The Abyss Page #2

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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 d*ckhead.

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.

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