Aqua Marianas Episode 5: BEGIN EPISODE 5: FADE IN: [Fingers tapping on keyboard.] JOANNA (Over the noise, sounding tired and stressed) Begin audio diary of Joanna Fenistil. Date is [static]. Time is… 1 am. And I’m still working on this goddamn application. [BEAT. They sigh.] It’s ridiculous. These questions are so mundane; “What are your credentials and skills? What can you bring to this mission?” God, why does this sound like a college application? How do I even describe myself? My skills. My credentials. Alright, how about that I care more about this and about the potential discoveries than anyone else they’ll ever find? No, I can’t write that. [They make an annoyed noise.] I’ve been thinking about this for years. I’ve been wishing for this for years. But so has everyone else, and I’m barely even published. The big names are going to be applying to this, too. [BEAT. When they next speak, they sound more determined.] Well, fuck them. I’m going to get this job if it kills me. [There is a click, then a few seconds of silence. Then:] [THEME SONG FADES IN, FADES OUT.]
JOANNA Aqua Marianas, Episode 4. OPEN NEW SCENE: [A new voice. Holy shit.] MS. JANE SULLIVAN (Crisp and businesslike) Hello, Mr. Federman. Thank you for coming here on such short notice. ANDREW Oh, it’s no problem, Mrs. Sullivan. Really, my pleasure. MS. SULLIVAN (Through a tight-lipped smile) Miz SULLIVAN, Mr. Federman. It’s professional. ANDREW Oh. Shit, sorry, Ms. Sullivan. Uh, ma’am. MS. SULLIVAN You’re aware that this interview is being recorded, of course? We’d like to go over your answers again later, as well. ANDREW (Even more “oh shit” in his voice) I wasn’t aware, no. Apologies. MS. SULLIVAN No need to apologize. Just keep that in mind for the future. (Her voice changes, as if she’s reading off something) It says here in your file that you were… seventh in line on the waitlist for this job on Benthos Outpost? And yet you’re now being considered as the first. Any idea why that is or why you were
determined more eligible than the other candidates? ANDREW (Bragging) Well, they were going to take the first guy, but it turned out he was claustrophobic to the extreme. I obviously deal much better with enclosed spaces. The second guy broke his arm really badly in a skiing accident. The third guy was… somehow allergic to recycled air? Which I am not, because my immune system is pretty damn good, if you’ll excuse my French. The fourth guy had a family member who died, the fifth guy actually did die, and the sixth guy turned out to have lied about his entire identity and was actually an escaped convict trying to get as far away from the police as possible. As you can see, I am the obvious next choice. MS. SULLIVAN Mm-hm. Obvious, I see. And what are your credentials, Mr. Federman? ANDREW (nervous) Aren’t they in the file? MS. SULLIVAN Yes, but I’d like to hear you recount your accomplishments. Get your account from your own mouth. Unless that would be a problem? ANDREW No, no! I wasn’t expecting the question, that’s all. [He takes a deep breath.] ANDREW Well, I… I’ve been working for Verne Incorporated for the past several years, mostly covering reporting and documenting the effects
of some of the technology we debut. The human component. I received a commendation for my reporting on the new long-distance communication device we developed. I also had a piece about our developments in facial recognition software published in the New Yorker. [His voice changes to become ingratiating.] ANDREW Honestly, I would count my work as being an accomplishment in and of itself. I cover our stories and report for the masses, making it accessible. I’m a bridge between us and the world. You know? MS. SULLIVAN Mm-hm. [She doesn’t say anything else. ANDREW is audibly uncomfortable.] ANDREW And, um… I want to go where the stories go. I want to be at the forefront. MS. SULLIVAN You’re very eager. What would you do if there was a crisis on the base? ANDREW (Lying through his teeth) Whatever my commanding officer told me to do. Most likely, that’d mean contacting the surface. At least, if I understand correctly. MS. SULLIVAN More or less. What’s your personal life like, Mr. Federman? Friends, family, relationships? Do you have hobbies? ANDREW Well…
[He takes a deep breath.] I have an older brother and a younger sister. Brother is currently working as an accountant for some company in DC, sister is in grad school for… some kind of biochemistry projects. I don’t see them a lot, but we do try to get together once in a while. You know. I have a few friends here-- acquaintances, really, but you know how it is. The work takes a lot of time! No girlfriend. And as for hobbies… I write sometimes, listen to music, play video games on the odd occasion. You know. The usual. MS. SULLIVAN I see. I think that’s about all I’ll need from you, Mr. Federman. [They both stand up, and MS. SULLIVAN shakes his hand.] MS. SULLIVAN You’ll hear of our decision in a day or two. [ANDREW leaves. The door shuts behind him. There is a BEAT, and then MS. SULLIVAN takes out a cell phone and starts dialing. It rings, and then someone picks up.] MS. SULLIVAN What did you think? [TRINE WALDEN answers.] TRINE He’s not the best of the applicants. He’s not even the best we have on staff. MS. SULLIVAN You’re right, he isn’t the best, but he applied. The others have positions that mean they don't want to go down the base, or attachments or
relationships, or physical limitations. And he’s not an a criminal. TRINE ...We’re lowering our standards a lot, taking him. MS. SULLIVAN No shit. [TRINE sighs.] TRINE Fine. Offer him the job, and let’s hope it doesn't blow up in our faces. [She hangs up. Sound cuts off. There is STATIC.]
OPEN NEW SCENE: LILLIAN’S LAB [We open onto a scene of a radio playing a clip from a song and LILLIAN singing along, badly. It’s under 30 seconds of a song, so not copyrighted/it’s a song the copyright has run out on. The singing and music is interspersed with mechanical noises and metallic banging sounds. LILLIAN is working on something. There is a knock on the door, and someone calls out. All noises are as if heard through speakers, or a recording.] TRINE Dr. Vega? Hello? Dr. Vega? [They are not heard over the noises. They call louder.] TRINE Dr. Vega! Excuse me? [LILLIAN finally seems to notice. The singing stops, and after a moment so does the music and
most of the banging noises. There is a normal door opening.] LILLIAN (affecting the mad scientist) Who dares to knock at the door of me, the almighty, the great, the ONE AND ONLY, DOCTOR VEGA??!! [She cackles maniacally. The other woman is a little bit terrified.] TRINE Uh… I… came about… well. Your base designs? The… the ones you, uh. Published. In the journal. The underwater base? LILLIAN (suddenly all charm) Oh! Why didn’t you say so? TRINE I… I just did. LILLIAN …You’re right. Okay, yeah, sorry. What I’m trying to say is that what I published was only a proposal on how existing designs can be improved, really. So I never really thought people would be interested in it. Anyways, I guess my question is, are you here about funding? I can give you my estimates about what it would cost to build prototypes for some of the systems— TRINE Oh, no, no price estimates. Don’t worry about that. Frankly, we think your designs are… well, brilliant, if extraordinarily complicated. But your plans for reducing pollution, and for making the base self-sustaining using the energy from a hydrothermal vent, well… they’ll allow us to go deeper into the ocean than ever before. Dr. Vega, we’re more than willing to pay for all
of it, get the prototypes and the final version built, and set it up on the bottom of the ocean. All of it. LILLIAN (deliriously happy) That… that sounds amazing. More than amazing. That sounds… god, I can’t even imagine. [She pauses.] But, uh. Who’s “we”? TRINE Oh! Sorry, I forgot to introduce myself. I’m Trine Walden, from Verne Incorporated, and if you would be amenable we’d like to use your design to get something started. Who knows? Maybe we could eventually build a colony. A city. The modern-day Atlantis. Whaddya say? LILLIAN (even more delirious happiness. This is probably one of her wet dreams.) I say hell yeah! On one condition, though. TRINE Oh? LILLIAN I go down with it. Like you said, it’s a complicated design, and it’s my design. I’m the person who understands it, the one who can fix it when it breaks, and the one who knows the design like the back of my hand. I could teach someone else to fix it, but frankly, they’d never understand it like I do. You want to make this happen? You need me. TRINE You just described what we were already planning to do, Dr. Vega. LILLIAN Awesome.
[STATIC.]
OPEN NEW SCENE: MAHIMA on the phone [We hear a phone ring; once, twice, three times. Then LONNA “LIZARD” FITZGERALD picks up.] LIZARD (voice distorted through phone) Hello? MAHIMA Hey, Lizard, guess what? [The way she says “Lizard” indicates that this is a not a mean nickname, but a loving one. Like… idk, “sweetheart”. MAHIMA doesn’t wait for her guess.] MAHIMA I got the position! Benthos Outpost, 8-month mission, as the captain. I did it! [When LIZARD answers, she sounds tired and wary.] LIZARD That’s… great, Mahima. Listen, I think we need to talk. MAHIMA (all excitement out of her voice) Wait, what? What do we need to talk about? LIZARD I… I think… [She swallows audibly.] LIZARD
If you’re getting this job, I think we need to take a break. MAHIMA (not loud, but sharp and confused) What? LIZARD Don’t yell! MAHIMA I wasn’t yelling! I was just-[She takes a deep breath.] MAHIMA (voice carefully controlled in her sounding more like the captain we We… need to take a break. Okay. Why, have you come to this conclusion? And it have to do with the job?
anger, know) exactly, what does
LIZARD (tentative at first, then more assertive) Mahima… I love you, but we both know this wasn’t working out. I was thinking about taking a break anyways. This relationship… I don’t think it would survive long-distance. You’d be down there for eight months with not a lot of communication, and I don’t think I could do that. It would take too much of a toll, just like the last time we tried long-distance. You know that. MAHIMA Don’t you dare try to tell me what I know, Lonna Fitzgerald. What I know-- what I thought I knew was that me going down on the base would be difficult, but we could work it out, especially knowing what we did wrong last time. I thought everything was fine. I thought everything would be okay.
[Her voice is becoming quieter and closer to despair, but she clears her throat and comes back strong and icy.] MAHIMA But apparently I was wrong. LIZARD (pleading slightly) Mahima, I do want to stay friends, and it is just a break. Maybe when you get back from the mission, we could try again-MAHIMA No. That’s what you want, Lizard. All of this is what you want. And you can have it, but I want something too. [She takes a deep breath.] MAHIMA I never want to see you again. I never want to hear from you or talk to you again. I don’t want to hear from your friends or your family, either. You can keep the gifts I gave you, but being friends isn’t going to happen, and “trying again” is so far out of the question that it has already left the galaxy. You want a break? Fine. As long as that break is permanent. LIZARD (turned cold) Fine, then. I thought you’d understand, but apparently not. It’s over. [She hangs up. The tone plays. Mahima does not hang up. Instead, she whispers into the phone to no one, her voice thick with tears.] MAHIMA And a happy fucking anniversary to us. [Then she hangs up, too.]
[STATIC.] OPEN NEW SCENE: Alex playing back a phone message he made RECORDED VOICE To send your message, hang up. To replay your message, press 1. To[BEEP as ALEX presses 1. The recording replays.] ALEX’S VOICE, ON RECORDING (hesitant and nervous) Uh… hey. So, it’s me. Alex. I know we haven’t talked in a while, but, uh. I wanted to let you know that… I’m gonna be gone for a while. I’m taking a job on the underwater mission going down. Benthos Outpost, right? They’ve been talking about it on the news and in the science sites. I saw that they were looking for a psychologist, and I applied, and… I got in! It surprised me, but hey, it seems like a cool opportunity. It should be fun. Well, not fun, but interesting. I mean, studying the effects of confinement and the underwater environment on the human psyche on that level? The results will be fascinating, especially if we do end up colonizing large-scale. [BEAT.] But… I’m going to be underwater. For eight months. With people I don’t really know. I- I guess I just wanted to let you know that I’d be gone. In case you wanted to get in touch or anything and couldn’t reach me. [ANOTHER BEAT.] I hope you’re doing okay. I haven’t heard from you, or from anyone really, but I know you graduate this year. I’m really proud of you, you know? Like, really really proud. God, you’ve
worked so hard on this. I know it hasn’t been easy for you. [He laughs ruefully.] Hell, we didn’t make it easy. Me especially. And… I guess that’s the real reason I’m calling. I wanted to tell you that… before I go to settle on the bottom of the ocean for eight months, I wanted to say that I’m sorry. I ruined… I ruined a lot. And I know you were mad, and you’re probably still mad, and you have a really good reason for it. You have every right to not want to talk to me or hear from me. [He swallows hard.] You don’t have to call me back. I just wanted to let you know that I’m so, so sorry, and before I leave… I want to say that I love you. Tell mom and dad and the others that I love them too, okay? Maybe I’ll see you all on the other side. RECORDED VOICE End of message. To send message, press one. To re-record message, press two. To delete message, press three. [BEEP as ALEX presses 3.] RECORDED VOICE Message deleted. [STATIC. Music playing.] OPEN NEW SCENE: The first meeting, two weeks before they go down [The sounds are, as in LILLIAN’s lab, as if they are being recorded. First we hear JOANNA and LILLIAN interacting.] LILLIAN
Hi! Which one are you? JOANNA Uh… what do you mean? LILLIAN Oh, I mean- well, hi, I’m Lillian Vega and I’m the mechanical engineer who made the base. What about you? Ooh, or, let me guess… captain? PR person? JOANNA Wow, none of the above. Joanna Fenistil, marine biologist. I use they/them pronouns. LILLIAN Oh, okay! I use she/her pronouns. And I like your name. It’s nice. JOANNA (deadpan) Thanks, I chose it myself. [LILLIAN snort-laughs genuinely. She’s actually delighted to be meeting this cute person.] LILLIAN Nice. And you’re the marine biologist, you said? What do you think we’ll find down there? I mean, we go down in like two days. JOANNA Well, I have no idea. I’d say a lot of really interesting microbial life, first off- according to the Sogin et al. p aper on microbial diversity in the deep sea, marine microbes are far more diverse than we expected but are dominated usually by the more abundant species. Those distributions are highly variable based on environmental change, so it’d be interesting to see how us settling there would affect the microbe population because obviously we’re a pretty huge environmental change on our own.
We’d likely find more extremophiles, and long-term surveillance might even reveal new macro-organisms. All sorts of stuff. I could go on all day, but you… probably don’t want to hear that. LILLIAN What? No! I mean, I’d love to hear! I don’t understand a word, but it sounds really interesting and you’re probably going to have to listen to me talk about engineering for hours on end at some point. Go ahead! JOANNA Oh. Oh! Well[They are rudely interrupted by ANDREW.] ANDREW Alright, now that I’m here the party can start! What were you two ladies talking about? [He literally immediately pisses off LILLIAN, but JOANNA answers first.] JOANNA (frustrated slightly) I’m not a lady. Joanna Fenistil, marine biologist, they/them pronouns, and we were just having a conversation about what we might expect to see on the ocean floor. ANDREW Oh. Sounds boring. LILLIAN (extraordinarily pissed) Excuse me, who the fuck are you and what do you think you’re doing? ANDREW (smug)
Oh, you haven’t heard? I’m Andrew Federman, Verne Incorporated’s chosen documentarian for the underwater colonization mission. I’ll be making sure we maintain an image that will make us popular with the public. Which means that you’re probably going to have to wash that grease out of your hair at some point, whoever you are. LILLIAN (more sarcastically pissed than overtly pissed now) Oh, so you’re a reporter. Awesome. Well, I’m Lillian-- Dr. Vega, to you-- and I’m the mechanical engineer in charge of keeping us all alive down there, so I can either do that or not have grease in my hair. Your choice. [ANDREW rolls his eyes.] ANDREW Whatever you say, Lillian. [LILLIAN makes a frustrated noise, but before she can pounce on him ALEX arrives.] ALEX Um… is this a bad time? ANDREW Depends. Who are you? ALEX Oh! You must be Andrew Federman? Hi, I’m Alex, Alex Newman. I’m gonna be the psychologist going down with you guys to monitor what the effects on your-- I mean, our-- brains are. ANDREW So… a shrink. ALEX Uh- Well. Not a therapist.
ANDREW So then what’s the point of you being[LILLIAN, who is tired of his bullshit, interrupts him.] LILLIAN Hi, Alex, it’s nice to meet you. I’m Lillian and this is Joanna. ALEX Oh! Drs. Vega and Fenistil? Yeah, I saw your names in the files! It’s an honor to be going down with you both. JOANNA (in tones similar to the voice you use when being recognized by someone you don’t remember at all) Oh! Uh, it’s an honor to be going down with you too, Alex. ALEX Thanks! [BEAT.] ALEX And the captain? Has she arrived yet? [STATIC of a scene change. Then we hear traffic, again through the filter of being recorded. A car door slams, and MAHIMA runs into the meeting place. She’s out of breath. Her running footsteps (I will add noise) are interspersed with her voice.] MAHIMA (muttering between panting breaths) Late, late, late, oh god which door- there.
[She stops, takes a deep breath, and psyches herself up before going in.] MAHIMA Alright. Alright, Kumar, you’ve got this. They’re probably just as nervous as you are. All you need to do is act like you’re in charge. Now go. [MAHIMA pushes open the door.] MAHIMA Hello, crew. My name is Mahima Kumar, but you will know me as Captain Kumar for the duration of this eight-month mission. Tomorrow we have a press briefing at 1100 hours, and in three days we’ll be going down in the sub at 0600 hours. I trust you’ve all gotten acquainted? [Chorus of muttered “yes” and “sure” and “I guess”.] MAHIMA Alright then. [Brighter, almost forced.] I’m sure we’re all going to get along just fine. [STATIC, then music playing. We switch to a new scene.] OPEN NEW (OLD) SCENE: Joanna recording their audio diary [There is the click of a mouse button, and then JOANNA sighs.] JOANNA And that’s submitted. I hope I get in. Actually, I need to think more positively. I will get in. I I need to get in. I’m going to get this job on Benthos Outpost no matter what it takes, no matter what I have to do. And if they don’t accept me, well… I guess that’s their loss.
[BEAT.] JOANNA If I’m truthful-- and I should be truthful, I’m at home and this is my recording for me and no one else is going to listen to it-- I’m not sure what would happen if I did go on this mission. Scientific discoveries, absolutely. The chance I’ve been waiting all my life for. New things, exciting things, beautiful and strange and wonderful things… but if I accomplished this, then I get my dream, and I come up eight months later, and I have the rest of my life ahead of me. I’m only thirty. ⅓ of the way through my life, give or take a few years. What if I never accomplish anything else? Or what if my theories get debunked? What if I find something and it’s wrong, what if I become a laughingstock? [They swallow hard.] The truth is? I’m nervous. Nervous as hell. [Then their voice changes. It’s almost as if they’re smiling.] But… I love the ocean, and I love the study, and I love the things that live in the depths. I want this more than I fear it. Audio diary of Joanna Fenistil, signing off.