






                                  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

                that.



Bud has been taking this all in.  His eyes tracking her face.  He closes his

eyes, taking a deep breath.  It's so hard for him to do this, but...



                                BUD

                I can't, Lindsey.  I'm sorry.  How can I?



                                                                CUT TO:



INT. MESS HALL -- LATER                                                 131



Coffey has Bud, Lindsey and several of the rig crew gathered for a little

summit.  Lindsey is withdrawn, sitting far from the others, a self-imposed

exile.  They're all wearing warm clothes and hugging themselves.  Their

breath shows in the air.



                                COFFEY

                I want 'round-the-clock manning of the sonar

                shack and the exterior cameras.  We need early

                warning if the Soviet craft try another incursion.



                                LINDSEY

                          (rolling her eyes)

                Gimme a break!  Coffey, these things live three

                and a half miles down on the bottom of an abyssal

                trench!  Trust me... they're not speaking

                Russian.



Coffey looks at her for a moment, then goes on as if she hadn't spoke.



                                COFFEY

                            (to One Night)

                Why haven't you finished repairs on the

                hydrophone transmitter yet?



                                ONE NIGHT

                I was having my nails done.



Coffey is sweating, despite the chill.  Keeps his hands clenched in fists so

they won't see how bad the tremors have gotten.



                                COFFEY

                Get something straight.  You people are under my

                authority--



                                CATFISH

                Look, podner... we don't work for you, we don't

                take orders from you, and we don't much like you.

                In addition to which your momma dresses you

                funny.



Coffey's eyes are straight razors.  He slashes them from face to face.  You

can see him tightening up like a clockspring, losing control of the situation

in front of his own men.  Bud defuses it.



                                BUD

                'Fish'?



                                CATFISH

                Yuh?



                                BUD

                Take the first watch in sonar.  Hippy, you

                handle the exterior surveillance.  One Night, see

                if you can get that transmitter working for me,

                okay?



                                ONE NIGHT

                Gimme a couple of hours.



HOLD ON COFFEY as everyone leaves.  Winding tighter.



                                                                CUT TO:



INT. MAINTENANCE ROOM B -- LATER                                        132



Coffey and Schoenick are bending over the warhead.  They have a small port

removed and are attaching waterproof leads from an ELECTRONIC DETONATOR.  The

black box Lindsey glimpsed earlier.  As the two SEALs work like surgeons, we

see past Coffey's shoulder to a hemispherical window behind him, which looks

out into the perpetual blackness.  Something appears... a goofy shark face.



Big Geek rises silently in front of the port.  It moves a little, trying to

get a peek over Coffey's shoulder.



INT. CONTROL MODULE/ROV SHACK                                           133



Hippy is twiddling his joysticks, watching the screen like a ferret.



                                HIPPY

                Come on... move to the left... just a little

                more... come on, A.J. Squared Away... that's

                it--



ON THE SCREEN, Geek's POV.  Coffey is blocking Hippy's view of whatever it is

they're working on.  Abruptly, be moves.  The warhead is lying there in plain

sight, detonator wires hooked up.  Hippy's eyes bug out.  He knows exactly

what it is.



                                HIPPY

                Pretty radical, guys.  Pretty radical.



He hurries to the VCR and puts it into RECORD.



INT. CONTROL MODULE/ROV SHACK -- MINUTES LATER                          134



Video image of the SEALs working.  It FREEZES on a clear view of the warhead.



                                HIPPY (V.O.)

                Say hello to MIRV.



Bud has his face right up to screen.  He frowns, skeptical.



                                HIPPY

                Come on, man.  What else could it be?



                                BUD

                Why bring it here?



                                HIPPY

                It's gotta be, like, an emergency plan to keep

                it away from the Russians... Hotwire one of the

                nukes with some kinda detonator, put it back in

                the sub, and fry the whole thing, slicker'n snot.

                Oh, uh... hi, Lins.



Bud whips around.  Lindsey, standing quietly in the doorway.  It's apparent

from expression she's been watching them for some time.  She looks ready to

kill somebody.  Then she's gone.



INT. CORRIDOR                                                           135



Bud catches up to her in the corridor, trying to put the brakes on her.



                                LINDSEY

                Look, goddamnit, if you won't do something about

                it, I will.



                                BUD

                Lindsey!  Wait a second--



She reaches the watertight door to Maintenance Room B.  It's locked.  Before

Bud can stop her she grabs a fire-extinguisher off the wall and pounds on

the steel door like a big gong.  BOOM!  BOOM!  BOOM!



Needless to say, it opens.  She pushes past Schoenick, see the bomb lying

there naked.



                                LINDSEY

                You've got some huevos bringing this...

                thing... into my rig!  With everything that's

                been going on up in the world, you bring a

                nuclear weapon in here?  Does this strike anyone

                as particularly psychotic, or is it just me?



                                COFFEY

                You don't need to know the details of this

                mission... you're better off if you don't.



                                LINDSEY

                You're right... I don't.  I just need to know

                that this thing is out of here!  You hear me,

                Roger Ramjet?



                                COFFEY

                Mrs. Brigman, you're becoming a serious impediment

                to this mission.  I believe the stress is

                affecting you.

                            (to Schoenick)

                Escort her to quarters and have Monk prepare a

                tranquilizer.



Schoenick takes her arm in a tight grip.



                                LINDSEY

                Bullshit, you can't do that.  Oww... goddamnit!



Lindsey goes bananas, trying to get Schoenick's big hands off her arms.  Bud

slams his hand down on the intercom button.



                                BUD

                Emergency!  Maintenance room B.  Emergency!



He pulls the fire alarm for good measure and spins on Coffey... warning him

with a look that is not to be messed with.  Coffey is braced back against the

worktable... an odd stance, with one arm behind his back.  Suddenly there's

a crowd outside the door as Catfish, Hippy, One Night, and Sonny come running

up.  Confrontation time.



Sirens going.  About a million volts of electricity in the air.  Bud braces

Schoenick.



                                BUD

                Let her go.  Do it... right now.



He does.  Lindsey jerks away.  Rubs her arms.



                                LINDSEY

                You dumb jarhead motherf--



                                BUD

                Chill out, Lindsey!!



                                CATFISH

                What's the problem?



Everyone is frozen in place.  Bud a Coffey... snake and mongoose, glaring.

Bud pulls Lindsey back into the corridor.



                                BUD

                Nothing.  We were just leaving.

                              (to her)

                Weren't we?



ANGLE FROM BEHIND COFFEY, as Bud's group moves out of sight up the corridor.

Hands behind his back.  In his hand, cocked, finger on the trigger, is the

.45.  He turns and sets it on the table, steadying himself as if in the wind.

he seems to sag.  When he looks at Schoenick, his eyes are wounds.  A hunted

animal.  Voice shaky.



                                COFFEY

                They can't be trusted.  They're turning against

                us.  We may have to take... steps.



INT. CORRIDOR                                                           136



Lindsey, Bud, Hippy.  Bud slows, letting them trail behind the others.



                                BUD

                Lins, stay away from that guy.  I mean it.



                                HIPPY

                Yeah.  The dude's in bad shape... you see his

                hands?



                                LINDSEY

                He's got the shakes?



                                BUD

                Look, the guy's operating on his own, cut off

                from chain of command.  He's exhibiting symptoms

                of pressure-induced psychosis.  And he's got a

                nuclear weapon.  So, as a personal favor to me...

                will you put your tongue in neutral for a while?



                                HIPPY

                Man, I give this a sphincter-factor of about

                nine point five.



INT. MAINTENANCE ROOM B                                                 137



Coffey goes to the dome port.  Looks past his shrunken and twisted reflection

into the void.  Eternal night.



ANGLE FROM OUTSIDE.  Coffey's face in the window.  Stuck to the acrylic

bubble beside him is one of those Garfields, suction cups on its paws.  Coffey

stares out.  Behind his eyes, his brain is like that cat, just hanging on,

spreadeagle and screaming.



                                                                CUT TO:



INT. SUB-BAY/DIVE-PREP AREA                                             138



Under a single worklight, a couple of conspirators.  Lindsey and Hippy hunch

over Big Geek.  The ROV grins maniacally with goofy shark teeth.



                                LINDSEY

                Look, you can just punch into his little chip

                where you want him to go, and he goes, right?



                                HIPPY

                Well, yeah, but the tether off it ain't gonna

                be fancy.  When he gets down there he'll just

                sit, like a dumb-shit.  Unless something wanders

                through view of the camera, you'll get nada.



                                LINDSEY

                Let's go for it.  We could get lucky.



INT. CONTROL MODULE                                                      139



ONE SURVEILLANCE MONITOR.  Lindsey and Hippy next to Big Geek.  Their voices

are tinny but intelligible.



                                HIPPY (V.O.)

                I don't know.  I really oughta talk to Bud about

                this.



E.C.U. COFFEY.  Watching them in the dark.  Alone.



                                LINDSEY (V.O.)

                No.  Just you and me.  We get some proof, then

                tell them.  Hippy, look... if was can prove to

                Coffey it's not Russians, maybe he'll ease off

                the button a little.



                                HIPPY (V.O.)

                I gotta tell you, that guy scares me a lot more

                than whatever's down there.  A.J. Squared Away

                goddamn jarhead robot.  Okay, gimme a couple

                hours on this.



Coffey watches, his jaw clenched.



INT. QUARTERS/MESS HALL                                                 140



The lights are down.  Those who can are grabbing some sleep.  Snoring comes

from one of the bunkrooms as Lindsey passes.  In the mess hall, Catfish and

Bud are crashed out on the tables, wrapped in blankets.  The cold has gotten

intense.  Water drips.  The walls sweat with condensation.  Lindsey can see

her breath as she makes coffee.  She carries a cup over to Monk, who is a

face in a pile of blankets.  A hand comes out, takes the coffee.



                                MONK

                Thanks.



Lindsey sips hers, staring.  Her thoughts are far away... in the bottomless

pit.  She is leaning up against the table where Bud is sleeping.  His soft

snoring downshifts into a loud rasp.  Lindsey touches him gently on the

shoulder.



                                LINDSEY

                Virgil, turn on your side.



Bud grunts and turns without waking, an automatic response.  The snoring

stops.  It is a quiet, intimate moment, a reminder of the mileage these two

have logged together.



                                                                CUT TO:



INT. SONAR SHACK                                                        141



Sonny has made himself comfortable in front of the screens.  Too comfortable.

He's asleep, chin on his chest.  On the main passive-sonar screen, an almost

imperceptibly faint trace appears.  A HUM, which is by now familiar, becomes

audible.  Sonny shifts in his seat.  Doesn't wake.



INT. SUB BAY                                                            142



Hippy puts his tools away, finished with the modifications to Big Geek.



                                HIPPY

                All set, big guy.  Hey, I told you to wipe that

                grin off your face.



He yawns as he shambles across the chamber to the corridor door.  Switches off

the lights.  Goes out.



Quiet lapping of water in the moonpool.  A beat.  Then...



A cold luminosity suffuses the water beneath the moonpool opening, sending

shadows shifting across the top of the chamber.  The surface begins to

pulsate.



Suddenly, the water itself rises, forming itself into a shifting, shimmering

pseudopod as big around as a man's body.  The transparent form pulses... an

amoebic mass shivering in the air.



It stretches, becoming a more refined form.  Like a blindly probing glass

python, it elongates and weaves across the room.  It extends and extends,

stretching out from the moonpool, a shimmering tentacle.  The 'head' or tip,

a featureless liquid bulb, seems somehow to be scanning as it moves forward,

as if it can see where it's going.



INT. CORRIDOR                                                           143



Hippy trudges along the dark corridor.  He reaches the men's head and goes in.

As the door closes, the tip of the liquid pseudopod extends into the corridor

B.G.  It 'looks' left and right.  Then extends the length of the corridor,

holding itself a couple feet off the floor like a weightless snake.



INT. TRIMODULE B/LADDERWELL/BUNKROOM/MESS HALL                          144



LOOKING DOWN three levels through the central ladderwell between the

cylinders.  The pseudopod enters and undulates upward.



FROM INSIDE THE MAKESHIFT BUNKROOM, we see its tip extend inside.



Sonny and One Night are snoring, oblivious.  Jammer is still unconscious.  The

pseudopod, taking its time, checks them out and then moves on.



IN THE MESS HALL, it's dark and quiet.  Lindsey has even fallen asleep in her

chair, her head buried in her arms on the table.  The shimmering tentacle

enters the room in total silence.  It sways gracefully in to air, searching.

It undulates across the room, hanging about five feet in the air, surveying

everything.  It moves past Lindsey.  Sensing something, she lifts her head,

turning... sees the apparition next to her.



Her eyes go wide.  Amazement, but not fear.  The tentacle is moving on, still

searching.  Lindsey shakes Bud awake, clapping her hand over his mouth.



Bud blinks twice, then freezes.  When she lowers her hand his mouth is hanging

open like a total goon.



Bud chucks his pillow are Catfish, on the next table.



Catfish cracks one eye open.  Turns away.  Turns right back... both eyes open

now.  Sensing movement, the thing turn back toward them.  It seems to

recognize Lindsey.  It doubles back on itself in a loop and comes right up to

her.  She holds her ground, fascinated.



The bulbous tip forms suddenly into a human face... her face.  It is water,

still clear and undulating... but definitely Lindsey.  She gasps in surprise.

The liquid-Lindsey gasps soundlessly... a perfect mimic of her expression.

Lindsey laughs involuntarily.  It laughs... without sound.  Lindsey makes a

face, sticking out her tongue... testing it.



The liquid-Lindsey does the same.  Bud has just had the rug jerked out from

under his sense of what is possible and what isn't, but he's taking it pretty

will, considering.



                                BUD

                            (whispering)

                I think it likes you.



                                LINDSEY

                It's trying to communicate.



Her liquid face suddenly transforms into a likeness of Bud's.



She reaches out her hand slowly.  Gingerly, her fingers touch the surface.

Ripples extend outward from the contact, across Bud's features.



Her fingertips break effortlessly through the surface, just like she's

dipping her hand into a bowl of water, except sideways.  She draws her wet

fingers out and studies them, amazed.  Touches one fingertip to her tongue.



                                LINDSEY

                Seawater.



The pseudopod pulls back from her.  It loops in the air dramatically, full

circle... and ties itself into a knot.  As the knot tightens down, it melts

back into the body.  The 'disappearing knot' trick.



Lindsey laughs, grinning with the open wonder and delight of a child at a

magic show.  She is transported.



                                LINDSEY

                Show off.



She looks at Bud.  He grins broadly.  He's with her now.



The stunned group watches as the thing moves on across the room.  Out to the

corridor



INT. SUB-BAY                                                            145



Coffey and Schoenick enter the back way, through the dive-prep area.  They see

the pseudopod arching from the moonpool big as a treetrunk.  Coffey's mind is

blown.  We can smell the insulation burning.  He just stares.



INT. CORRIDOR/MAINTENANCE ROOM B                                        146



The water tentacle enters and moves toward the hot-wired warhead.  It studies

the device for a few seconds.  Bud and Lindsey enter through a side door, in

time to see the tentacle divide into four tendrils which wrap around the

warhead.  They begin to lift it off its cart.



INT. SUB BAY                                                            147



Coffey finally jump-starts his brain.  In a flash of insight, he runs to the

big sliding door through which the pseudopod stretches into the corridor.  He

and Schoenick heave on the door.  Like a guillotine blade it slices

effortlessly through it.



VARIOUS ANGLES -- CORRIDORS, MESS HALL, LADDERWELL, MAINTENANCE... as the

body of the pseudopod collapses, splashing on the floor.  It reverts to

nothing more than a long puddle of simple seawater.  As the tendrils dissolve,

the warhead slams back down onto the cart, unharmed.  ON COFFEY'S SIDE ON THE

DOOR, however, the "stump" rears back like a cobra.  It withdraws rapidly into

the moonpool.  The glow fades away.



INT. SONAR SHACK                                                        148



Sonny wakes up with a start as the HUM revs up into a LOUD WHINE and then

fades away.  He scrambles to track it.  Too late.



INT. CORRIDOR                                                           149



Hippy emerges from the can and looks down, puzzled, at the puddle running the

length of the corridor.  He missed the whole thing.



INT. MESS HALL                                                          150



Light on.  Everybody there.  Lindsey is really strutting, high on life, now

that she's been proven right.



                                LINDSEY

                Okay, raise your hand if you think that was a

                Russian water-tentacle.  Lieutenant?  No?  Well,

                a breakthrough.



Coffey is looking out from under his eyebrows like Nicholson in "The Shining".

Bud give her a warning look.  Don't poke at the rattler.



                                BUD

                You done impressing yourself, ace?



                                ONE NIGHT

                No way that could just be seawater.



                                LINDSEY

                They must've learned how to control water... I

                mean at a molecular level.  They can plasticize

                it, polymerize it... whatever.  Put it under

                intelligent control.



                                BUD

                Maybe their whole technology is based on that.

                Controlling water.



Coffey is hunched over, elbows on his knees.  His hands are out of sight.  His

arm is moving in a slow rhythm.  We can't see what he's doing.



                                HIPPY

                That thing was probably their version of Big

                Geek... like an ROV.



                                CATFISH

                Just checking is out, huh?  How come?



ANGLE UNDER THE TABLE, showing what Coffey is doing.  He has his K-BAR KNIFE

gripped white-knuckle in one hand.  He is drawing it slowly and repeatedly

across the skin of the other forearm.  Neat chevrons of blood from wrist to

elbow.



C.U. COFFEY -- He doesn't flinch.  His eyes are hard and bright as diamond

drills.  No one notices.  He's keeping the edge.



                                LINDSEY

                They're curious, maybe.  We could be the first

                people they've seen up close.



                                SONNY

                Hope they don't judge the whole race offa us.



                                CATFISH

                Maybe I oughta shave.



Coffey stands abruptly, snags Schoenick with his eyes, and leaves, walking

through the group as if they were smoke.  This cold behavior brings the mood

down a notch.



INT. CORRIDOR/MAINTENANCE ROOM B                                        151



Outside the mess hall, Coffey pauses, listening to the conversation resume.

Bright speculation, a few jokes.  Coffey is visible shaking.  Breathing hard.

Pupils dilated.  Schoenick looks at him with concern.



                                COFFEY

                It went straight for the warhead.  And they

                think it's cute.



                                SCHOENICK

                You need to get some sleep.



Coffey walks away without hearing him.  Schoenick catches up.



INT. MAINTENANCE                                                        152



The door opens in the dark room.  Coffey enters, moving with purpose.  He

pulls his gear bag out from under the work table.  Unzips it.  Pulls out a

short-barreled CAR-15 assault rifle.



                                COFFEY

                We have no way of warning the surface.  Do you

                know what that means?



Schoenick doesn't know.  He hopes Coffey knows.  Because he's a fearless man

who's discovering what it is to be afraid.  Coffey inserts the magazine with

a CLACK!  Snaps the bolt.  Tosses the rifle to Schoenick.



                                COFFEY

                It means... whatever happens is up to us.



                                                                CUT TO:



INT. CORRIDOR/MAINTENANCE -- LATER                                      153



Hippy passes the maintenance room.  Looks in.  The warhead and its cart are

missing.  He looks around.  Heads toward the sub-bay.



INT. MESS HALL                                                          154



The discussion, still in progress.



                                ONE NIGHT

                You think they're from down there originally?

                Or from... you know.



She jerks her thumb toward the ceiling.



                                LINDSEY

                I think they're from 'you know'.  Some place

                that has similar conditions... cold, intense

                pressure.  No light.



                                CATFISH

                Happy as hogs in a waller down there, prob'ly.



INT. CORRIDOR/SUB BAY                                                   155



Hippy freezes in the corridor as he hears a loud ratcheting sound echoing from

the sub-bay.  He edges forward slowly, trying to keep his feet silent on the

steel floor.  Slides up along the wall next to the door.  Inches his eye

around the doorframe.  Across the room. Schoenick is working with a chainfall,

lowering Big Geek onto the MIRV warhead, which is still on its cart.  He

begins to attach them together with a sling of tie-down straps.



Hippy lets his breath out slowly.  His expression is Holy Shit.



He slides back along the corridor wall, silently.  Away from the door.  Then

turn turns quickly to go... WHAM!  Coffey slams him up against the wall!

.45 pressed to Hippy's temple.  Hippy gulping air as Coffey ears back the

hammer.



                                COFFEY

                Sniff something did you, rat boy?



INT. MESS HALL                                                          156



The meeting is breaking up as the door CLANGS open and Hippy is thrusted

inside.  His hands are taped behind his back and he stumbles onto his face.

Coffey steps through smoothly, straight-arming the .45.  Schoenick flanks him

with the assault rifle aimed at the group.



                                COFFEY

                FREEZE!  Don't move.  That's it.

                              (to Monk)

                Here, hold this a second.  We're going to phase

                three.



He hands his gun to Monk, with the assumption of absolute loyalty from a team

member.  Monk's eyes move between Coffey and the pistol.  We can't tell what

he's thinking.  Coffey grabs Hippy and shoves him onto a chair.



                                HIPPY

                They're using Big Geek to take the bomb to the

                NTIs!  We set it up to go right to them.



Lindsey looks stricken.  Her plan is betraying them all.



                                LINDSEY

                Oh my God...  Oh no...

                        (steps toward Coffey)

                Please, you can't.  Coffey, think about what

                you're doing... for God's sake--



Coffey lets her approach him, his eyes glittering.



Without warning he grabs her by the hair and hurls her against the Coke

machine, pinning her there with one hand.  Bud leaps forward.



                                SCHOENICK

                GET BACK!



Bud freezes.  The rifle's muzzle is aimed for a heart-shot.



Coffey moves up close to Lindsey.



                                COFFEY

                This is something I've wanted to do since I

                first met you.



His hand reaches down, OUT OF FRAME.  We hear something RIP.  His hand comes

back up... holding a piece of gaffer's tape.



He slaps it over her mouth.  Then pushes her down into a chair.



Hippy looks at Monk and Schoenick.



                                HIPPY

                You boss is having a full-on meltdown.  Guy's

                fixing to pull the pin on fifty kilotons and

                we're all ringside!



                                MONK

                What's the timer set for?



                                SCHOENICK

                Three hours.



                                COFFEY

                Shut up!  Don't talk!



                                MONK

                We can't get to minimum-safe-distance in three

                hours.  The shockwave will kill us.  It'll crush

                this rig like a semi driving over a beer can.



                                COFFEY

                Shut up!  SHUT UP!  What's the matter with you?!



Everybody is twitching a hyper.  Schoenick is white-knuckling his assault

rifle... looking from Monk to Coffey to the group.



                                COFFEY

                Just stay calm.  The situation is under control.



Coffey backs out quickly with Schoenick.



INT. CORRIDOR                                                           157



Coffey dogs down the watertight door and wedges a piece of steel pipe into

the mechanism so it can't be opened.



                                COFFEY

                Stay here.



Schoenick take a position in front of the door.  Coffey turns and runs through

the corridor like demons are chasing him.



INT. MESS HALL                                                          158



Their only hope is to sway Schoenick.  But the SEAL's fear is making him the

perfect machine, totally dependent on external orders.  And his orders are

clear.  They can see him through the tiny window in the door.  Lindsey rips

the tape painfully off her mouth.



                                LINDSEY

                Schoenick... your Lieutenant is about to make

                a real bad career move...



                                HIPPY

                That guy's crazier'n a shithouse rat!



                                BUD

                We have to stop him!  Schoenick!!



They pound on the door.  Schoenick turns and hangs his cap over the tiny

window.



INT. SUB BAY                                                            159



Using the chainfall, Coffey maneuvers the completed Geek/MIRV package over

the back of Flatbed, obviously preparing to use the submersible to take it

out and launch it.



INT. MESS HALL                                                          160



Lindsey is up next to the door, with Bud.



                                LINDSEY

              ... he's about to declare war on an alien species,

                Schoenick, just when they're trying to make

                contact with us.

                                (to Bud)

                I think I'm reaching him.



There is a CLUNK-CLATTER and the door unlatches.



                                LINDSEY

                See?



The door opens.  Jammer is standing there.  Schoenick is in a heap against

the far wall, moaning.  Jammer hands the rifle to Hippy as he walks in.  Hippy

turns to cover the other SEAL.  Monk puts his hands up, passively.



                                MONK

                I'm the least of your problems.



Bud appraises Jammer, who seems a little weak and dazed but basically okay.



                                BUD

                Thanks.  How you feeling, big guy?



                                JAMMER

                Figured I was dead, there, when I seen that

                angel comin' toward me.



They all look at him for a second.  What?



                                BUD

                Uh, okay, right.  You can tell us about it

                later.  Let's go.



                                                                CUT TO:



INT. TRIMODULE C/LADDERWELL                                             161



Bud drops down the ladder, INTO FRAME, followed by the others.  He tries the

door into the main corridor.  The wheel won't turn.  The others get on it.

Won't budge.



                                BUD

                He's jammed the mechanism.



                                LINDSEY

                Now what?



They're locked in trimodule-C.  No other doors give access to the sub-bay

corridor.  Bud's mind is racing.  He drops down the ladder to Level One, into

about two feet of water.  He reaches down and open the emergency lockout

hatch.  Takes off his boots.



                                BUD

                Okay, I'm gonna free-swim to hatch six... get

                inside, get the door open from the other side.



                                LINDSEY

                Bud, that water's only a couple degrees above

                freezing.



                                BUD

                Then I guess you better wish me luck, huh?



Catfish is pulling his boots off as well.



                                CATFISH

                Wish us luck.

                       (hands his wallet to Hippy)

                'Case I don't die.  Okay, Bud... let's go,

                podner, I ain't got all day.



Bud clasps him on the shoulder and starts hyperventilating.  He drops into

the water.



EXT. DEEPCORE/TRIMODULE C                                               162



Bed shoots down through the hatch.  The cold hits him list a fist, becoming

instantly paralyzing.  He starts kicking in powerful strokes through the dark

water, maneuvering around tangles of umbilical cable twisted tubular steel.

Catfish is behind him, swimming like hell.  They reach hatch six.  Together

they spin the wheel and heave upward, opening it.



INT.  TRIMODULE D/LEVEL ONE                                             163



Bud surges up into the lock.  Catfish jams into the tiny airspace with him.

They try the upper hatch.  Jammed.  They're both panting with the exertion

and intense cold.



                                BUD

                Hafta... go on to... the moonpool.  Only way.



                                CATFISH

                I can't... make it... podner.



Bud looks at Catfish, shivering and heaving, wide-eyed.



                                BUD

                Okay, Cat.  You head back.



Bud hyperventilates rapidly and pikes over diving back out through the hatch.



EXT. DEEPCORE                                                           164



Bud is stroking rapidly through the tangle of pipes and conduit.  He sees the

lit rectangle of the moonpool far ahead.



INT. SUB BAY                                                            165



In the moonpool, Bud surface with an explosive gasp beside the full of

Flatbed.  His wracked breathing is masked by the WHINE of HYDRAULICS as Coffey

uses the external controls to extend Flatbed's big hydraulic arm, locking

the Geek/MIRV in its gripper.



Bud strokes to a point where Coffey can't see him and heaves up out of the

water onto the deck of the pool.  He lies gasping behind Cab One's cradle.

His limbs are wooden and unresponsive from the cold.  His fingers are

completely numb.  He hugs himself, putting his hands under his armpits.

Scans the situation.  He can't get to the door, which is across the room,

without Coffey seeing him.



INT. CONTROL MODULE                                                     166



Lindsey watching the whole thing going down, ON THE SCREEN, a high angle of

the sub bay... Bud moving up on Coffey.



                                HIPPY

                He can't get to the door... I think he's going

                to try and take him himself.



                                LINDSEY

                He couldn't be that dumb.  The guy's a trained

                killer.  Bud's idea of a fight is arm-wrestling

                One Night over laundry duty.



ON THE SCREEN, Bud picks up a piece of pipe.  Hefts it.  Moves forward,

crouched... stalking.  Lindsey yells at the screen in frustration.



                                LINDSEY

                BUUUUUD!!



INT. SUB BAY                                                            167



Bud chucks a tool across the chamber, creating a clattering distraction, then

wades in with the pipe in a vicious swing to the back of Coffey's knees,

taking him down.  Coffey spins even as he falls, catching Bud in a scissor

kick that topples him.



Grappling, they fall together into the freezing water.



Coffey is momentarily stunned by the cold, giving Bud time to haul himself

out, hoping to make it to the door.



Coffey launches from the water and grabs him legs.



He pulls himself up as Bud kick out.  Claws his way viciously over Bud's

body until he has him pinned to the deck.  Then he pulls out the .45.



Put it unceremoniously to Bud's forehead.



INT. CONTROL MODULE                                                     168



                                LINDSEY

                NOOO!!



INT. SUB BAY                                                            169



Coffey pulls the trigger... CLICK.  Bud flinches, then opens his eyes,

staring cross-eyed at the muzzle of the .45.  Coffey cocks it and tries

again.  CLICK.  Nothing.  Really pissed off beyond description, Bud hurls

the commando off him with a powerful heave, sending him clattering against

a rack of equipment.  They face off, panting.



INT. CONTROL MODULE                                                     170



The rig crew turns from the screen at the sound of Monk's voice.



                                MONK

                I tool the liberty of removing this before I

                gave it back to him.



Monk pulls his hand out from under his blanket and holds up the magazine from

the .45.



INT. SUB WAY                                                            171



Even so Bud is getting his ass kicked.  Coffey's really trying to put him out

of business.  It's mostly duck and dodges on Bud's part.  Throw a few things.

When Coffey connects, Bud goes down hard.  Give him credit, though.  He

manages to scramble back up.



The fight wrecks the room, scattering tools and gear.



Compressed air cylinders roll dangerously around the floor.



Coffey slips on one and Buds get in a couple of good licks.



Slams the SEAL's head in an equipment locker door.



But the Navy man is just too massive.  Bud is hammered back into a wall.

Coffey has his fist cocked back for the coup de grace.  Spins around at the

sound of a VOICE.



                                CATFISH

                Hey!



Catfish is right behind him.  Dripping wet.  A trail of water goes back to

the moonpool a few feet away.



CRACK!  Catfish's 'Hammer' punch comes in so hard and so fast, Coffey is

knocked right on his ass.  He doesn't get up.  Just sort of flops around.



Catfish helps Bud to his feet.  They advance on Coffey, who crab-scuttles

sideways, his eyes rabid.



He picks up a helium tank and hurls it at them.  As they duck he sprints to

Flatbed and drops through the hatch and slams it down.



                                BUD

                           (to Catfish)

                Get the door!



Bud leaps across the water to land on Flatbed.  The hatch is already sealed.

He grapples with Geek/MIRV, trying to free it from the steel claw.



INT. FLATBED                                                            172



Coffey crawls along the access tunnel to the pilot's compartment.  He claws

his way into the control seat and starts rapidly flipping switches.



INT. CORRIDOR                                                           173



Catfish pounds down the corridor like he's never run before, his beer gut

doing a rumba.  He reaches the door, tears out the piece of pipe and spins

the wheel.  Hippy pushes it open so fast it hits Catfish in the stomach.

Hippy tears past him, running with the assault rifle.  John Wayne.



INT. SUB-BAY                                                            174



Flatbed is submerging, with only the hatch tower still above the water.  Bud

is being dragged down, still trying to free the ROV.  He gives up when he

sees Hippy run in, waving the assault rifle around like a 130-pound Rambo.



Bud climbs the hatch tower and leaps to the deck of the moonpool.



Hippy clumsily raises the unfamiliar rifle at Coffey, visible inside his

viewing bubble beneath the swirling water.  Coffey looks up, stares at the

gun... doesn't seem to care.



                                CATFISH

                SHOOT!



Hippy's squeezing the trigger and nothing's happening.  Flatbed's hatch tower

goes under.



                                CATFISH

                Safety's on!  On the side... the lever!  Up,

                push it up!



Hippy fumble with the selective-fire lever, BLAM-BLAM-BLAM!  He put three

quick rounds into the ceiling.



                                HIPPY

                SHIT!



                                CATFISH

                Give me that!!



He grabs it out of Hippy's hands and aims it at the sub.  He racks the water

with a long burst.  BENEATH THE SURFACE, the rounds nip nasty contrails

through the water.  They barely scar the front port.



                                LINDSEY

                Forget that... go for Big Geek!



Catfish rakes the descending sub with more bursts, trying to hit the

shimmering shape of the ROV on its back.  UNDERWATER we see the rounds

arcing wild, a few hitting the ROV but causing little damage.



Coffey complete his descent to just above the seafloor.  ABOVE, Catfish

empties the weapon.



                                BUD

                Gimme a hand!



They all turn.  Bud is fumbling into his wetsuit like a madman.  The others

rush over to help him.



                                BUD

                Get the rest of my gear.  Grab that hat there...

                let's go guys!  Come on, come on!



Catfish slams a backpack onto Bud's shoulders, grappling with the straps and

hose connections.  Hippy and Sonny (with one hand) are clipping, zipping and

buckling all over him.  This is a world-record suit-up time.  Bud pulls the

rubber neck-dam of the helmet's lower ring down over his face.



                                BUD

                Helmet... helmet!  Work fast.



EXT. DEEPCORE UNDERSTRUCTURE                                            175



Beneath the habitat, Coffey is maneuvering Flatbed through the twisted pipe

and debris left by Deepcore's slide to the edge.  Bloodied, his fatigues

ripped half-off, he looks like a feral animal.  His eyes burn with the

determination of his mission.



INT. SUB BAY                                                            176



Jammer expertly works the crane controls, moving Cab One out over the

moonpool from its drydock cradle.  Lindsey and One Night are scrambling like

monkeys over the port side crash bars of the swinging sub, clambering up to

the hatch tower.



                                ONE NIGHT

                I'll unhook.

                           (Lindsey hesitates)

                GO!  You're better in these than I am.



Lindsey recognizes this for what it is... a sign of respect, a

reconciliation.  She nods and drops through the hatch.



EXT. DEEPCORE                                                           177



Coffey passes under the twisted wreckage of the big automated derrick and makes

a tight turn beneath the drill-floor module.  Flatbed scrapes through between

twisted conduit, metal screeching on metal.



INT. SUB BAY                                                            178



Bud has his 'hat' locked down and his air cut on.  He take two quick strides

to the edge of the pool and just drops in.



EXT. DEEPCORE                                                           179



Bud rockets DOWN INTO FRAME in a column of bubbles.  He looks around.  Through

the lattice of conduit under the rig he can see Flatbed moving forward from

its exit point under the stern.  Bud see a shortcut under the platform.



He kicks along a lattice a pipes, heaving himself along in frantic hand-over-

hand stokes.  He reaches for Flatbed's stern as it passes.



Misses the last hand-hold... but just manages to seize a tie-down trailing

behind it.  He is jerked along behind the sub.



Bud holds on with both hands as he is buffeted in the wake of the powerful

thrusters.  Flatbed gathers speed, moving out toward the edge of the abyssal

wall.  The current slams him, spinning him like a fishing lure.  He pulls

himself forward slowly until he can grip the stern rail of Flatbed's platform.



LOW ANGLE, look up the wall.  Flatbed appears over the edge and stops.

Hovering.



ON THE BACK OF FLATBED.  Bud has the break he needs.  He scrambles up onto the

deck and opens and equipment locker.  Nothing in it but one of the yellow

nylon safety lines.  The big arm begins to unfold, lifting Geek/ROV.



INT./EXT. FLATBED                                                       180



Coffey works intently.  His eyes are the cool ice of lethal madness in a

face streaked with blood.  He brings the ROV into view with the boom arm.



GEEK/ROV had a passenger.  Brigman.  The diver is holding Geek's skid with

one hand, doing something with the other.  He turns to look at Coffey.



EXT. FLATBED/DEEPCORE                                                   181



Coffey releases the ROV with the gripper and makes a grab at Bud with the

steel claw.  Bud dives.  The gripper hits his helmet a glancing blow.  Bud

kicks away rapidly, letting nylon rope pay out.  We see he has managed to tie

one end to Geek's skids.  Coffey hits the button to activate the ROV, sending

an acoustic pulse to Geek's transponder.  The little robot, pregnant with its

load of death, turns nimbly around and dives out and down toward the void.



Coffey pivots his bid machine toward Bud.  Bud strokes rapidly to a large

jumble of wreckage.  He loops the rope around a twisted pipe.  Big Geek is

hauling ass away from him.  The line snap taut an instant later.  The ROV

strains, like a Rottweiler on a leash... trying to go.  The rope is slipping

as Bud fights to make a knot.



Flatbed slews around, thrusters whining.  As it banks, it hurls up clouds of

sediment from the escarpment face.



Through the front panel we see Coffey jerking on the controls.



The big arm extends menacingly.  The smaller from manipulators open.  An

enormous predatory instinct, its lights blaring.



The big machine roars forward.  Straight at Bud.



Bud gets his knot partly done.  See Flatbed looming.



Glare-lit in its lights, Bud grabs a handlehold and pulls himself downward as

Coffey closes the last few feet.



One manipulator slams into his backpack, tumbling him, and the sub's underside

rakes across his legs as it passes over.  Flatbed crushes into the tangle of

pipework.  K-CRUUUNCH!!



INT. FLATBED                                                            182



Coffey is slammed hard over the controls, up into the front dome port.  He

gets back in the seat.  Strains to free his machine.



EXT. DEEPCORE/BIG GEEK/FLATBED                                          183



Bud swims clear, diving down at an angle along the wall, hoping to stay in

Coffey's blind area.  Flatbed backs out of the wreckage in a cloud of debris.

It pivots toward Bud.  Moves after him.



Nearby, the ROV is whining mindlessly, trying to please.  Trying to GO.

DETAIL OF ROPE attached to wreckage, as Bud's knot begins to slip.  The nylon

line starts to play through the knot slowly.



BUD has gotten himself into a bad position.  Along the bare rock face of the

cliff wall he is naked, nailed in the spotlights like a rabbit in front of a

truck.  Coffey puts the hammer down, thrust levers all the way forward.

Flatbed surges forward, multi-limbed and demonic.  There's no cover, side to

side, up or down.



Coffey has him head in his lights.  Suddenly a bright glare blasts in,

blinding Coffey.  He looks up to see Cab One rushing down upon him, full

throttle.



At the last moment LIndsey slams the thrusters full-lock and the submersible

slews sideways, slamming its heavy skidplate into Flatbed's cab.  Coffey is

smashed sideways by the shock.  He fights to control his vehicle.  Lindsey

looks up to see Coffey's sub gun it up over the wall, out of sight.  She

cruises up over Bud.



                                LINDSEY (V.O.)

                Get in!



Bud gets the lockout hatch open and clambers up into Cab One's belly.



INT./EXT. CAB ONE                                                       184



Bud flops over the lip of the hatch and slams it shut.  He ditches his helmet.

Lindsey raises her vehicle warily above the wall.  Through the front port

there is not sign of Coffey.



                                LINDSEY

                You owe me one, Virgil.



                                BUD

                Can we negotiate later?  There's Big Geek.



He points.  Through the front port, they can see the ROV still straining at

its leash.  Lindsey dives toward it, simultaneously working the controls to

open her own small manipulator claws.



EXT. DEEPCORE/WALL, ETC.                                                185



The last few feet of the rope slip through the knot.



Big Geek happily surges forward.  It dives gracefully down into the void,

trailing the yellow rope like a kite tail.



ONE CAB ONE, Bud and Lindsey through the front port.



                                BUD

                Go after it!  We gotta catch it!



FLATBED DROPS INTO FRAME BEHIND THEM, dwarfing little Cab One.  They are

slammed viciously as Coffey's submersible hammers into them.  She hits full

throttle.  Coffey floors it after Lindsey, ramming her from behind with his

more powerful vehicle.  With difficulty Lindsey maintains trim.



She arcs back toward the rig.  Flatbed slams her again, for the side.  She

fights for control.



INT./EXT. CAB ONE                                                       186



Bud is tossed around, ricocheting off the walls.  Lindsey flies with her

jaw set.  Fighting hard for control.  The A-frame of the rig looms before her.

She shoots through at full throttle.



EXT. DEEPCORE AND OCEAN TERRAIN                                         187



Now the fight is really on.  The two subs are dodging between the cylindrical

modules at full throttle, slamming into each other and the steel pressure

hulls.



Coffey sideswipes the smaller sub, jamming it sideways.  It screeches along

the flank of one of the trimodules.



They head out over empty terrain in a flat-out speed run.



Lindsey is jinking and dodging as Flatbed, roars along behind her, tearing

up the bottom with its powerful backwash.  Lindsey carves hard around a rock

pinnacle, finding herself running parallel to the edge of the abyssal canyon.

Coffey is ramming, hammering from behind, then from side to side.



Lindsey snarls.  He's pissing her off.  He shouldn't do that.



Ahead, out of the blackness, another outcropping.



Lindsey rises, cuts right.



Smashes down into Coffey's craft.  Timing it just right.  He skids catch in

the rocks.



Flatbed slews violently, nosing down.  Crushing into the rocky bottom.

Pressing the advantage, Lindsey hammers into Flatbed from behind.



It smashes full force into a second spire, spinning out of control.



Tangles together, the subs slide down an embankment toward the edge of the

wall.  With her one remaining thruster she jerks clear of Flatbed and grounds

her crippled sub.  Flatbed tumbles over the edge.



ANGLE DOWN THE WALL as it falls, trailing a cloud of sediment like a comet's

tail, down into the unfathomable blackness below.



INT. FLATBED                                                            188



Inside the machine, Coffey is fighting for control.



He has no buoyancy or motors and the craft continues its mad plunge.  As the

pressure intensifies the hull begins to groan, and steel fitting scream with

the enormous load.



A tiny silver fracture shoots partway across the front bubble.  Grows.

Coffey gives up fighting.  Just stares, wide eyed, at his death.  A damned

soul dropping into the bottomless pit.



The fracture line arcs rapidly across the dome port.



Suddenly, a scythe-like curtain of seawater, under tons of pressure, slashes

into him.  A moment later the bubble implodes, and Coffey disappears in a

bloody froth of churning water, air and glass shards.



EXT. CANYON WALL                                                        189



Flatbed looks like a toy, tumbling away down the wall.



Soon its lights vanish.



INT. CAB ONE                                                            190



They're both going to have a lot of bruises...



Lindsey is surveying the damage.  Water is spraying down on them like a

shower, and lights are flickering.



                                LINDSEY

                You did okay, back there.  I was fairly

                impressed.



                                BUD

                Not good enough.  We still gotta catch Big Geek.



                                LINDSEY

                Not in this thing.



Lindsey is flipping switches.  Nothing works.



                                BUD

                You totaled it, huh?



                                LINDSEY

                Yeah.  So sue me.



Bud looks down.  There's already about a foot of water sloshing around the

floor at their feet.



                                BUD

                It's flooding like a son of the bitch.



                                LINDSEY

                You noticed.



She picks up and hand-mike of the underwater telephone.



                                LINDSEY

                Deepcore, Deepcore, this is Cab One, over.



She waits.  No response.



                                BUD

                Try again.



                                LINDSEY

                Deepcore, this is Cab One.  We need assistance,

                over.  Deepcore, this--



With a SEARING CRACKLE or arc-light, a power panel shorts out and everything

goes black.



                                LINDSEY

                Well, that's that.



                                BUD

                Wonderful.

                          (looking around)

                There's some light from somewhere...



A faint illumination, dimmer than moonlight, washes in through the front port.

Lindsey scrunches up against the acrylic and scans the darkness.



                                LINDSEY

                Over there.  It's the rig.



A glow, beyond a rock promontory... like the lights of a town just over the

hill in the desert.



                                BUD

                Good hundred yards, I'd say.



                                LINDSEY

                They'll come out after us.



                                BUD

                Yeah, but it's gonna take them a while to find

                us.  We better get this flooding stopped.



He picks up his helmet and clicks on the light.  Using the thing like a bulky

flashlight.  The water is really pouring in, spraying them like a shower...

almost two feet deep already.



                                LINDSEY

                You see where it's coming in?



                                BUD

                Somewhere behind this panel.  Hold this.



She takes the light and he tries to reach the burst weld, which is blocked by

a steel switch panel and a bunch of conduit.



                                BUD

                Can't get to it.  Have to pull this panel off.

                You go any tools?



                                LINDSEY

                I don't know, look around.



Bud scans the cramped interior, feels around under the water.  It's past his

knees.



                                BUD

                Nothing.  Son of a bitch.  All I need's a goddamn

                crescent wrench.



He grabs the panel in both hands and starts torquing on it, trying to wrench

it off the wall.  Heaves on it repeatedly.  Finally stops, panting.  He's

breathing hard now, and it's not just effort.



                                BUD

                Son of a bitch!



                                LINDSEY

                Calm down, Bud.



A nervous edge in her voice now.  Bud's turning all around, looking around

for anything, trying to think fast.  Water up to their waists.  The sea

closing in.



                                BUD

                Okay... okay.  We gotta get you out of here.



                                LINDSEY

                How?



                                BUD

                I don't know how!



                                LINDSEY

                We've only got one suit.



                                BUD

                I know!  I know!  But we better come up with

                something.



                                LINDSEY

                Aaargh!!  I'm freezing!



She climbs up on the pilots seat, scrunching right up against the ceiling,

keeping as much of herself as possible out of the frigid water.  She's

shaking all over with the cold, and getting drenched from above by water

pouring in.



                                LINDSEY

                Okay, look, you swim to the rig and come back

                with another suit.



                                BUD

                Seven, eight minute swim each way... not enough

                time.  Look at this...

                       (the rate of flooding)

                Time I get back you'll be--



That stops the conversation for a second.  About two feet of airspace left.

Bud can't believe what this is coming down to.  They both stare at each other

for a long moment.



He makes a decision.  Starts pulling off his backpack.



                                BUD

                Alright, put this on.



                                LINDSEY

                What, you growing gills all of a sudden?  You

                got it on, keep it on.



                                BUD

                Don't argue, goddamnit, just--



                                LINDSEY

                No way!  Forget it.  Not an option.



Bud has his pack off uncoupling it.  She keeps fighting his hands, stopping

him, hooking it back up.  The desperation of the situation fuel the struggle.



                                BUD

                Lindsey, just put the thing on and shut up--



                                LINDSEY

                NO!!  Now be logical, Bud, you're--



                                BUD

                FUCK LOGIC!!



They're both right up against the ceiling, water up to their chests.

Lindsey's lips are blue and trembling from the cold.



                                LINDSEY

                Listen... will you listen to me for a second!?

                You're for the suit on and you're a better

                swimmer than me.  Right?  So I got a plan...



                                BUD

                What's the plan?



                                LINDSEY

                I drown, you tow me back to the rig--



                                BUD

                WHAT KIND OF PLAN IS THAT!??



Lindsey's gut-scared... shaking violently, her eyes wide.  But she's keeping

it together.  Thinking it out.  Bud see the bottomless pit opening to take her

and he can barely think.



                                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 MOONPOOL                                        194



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-BAY                                                            195



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.



TIGHT ON BUD, rigid, staring.  Catfish puts his hand gently on Bud's shoulder.

Suddenly Bud tears Catfish's hand away and sets upon Lindsey like a madman,

renewing his efforts in spades... totally manic.



                                BUD

                No!  NO!  She's not... her heart is strong,

                she wants to live... can't you see that?  Come

                on, Lins.  Come on, baby!  Zap her again!  Do

                it... DO IT!



They do.  And Bud works, feverishly.  He lock his lips over hers and starts

mouth-to-mouth.  It is frantic, passionate... the kiss of life.



                                BUD

                Come on, breath!  Goddamn it, you bitch, you

                never backed down from anything in life... now

                fight!



He slaps her face, hard.  Her head lolls.  He smacks her the other way.



                                BUD

                Fight, Goddamnit!



LINDSEY's POV, from the bottom of the great well.  The circles of faces and

light rockets toward us in the blackness, as we soar upward from the pit.  We

see Bud yelling, but his voice is distant, windlike.



                                BUD

                FIGHT!!



TIGHT ON LINDSEY, still.  Then something incredible happens.  Something they

will never forget as long as they live.  Lindsey coughs once, weakly, and her

hands clench in a spasm.



Bud see it and his expression becomes beatific.



                                BUD

                Come on, Lins.  You can do it... fight your

                way back, baby...



The others look on in wonder as Bud wills this woman back.



She starts to cough, weakly at first... then more violently as she draws air

into her lungs.  Bud crouches over her, rubbing her limbs... trying to re-

establish circulation.  It is like a difficult birth.  Lindsey comes hacking

and howling back into the world, wet and naked and fighting for breath.



Bud puts the oxygen mask over her face and she draws breath after agonized

breath.  He pushes her wet hair back from her face with his trembling hands,

and watches her breathe.  Color is returning to her skin as she lies there,

gasping weakly.



ONE THE GROUP... Catfish, Hippy, One Night, Jammer, the others... they're

all grinning, crying, beaming... gazing at the miracle of her rebirth.



ON BUD... tears are streaming down his face.



                                BUD

                   (a whisper, fierce and harsh)

                You did it, ace.



                                                                DISSOLVE TO:



INT. DEEPCORE/QUARTERS -- LATER                                         196



TIGHT ON LINDSEY, sleeping peacefully.  WIDER shows Bud hovering over her,

attentive.  They are alone in Bud's tiny cubicle.  Perhaps twenty minutes

have passed.  She is completely swaddles in blankets, except for her face,

and looks like a waif.



Lindsey's eyes flutter and open.  The first thing she sees is Bud, bending

over her.  He can't help himself.  The tears break again and roll down his

cheeks.  She seems terribly fragile, but bright and aware.  She smiles,

faintly... touches his cheek.



                                LINDSEY

                Hey... big boys don't cry, remember?



                                BUD

                Hi, lady.



                                LINDSEY

                Hi, tough guy.  I guess it worked, huh?



                                BUD

                'Course is worked.  You're never wrong, are you?

                How d'you feel.



                                LINDSEY

                I've been better.  Next time it's your turn,

                okay?



Bud's expression turn inexplicably grim.



                                BUD

                Well, you got that right.



                                                                CUT TO:



INT. SUB-BAY                                                            197



TIGHT ON BUD'S EYES, as Monk's fingers insert acrylic scleral lenses under his

eyelids so he can see in the fluid helmet.



WIDER reveals Bud is wearing the SEALs' deep suit.  Everybody is grouped

around, buckling and zipping.  He is hyperventilating with an oxygen mask,

part of the procedure for transitioning from air to fluid breathing.  Monk,

on his stretcher, is presiding.  The resident expert.  Lindsey is wrapped in a

blanket, still looking wan and frail.  She doesn't have the strength to resist

Bud's will, but she's trying.



                                LINDSEY

                No, Bud, no... not you.



                                BUD

                Who then?



She looks around at the others.  Sees their eyes.  The fear.  Has her answer.

He lowers the helmet over his head.  Catfish clamps it down.  We see what's

driving him... his sense of responsibility for these people, for not being

able to prevent this situation.



He touches her cheek, one last time.  She sees his fingers are trembling.

Then he puts on the gloves.  Catifsh is strapping a KEYPAD UNIT onto Bud's

forearm.  Lindsey wants to scream... to stop this madness.



                                BUD (muffled)

                So I'll hear you, but I can't talk?



                                MONK

                The fluid prevents your larynx from making

                sound.  It'll feel a little strange.



                                BUD (muffled)

                Warning you now, folks, I'm a lousy typist.

                              (a beat)

                The moment of truth, huh?



His breathing is shallow and tense.  He looks at Lindsey.  The eyes of a

condemned man.  She squeezes his hand.  He takes a deep breath.



                                BUD

                Okay.  Let's rock and roll.



Monk gently cracks a valve on the suit's feed line.  The breathing fluid (3M

fluorocarbon emulsion FX-80) swirls into the helmet.  Bud reflexively raises

his chin.  The liquid fills toward his mouth.



                                MONK

                Relax now, Bud.  Just keep breathing as it

                fills... don't fight it.  Take it in.  Just let

                yourself take it in.



Suddenly, there's nothing in there to breathe but liquid.  His eyes go wide,

instant panic.  He starts to thrash.  Chest heaving.



                                MONK

                Hold him.  Hold him.  This is normal... it'll

                pass in a second.  You're gonna be okay.  We all

                breathe liquid for nine months, Bud.  Your body

                will remember.



Lindsey grabs Bud's shoulders, steadying him.  He finds her eyes, the look

calming him.  He's passed into a realm from which she has already returned.

His spasms subside.  He begins to "breathe" normally.  He gets a goofy look

of wonder on his face, not really believing what he's experiencing.  He is

alive, alert and quite completely drowned inside the FBS helmet.  He grins.

Gives a big thumbs up.  Lindsey picks up a microphone.



                                LINDSEY

                Can you hear me okay?

                          (another thumbs up)

                Try your keypad.



Bud taps out a brief message.  FEELS WEIRD - YOU SHOULD TRY THIS prints out

on their portable monitor.



                                LINDSEY

                I already have, moron.



They help Bud to the edge of the dive platform.  Jammer and Hippy lower Little

Geek into the water and Bud grabs onto it.  Hippy yells right up next to his

helmet.



                                HIPPY

                I redid Little Geek's chip the same as Big Geek!

                He should take you right to it.  All you gotta

                do is hang on!



Lindsey crouches at the edge to watch Bud submerge.



He looks up at her as he drops away.



In a few seconds, she can't see him.  Her chin quivers, minutely.



EXT. DEEPCORE/THE WALL                                                  198



FROM FAR BELOW, Deepcore is a faint tiara of lights, above in the blackness.

A single moving light appears above, at the edge of the cliff, and starts

down.  It grows large, resolving into Bud, free-falling down the wall.



He gathers speed as Little Geek's vertical thruster drives them down.



Bud looks down.  Between his feet he can see a short way down the wall in the

glow of his single light, and beyond that an unfathomable blackness.  The wall

unrolls upwards out of the darkness like a convoluted gray drapery.  He looks

up.  The lights of Deepcore are gone.  He feels  more alone than he has ever

felt.  He types out:  CANT SEE YOU



                                LINDSEY (V.O.)

                We're right here with you, Bud.  Your depth is

                3800 feet.  You're doing fine.



Bud comes upon the twisted wreckage of the crane, hanging against the wall

like a forty-ton yo-yo at the end of the umbilical.



INT. COMMAND MODULE                                                     199



Everyone is grouped around the monitor screen, watching Bud's telemetry.  Bud

types out: GOOD DEAL ON SLIGHTLY USED CRANE.  They watch the depth meter

counting down.



                                MONK

                4800 feet.  It's official.



                                LINDSEY

                Bud, according to Monk here, you just set a record

                for the deepest suit dive.  Bet you didn't think

                you'd be doing this when you got up this morning.



The screen print out:  CALL GUINESS.  They laugh.  So far so good.  Seconds

later...



                                HIPPY

                One mile down and still grinnin'.



EXT. THE WALL                                                           200



WIDE SHOT.  Bud is a tiny spider dropping down the wall in a pathetic little

pool of light.  The wall is sterile brown-gray, devoid of life at this depth.

LOOKING DOWN, as the light shrinks to a star and vanishes in the blackness

yawning below.



INT. COMMAND MODULE                                                     201



Lindsey has the microphone gripped tightly, and the lightness in her voice is

a bit brittle.



                                LINDSEY

                8500 feet, Bud.  Everything okay?



                                MONK

                Ask him a pressure effects.  Tremors, vision

                problems, euphoria.



                                LINDSEY

                Ensign Monk want to know how you feel.



ON THE SCREEN, printing out: COLD.



                                LINDSEY

                Big baby.



Then:  HANDS SHAKING.  HHARD TO TYPE.



                                MONK

                It's starting.  It hits the nervous system

                first.



                                ONE NIGHT

                Keep talking, Lindsey.  Just let him hear your

                voice.  It doesn't matter what about.



                                LINDSEY

                Don't forget Bud, you're being graded on spelling

                as well as sentence structure, so concentrate,

                okay?

                              (long pause)

                Bud, I... uh, there's some things I want to say.

                It's hard for me.  I'm not of those softy, gooey-

                center-type people.  It's not easy, you know,

                being a cast-iron bitch.  It takes discipline

                and years of training.  A lot of people don't

                appreciate that.



Lindsey has somehow tuned out the others in the room.  In her mind she is

with Bud, out in the darkness.



                                LINDSEY

                But is wasn't all bad.  I know that.  You

                remember that bike trip... we rode the Honda

                up through Oregon?  It took me a week to get my

                hair untangled, but I've never been happier.  It

                was the most... free... I've ever felt.  I'm

                sorry I can't tell you these things to your face.



EXT. THE WALL                                                           202



Bud is visibly trembling, gritting his teeth... holding on as the vise-grip

of pressure takes him.



                                LINDSEY (V.O./filtered)

                It's pitiful.  I have to wait until you're

                freezing in the dark and there's ten thousand

                feet of water between us.  I guess I'm babbling.

                I'm sorry.



Bud struggles with his keyboard.



INT. COMMAND MODULE                                                     203



ON THE SCREEN:  YOU ALWAYS DID TALK TOO MUCH



Somehow's she's smiling and on the verge of tears at the same time.



                                HIPPY

                Two miles down and still grinnin'  Comin' up on

                the big ten thou'.



                                ONE NIGHT

                Bottom's still a mile and a half down.



EXT. THE ABYSS                                                          204



BLAM!  Bud jerks as his dive light implodes.  He still has Geek's floodlights.

He falls on.



INT. CONTROL MODULE                                                     205



                                HIPPY

                12000 feet.  Jesus, I don't believe he's doing

                this.



                                LINDSEY

                Shut up, Hippy.  Bud, how you doing?



He types: SE LUMINUS THINNGS



Everyone snaps suddenly alert.



                                HIPPY

                Uh, oh...



                                LINDSEY

                What kind of luminous things, Bud?



                                CATFISH

                Maybe it's... you know... them.



The screen prints out:  ITS OK. SQUID. GLOWING SQUID.



EXT. THE ABYSS                                                          206



Bud is in an enormous school of bioluminescent squid, graceful, attenuated

creatures less than a foot long.  Thousands of then glide in ghostly arcs

around him, filling the black void as far as the eye can see.  He stares at

them in wonder.  Reaches out and touches one, catches it, lets it go.  Are

they really here?  He can no longer be sure of his own perceptions.



INT. CONTROL MODULE                                                     207



Another message from Bud:  THINK THEYR REAL.



                                MONK

                He's losing it.  Talk to him.  Keep him with us.



                                LINDSEY

                Bud, it's the pressure.  Try to concentrate.

                Concentrate on my voice.  Just listen to my voice.



EXT. THE ABYSS                                                          208



Bud emerges from the school of squid.  As he falls, they form a luminous plane

of swirling colors above him.  He stares upwards, transfixed.  BUD'S POV, the

ghostly blizzard of luminescence above him.  A spectral form takes shape in

the patternless glow... resolving into Lindsey's face, a hundred feet wide.

Gazing down at him, her expression sad.  Her image receded away from him into

the darkness above as he falls.



DOWN ANGLE ON BUD, reaching up in anguish.



INT. CONTROL MODULE                                                     209



Lindsey watches as Bud haltingly types out:  YOUR GOING AWAY



                                LINDSEY

                I'm not going away, Bud.  I'm right here, right

                here with you.  This is Lindsey, Bud.  I'm right

                here.



                                ONE NIGHT

                Signal's fading.



                                HIPPY

                We're losing juice... kill everything we don't

                need.  Catfish, knock out those lights.



Everyone hustles to comply.  The room is plunged into darkness, the faces of

the group lit only by the ghostly CRT screen.



                                ONE NIGHT

                Run it through the digital processor, cook it as

                much as you can.



                                CATFISH

                Seventeen thousand feet.  Good Christ Almighty,

                this is insane.



EXT. THE ABYSS                                                          210



Bud is shaking violently, as if with palsy.  His eyes keep rolling back, and

he's having a hard time staying conscious.  He tries to type a message and he

can't.  The tons of pressure per square inch are short-circuiting his nervous

system.  Suddenly K-BAM!  Little Geek's pressure hull implodes.  Its lights

go out.  BLACKNESS.



INT. CONTROL MODULE                                                     211



                                ONE NIGHT

                Little Geek just folded.



                                HIPPY

                Bye, little buddy.



                                MONK

                He can still make it.



                                LINDSEY

                I know how alone you feel... alone in all that

                cold blackness... but I'm there in the dark

                with you, Bud you're not alone...



Lindsey seems not to be in the room, but to be with him, seeing what he sees.

She is oblivious to the others.



EXT. THE ABYSS                                                          212



Blackness.  Then a bright light appears... he's lit a MAGNESIUM FLARE.



It's fierce, flickering glare lights his plunge.  Bud discards the stalwart

little ROV and free-falls like a skydiver without a chute.  Out of control, he

hits a ledge and rolls off.  Tumbles forward in a cloud of debris.  He hits

another outcropping, limp as a rag doll.  Rocks and sand rain down with him

as he continues his descent.



Bud us quivering, teeth locked in a titanic rigor.



He pulls his arms and legs slowly into a fetal position.



In the plunge toward death he has gone he has gone full circle, returned to

the womb in which we all breathe the water of life before we know the world of

air and light.  Still, there is Lindsey's voice, faintly in his helmet.



                                LINDSEY (V.O.)

                You remember that time, you were pretty drunk,

                you probably don't remember... the power went

                out at the old apartment, the one on Orange

                Street... and we were staring at that one little

                candle, and I said something really dumb like

                that candle is me, like every one of us is out

                there alone in the dark in this life...



INT. CONTROL MODULE                                                     213



TIGHT ON LINDSEY as she grips the microphone.  Her voice has become a hoarse

whisper.  Her eyes are intense, focused on a point far beyond the walls of the

room.



                                LINDSEY

              ... and you lit another candle and put it beside

                mine and said "that's me"... and we stared at

                the two candles, and then we... well, if you

                remember any of it, I'm sure you remember the

                next part.  Bud, there are two candles in the

                dark.  I'm with you.  I'll always be with you.



EXT. THE ABYSS                                                          214



A tiny flickering light moves down along a vast black wall.  Bud falls on in

dream-like solitude, a candle in the dark.



INT. CONTROL MODULE                                                     215



Catfish gently takes the microphone from Lindsey's hands and leans close.



                                CATFISH

                How you doin', podner?  Still with us, come-back?

                Talk to us, Buddy boy.



They watch the screen, expectantly.



Nothing.  Hippy and One Night start checking the equipment.  Lindsey tried

unsuccessfully to keep the terror our of here voice.



                                LINDSEY

                Bud?  You hangin' in there?  Talk to me, Bud.

                Are you okay?



There is an agonizing pause, then the letters appear slowly:  SHAKING STOPED.

FEEL BETER.  SOM LITE BELOW.



                                LINDSEY

                What kind of light?



LIGHT EVYWHER.  BEAWTIFULLL



                                MONK

                He's hallucinating badly.



EXT. THE ABYSS                                                          216



Bud is no longer in pain.  His expression is rapt.



LOOKING DOWN, past his to a ghostly landscape.  His last flare sputters out,

but there is light.  Bioluminescent algae carpet the walls of the canyon

below him.  And he's right... it is beautiful.



The water is so clear we can see down 500 feet past Bud's tiny, silhouetted

figure, to a vast landscape faintly revealed in spectral pastels.  Barren as

the moon but exquisite, serene.  Changeless.  A place unseen by human eyes.

Like a firefly below, the lights of Big Geek are visible.  Bud descends toward

the ROV, which has grounded on a narrow shelf.  Below the shelf, the wall

slopes out, suggesting we are near the bottom of the canyon but can't see it.



ONE BIG GEEK/MIRV, sitting there like a dumbshit.  Bud's feet thump into the

sediment next to it, stirring it luminous particles.  Touchdown... three and

half miles of water over his head.  Bud leans over the warhead in a swarm of

fireflies.



INT. CONTROL MODULE                                                     217



AT GEEK prints out.  Monk takes the headset gently from Lindsey.



                                MONK

                Okay, Bud, we'll go step by step.  Take the

                cover plate off the firing box.



A long pause.  Then... PLATE OFF



                                MONK

                All right, Bud, you have to cut the ground wire,

                not the lead wire...



EXT. ABYSSAL LEDGE                                                      218



Bud is peering into the detonator unit.  How bad is he?  We can't tell.



                                MONK (V.O.)

                It's the blue wire with the white stripe, not...

                I repeat... NOT the black wire with the yellow

                stripe.



Bud is staring.  Blinking.  The two wire look big as sewer pipes, and they're

miles away... way down there where his hands are.



The only light he has left is a CYALUME STICK.  He pulls out the little

plastic tube.  Breaks and shakes.  It starts to glow, a tiny wand of green

light.  He fumbles with his tool pouch, takes out a pair of side-cutters.

CUTING NNOW he types to them.  He reaches into the detonator.



DETAIL, THE WIRES... in the green Cyalume glow, the look identical.  The

cutters go over on wire.  A long beat.  They withdraw, then go over the other

wire...



He cuts--



INT. CONTROL MODULE                                                     219



Everyone is frozen.  Waiting.  It's very quiet.



                                LINDSEY

                Would we see the flash?



                                MONK

                Through three miles of water?   I don't know.



They're holding their breaths.  Then... STILL HERE



A cheer goes up.  Rebel yells.



                                CATFISH

                Quiet, quiet!  Save you air, goddamnit.



                                MONK

                Bud, give me a reading off you liquid oxygen

                gauge.



TEN MINUTES WORTH ID SAY.  Lindsey does white.



                                HIPPY

                It took him over an hour to get down there--



It's hopeless.  Lindsey grabs the headset from Monk.



                                LINDSEY

                Drop you weights and start back now!  The gauge

                could be wrong...



EXT. ABYSSAL LEDGE                                                      220



Bud is one his knees beside the dead warhead.  His expression is enigmatic.

He looks around slowly at the luminous canyon.  Starts to type.



INT. CONTROL MODULE                                                     221



The message comes in:  NO.  THINK ILL STAY A WHILE.  BEAUTIFUL HERE.  WORTH

ADMISSION



                                LINDSEY

                No!  You can make it!  You hear me?  Drop your

                weights... you... can breathe shallow... you...

                it could be wrong--



Lindsey's voice has twisted into a sob.  She begins to weep, quietly.



                                LINDSEY

                Oh God, Virgil, please...



DONT CRY BABY



A pause.  Then the words...



WE KNEW THIS WAS A ONE WAY TICKET WHEN I PUT THIS THING ON.  BUT YOU KNOW I

HAD TO COME.



Lindsey sobs at the mike.  The others look away.  The signal is weakening.

One Night boosts it and the screen clears briefly.



LOVE YOU WIFE.



She stares at the printout.



                                LINDSEY

                Love you.



There is no reply.



                                                                CUT TO:



EXT. THE ABYSS                                                          222



A tiny figure lies slumped beside the inert ROV, an Indian dying with his

horse in the desert.



Bud's eyelids close.  His chest barely moving.



A strange illumination bathes his face and his eyes open.  He blinks.  Weakly,

he raises his head, facing the source of the radiance.



BUD'S POV... A glowing figure hovers before him, like a vision.  It seems to

be an angel.  Seen closer, as it drifts toward him, we see that it is an

extraterrestrial being, bioluminescent like some deep-sea fish.  Its body

and limbs are transparent, and it resembles a figure made of blown glass.  A

delicate mantle or veil billows out around its like a corona, which pulsates

gently, propelling the being with the hypnotic grace of a Spanish dancer.  The

head is refined and strangely anthropomorphic, with large eyes that convey a

cold, dispassionate wisdom.



It is stunningly beautiful.



The creature settles toward him.  Unafraid, Bud extends his hand.



Its slender, blown-glass digits grasp his bulky glove.  It pulls him up from

the benthic ooze and they glide together down the slope, deeper into the

abyss.



At the limits of visibility we see faint, glowing forms moving below.  They

resolve into NTI ships.  Tiny ovoids, like the little scoutship that Lindsey

nearly collided with at the Montana wreck.  The larger manta-ships.  And

others, strangely configured, moving in the darkness below like luminous fish.



Suddenly the darkness explodes with light.  A vast, reticulated pattern of

brightly glowing lines, like some enormous circuit diagram, appears below

them, covering the floor of the abyssal trench.  It sweeps outward from the

center, as if the light were surging through channels.  The NTIs are revealing

their home to Bud.  The ships move among the spires like air traffic over a

major city.



EXT. N.T.I. STRUCTURE                                                   223



Bud and the creature descend until, between the lines of light, we see a dark

surface of inhuman design.  The shape extends beyond the limits of visibility.

Towers hundreds of feet high stretch upward from the curving surface.  It

dwarfs their figures as the descend toward it, approaching an opening that soon

yawns like a vast mouth.



They are picking up speed, swept along by a powerful current, into the mouth-

like opening.



INT. N.T.I. STRUCTURE                                                   224



Bud stares around in awe as smooth, pearlescent walls blur past him.  It is a

curving three-dimensional maze of tunnels, like a vast circulatory system,

where controlled currents of water become freeways in three-dimensional

space.  Tunnels divide, narrow, and reenter main-routes hundreds of feet

across, as the pair race through in a dizzying blur.



INT. FINAL CHAMBER                                                      225



Entering a smaller chamber they settle to the floor, and the NTI moves back a

few feet.



A shimmering plane or surface appears like a vertical curtain bisecting the

chamber.  The seawater divides, like the Red Sea, into two rippling walls.

They move apart.  Leaving Bud standing in a short, shimmering hallway.



Weakly, he uncouples his helmet and pulls it free.  Drops to his knees.

Doubles over as spasms wrack him.  Breathing fluid explodes from his lungs.

He lies gasping and coughing on the floor, dragging in deep breaths of what

he can only hope is air.  It is.



Bud slowly recovers, sitting up.  His head is clearing.  This really is

happening.  Beyond the shimmering, vertical surface of the water he sees the

NTI being joined by others, move or less identical, until a group of seven

is gathered watching him.



                                BUD

                Howdy, Uuuh... how you guys doin'?



His voice echoes metallically in the strange chamber.  Soft laps of water

from the 'walls'.



In the air a pattern of glowing lines appears, a series of what appears to be

circuit diagrams.  Bud staggers back from this strange 'screen' hanging in

mid-air.  The image is about twenty feet across.



There is a rolling jumble of static and interference which resolves into...

the face of Dan Rather, doing the evening news.  STATIC, then another

newscast.  And another.  Fragments of the same story.  The world on the brink

of war.



                                BUD

                You watch out TV?  That what you're trying to

                say?  That you know what's been going on up

                there?



The NTIs are impassive.  Static... then another newscast.



This time, we're allowed to focus on the story.  An on-the-scene interview

outside a high-tech seismology lab.  There is an air of hysteria about the

scene... technicians running across the background of the shot, people

shouting, the reporter jamming his mike at the harried-looking scientist.



                                REPORTER

              ... a Caltech scientist who is among those

                reporting an unprecedented disturbance in the

                world's oceans.  Dr. Breg, can you give us a

                clearer explanation then we're getting?



Berg is edgy and distracted.  People keeps handing him pieces of paper,

computer hardcopy.  The biggest thing in his life is happening...



                                BERG

                They're acoustic shockwaves, like tsunamis, but

                with no seismological source.  The waves are

                propagating toward the shorelines of every

                continent--



An assistant runs up, face shiny with fear, beckoning.  We see that Berg is

running scared.  The impossible bringing the greatest terror to the rational

mind.



                                BERG

                Yeah.  I'll be right there... I have to go.

                Look, we don't know what it is!  Okay?  Not the

                slightest goddamn idea!



The image dissolves into static, fades out.  Bud turns to the NTIs.



                                BUD

                You're doing it!  Right?  That's what you're

                telling me.  Yeah, you can control water...

                that's your technology.  But why?



Static again, then a brilliant flash.  Grainy stock film of a hydrogen bomb

test in the Pacific.



The film repeats, and then again, faster, and again until is merges into an

unbroken white glare.  Bud gets the message.



                                BUD

                Hey, you don't know they're really gonna do it.

                Where do you get off passing judgment on us,

                when you can't be sure?  How do you know?



The screen exploded into a staccato series of searing images, stark moments

from recent history...



US soldiers fighting in Vietnam, street warfare in Beirut, a car bomb in

Belfast, a suspect shot in the head in the streets of Saigon, burned and

bleeding children, grainy footage of corpses bulldozed into mass graves at

Auschwitz, Wermacht soldiers marching in goose-step review, a 13-year-old

contra with an AK-47...  Just glimpses, strobing... a few frames of each.

But enough.  The images continue.



HOLD ON BUD, as the lights flicker on his face, the ongoing indictment of

humanity.



                                                                CUT TO:



EXT. OCEAN FRONT WALK, SANTA MONICA, CALIFORNIA -- DAY                  226



A video news crew leaps from a Jet Ranger helicopter in a parking area and

runs to set up near the railing, facing the ocean.  Pandemonium reigns around

them, people running, driving, evacuating inland.



On the horizon, out to sea, a dark line has appeared.



It grows in height as it comes closer, a wall of water stretching across the

horizon, already hundreds of feet high and growing.



EXT. NEW YORK -- DAY                                                    227



LONG LENSE SHOT, looking seaward past the Statue of Liberty, out past the

Verazzano Narrows.  Stacked up by perspective, the distant wave is a wall of

water impossibly high, still miles out.



EXT. NAVAL BASE, KAMCHATKA PENINSULA, U.S.S.R. -- NIGHT                 228



The scene repeats on the eastern coast of the Kamchatka Penninsula in Russia,

where a full moon shimmers along the crest of a vast wave.



SIRENS wail as Russian sailors run from the docks of Petropavlovsk Naval Base.

Some stand rooted as the black glacier of water, a thousand feet high and

growing, thunders toward them in nightmarish slow motion.



EXT. OCEAN FRONT, SANTA MONICA -- DAY                                   229



The minicam crew reporter is speaking rapidly, faltering with emotion, his

voice cracking like the famous broadcast from the scene of the Hindenburg

disaster.



                                REPORTER

                The horizon has gone dark... the crowd is starting

                to run... some are just staring, unable to

                move... the wave... the wave is... it's...

                I don't know... maybe a thousand feet high

                already... getting bigger as I'm watching...

                still miles out... oh my God, Jesus... I can

                hear it...



A roar fills the air, a thunder which drowns out the people's screams, even

the rotors of the news chopper as the camera teams scrambles aboard.  They

leave the announcer standing transfixed, his face blank, eyes tracking upward

and upward as the ground begins to shake.



EXT. NEW YORK -- DAY                                                    230



The Statue of Liberty looks like a souvenir figurine at the afternoon sun is

blocked out by the cresting tsunami, an escarpment of water 2500 feet tall.



EXT. SAN FRANSISCO -- DAY                                               231



LONG LENS SHOT -- The Golden Gate Bridge and the hills of the city, the

buildings downtown.  Beyond, FILLING FRAME is the wall of sea green which

defies our comprehension.  The image shakes with the THUNDER.



EXT. MALIBU -- DAY                                                      232



A diehard surfer looks over his shoulder as the mountain of water which

transcends his worst nightmare.  He lies paralyzed on his board.



EXT. MIAMI -- DAY                                                       233



Downtown Miami crouches in terror at the feet of the shimmering monolith.



In a penthouse office suite, an executive watches the wave towering above him,

blocking out the sun, a line of raging foam appearing as it arches over,

about to break upon the teeming city.



And then...



The wave slows as it crests...



And stops.



IT SIMPLY STOPS.



2600 feet high and motionless except for a shimmering undulation of its

surface in the bright sun.  There is quiet, a faint wind and calling of

confused gulls.  Various reactions, as the thunder fades and people recover,

only to stand awed before the vast, inexplicable manifestation.  A news

helicopter passes in front of it like a dragonfly.



EXT. MALIBU                                                             234



The surfer just blinks, starting.



EXT. NEW YORK -- DAY                                                    235



On the East Coast it's the same, as the World Trade Centers are dwarfed by a

shimmering blue wall which stands... waiting.



EXT. PETROPAVLOVSK NAVAL BASE, U.S.S.R. -- NIGHT                        236



Russian seamen, lining the harbor breakwall at Petropavlovsk Naval Base on the

Kamchatka Peninsula, stare upward at the monolith of water, undulating in the

moonlight.  It seems poised to crash down, inflicting inconceivable

devastation... but it doesn't.



EXT. OCEAN FRONT WALK, SANTA MONICA                                     237



When all have seen...



The wave soundlessly subsides, slowly slipping back and down until the surface

of the sea is normal again.



VIDEO SHOT, HANDHELD, of a crowd of people watching the sea.  Moving from

face to face.  Various reactions as people respond to what they can only

understand as a miracle.  The faces... awed, stunned, tear-streaked...

laughing.  The cameraman is just walking.  Some people turn to him and smile,

or laugh, or whoop.



A woman is collapsed on a bench, crying.



A man is on his knees, shaking.



Total strangers hug each other.



A black guy, tears pouring down his face, turns to the camera with a beautific

grin.



                                GUY

                Somebody just laid it down to us, man.  Things

                ain't never gonna be the same!



PULL BACK to reveal that we are in the...



INT. FINAL CHAMBER                                                      238



Bud sits, shaken, watching the screen, as people react to their deliverance.

He turns to the NTIs.



                                BUD

                Why?  You could've done it.  Why didn't you?



The screen darkens.  Then letters appears on it, slowly printing out, as if

someone was clumsily typing them.



WE KNEW THIS WAS...



And we've seen this before so we know the rest...



WE KNEW THIS WAS A ONE WAY TICKET WHEN I PUT THIS THING ON.  BUT YOU KNOW I

HAD TO COME.



A pause, then:



LOVE YOU WIFE



The last message expands to fill the entire screen.



Bud stares at the screen, at his message of self-sacrifice, then at the

aliens.  They bow their heads, just for a moment.  A sign of respect.



CLOSE ON BUD as he begins to realize what has happened.



                                                                CUT TO:



INT. DEEPCORE/CONTROL MODULE                                            239



Lindsey is slumped in a chair, just staring.  Withdrawn.



The others are conserving oxygen and heat, huddling in the dark.



The air is looking pretty thick.  The speaker of the hydrophone transceiver

crackles to life.



                                MCBRIDE (V.O.)

                Deepcore, do you read?  This is Benthic Explorer,

                over.



                                CATFISH

                Hell yes, we read!  Good of you to join us.  How's

                that storm doin'?



                                MCBRIDE

                Well, it's strange... it just kind've blew

                itself out all of the sudden.  We're up here in

                a flat sea with no wind.  But then a lot of weird

                things've been happening.



                                CATFISH

                Well, hell, son.  You better get us a line down

                here, we're in moderately poor shape.



LATER, Hippy, Catfish, and Monk are conferring B.G. on how to get a new

umbilical hooked on.  One Night is talking to McBride on the hydrophone.



                                MCBRIDE

                They figure is was over a half mile high.



                                ONE NIGHT

                I wish I could have seen it--



She glances down at the telemetry screen, seeing movement.



                                ONE NIGHT

                Hey.  Hey!  HEY!!  Look... it's Bud.



                                MONK

                That's impossible.



Lindsey bolts to the screen.  Stares at the message printing out.



A huge grin wraps around her face.



                                LINDSEY

                No it's not.



                                MCBRIDE (V.O.)

                What's it say?



Lindsey take the mike and sits before the screen.  During the message, her

voice will go through an emotional spectrum from confusion to wonder, to a

childlike joy.



INTERCUT BETWEEN DEEPCORE AND EXPLORER BRIDGE DURING THE FOLLOWING:



                                LINDSEY

                It says...

                "VIRGIL BRIGMAN BACK ON THE AIR/HAVE SOME NEW

                FRIENDS DOWN HERE/I GUESS THEYVE BEEN HERE AWHILE/

                THEYVE LEFT US ALONE BUT IT BOTHERS THEM TO SEE

                US HURTING EACH OTHER/GETTING OUT OF HAND LATELY"



Lindsey grins as she reads the next part...



                                LINSEY

                "THEY SENT A MESSAGE/HOPE YOU GOT IT"



                                CATFISH

                I'd say that's a big 10-4, jack.



                                LINDSEY

                "THEY WANT US TO GROW UP A BIT AND PUT AWAY

                CHILDISH THINGS/OF COURSE ITS JUST A SUGGESTION."



INT. BENTHIC EXPLORER BRIDGE -- DAY                                     240



Beyond the windows the ocean is calm.  The sky steel-gray put placid.  McBride

turns to Commodore DeMarco and the Navy contingent, his eyebrows cocked.



                                MCBRIDE

                Looks like you boys might by out of business.



                                BENDIX

                Something's going on down there.  I'm getting

                some big readings....



Bendix is hunched over the sonar, and we can see the screens lit up like a

Wurlitzer.



INT. DEEPCORE                                                           241



In Deepcore the crew becomes aware of a strange subsonic rumbling.  The sonar

is going crazy.  One Night puts the headphones of her passive sonar rig up to

her ear, then jerks it away.



                                ONE NIGHT

                Whew!  Whatever this is, it's major.



The rumbling increases and a glow diffuses the water.



The glow intensifies until a blinding shaft of light blasts through the

viewport, bathing the whole interior in a cold white radiance.



A last message appears on the screen:



KEEP YOU PANTYHOSE ON/YOURE GONNA LOVE THIS



The radiance intensifies.  Everyone covers their eyes.  It flares to

WHITE-OUT.



                                                                CUT TO:



INT./EXT. EXPLORER BRIDGE -- DAY                                        242



Bendix and the bridge crew are going nuts.  All their instruments are pegged.



                                BENDIX

                Active is pinging back something big... it's

                enormous!  Coming up right under us.



                                DEMARCO

                Where?



                                BENDIX

                Where?  EVERYWHERE!!

                         (looks out the window)

                Over there!  Port bow.



EXT. BENTHIC EXPLORER AND OCEAN                                         243



A depression appears in the surface of the sea a hundred yards off, not

swirling down like a whirlpool, just dimpling down.



It gets wider.  Deeper.  Rapidly becomes a yawning pit.



The ocean is OPENING.



Now the surface is churned by turbulence.  Slow massive roils of tremendous

power boil up from the depths.



McBride leads a mass exodus onto the deck to see better.



The open becomes a roaring maw a hundred yards across.



The ships are like toys on the shimmering rim of the maelstrom.



SOMETHING RISES IN THE CENTER OF THE OPENING.  A massive spire.  Smoothly

curving and iridescent.  Off the starboard beam, a quarter mile away, another

spire rises.  Tons of seawater fall from its sides with a THUNDEROUS ROAR, the

energy of Niagara.



Off the port bow... another spire.



And another, beyond the destroyer Albany, dwarfing it.



Six towers... plus one larger, in the center.  Rising.



One the Explorer's deck, a shadow engulfs them as the nearest spire blocks out

the sun.  The air, the sea, the deck... all vibrate with the THUNDER OF

CREATION.



And now for the payoff shot:  WE'RE HIGH, LOOKING DOWN.  THE SPIRES FORM A

PERFECT RING A MILE ACROSS.  A VAST DARK FORM, LIKE A GREAT SHADOW, RISES FROM

THE DEPTHS BENEATH THE SHIPS.  THE SPIRES ARE CONNECTED.  IT IS ALL ONE.



THE NTI ARK.



It surfaces with slow majesty, gently beaching all the ships on its broad

back.  We recognize it as the structure into which Bud was led by the angelic

being, which we assumed was a city.  The Explorer rocks gently on its flat

hull, clunking massively to one side as it settles.



The bridge crew watch millions of tons of seawater streaming off the back of

the vast, slightly curved hull.  The missile cruiser rocks back and forth

nearby, high and dry... its prop whining futility.



ON EXPLORER'S DECK, McBride, Bendix, DeMarco, the rest of the Navy

contingent... they're all standing there open-mouthed, in a dream-like daze.

Touched by the hand of God.



                                BENDIX

                Look...



WHAT THEY SEE -- Fifty yards away, between them and the Albany, sits Deepcore

Two.  It looks like a particularly ugly and unwanted toy, sitting on the

glistening plain of the NTI Ark's hull.



CLOSER, ON TRIMODULE C, as the hatch at the bottom opens.



Catfish's feet appear, bicycling.  He swings down to the pearlescent 'deck'.

Stands there blinking in the sunlight, mole-like.  Jammer plonks down behind

him.  He turns, lifts Lindsey down.  Hippy, Sonny, and the rest, emerge into

the light of the sun.  A deliverance from the blackest night they will ever

know.



                                LINDSEY

                We should be dead.  We didn't decompress.



                                CATFISH

                Out blood oughta be fizzin' like a warm, shook-

                up Coke.



                                HIPPY

                They must've done something to us.



Lindsey has tears streaming down her cheeks... for the sun, for life, for

their deliverance and the larger one she knows has happened, an epiphany for

the whole human race.



                                LINDSEY

                Oh, yes.  I think you could say that.



She blinks.  Seeing something not far away.  She gives a little laugh, or

something between laughing and crying.



REVERSE, as Bud walks up the curving incline of one of the mouth-like

enterances to the NTI structure.  His suit is casually unzipped and the FBS

helmet dangles from one hand jauntily.



She starts toward him.  Breaks into a run.  Then stops a few feet from him.

Watching him come to her.



His smile, his eyes illuminating her.



He stops and she touches him, lightly.  Is this real?



The look at each other, wonderingly a moment.



Then laugh.  She sniffs loudly.



                                LINDSEY

                Hello, Brigman.



                                BUD

                Hello, Mrs. Brigman.



Their lips meet.



                                                                CUT TO BLACK






This script was found in INFlow. It was shameless taken off from somewhere else, may god, copyright owners and people who worked hard and were not credited forgive us.

