Two students at a West Coast university, Arian and Ernest, at the urging of their idealistic professor, Dr. Malley, attempt to do something important with their lives. They make the bold decision to enlist in the army to fight in Afghanistan after graduating from college. Dr. Malley also attempts to reach a talented and privileged but disaffected student, Todd Hayes, who is not at all like Arian and Ernest. He is naturally bright, comes from a privileged background, but has apparently slipped into apathy upon being disillusioned at the present state of affairs. Now, he devotes most of his time to extra-curricular activities like his role as president of his fraternity. Malley tests him by offering a choice between a respectable grade of 'B' in the class with no additional work required or a final opportunity to re-engage with the material of the class and "do something." Before Todd makes his choice, he must listen to Dr. Malley's story of his former students Arian and Ernest and why they are in Afghanistan. Meanwhile, in Washington, D.C., a charismatic Republican presidential hopeful, Senator Jasper Irving, has invited liberal TV journalist Janine Roth to his office to announce a new war strategy in Afghanistan: the use of small units to seize strategic positions in the mountains before the Taliban can occupy them. The senator hopes that Roth's positive coverage will help convince the public that the plan is sound. Roth has her doubts and fears she is being asked to become an instrument of government propaganda. She informs her commercially-minded boss of her plans to call out the senator's new strategy for what she feels is a ploy, but is shot down. Ultimately, Irving's version of the story is run without the critical interaction. Whether Roth gave in and toed the company line or quit her job is not clear. In Afghanistan, a helicopter carrying Arian and Ernest is hit by Taliban insurgents. Ernest falls out, and Arian jumps after him. Ernest's leg is badly wounded, and he suffers a compound fracture, rendering him immobile as the Taliban arrive. After a drawn-out gunfight, the U.S. soldiers run out of ammunition. Rather than getting captured, Arian helps Ernest stand up, facing the enemies and turning their empty weapons against them, an action which prompts the Taliban to kill them. The unit commanders attempt a rescue of the downed soldiers, sending A-10 Warthogs, but weather, time, and distance interfere. Hayes is watching television with a friend. A reporter is discussing a singer's private life, while below runs a strip announcing Senator Irving's new military plan for Afghanistan. Hayes suddenly falls quiet, contemplating the choices with which his professor had left him.

In 2029 Los Angeles, the Mercy Capital Court responds to a surge in crime by using artificial intelligence (AI) judges to try defendants for violent offenses. To assemble evidence, all devices are also registered to the municipal cloud to allow the AI judge to pass judgement. The AI judge also gives the defendants all available resources to find and provide all the evidence needed to prove their innocence in 90 minutes, or be executed via a sonic blast. Los Angeles Police Department Detective Christopher "Chris" Raven, a strong proponent of the court, is strapped to a chair, put on trial for his wife Nicole's murder, and is given 90 minutes to persuade the AI judge of his innocence. Presiding over his case is the AI Judge Maddox. All the evidence points to Chris having killed his wife, as her blood was found on his clothing and doorbell camera footage places him at their home shortly before her murder. Chris's guilt probability is 97.5%, which qualifies him for execution unless his evidence lowers it to 92% for reasonable doubt and 80% for a Mercy Trial. Since AIs are not allowed to take a human life, the chair is set on a 90 minute timer not controlled by the AI, and it is the defendant’s responsibility to lower their score and this allows the AI to unlock the chair before the timer runs out. Via Maddox's unrestricted access and abilities, Chris learns that Nicole was seeing another man, Patrick Burke. Chris's partner Jacqueline "Jaq" Diallo finds Patrick who confides that Nicole felt unable to communicate her troubles to Chris about work. Her work email records show reports of missing chemicals. Recalling hosting a work barbecue with Nicole, Chris reviews footage to better identify her co-workers. While looking for evidence, Chris confronts his relapse in sobriety following the murder of his former partner, Ray Vale, and regrets not shooting the suspect who was later acquitted. Relapsing into alcoholism led to Chris's aggression toward Nicole, and she began to consider a divorce. Maddox shows Chris records of one co-worker, Holt Charles, who had financial issues and had discussed the chemical disappearance with Robert "Rob" Nelson, Chris's sobriety sponsor. Suspecting Holt may have killed Nicole, Chris tries to contact Rob. Holt instead answers the phone and he explains that Rob is responsible for the missing chemicals. Chris reviews his daughter Britt's social media posts, which reveal that a stranger had been hiding in their basement since the barbecue. His neighbor's security cameras display a rustling in the bushes, and Rob is seen exiting the neighbor's trunk in parking lot surveillance footage. Chris sends Jaq to Rob's house, warning her and her team that he might be armed. The SWAT team arrive at Rob's house, finding it empty, but uncover detailed plans in the shed to craft a bomb. Maddox discovers that Rob's brother, David Webb, who was separated from him after Rob was adopted and given a new name, was the first person Mercy Court executed for murder. Chris realizes that Rob is orchestrating revenge against him and the Court. Chris is officially acquitted for the murder, but refuses to end the trial to exploit Maddox's unrestricted access. He tries to contact Britt, but footage from her grandparents' front door shows Rob kidnapping her and taking her into a stolen semi-truck. A bomb goes off in the shed killing most of the SWAT team. Jaq pursues Rob, who is transporting explosives toward Mercy Court to destroy the building with Chris inside. The police divert Rob away from Mercy Court, and Jaq, assuming command, orders the task force to blow up the truck. Chris pleads with Jaq but she refuses to yield to him. The bomb fails to detonate and Jaq attempts to shoot Rob directly. Rob arrives at Mercy Court, crashing into the building and causing a network glitch that requires a system reset. Maddox reboots in time to release Chris from the chair before the trial ends with his execution. Chris confronts Rob, working with Maddox to distract Rob by having Mercy Court reopen David Webb’s case and demanding Rob to submit his new evidence immediately. Chris then disarms Rob as he speaks and wants to kill him, but is talked down by Britt. Jaq arrives and shoots Rob. Rob provides new evidence that he was on the phone with David when the murder took place, but the police would not listen. Maddox confirms the call's timing and location which placed the phone away from the crime scene. Then Maddox retrieved footage that showed Jaq retrieving that phone from David, removing it from evidence, and dumping it in the river. Jaq explains she wanted to ensure that David was found guilty in the first judgement issued by an AI court to prove the system worked. Jaq and Rob are both taken into custody while Britt reconciles with Chris, whose case is formally dismissed. Maddox and Chris admit mistakes were made by humans and AI and they must learn from their mistakes.

In late 1969, U.S. Naval Intelligence officer Charles Rone is contacted by "The Highwayman", a veteran spy and member of a freelance espionage ring that sells information to the highest bidder. The Highwayman recruits Rone for an intelligence operation, along with Janis, "The Whore", a drug dealer and panderer; "The Warlock", a culturally sophisticated homosexual; and B.A., a thief. The group must retrieve a letter, written without proper authorization, that promises United States aid to the Soviet Union in destroying Chinese atomic weapons plants. The letter was solicited on behalf of a high-level Soviet official by a man named Dmitri Polyakov. Polyakov had previously been selling Soviet secrets to the U.S. that he had obtained from the high-level official. Upon learning about the letter, U.S. and British authorities arranged to buy it back from Polyakov. However, Polyakov later committed suicide after being apprehended by Soviet counterintelligence, under the direction of Colonel Yakov Kosnov. The group blackmails Captain Potkin, the head of Soviet counterintelligence in the U.S., threatening his family to force him to allow them the use of his vacant apartment in Moscow. Once they arrive in the USSR, the terminally ill Highwayman sacrifices his life, attempting to divert the attention of Soviet counterintelligence away from his team. To ascertain the identity of Polyakov's contact, Janis enters a partnership with a brothel operator, who mentions a Chinese agent known as "The Kitai" as a possible source for names of officials and others to whom he can sell heroin, with which Janis already plans to keep the prostitutes addicted. Meanwhile, the Warlock integrates himself into a community of intellectual homosexuals, starting an affair with a university professor. One of the professor's students was Polyakov's former lover. The student says that Polyakov had a relationship with Vladimir Bresnavitch of the Central Committee. Years before, Bresnavitch sought to oust Kosnov from his job, in favor of Robert Sturdevant, a primary operator in The Highwayman's old group. Prior to that time, Kosnov and Sturdevant had been friendly, with each one trusting the other to allow his agents to operate in the other's territory. However, with the pressure from Bresnavitch, Kosnov decided that he had to do "something spectacular" to keep his job. He betrayed Sturdevant's trust and captured his agents, earning the enmity of Sturdevant himself. Sturdevant eventually disappeared and presumably committed suicide. Bresnavitch had used Polyakov to fence stolen art works in Paris, so Ward, an old partner of the Highwayman and a member of Rone's current group, decides to go there in search of leads. On the day of his return, Potkin reaches the Soviet Union and informs Bresnavitch about Rone's operation. Janis, B.A. and Ward are apprehended, while The Warlock commits suicide before being captured. Rone escapes and tries visiting the Kitai to arrange re-purchase of the letter. However, the Kitai responds by trying to kill Rone, who determines that the Chinese have the letter. Rone then turns to Kosnov's wife Erika Beck, with whom he has been having an affair. Rone eventually realizes that Bresnavitch orchestrated the raid without the knowledge of Soviet counterintelligence, an indicator that he was Polyakov's traitorous Soviet official contact. Rone promises to help Erika escape to the West. She later reports that B.A. has taken poison and is expected to die. Rone threatens to expose Bresnavitch unless Ward is released. Bresnavitch agrees, and Rone and Ward then arrange to leave the next day. Disapproving of Rone's plans to aid Erika, Ward kills her. Ward then approaches Kosnov. He begins listing the names of agents betrayed by Kosnov, says that the time has come for retribution and shoots Kosnov in the kneecap. Kosnov then seems to recognize Ward, who closes in on him. Kosnov soon begins screaming. While heading for a plane to leave the country, Rone shares with Ward his conclusions that Ward is actually Sturdevant and intends to stay, having made a deal with Bresnavitch to take over as the head of Soviet counterintelligence. Ward then reveals that B.A. is alive. He offers to release B.A. in exchange for a favor, handing Rone a note that reads, "Kill Potkin's wife and daughters or I kill the girl."

In 1988, 11-year-old Dade "Zero Cool" Murphy is banned from owning or operating computers and telephones until his 18th birthday, after his family is fined US$ 45,000 for his crashing of 1,507 computer systems, causing a 7-point drop in the NYSE. On his 18th birthday, Dade has moved to New York City with his mother, and his ban is lifted. While he hacks into a local TV station, another hacker by the handle of "Acid Burn" counters Dade's attack and eventually kicks him out. At school, Dade joins a group of hackers: Ramon "The Phantom Phreak" Sanchez, Emmanuel "Cereal Killer" Goldstein, Paul "Lord Nikon" Cook, Joey Pardella (a novice hacker without an alias and the youngest member), and Kate "Acid Burn" Libby—the hacker who kicked him out of the TV station earlier. Joey, out to prove his skills, breaks into a "Gibson" supercomputer owned by the Ellingson Mineral Corporation. While he is downloading a garbage file as proof of his feat, his mother disconnects his computer, leaving him with a fragmented file. His intrusion has been noticed and brought to the attention of computer security officer Eugene "The Plague" Belford, a former hacker. Plague realizes that the downloaded garbage file is a worm he himself inserted to defraud Ellingson. Claiming the file is the code to the "Da Vinci" computer virus that will capsize the company's oil tanker fleet, and pretending the hackers are to blame, he enlists the U.S. Secret Service to recover the file. In fact, Plague had inserted the "Da Vinci" virus as a red herring to cover for his worm. Joey is arrested and his computer is searched, but he had hidden the disk containing the file. Dade and Kate make a bet: Dade chooses a date with Kate if he wins, and Kate has Dade be her slave if she does. The hacking duel targets Secret Service Agent Richard Gill, who was involved in Joey's arrest. After various hacks, including canceling Gill's credit cards, fabricating a criminal record, and changing his payroll status to "deceased", the duel remains a tie. Released on bail, Joey reveals the disk to Phreak, who is arrested the next day, and informs Kate that the disk is hidden in a bathroom at school. Dade refuses to help Kate and Cereal Killer as he has a record, but copies the disk so they have untampered evidence. Determining that Dade did not hack into Ellingson, Plague sends him a powerful laptop and asks Dade to join him. He later threatens to have Dade's mother incarcerated with a manufactured criminal record, forcing Dade to deliver a copy of the disk. Kate, Lord Nikon, Cereal Killer, and Dade learn that the code is a worm designed to steal $25 million from Ellingson transactions, and that the Da Vinci virus is set to capsize the oil tanker fleet the next day to provide cover and distract from the worm. Dade confesses that he gave Plague a copy of the disk and reveals his hacking history as "Zero Cool". Dade and Kate seek out Razor and Blade, producers of Hack the Planet, a hacker-themed TV show. Lord Nikon and Cereal Killer learn that warrants for their arrest are to be executed at 9 a.m. the next day. The next morning, Dade, Kate, Nikon, and Cereal roller-blade from Washington Square Park, evading the Secret Service by hacking the traffic lights. Meeting up with Joey at Grand Central Terminal, they use payphones and acoustic couplers to hack the Gibson. At first, their attempts are easily rebuffed by Plague, who calls Dade to taunt him. Razor and Blade have contacted hackers around the world, who lend their support and distract Plague long enough for Joey to download the file. After crashing the Gibson, Dade and company are arrested. Dade cryptically informs Cereal Killer that he has tossed the disk in a trash can. As Dade and Kate are being interrogated, Razor and Blade jam TV signals and broadcast live video of Cereal Killer revealing the plot and Plague's complicity. Plague is arrested by Gill on board a flight while attempting to flee to Japan. Their names cleared, Dade and Kate begin a relationship.

Steven Grlscz, a charming, intelligent and reclusive vampire, selects single women as targets for his feedings. Steven can only feed on victims who fully feel love for him, as blood alone isn't enough; to this end he thoroughly researches each woman, and then manipulates her into falling in love before feeding on and killing her. Afterwards Steven is forced to expel slender, intricate crystals (physical forms of a person's dominant emotion) from his body if the love she felt was overshadowed by another emotion, such as despair or disappointment. The pain of doing so is akin to passing kidney stones, and thus Steven seeks a perfect lover in order to prevent this. After Steve watches police officers remove the body of one of his former lovers from a tree, he happens upon another woman, Maria Vaughan, in the Waterloo Station of the London Underground. He prevents Maria from committing suicide and begins dating her. This results in Maria falling for Steve. He eventually proposes to her, but immediately afterwards Steve entices Maria to his bedroom, where he drains her blood. After disposing of the body of Maria, Steven is seen by a passerby, who notices his van and later mentions this to the police. Maria's corpse is found after being netted by an illegal fishing boat, prompting Steven to call the police. Two detectives come to question him and his relationship to the victim, and while he appears innocent enough, lead Inspector Healey is immediately suspicious of Steven. While visiting a nearby factory, Steven notices another potential target: an engineer named Anne Levels. Anne's independence and quirky charm intrigue Steven, who asks her out. The two begin a relationship, although Anne is quick to note Steven's mysterious nature. Inspector Healey and Sergeant Roche continue to trail Steven as their prime suspect. Following Steven and Anne after a dinner date, Healey is attacked by a small gang in the Underground. The gang's leader takes Healey's crucifix, a gift from his wife, but Steven appears and manages to talk the gang into letting Healey go unharmed. Still wary of his suspect, Healey is nevertheless grateful to Steven for his help. The relationship between Steven and Anne progresses, but Steven soon notices that his healing abilities are starting to weaken, with a small cut continuing to bleed for days. Meanwhile, Healey is able to obtain a photograph of the van's driver, but a glare prevents anyone from clearly seeing Steven's face. Still, Steven is called in for a police line-up, with a toll operator Steven had earlier encountered acting as an eyewitness. The witness cannot remember who he had seen due to seeing hundreds of people that day, to the disbelief of the police; there is an implication that Steven might have had something to do with this memory lapse, as it is revealed that he can see through the one-way glass concealing the toll operator and inspectors. Anne and Steven are later attacked by the gang from the Underground, who demand Anne in exchange for Steven to be let go. Steven goes with the gang members, but after getting enough distance Steven overpowers them and saves Anne from being assaulted. The couple spends the night together, and Steven finds himself genuinely falling in love with Anne. The pair converse about a psychological concept: the notion that people have three minds (the human mind, the mammalian mind and the reptilian mind, with the lattermost representing primal or survival instincts). The movie's title comes from this conversation, during which Anne, sharing a childhood incident with Steve, asks him whether her actions were driven by the "horse"/mammalian mind or the "crocodile"/reptilian mind. Steven is met at work by Healey, who informs him that he is no longer a suspect in the murder of Maria, though the inspector personally remains unconvinced of Steven's supposed innocence. Steven and Healey share their philosophies about good and evil, and before parting ways Steven returns Healey's crucifix, which he had taken back from the gang. After this, Steven is called by Anne, who insists that she come to his apartment to see him. When she arrives, Steven attempts to drink from her as he did Maria but finds himself unable to go through with it. He finally reveals the truth to a horrified Anne, who tries to run from him. He confesses to her that he loves her and does not wish to kill her. Steven informs Anne that, due to not having fed on the blood of a lover, he is slowly dying; even a small wound would kill him within twenty minutes from blood hemorrhage. Despite the danger and knowledge that he has murdered others, Anne decides to stay and look after him. Steven's body is ultimately driven to near-death by his hunger. He informs Anne that he has run out of bandages, and she offers to go buy some. She returns early and sees Steven preparing to finally kill her. He chases Anne to the roof, and though she claims to no longer love him, Steven states that even if there's no more love in her heart, it's still in her blood, which would suffice. Rather than be fed on by Steven, Anne leaps off the roof. Steven is able to grab her arm in time, but she uses a metal chopstick (doubling as a hair stick and Anne's "lucky charm") to stab his hand. Steven screams in agony but manages to hold on and pull Anne to safety. She departs, shaken, as the mortally wounded Steven retreats to his apartment study, reminiscing as he finally dies, with the sketches of all the women he had targeted over the centuries surrounding him.

Sergeant Chris Vaughn is a former Green Beret who returns to his small hometown in Kitsap County. Looking for work, Chris finds that the local cedar mill was closed down three years earlier by its owner, Jay Hamilton, who opened a casino that now accounts for the majority of the local area's revenue. Hamilton, who was Chris' school friend, invites him to a night of fun at the casino. While checking out the VIP lounge, Chris stumbles upon his childhood friend Deni, who is now working as a stripper. He notices the craps dealer using loaded dice and demonstrates this to the patrons. When the floorman refuses to pay out, Chris instigates a fight. Although Chris beats most of the security guards, he is subdued with a cattle prod. In the basement, Hamilton's head of security, Booth, cuts Chris' torso with a utility knife and leaves him for dead. After recovering, Chris attempts to press charges, but Sheriff Stan Watkins refuses, saying the casino is untouchable. Chris learns that his nephew Pete has overdosed on meth, which was sold to his friends by the casino security guards. Furious, Chris arrives at the casino and, using a piece of lumber as a club, destroys casino property and brutally beats the security guards. Sheriff Watkins and his deputies apprehend Chris as he drives away. In the ensuing trial, Hamilton's security and staff testify against Chris. When the judge allows Chris to present his defense, he fires his appointed attorney, whom he suspects of working for Hamilton. Chris gives a civic speech about the town's former glory and promises to clean it up if acquitted. To further emphasize his plea, Chris reveals the grotesque scars on his torso. Chris is acquitted and wins the sheriff's election. Upon taking office, Chris summarily dismisses the entire police force and deputizes his friend Ray Templeton. Being a former drug addict, Ray teaches Chris about narcotics. Chris and Ray crack down on a supply spot and take Booth into custody. Despite stripping his truck into pieces in front of him, Booth reveals nothing. Chris assigns Ray to stand watch over his house in case Hamilton targets his family. Chris remains at the sheriff's office to supervise Booth. Deni visits him, brings him food, and reveals that she quit her job. The next morning, Watkins and his deputies arrive at Chris' office, blow up his truck, and fire upon the building with machine guns. Recognizing his dangerous predicament, Booth pleads for Chris to let him out of his cell. Chris uses the situation as leverage, and Booth reveals that the drug lab is in the cedar mill. Booth is killed immediately by the attackers' indiscriminate fire, but Chris kills the attackers with Deni's help. Chris' parents' house is also attacked, but Ray and Chris' father dispatch the gunmen. After ensuring their safety, Chris heads for the mill. Hamilton, calmly waiting in a control room, attempts to kill Chris with the mill equipment. Chris drags Hamilton through a trap door with him, and the two fall through a chute. Chris, whose leg is injured, tends to his injury in a nearby forest before Hamilton attacks him with an axe. Chris cripples Hamilton and arrests him. With Ray's assistance, Chris shuts down the casino and reopens the cedar mill.

In 1983, teenagers Martin Asher and Matt Soulsby meet on a bus to Mont-Laurier, Quebec. The bus breaks down, and the two acquire a car, which soon blows a tire. As Matt changes the tire, Martin comments that they are about the same height and kicks him into the path of an oncoming truck, killing both him and the driver. Taking Matt's guitar and clothes, Martin continues on foot, singing in a voice similar to Matt's. 21 years later, American FBI profiler Illeana Scott is summoned to Montreal by SPVM Inspector LeClair, to assist the local authorities in apprehending a serial killer who assumes his victims’ identities, enabling him to travel undetected across North America. Illeana interviews art dealer James Costa, an eyewitness to the killer's most recent murder. He makes a drawing of the killer, so the authorities track down the suspect's apartment, finding a decaying corpse chained to the ceiling. Martin's mother, Rebecca, claims to have seen her son, believed dead in Matt's place years earlier, alive on a ferry to Quebec City, leading to the body buried as Martin being exhumed for forensic examination, and he becomes the primary suspect. At Rebecca's home, Illeana questions her about her son, learning that Martin was an unwanted child who became unstable after the death of his favored twin brother. Illeana finds a hidden passageway behind a cabinet leading to Martin's secret room, where she is attacked by a hidden assailant, who escapes before she can identify him. Illeana deduces that Asher targets his victims to live as someone different than himself and that his latest target is James after his apartment is ransacked. He is used in a sting operation to lure Asher, but the trap fails. During a show at his gallery, James is attacked by an assailant, presumed to be Asher, whom Illeana tries to apprehend but loses in the crowd. The police prepare to move James out of town, but he is confronted by the assailant, who attacks him and kills his police escort before driving away with James at gunpoint. Illeana gives chase, causing the car to crash and explode just as James manages to escape. James visits Illeana's hotel room, where, having grown close over the course of the investigation, they make passionate love surrounded by gruesome crime scene photos. Illeana awakens to find herself covered in James’ blood, but he has merely popped the stitches he received after the car chase. As James’ stitches are repaired in the hospital, Illeana is called to the morgue, where Rebecca is unable to identify the charred body of the assailant, and Illeana realizes that Asher must still be alive. Before Illeana can reach her, Rebecca enters the elevator and is confronted by James, revealing himself as the real Martin Asher. He kills his mother, and Illeana is shocked to see him covered in blood before the elevator doors close again, and he escapes the hospital. The police determined that the assailant killed in the car chase was Christopher Hart, a drug addict and art thief to whom Asher owed money. In the struggle in his apartment, Asher killed Hart and staged being taken hostage. Pursued by the police, Asher escapes by train and selects his next victim, taunting Illeana by phone before disappearing. Admitting to having consensual sex with Asher, Illeana is fired from the FBI. Seven months later, Illeana is living alone in a desolate farmhouse in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, apparently heavily pregnant with Asher's twins. She is confronted by Asher, who declares that they can start over and live together as a family, but Illeana refuses. Enraged, Asher beats her and prepares to choke her into unconsciousness, seizing a pair of scissors from her when she defends herself and stabbing her in the belly. Illeana stabs Asher in the heart with the same scissors and removes her prosthetic pregnant belly, explaining that the past months were a carefully planned trap. He dies, and Illeana informs LeClair that the ordeal is over.

Moscow City Police officers Ivan Danko and Yuri Ogarkov lead a sting operation against Georgian mafia kingpin Viktor Rostavili, who manages to evade capture and in the ensuing firefight kills Ogarkov, before fleeing to the United States. There, Rostavili is arrested for a minor traffic violation in Chicago and Danko is subsequently dispatched to America to retrieve the felon, under strict orders not to reveal the true nature of Rostavili's extradition. Upon arriving in Chicago, Danko is met by Chicago Police Department detectives Art Ridzik and Max Gallagher. As he is interrogating Rostavili, Danko confiscates a mysterious key from him. While Rostavili is being transported to the airport, the group is ambushed by several men, and Gallagher is shot and killed, allowing Rostavili to escape. Against the wishes of the American authorities, Danko remains in Chicago to apprehend Rostavili, and Ridzik is assigned to be his minder. Through an informant, Danko and Ridzik learn that Rostavili is working with local drug dealers called The Cleanheads under the guidance of imprisoned criminal kingpin Abdul Elijah, to purchase and smuggle cocaine into the Soviet Union. The duo confront Rostavili's American wife, dance school instructor Cat Manzetti, but are led into an ambush where Rostavili demands that Danko return his key, forcing the pair to retreat. Danko and Ridzik go to the hospital to interrogate one of Rostavili's henchmen who was injured during the earlier ambush, but he is killed by another one of Rostavili's accomplices disguised as a nurse. Danko subsequently shoots and kills the assassin. Ridzik's superior, Commander Lou Donnelly, confiscates Danko's gun, as he is not licensed to carry one in the United States, and orders him to cease the investigation. Ridzik, who still wants to avenge his partner's murder, secretly gives Danko his spare gun. Manzetti is then murdered by Rostavili. Returning to his hotel, Danko is attacked by Rostavili's men. While Danko kills them off, Rostavili sneaks into his room and steals the key. Ridzik takes Danko to visit a locksmith, where they match the key to ones produced for lockers at a bus terminal. Rostavili uses the key to retrieve his drug shipment, and steals an empty bus just as Danko and Ridzik arrive. Chasing him in another bus, Danko and Ridzik cause Rostavili to crash into an oncoming freight train. As Rostavili crawls out of the wreckage, he kills the engineer, and is killed by Danko in the process. Later, Ridzik takes Danko to the airport. As a token of their new friendship, they exchange wristwatches. Danko tells Ridzik they are policemen, not politicians, so it is okay for them to like each other. The scene closes with Danko saluting while in Red Square in Moscow.

Working with his three friends at their new software development company Skullbocks, Stanford graduate Milo Hoffman is recruited by Gary Winston, the CEO of the software corporation NURV. Milo is offered an attractive programming position with a large paycheck, an almost-unrestrained working environment, and extensive creative control over his work. After accepting, Hoffman and his girlfriend, Alice Poulson, move to NURV headquarters in Portland, Oregon. Despite development of the flagship product (Synapse, a worldwide media distribution network) being well on schedule, Hoffman soon becomes suspicious of the excellent quality source code that Winston personally provides to him, seemingly when needed most, while refusing to divulge the code's origin. After his best friend and fellow computer programmer, Teddy Chin, is murdered, Hoffman discovers that NURV is stealing the code they need from programmers around the world—including Chin—and then killing them. NURV not only employs an extensive surveillance system to observe and steal code, the company has infiltrated the Justice Department and most mainstream media. Even Hoffman's girlfriend is a plant, an ex-con hired by the company to spy on and manipulate him. In a secret NURV database of employee surveillance dossiers, Hoffman discovers highly-sensitive personal information about Lisa Calighan, a friendly co-worker. When he says he knows the company has this information about her, she agrees to help him expose NURV's crimes. Coordinating with Brian Bissel, Hoffman's old start-up friend, they plan to use a local public-access television station to hijack Synapse and globally broadcast their charges against NURV. However, Calighan is actually Winston's accomplice and foils Hoffman. When the plan fails, and as Winston prepares to kill Hoffman, a backup plan is put into motion. Off-screen, Hoffman had previously confronted and convinced Poulson to turn against NURV; she, the fourth member of Skullbocks, and NURV's incorruptible security contractors usurp one of NURV's own work centers—"Building 21"—and transmit incriminating evidence with the Synapse code. Calighan, Winston, and his entourage are arrested by the FBI for their crimes. After amicably parting ways with the redeemed Poulson, Hoffman rejoins Skullbocks.

At a sleepy gas station, the pump attendant is attacked by an animal infected by an unknown organism manifesting as large protruding splinters. A young couple, Seth Belzer and Polly Watt, drive for a romantic camping trip in the forests of Oklahoma, but are car-jacked by an escaped convict, Dennis Farell, and his drug-addict girlfriend, Lacey Belisle. The group gets a flat tire when they run over a splinter-infected animal on the road. They find shelter at the now-abandoned gas station. Lacey discovers the horribly-infected pump attendant, writhing in the bathroom. She is attacked and killed by the monster, but her corpse slowly reanimates and becomes a new creature, which attacks the remaining survivors. While fighting her, Seth, Polly and Dennis discover that severed pieces of the infected victims are capable of attacking on their own. Sheriff Terri Frankel arrives and attempts to arrest Dennis, but is ripped in half by Lacey's corpse. The creature takes the top half of the officer's body and bonds with it, becoming a larger creature. The trio hide in the walk-in refrigerator when a piece of the creature's arm attacks them. It is discovered that Dennis has been infected, as his left arm violently twists on its own. Seth and Polly amputate his arm to prevent the infection from spreading. Dennis explains that he had been pricked by a splinter from the dead creature they encountered on the road. Seth discovers that the creatures themselves are a fungus taking control of the corpses they infect and consuming the blood in the body, using the currently zombified host to seek out fresh and new hosts. Because of this, they hunt based on temperature and attack the warmest thing they can find. By lowering his body temperature with bags of ice, Seth sneaks past the creature to the police car, while Polly and Dennis distract it with fireworks. Seth discovers that, without the keys, the car and the police radio inside are useless. His body temperature rises again, forcing Dennis to leave the gas station to lure the creature away from him. The creature enters the gas station, and Dennis and Polly hide in the freezer. The discarded fireworks ignite a trail of flammable liquid, and the gas station catches on fire. Seth retrieves a shotgun from the police car and helps Polly and Dennis escape. Dennis is infected after helping to keep the creature at bay while Seth and Polly escape. He shoots one of the gas pumps with the shotgun, and the creature is engulfed in flames, killing it. Dennis, still infected, gives Seth and Polly a key to a bank account, telling them to give it to the wife of a man he shot, who later died. Dennis shoots directly into the propane tanks, incinerating himself, the station, and any remaining infected corpses. Seth and Polly wander into the distance as other infected creature corpses lie dormant in the woods.

In the near future, humanity lives in a technologically advanced, dystopian society. The government requires that everyone receive an ocular implant that records everything they see. The implant provides an augmented-reality head-up display to the user with information about anyone and anything they may see, as well as recording the user's view. Investigations into crimes amount to detectives reviewing video and assessing whether an alleged perpetrator is innocent or guilty. Sal Friedland, a detective with the metropolitan police force, crosses paths with a young woman who appears to trigger a glitch in his ocular implant, as no data about her is retrieved. When he reviews his own record of that day, he finds that every single frame of her has been mysteriously deleted. At work, Sal is handed several homicide cases where the victims' own visual records of their deaths are replaced with the killer's point of view, thus hiding the killer's identity. At another murder scene, Sal chases the apparent killer only to nearly be killed when they hack his implant and change what he sees in real time. It is discovered that all the victims hired someone with the expertise to delete pieces of their visual records that were either humiliating or incriminating. The detectives determine that the unknown woman Sal encountered earlier has the ability to manipulate the system in this way, making her their primary suspect. Sal goes undercover, creating a false history as a stockbroker who engages in a brief affair with a prostitute. Using this as the pretext for her services, he makes contact with the woman —who uses the handle 'Anon'— and asks to have his encounter with the prostitute deleted. With his team on standby in the adjacent apartment, the initial plan to apprehend Anon fails when she successfully covers her tracks. Sal and Anon develop a personal relationship. She discovers Sal's true identity and flees, apparently killing one of Sal's colleagues in the process. Anon begins to harass Sal for his betrayal, tormenting him with his worst memories, deleting his memories of his dead son, and causing further hallucinations. His superiors confront him after his neighbor turns up dead with a bullet from Sal's gun in him rejecting his explanation and order him off the case. Despite being under house arrest, Sal tracks Anon to her apartment and tells her that she is being investigated for multiple murders. She reveals that she already knows this and that she is being framed by another hacker with a similar skillset. Anon shows Sal her video record of the second sting operation, in which his colleague was killed, seeming to prove that she is innocent. After showing Sal her records, she flees again. Believing Sal has become too personally involved, his superiors suspend him from active duty. The actual killer attempts to murder him in his apartment, revealing himself to be Cyrus Frear, one of the technical experts from the police department. Cyrus has been obsessed with Anon for years killing anyone who had sex with her out of jealousy and erased every trace of her, even peoples' memories. During a physical altercation between Cyrus and Anon, Sal draws his weapon, but realizes that Cyrus is seeing what he sees in real-time. To defeat this advantage, Sal fires blindly towards Cyrus, successfully killing him. Anon leaves, later revealing to Sal that she is able to bypass the vast surveillance network by disseminating her records in microsecond slices throughout everyone else in the network, rendering her untraceable. When Sal asks her why she is so desperate to hide her identity, she tells him that her quest for anonymity is not because she has something to hide, but merely because she does not want to share herself with the world.

CIA Officer James Silva leads a top secret CIA Special Activities Division unit, code-named Overwatch, to infiltrate a Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) safe house in the United States. Under the supervision of James Bishop, Overwatch's mission is to locate and destroy shipments of caesium before the highly toxic substance can be weaponized to kill thousands. The unit kills the occupants, while Overwatch Agent Alice Kerr is wounded. One of the Russians, an 18-year-old named Anatole Kuragin, falls out of a window during an explosion after failing to save the caesium. Silva executes Kuragin despite his pleading, and everyone escapes. Sixteen months later, Indocarr (a fictional country loosely based on Indonesia) police officer Li Noor surrenders at the United States Embassy to negotiate for passage out of the country in exchange for information on the remaining caesium. Kerr vouches for Noor's reliability as an asset, but he refuses to reveal the password to an encrypted, self-destroying disc until he is safely on a plane. While Noor is being tested, Kerr tries to come to terms with her family issues. Axel, leading a team from the Indocarr State Intelligence Agency, arrives at the embassy and demands that Noor be handed over as Noor fends off an assassination attempt by Indocarr government agents. Overwatch Agent Sam Snow and Kerr arrive, shocked at his combat prowess, learning that Noor used to be Indocarr Special Forces. Silva agrees to take Noor to an airplane 22 miles away. Noor reveals he is turning on the corrupt Indocarr government because it killed his family. Bishop's surveillance feed blacks out, then comes on again. During the blackout, Axel's men place a bomb on the car, which explodes. While Silva's unit helps fend off Axel's men, Sam is mortally injured. Silva gives Sam two grenades and leaves her, letting her suicide-attack the remaining henchmen. Silva, Noor, Kerr, and another Overwatch Agent, William Douglas, enter a restaurant. Silva sees Axel and walks toward him despite Bishop's orders. Axel tells James to give up Noor, but James refuses. While returning, he brushes past two girls and realizes that there is a grenade in the restaurant; he tackles civilians before it explodes. When the dust clears, Douglas is severely wounded, and Silva is attacked by the girls. Noor helps Silva kill them. While going to a safe house, Douglas dies while holding off Axel's men. After taking cover in an apartment complex, Kerr is separated and meets a young girl. Kerr and the girl escape harm by using booby-trapped grenades. Silva and Noor split up, fighting Axel and his henchmen. Silva and Noor meet up again, as well as the young girl Kerr saved. She leads them to Kerr, who is losing against a henchman, until Noor kills him. On the way to the air strip, the remaining team members briefly confront Axel. Exasperated, Silva has Overwatch destroy his car with a drone strike. The team barely makes it to the airplane. Li Noor boards the airplane, along with Kerr who is going to meet her family once again. While on the airplane, Bishop notices Noor's heart rate is accelerating, and it is revealed that Noor is not a double agent, but a triple agent working for the Russian government, and Kuragin was the son of a high-ranking official within that government. The official hired Noor to give Alice the wrong information, so they would trust him. Just as Alice realizes this, Bishop's Overwatch surveillance team is raided. The entire team is shot and Bishop walks outside to die. Silva refuses to acknowledge that Alice is killed on the plane. Silva realizes this too late and details his experiences during a post-mission debriefing. Back at home, Silva puts up Noor's picture, vowing revenge.