Abyssal (first draft)
Act 1
Scene 10
The cafeteria, the sub pen
RESEARCHER is grouchily on her way to the cafeteria. When she arrives, a few minutes before 6:30, she sees DIRECTOR standing (seemingly) happily in front of the big screen, showing the death count approaching the 90% mark. He lifts a wine glass at her.
RESEARCHER: Fuck no.
He feigns an air of offense. She turns, then turns back to face him, jabs a finger in his direction.
RESEARCHER: Fuck you. Fuck you.
She shoves a chair impotently and leaves. Hyperventilating just a little, she passes TECH in the hall and spares him just a glance. She has tunnel vision. She isn’t running, but storming angrily is how she retreats. She stops, runs her fingers tensely through her hair, pounds her fists on the wall and barks wordlessly. It takes her some time to calm down. When she does, she realizes she has come to the sub pen. She looks hard at the submersible.
Scene 11
The tower
RESEARCHER sits upright and pensive in the pilot’s seat of the sub, having just risked everything to reproduce TECH’s apparent voyage. When she emerges she takes in the surroundings, feels the strange substance of the walls, touches the suspended blocks (they don’t respond at all to the pressure she puts on them). She follows the same corridor and archways as TECH did, the obvious ones. ALIEN is not waiting in the mirror, however. Instead, there is what looks like an inert body collapsed on the ground, apparently human and wearing some kind of padded and plated bodysuit. This is ART 1.
RESEARCHER drops to her knees and turns the body over. She checks for a pulse and seems to find it, but faint. Somewhat frantically, she performs CPR, and ART 1, though unresponsive, begins to visibly breathe.
The Demihuman Chronicles 