Breather

Geographer ANNA (30s) has cadged a dive in a one-compartment, tiny sub, which has now suffered catastrophic systems failure. Technician POWERS (male) and pilot SPICER (female) put the problems down to the outdated vessel being given them. As oxygen depletes in confinement lit only by a Zippo, a torch, the LEDs and a monitor conflicting values boil. A patch to the mothership, via the umbilical cable it's coupled to, has WALTERS (male) revealing that all the topside crew is ashore due to food poisoning. Suspicions mount when the emergency oxygen is non-existent. Anna identifies a 'red tide' (man-made dilapidation of the seabed). She couldn't live with herself if she didn't get the issue exposed. But there's no mobile signal at this depth. The oxygen gauge shows 50% left.

Walters turns out to be Anna's exe (which is how she knew the dive schedules). He's rigged the failures and absenteeism to facilitate revenge on Anna for calling things off, as well as preventing her publicising the marine damage, which would adversely affecting the company. The dead crew will be hailed heroes in laying communication cables. He raises the sub a ways, then lets it plummet. Coming to from concussion, Anna finds Spicer dead, murdered by Powers, who thinks it's situation hopeless and wants to go out having sex with Anna. He swallows a tiny capacitor from the circuitry. The oxygen gauge shows 25% left.

Pandering to Powers's S/M proclivities, Anna strangles him with her phone cable. Capacitor retrieved, she susses a rewire in the OS manual to crank up the sub manually. Pressure causes a viewport seal to leak. Rising, she vows to Walters to actively oppose his neoliberal ethos. He puts her faulty thinking down to the bends and sends a noxious gas down. Anna must mask her face, and also deal with a reanimated Spicer. Oxygen gauge shows zero. Anna surfaces the sub. Stars twinkle beyond the Perspex. Vents open. Anna takes a deep, refreshing breath, cries like a new-born baby. Walters fires a harpoon through the viewport, piercing Anna's heart. She manages to send her news viral. A helicopter heard returning, Walters retreats. Job done, Anna's smile freezes.