Summaries

Synopsis

Los Angeles, December 30th, 1999.

The story opens with a man saying "Ok, hit me...". There's a burst of TV static and the scene shifts immediately to a group of three men riding in a car. They are handing out pistols to each other and covering their faces with nylon stockings. The man in the back seat pulls a stocking over his head and it covers his point-of-view: we realize we are witnessing the event as it happens to him, through his perspective.

The car stops at a convenience store and the men rush in, quickly pacifying customers and the Asian owners of the store. They empty the cash register and force one of the owners to empty the safe. The hostages are eventually herded into a food locker and are shut inside. As the robbers try to leave through the front entrance of the store, they run straight into several policemen. One of the men decides to take his chances and rushes the cops. The two remaining robbers are chased back through the store and out a back door which leads to a staircase. They climb the stairs rapidly with the cops in fast pursuit behind them. They reach the roof where a helicopter shines a light on them. One of the robbers jumps across to another roof and lands safely. The man whose perspective we have been watching is unable to make the jump and ends up hanging on the edge while his buddy frantically tries to pull him up. The cops arrive and fire a few shots and the robber loses his grip on the ledge and plummets to the ground. A burst of static is seen and we see blackness.

At that moment, Lenny Nero, who has been watching a recording of the robbery, yells and pulls a strange, spider-like device off his head. He tells his technician, Tick, that he hates the kind of "playback" where someone dies. Tick still expects full payment for the clip Lenny watched, saying he had to recover his equipment, a small recording box and the "tape", a small compact disc, from the morgue. Lenny agrees to pay Tick the full amount and asks Tick what other recordings he has to sell.

Lenny himself deals in a virtual reality-type of recording where people record their personal experiences that can be played back by anyone Lenny sells them to. The slang for the experience is called "jacking in". Lenny's argument for selling the recordings is that they allow anyone to experience life events without having to actually participate, especially in illegal activity or extra-marital affairs or pornography. The technology used to create the recordings was developed by law enforcement for evidence gathering and is illegal to buy or sell in the civilian sector. Lenny meets with a potential client and nearly has him convinced to buy his product when he's accosted by a cop who turns out to be his friend Max. The client is scared off and Max treats Lenny to a drink. Lenny, it turns out, is a former cop who was drummed out of the LAPD by his former supervisor, Commissioner Strickland.

At an LA subway stop, a frightened woman is being chased by two LAPD officers. She barely manages to board the subway car and one of the officers, Steckler, grabs her hair through the closing doors. The woman's hair is a wig, which comes off her head. Steckler shoots uselessly at the car. His partner, Engleman, picks up the wig and shows it to Steckler. Hidden inside is a strange-looking circuited skullcap, a SQUID (Superconductive QUantum Interference Device), which records the wearer's thoughts. The cops are clearly upset that the woman got away.

While Lenny & Max enjoy their drinks, an announcement is made on the news that a famous hip-hop musician, Jeriko One, has been found murdered. Jeriko had drawn much criticism from city leaders and the LAPD for openly criticizing them in his lyrics and public speaking events. His agent, a man named Philo Gant, gives a brief commentary, saying that Jeriko was a voice for the oppressed.

Iris, the woman chased by the two cops, shows up near the bar and drops a playback disc with a note attached into Lenny's car. Even more frightened and nervous than she already is, she finds Lenny in the bar and tells him she's in trouble and that Lenny's former lover, Faith, is also in trouble too. Lenny follows Iris outside but, because Iris is terrified, can't get any useful information from her. A cop car rolls by and scares her off. Moments later, Lenny's car is towed. Lenny calls a friend, Mace, who comes by with her limousine and picks Lenny up. Mace also has to pick up a rich client, Mr. Fumitsu. While they ride together, Lenny tries to schmooze Fumitsu & the two discuss the latest technology associated with jacking-in. Their conversation angers Mace, who stops the car and drags Lenny out, telling him she doesn't like him dealing in her car, that Lenny's always broke and he's becoming strung-out on his own product. Mace's reprimand is mostly ignored by Lenny but she seems to get through to him. She takes him and Fumitsu to an exclusive club owned by Faith's boyfriend, Philo, where Faith is singing. Lenny first meets with another contact, Tex, who gives him a disc left with him for Lenny. Lenny watches Faith perform and then confronts her when she sits with Philo. Faith refuses to take Lenny seriously and Philo has him ejected from the club by his goons.

Lenny is picked up by Mace again and watches the disc Tex gave him. In the playback, a man breaks into a hotel room through the balcony door and pulls a ski mask over his face. He looks directly at the hotel's menu ledger showing that the hotel is the Sunset Regent. He stalks through the room until he finds a woman, Iris, who tries to run out the door but is tazed and dragged into the bathroom. She's handcuffed to the towel rack and her attacker puts a playback SQUID on her head, connecting it to his own unit, forcing her to experience his own feelings. The attacker then chokes Iris with a towel while simultaneously raping her. Iris dies and the rapist turns off the feed. Lenny panics and tells Mace to take him to the Sunset Regent immediately. When they arrive, Iris is being taken out on a stretcher.

Lenny takes the recording to Tick's place. Tick tries to identify the equipment in the recording but can't tell if it's his. He also says that the rapist is colorblind and has an unusual brainwave pattern, indicating psychosis. Tick becomes very frightened, thinking he could be implicated. He also recalls that Iris was looking for Lenny. Mace surmises that Iris left something in Lenny's car.

Mace takes Lenny to the impound lot and they break in and find Lenny's car. Lenny finds the disc and note that Iris left. As they leave, Steckler & Engleman appear and demand the disc at gunpoint. Lenny gives them a disc and is nearly shot when the impound lot's Rottweiler (whom Mace had pacified with mace) jumps on Steckler. Lenny and Mace escape to her limo and take off, with the cops right behind. Mace is forced to stop at a dock. Steckler pours gasoline on the car and sets it on fire. Mace drives it into the harbor, extinguishing the flames. She pulls out the back seat and she and Lenny escape through the trunk. When they reach the surface, the cops have left. Mace scolds Lenny for giving up the disc, but Lenny tells her he merely gave them a sex recording of himself and Faith and shows Mace the real disc.

Lenny goes home and falls asleep on his couch. In the morning, he finds a new disc. When he watches it, he sees his own apartment and the colorblind vision of Iris' killer as he picks the front door lock and enters. The rapist finds Lenny on the couch and holds a box-cutter to his throat. Lenny immediately gets his pistol and stalks to his kitchen where he finds Mace. He goes to Tick's place to see if Tick can identify the man in the clip, but he finds Tick catatonic. From Tick's perspective, we only see bursts of static and color and a faint image of Lenny trying to talk to him. Lenny says Tick had been forced to wear a SQUID with the signal boosted to a dangerous level, causing severe brain damage in his frontal lobe. Technically, Tick hasn't been murdered but will never recover.

Mace takes Lenny to her brother's house where a New Year's Eve party is being held. He watches the disc Iris left behind and then tells Mace she needs to watch it too, despite her hatred for the medium. In the recording, which is from Iris' point-of-view, Iris is riding in a jeep with Jeriko One. With the two of them are a couple of friends. They are pulled over by the police, who reveal themselves to be Steckler and Engleman. They are ordered out of the Jeep and Jeriko is forced to his knees with his hands behind his head. Steckler berates Jeriko for his politically-charged music, which blatantly criticizes the LAPD. Jeriko provokes Steckler who opens fire and kills Jeriko & his & Iris' friends. Iris runs and makes it across some nearby railroad tracks just as a train goes by, temporarily cutting off Steckler and Engleman's pursuit. The tape fades out (and the story picks up with Iris' escape from the cops in the subway station the day before). Mace is clearly upset at the incident and decides to help Lenny get the clip to the authorities.

Lenny and Mace go to the largest Millennium New Year's Eve party in the city, one that they know both Philo and Faith will attend, along with Max and Commissioner Strickland. Mace dresses in an elegant gown and secures a pistol to her upper thigh. Lenny goes off to find Faith in Philo's room in the hotel and Mace tries to find Commissioner Strickland and give him the clip of Jeriko's murder. Strickland threatens to have Mace arrested for carrying illegal material but she convinces him to watch the clip. Philo's security guards catch up with her and begin to follow Mace through the throng of party guests, however she drives them off.

Lenny takes the elevator to Philo's rented suite. He finds signs of a struggle and a body covered by a sheet. On a table is a disc player and a note for him. He watches the clip inside and sees another stalking by the same colorblind man who killed Iris. This time, the victim is Faith. Lenny watches helplessly as Faith is seemingly strangled and raped by the attacker, but she isn't killed and she even says she enjoyed the near-death experience. Her attacker turns out to be Max, who has been carrying on a secret affair with Faith. As they finish having sex, Philo appears. Max immediately beats Philo, telling Faith that Philo hired him (Max) to kill her and forces him to watch the clip of Faith being "attacked", forcing the muzzle of his pistol into Philo's mouth. Max then turns up the signal on the player, causing Philo the same permanent brain damage that Tick suffered. Under the sheet in the room, Lenny finds Philo, who is completely helpless.

Up in the hotel room, Max talks to Lenny about how he'd been hired by Philo to follow Faith and how he and Faith had fallen in love. After killing Iris, Max and Faith plotted against both Philo and Lenny. Max also shoots Philo, killing him, intending to pin the murder on Lenny. Max aims his pistol at Lenny, but Faith, not wanting to see Lenny killed, stops him. Max and Lenny fight each other until Max breaks through one of the suite's windows and hangs high above the street by Lenny's tie. Lenny seizes a knife Max had stabbed him in the back with and cuts his tie and Max plunges to the street. Faith is arrested as an accomplice to Philo's assault by Max.

On the street, Mace has been discovered by both Steckler and Engleman. They follow her through the streets. When they catch up to her, Mace engages them both and handcuffs them to each other. While she holds a pistol on them, more police show up and demand she drop her weapon. When she complies, they begin to beat her with their batons as Steckler and Engleman cheer them on. Suddenly, Strickland shows up with a small police unit, orders an end to the beating. Steckler claims that Mace has assaulted them both. Strickland shows them the incriminating clip and says that they're both under arrest for murder. Engleman shoots himself in the mouth with his own pistol and Steckler, still cuffed to his partner, drags the body after Mace. When he points his pistol at Mace, the police open fire, killing Steckler. People celebrate and couples kiss as 1999 counts down to 2000.

On the street, Lenny finds Mace. The two embrace and allow themselves to ride in separate ambulances. Lenny leaves his and finds Mace again and they embrace and kiss as the Millennium party goes on around them.