission. The others are galvanized by his energy even though they all see

Lindsey as dead, a corpse... cold and inert. Water flows from her mouth and

nose and her lips are blue, her limbs completely limp. Hippy peels back one

eyelid, to find the pupil fixed and dilated.

But when Bud shouts for them to move, they move.

BUD:

Turn her over!

They flip his wife's body over. He straddles her, pushing down with both

hands in the middle of her back. Seawater gushes from her slack lips. He

does it again until the flow stops, then flips her onto her back.

BUD:

Come on, hurry! Gimme the de-fib...

One Night and Catfish are fumbling with the emergency cart equipment. They've

all been trained in CPR and use of the gear but that was years ago, and is a

friend they're working on. They're all thumbs. Catfish drops the electrodes,

picks them up quickly, hands them to Bud...

CATFISH:

Here, here, here... no, you got to have bare

skin, or it won't...

Bud rips into her clothing, opening her jumpsuit, literally tearing away her

T-shirt, revealing her bare chest... bony and still.

BUD:

Jesus. Gimme those, come on. Catfish, move it,

man! Come on... come on!

He slaps the things into Lindsey's bare skin, one on the sternum and one on

the side of the rib cage.

BUD:

Is that it? Is this right?

HIPPY:

Yeah! I mean, I don't know... it looks right.

BUD:

All right. Do it!

One Night hits the switch and Lindsey's body convulses. It is a pure muscle

reflex, and when it is over, there is not a hint of life. Hippy pushes him

back and puts a black rubber oxygen mask over her mouth. He opens the valve

on the cylinder and starts pumping the squeeze bag. They start packing

electronic blankets around her to fight the intense hypothermia

BUD:

Do it again, One Night. Zap her again!

The current hits Lindsey again and her back arches. Bud doesn't wait for a

result... he's in his own reality now, driven. He's doing it all at once,

somehow, in a senseless frenzy... pumping on her chest with his hands,

squeezing the oxygen bag, placing the electrodes.

BUD:

Aw. Christ... come on, baby. Again! Do it

again!

Lindsey's back arches. Her body relaxes, inert.

BUD:

Come on, One Night... what are you waiting for?

A hush seems to have fallen over the group. They know instinctively that it's

over. But Bud can't accept it. He looks at them, beseechingly, like they

are somehow intentionally holding out on him. One Night starts to cry,

quietly.

CATFISH:

(gently)

Bud, it's over, man. It's over.

There is a beat of silence. Bud stares down into Lindsey's half-open,

motionless eyes.

TIGHT ON LINDSEY'S EYES, moving in until the pupil FILLS FRAME, a black void.

REVERSE, HER POV. SILENCE. A distant, distorted image, we see Bud, One

Night, Jammer, Hippy, Catfish, staring down. It is like the circular top of

a dark well, their faces shimmering as if through the surface of water. It is

as if we are in a well, descending, looking up at a circle of faces growing

smaller as we drop away... smaller and smaller, receding until it becomes

a point of light in the void, like the fading bright dot at the center of a

turned-off TV.

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