The Abyss Page #9

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FINLER:

Crank it down, man! We're gonna losing him...

BUD:

SH*T, 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 SAIL79

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. Sh*t!

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.

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