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Sleep Dealer

Sleep Dealer is set in a future, militarized world marked by closed borders, virtual labor, and a global digital network that joins minds and experiences, where three strangers risk their lives to connect with each other and break the technology barriers.

Memo Cruz works at a factory, one of several sleep dealers. Workers in these factories are connected to robots across the border, so they may control them. The story is told as a flashback, as Memo remembers his home in Santa Ana Del Rio, Oaxaca. His father wants him to participate in growing crops on the meager family homestead. Memo's passion, however, is electronics and hacking. Memo and his father must trek on foot to buy water by the bag while monitored by security cameras armed with machine guns. The media on American hi-def TV shows glimpses of a technological dystopia, although in a positive light with superficial spin-doctoring. Memo is building an electronic receiver that can tap into communications as a hobby. As he continues to work on it, its range increases to faraway cities.

One summer, a remote-controlled military aerial vehicle operated by the security forces of Del Rio Water catches Memo monitoring a frequency used by the drones. This act warrants a brutal attack. He disconnects in time before the drone can locate him with certainty. On another occasion, he and his brother watch a live TV broadcast about a drone action that is about to destroy a building known to be intercepting drone communication. They quickly realize that the building is their own home, where Memo has his equipment, and run to save their father, whose life is in danger. However, they are too late, and the vehicle launches a rocket at the father, wounding him. The drone pilot then faces their father, seeing him through the drone’s camera, before killing him. The drone pilot is a Mexican-American named Rudy Ramirez. After the tragedy Memo boards a bus to Tijuana to find work in order to help sustain his family.

On that same bus Memo meets Luz Martínez. Memo notices that Luz has nodes on the wrist for interfacing with the digital network and asks her where he can get them for free. She tells him that he can find someone, known as a coyotek, to connect him by asking around in a certain alley. Luz has loans and may default. She makes a living by uploading memories to an online memory trading company, TruNode, where viewers pay for content. Luz uploads her memory of meeting Memo to TruNode expecting nothing to come out of it.

Memo is robbed of his money during his first attempt to seek a coyotek. He finds an abandoned shack in which to stay at the edge of the city, where other node workers live. Luz gets a sale for her memory of Memo and a prepaid offer for her next memory of him. Luz finds him and learns he is out of money. She helps him get a node job at a bar that has the equipment. She is the coyotek, having learned from her ex-boyfriend, and she does him a favor.

Luz tries to upload more experiences. TruNode makes her reveal feelings rather than just the story. The person who requested the information is revealed to be Ramirez working for Del Rio Water. Luz and Memo open up to each other and have connected sex. Upon receiving the next upload, Ramirez has his doubts confirmed that his work made him kill a good man.

Memo discovers that Luz has been paid to upload her memories of him, and so he leaves her feeling betrayed. He works overtime at the sleep dealer, risking exhaustion. Luz writes to him and mails him a recording of her memories as a parting gift. In the meantime, Ramirez has crossed the fortified US-Mexican border to meet Memo. As Ramirez explains himself, Memo tries to run, perceiving danger. Ramirez catches up and explains he was under orders and offers to help.

Memo rejoins Luz and recruits her help to connect Ramirez to the network. He accesses the Del Rio Water security network to control one of the company's drones. Upon discovery that Ramirez is not heeding orders, other drones pursue Ramirez. After heated aerial dogfighting, Ramirez manages to blast a hole in the dam, directly where Memo's father had once tossed a pebble in helpless frustration. Memo receives news from his home and neighboring subsistence farms, celebrations of returning ancestral waters, albeit not necessarily a permanent one. Ramirez goes farther south in Mexico as he can no longer return to his family in the US. Memo moves on with his life in Tijuana.