To escape a stalker, Sawyer Valentini moves away from her Boston home. Still paranoid and traumatized, she talks with a counselor at Highland Creek Behavioral Center, who tricks her into signing a consent form for voluntary 24-hour admission to a locked psychiatric hospital. Sawyer calls the police, who can do nothing due to the signed form. During the night, stress causes Sawyer to lash out at a patient and a staff member. Consequently, the staff psychiatrist retains her for seven more days. Another patient, Nate Hoffman, reveals to Sawyer that Highland Creek is running a scheme to exploit health insurance claims. They trick people into voluntarily committing themselves as long as the patients' insurance companies continue to pay; when insurance claims run out, the patient is "cured" and released. One day, Sawyer sees David Strine, her stalker, working as an orderly under the pseudonym George Shaw. Borrowing Nate's secret cellphone, Sawyer calls her mother Angela. David gives Sawyer a large dose of methylphenidate, causing her to appear insane. That evening, when Angela arrives to attempt to get Sawyer out, David approaches her posing as a hotel employee, and kills her. David tortures Nate then kills him with an overdose of fentanyl. Sawyer finds Nate's phone under her pillow, with images of Nate badly beaten. She alerts the staff, who dismiss and put her in solitary confinement. David visits Sawyer and says he has a secluded mountain cabin he wants to take Sawyer to. Sawyer mocks him for his inexperience with women. David later returns and reveals he faked that Sawyer's insurance ran out, changing her status to released. In a forest, the body of the real George Shaw is found. To buy time, Sawyer feigns concern that David is a virgin, and that she does not want to be his first. She convinces David to have sex with another woman and suggests Violet, who previously threatened Sawyer with a shank, and he brings her to the solitary confinement cell. Sawyer uses Violet's shank to stab David in the neck and flees as he kills Violet. He recaptures Sawyer outside, and she wakes up in the trunk of his car next to her mother's corpse. Jumping from the moving car, Sawyer flees into the woods. David catches up and breaks her ankle with a hammer. Sawyer stabs him in the eye with Angela's cross and slashes his throat with the shank. Meanwhile, it is revealed that Nate was an undercover investigative journalist sent to investigate Highland Creek. Police execute a warrant on the center and arrest the hospital administrator. Six months later, while having lunch, Sawyer sees David sitting nearby. She approaches with a knife, but upon realizing it is not him, she drops the knife and runs away.

After the death of her husband and a failed love affair with married Royal Air Force Group Captain Richard Paterson, Judith Farrow, a British Home Office assistant, meets Soviet attaché Colonel Feodor Sverdlov while on vacation in Barbados, but their budding personal relationship does not go unnoticed by British intelligence. Judith is enchanted by a story that the seeds of a tamarind tree on a certain plantation take the form of the head of a slave hanged from a tamarind. Sverdlov, on the other hand, dismisses the story as a mere fairy tale. Returning to London, Judith finds a surprise gift from Sverdlov: an envelope containing a tamarind seed. Convinced that Sverdlov is recruiting Judith to be a spy, British intelligence officer Jack Loder has his hands full with a clandestine Russian spy, code-named "Blue", when he learns that his assistant, George MacLeod, is having an affair with Margaret, the wife of a British diplomat Fergus Stephenson, who is a conduit of state secrets. Loder cautions Judith, who is to contact him if she hears from Sverdlov. Meanwhile Sverdlov, assigned to the Soviet Embassy in Paris, suspects that his boss, General Golitysn, distrusts him, and insists that Judith can be recruited as a spy. Sverdlov steals the "Blue" file, his bargaining chip with London to get asylum in Canada, and finagles a romantic stop in Barbados, where he is to meet Judith. Sverdlov eludes an assassination attempt by Golitsyn's agents at London Airport and meets Judith in Barbados, where they consummate their relationship. But the General jets in a group of Soviet agents disguised as businessmen to attack the bungalow with napalm, an explosive bullet-riddled event that kills most of the agents when British agents intercede. The event reportedly kills Sverdlov, destroys the "Blue" file, and traumatizes Judith. Loder later meets Judith in Barbados, where he divulges that newspaper accounts of Sverdlov's death were a false cover; seconds before the explosion, Sverdlov was whisked away to Canada by Loder's assistant, MacLeod. Her doubts dissolve when Loder gives her an envelope that contains a tamarind seed. Loder now knows that "Blue" is Fergus Stephenson, a double agent he can manipulate with low-grade information for Moscow, until the Soviets believe that Stephenson is a double agent against themselves and kill him, Loder postulates. Later on, in a Canadian mountain valley, Judith and Sverdlov meet again and share a lovers' embrace.

Richard Gaddis is a small-time crook with a penchant for con games. To hook marks, he acts and dresses like a well-to-do businessman, believing that one must look like a professional in order to be a successful conman. Gaddis is searching for a new partner with whom he can perform more sophisticated cons. He discovers Rodrigo after he sees the young man playing some minor con games in a casino - bar. When Rodrigo is caught, Gaddis acts the part of a vice officer to save him from being arrested. Rodrigo's contribution is a face and naive manner so trustable that he is able to con anyone, while Richard is both completely unprincipled and clever. After several small tests to determine Rodrigo's trustworthiness, he suggests a partnership, to which Rodrigo quickly agrees. Although Rodrigo distrusts Richard greatly, he agrees to partner him on a gigantic scam, provided he gets a percentage of the money gained to help his ailing father, who is in trouble because of his gambling debts. Richard accepts, and they plan to sell a fraudulent version of a silver certificate currency note to William Hannigan, a rich collector who is in town. When Hannigan takes a fancy to the uptight Valerie, Gaddis' sister who is a concierge at a hotel, Gaddis is forced to pull her into the scam, the price of which is Richard's admission to their brother Michael that he has cheated him out of his share of their inheritance. The plot twists constantly as each of the characters becomes more deeply invested in the scam, and the ever-deceitful Richard tries to cheat Rodrigo, Valerie and Michael out of their share of the take. In a twist ending, it is revealed that all the major players involved, including Rodrigo and Hannigan, were playing a "confidence game" against Gaddis from the very beginning, so that Valerie and Michael could rightfully take their share of their inheritance.

Film producer James Ballard and his wife, Catherine, are in an open marriage. The couple engages in various trysts, using the intimate details of their extramarital encounters to fuel their own sexual relations. Catherine recounts a sexual encounter she had that day with a stranger in a prop plane hangar, but she was left unsatisfied. When James responds that he did not achieve satisfaction during his own encounter with a coworker due to an interruption by a film crew member, Catherine replies, "Maybe the next one." One night, while driving home from work, James's car collides head-on with another, killing its male passenger. While trapped in the fused wreckage, Dr. Helen Remington, the driver and the dead passenger's wife, exposes a breast to James as she removes the shoulder harness of her seatbelt. During his recovery, James meets Helen again and also encounters Robert Vaughan, who shows a keen interest in the brace holding James's shattered leg together. After departing the hospital, Helen and James begin an affair, driven primarily by their shared experience of the car crash. They attend one of Vaughan's cult-like performance pieces, where he meticulously recreates the car crash that killed James Dean using replica cars and stunt drivers. When Department of Transport officials break up the event, James flees with Helen and Vaughan. James soon becomes one of Vaughan's followers, who fetishize car crashes, obsessively watch car safety test videos, photograph traffic collisions, and recount the deaths of famous people in road accidents. Catherine, who has noticed Vaughan following her in his car on several occasions, begins to fantasize about him and James having sex. Although Vaughan initially claims that he is interested in the "reshaping of the human body by modern technology," his true project is living out the philosophy that the car crash is a "benevolent psychopathology that beckons toward us." James drives Vaughan's Lincoln convertible around the city while Vaughan picks up a prostitute and has sex with her in the back seat. James and Catherine have sex while Catherine fantasises about James and Vaughan having sex. Shortly after, James invites Catherine on one of his and Vaughan's drives. They see police search Vaughan's convertible in connection with a pedestrian hit-and-run, leaving Vaughan distressed. On an interstate, they come across a car wreck involving Colin Seagrave, a member of the group who had been planning to authentically recreate the car accident that killed Jayne Mansfield with Vaughan. Amongst the wreckage, the three see Colin's bloodied corpse, dressed in a blonde wig and a dress to resemble Mansfield. Vaughan photographs the scene as they pass by. James notices some unexplained blood on the fender and drives them through a car wash while Vaughan and Catherine have sex in the back seat. Back home, Catherine lies in bed with visible, though superficial, wounds from Vaughan's touch, crying while James touches her. James subsequently has a tryst with Gabrielle, another member of the group, whose legs are clad in restrictive steel braces and who has a vulva -like scar on the back of one of her thighs from a crash injury. He tears her fishnet stockings open and penetrates her scar. Later, Vaughan invites James to visit a tattooist, who inks car emblems on Vaughan's body. Afterward, James and Vaughan have sex in Vaughan's car. When Vaughan rams his car into Catherine's while it is unattended, he and James aggressively pursue each other. On an overpass, Vaughan intentionally crashes his car, landing on a passenger bus below and killing himself. After Vaughan's death, Gabrielle and Helen visit a junkyard, kissing and affectionately embracing while lying in the wreck of Vaughan's car. Later, James and Catherine perform a similar stunt, with James pursuing her at high speed on a freeway. Catherine unbuckles her seatbelt as she sees James approaching, and he rams into the back of her car, causing it to topple down into a grassy median. James exits his car and approaches Catherine's, which has flipped upside down. Catherine lies partly under the car, apparently only superficially injured. When James asks if she is okay, she tells him she is not hurt. As the couple kisses and begins to have sex partly underneath the wrecked vehicle, James whispers to a crying Catherine, "Maybe the next one."

John Hancock is an alcoholic, reckless superhuman imbued with flight, invulnerability, and super-strength. Acting as a haphazard and unrefined superhero in Los Angeles, he is shunned, ridiculed and hated by the public for his drunken and careless crime fighting acts and rude and unpleasant disposition. Hancock rescues Ray Embrey, a community-minded but struggling public relations specialist, from an oncoming train, but also accidentally derails it in the process. In gratitude, Ray offers to help improve Hancock's public image and hopes that he will be the spokesperson for his charitable brand, "All Heart". Hancock meets Ray's family, his son Aaron, and his wife Mary, who is suspicious of him. Ray encourages Hancock to issue a public apology and surrender himself to local authorities, hoping that it will build public confidence in Hancock and create demand for him to return. Hancock reluctantly agrees and is placed in prison where he easily fends off attacks from other inmates but struggles to connect with his support groups for alcohol abuse and anger management. Ray visits frequently, encouraging Hancock to be patient, and later Ray's family visits as well, bringing him homemade spaghetti with meatballs. The crime rate in Los Angeles rises and Hancock is eventually released to help. Sporting a new leather super suit, he successfully rescues a wounded police officer during a bank robbery shootout and hostage situation orchestrated by Red Parker, ending when Hancock prevents Parker from using a ' dead man's switch ' by slicing off his hand and turning both over to the police. The public applauds Hancock as a hero and the officers praise him for ending the crisis without loss of life. Hancock has dinner with Ray and Mary and reveals that he is an amnesiac and immortal, having woken up in a hospital 80 years ago with no memory of his identity. Ray tells Hancock that Mary is Aaron's stepmother and that his biological mother had died in childbirth. Carrying a drunk Ray home, Hancock kisses Mary, who kisses him back but then throws him through the wall, revealing that she also has superpowers. The next day, Hancock and Mary speak in private. She explains that ancient cultures called them gods or angels (and now superheroes) and that there were more like them in the past; however, their peers inevitably bonded in pairs as soulmates, lose their powers in the process, live human lives and eventually die. When Mary refuses to answer questions about their connection, the two begin a brawl that moves through L.A. During the fight, Mary reveals that they were together for three thousand years and are the last of their kind, but the two stop fighting when they reach Ray, who confronts them about the secrecy. Hancock leaves and stops a store robbery, but he is shot and finds that a bullet has hurt him. While receiving hospital treatment, Mary explains that the closer they are, the more mortal they become, and they will lose their powers unless they stay apart. The last time Hancock and Mary were together was eighty years ago when Hancock was attacked and she fled so that his powers would return. Parker escapes prison with several inmates and attacks the hospital to get revenge. Mary is caught in the crossfire and injured. Hancock manages to use some of his fading strength to fight and kill the convicts but is injured when Parker shoots him. Ray saves him by cutting off Parker's other hand with a fire axe before killing him. Hancock throws himself out of the hospital, trying to increase his distance from Mary so they can both recover, before flying off. A month later, Ray and his family receive a call from Hancock (who is now in New York City), revealing that he has imprinted the Moon's surface with Ray's "All Heart" marketing logo. In a mid-credits scene, Hancock confronts a criminal holding a woman at gunpoint and demanding that he help him escape from the police. Hancock shows restraint when dealing with the criminal but does smile when the gunman insults him indicating that the felon is about to have a bad day.

In August 1904, Sabina Spielrein arrives at the Burghölzli, the pre-eminent psychiatric hospital in Zürich, suffering from hysteria and begins a new course of treatment with the young Swiss doctor Carl Jung. He uses word association and dream interpretation as part of his approach to psychoanalysis and finds that Spielrein's condition was triggered by the humiliation and sexual arousal she felt as a child when her father spanked her naked. Jung and chief of medicine Eugen Bleuler recognize Spielrein's intelligence and energy and allow her to assist them in their experiments. She measures the physical reactions of subjects during word association, to provide empirical data as a scientific basis for psychoanalysis. She soon learns that much of this new science is founded on the doctors' observations of themselves, each other, and their families, not just their patients. The doctors, Jung and Freud, correspond at length before they meet, and begin sharing their dreams and analysing each other, and Freud himself soon adopts Jung as his heir and agent. Jung finds in Spielrein a kindred spirit, and their attraction deepens due to transference. Jung resists the idea of cheating on his wife, Emma, and breaking the taboo of sex with a patient, but his resolve is weakened by the wild and unrepentant confidences of his new patient Otto Gross, a brilliant, philandering, unstable psychoanalyst. Gross decries monogamy in general and suggests that resistance to transference is symptomatic of the repression of normal, healthy sexual impulses, exhorting Jung to indulge himself with abandon. Jung finally begins an affair with Spielrein, including rudimentary bondage and spanking. Things become even more tangled as he becomes her advisor to her dissertation; he publishes not only his studies of her as a patient but eventually her treatise as well. Spielrein wants to conceive a child with Jung, but he refuses. After he attempts to confine their relationship again to doctor and patient, she appeals to Freud for his professional help, and forces Jung to tell Freud the truth about their relationship, reminding him that she could have publicly damaged him but did not want to. Jung and Freud travel to America. However, cracks appear in their friendship as they begin to disagree more frequently on matters of psychoanalysis. Jung and Spielrein meet to work on her dissertation in Switzerland and begin their sexual relationship once more. However, after Jung refuses to leave his wife for her, Spielrein decides to go to Vienna. She meets Freud and says that although she sides with him, she believes he and Jung need to reconcile for psychoanalysis to continue to develop. Following Freud's collapse at an academic conference, he and Jung continue correspondence via letters. They decide to end their relationship after increasing hostilities and accusations regarding the differences in their conceptualisation of psychoanalysis. Spielrein marries a Russian doctor and, while pregnant, visits Jung and his wife. They discuss psychoanalysis and Jung's new mistress. Jung confides that his love for Spielrein made him a better person. The film's footnote reveals the eventual fates of the four analysts. Gross starved to death in Berlin in 1920. Freud died of cancer in London in 1939 after being driven out of Vienna by the Nazis. Spielrein trained several analysts in the Soviet Union before she and her two daughters were shot by the Nazis in 1942. Jung emerged from a nervous breakdown to become the world's leading psychologist before dying in 1961.

In the 2000s, Amanda is an aimless 25-year-old Italian woman who feels alienated from her wealthy family—particularly her mother and her older sister—and struggles to form meaningful social connections after finishing school in Paris. Despite having the opportunity to work in her family's pharmacy business, she instead spends her time wandering the city, frequenting the local cinematheque and raves in search of friends, trying to forge online connections via video chat rooms while staying in a hotel room funded by her parents, and visiting an aging horse tied up at a nearby farm. At her mother's suggestion, Amanda visits Rebecca, the daughter of her mother's friend Viola and a childhood friend she has not seen for many years. A former athlete, Rebecca lives a reclusive life, rarely leaving her room and regularly attending psychotherapy sessions at home. After Rebecca slams her bedroom door on Amanda without saying a word, Amanda learns from Viola that she and Rebecca were inseparable as toddlers before Amanda's family moved away. Convinced that she and Rebecca could have been best friends all along, Amanda becomes determined to rekindle their friendship. After Amanda repeatedly tries to force her way into Rebecca's room, Rebecca finally lets Amanda in and they warm up to each other. At a rave, Amanda meets a boy whom she suspects is a drug dealer, but he clarifies he hands out free condoms at raves. The two go out to eat and become acquainted, after which Amanda saves his contact as "My Boyfriend" on her phone. When the boy invites Amanda to his upcoming birthday party, telling her she can bring someone, she invites Rebecca to accompany her. As the two girls continue to spend time together, Amanda moves in temporarily with Rebecca, though Amanda becomes jealous of Rebecca's therapist, Ann. The boy from the rave tells Amanda to stop texting him incessantly as he is dating another girl, leaving her heartbroken. Back at Rebecca's house, Ann instructs Amanda to tell Rebecca that she is leaving for Paris, before declaring that Amanda's borderline personality traits are not good for Rebecca. In despair, Amanda flees, steals the horse and returns to Rebecca's house with the horse, leaving it in the garden. She then goes to Rebecca's room and tries to persuade her to run away with her, but Rebecca agrees with Ann's assessment and reveals that Viola made Rebecca befriend Amanda when they were children because everyone felt sorry for Amanda. Devastated, Amanda leaves. Amanda moves back into her family's villa, and her relationship with her mother and sister gradually improves. Viola approaches Amanda, asking her to reunite with Rebecca. Amanda tells Viola that Rebecca can find her at the local cinematheque, but Rebecca never shows up. Later, the boy from the rave accuses Amanda of crashing his party the previous night and setting off firecrackers in his living room, but she denies it. Realizing that this was Rebecca's doing, Amanda goes to her house and thanks her. Rebecca confesses that she rode to the party on horseback, but the firecrackers scared off the horse. Amanda and Rebecca set off in search of the horse, suggesting a tentative reconciliation.

A joint operation between the FBI and the MVD in Moscow leads to the demise of the younger brother of Azerbaijani mafia boss Terek Murad. Intending to retaliate, Murad hires an ex- KGB asset, an international hitman operating under the codename "The Jackal ", to assassinate an unidentified prominent American for $70 million. Two weeks later, the MVD capture and interrogate one of Murad's henchmen, Viktor Politovsky, and discover the assassination plot. The interrogation, coupled with recovered documents, leads the FBI and MVD to suspect that FBI Director Donald Brown is the intended target. Using a series of disguises and stolen or forged IDs, the Jackal prepares for the assassination attempt. FBI Deputy Director Carter Preston and Russian Police Major Valentina Koslova turn to imprisoned IRA sniper Declan Mulqueen for help. They believe that his former lover, a former ETA militant and fugitive named Isabella Zancona, can identify the Jackal. Mulqueen reveals that he also knows the Jackal and his methods and agrees to help in exchange for his release as well as U.S. citizenship and safe haven for Zancona. Mulqueen and Zancona want revenge on the Jackal after he wounded her in Libya, causing her to miscarry their unborn child. Zancona, now married, provides information to help identify the Jackal, including that he is a United States Army Special Forces veteran with combat experience from his stationing in El Salvador and describes him as sociopathic with no emotions. Zancona discreetly slips Mulqueen a key to a dropbox containing a clean passport and $10,000 cash to return to Ireland. However, Preston had earlier threatened Mulqueen that if he escaped, if he refused to cooperate, or if an IRA squad tried to rescue him, he would be shot. Meanwhile, when the Jackal arrives in Montreal to collect a large caliber weapon, a contact notifies him that hijackers are pursuing it. The Jackal kills one hijacker with an extremely poisonous chemical and evades the others. He then hires Ian Lamont, a mechanic and small-time hoodlum, to build a control mount for the weapon. The Jackal demands that all design specs be turned over to him, and he also requires Lamont's complete confidentiality. When Lamont, underestimating the threat represented by this assassin, tries extorting more money, the Jackal kills him during a live-fire test of the weapon. The FBI discovers Lamont's remains and evidence that the Jackal intends to use a long-range heavy machine gun for the assassination. The Jackal sails across the Great Lakes to Chicago, where he evades the FBI and almost kills Mulqueen, leading Mulqueen to deduce there is a mole tipping off the Jackal. They discover that the director of the Russian Embassy in Washington, D.C., gave the Jackal a direct access code to FBI records, allowing him to track down and kill Koslova and two FBI agents. Before dying, Koslova – passing on a taunt from the Jackal – tells Mulqueen that " cannot protect his women". As the Jackal drives to Washington, D.C., Mulqueen deduces from the Jackal's mocking statement that his target is not Director Brown, but in fact the First Lady of the United States, who is scheduled to give a public speech. The Jackal, masquerading as a gay man, dates Douglas, a man he encountered earlier in a bar; unbeknownst to Douglas, he uses his garage to store his weapon. When a news report exposes the Jackal's identity, he kills Douglas. On the date of the First Lady's speech, the weapon is hidden in a minivan parked near the speaker podium, with the Jackal planning to shoot the First Lady via remote control. However, before the Jackal can take his shot, Mulqueen uses a marksman's rifle to destroy the weapon's scope and takes off in pursuit of the Jackal, while the sniper accompanying Mulqueen blows up the van's fuel tank. The Jackal blindly opens fire before his vehicle is destroyed, causing Preston to be shot and wounded while tackling the First Lady to safety. Following a chase through the Washington Metro tunnels, Mulqueen confronts the Jackal, who is then shot from behind by Zancona; however, the Jackal's gun discharges a shot, and Mulqueen is also wounded. While Zancona tends to Mulqueen, the Jackal, though severely wounded, has survived: he tries to retrieve a spare weapon. Seeing this, Mulqueen grabs Zancona's pistol and shoots the assassin several times, finally killing him. A few days later, Preston and Mulqueen witness the Jackal's burial in an unmarked grave. Preston reveals that he is returning to Russia to pursue Terek Murad and his gang, and that Mulqueen's request to be released was denied but he will likely be moved to a minimum security prison. Preston also remarks that his heroics in saving the First Lady have made him "untouchable" within the FBI: knowing his current clout will prevent any backlash against him, he turns his back on Mulqueen, allowing him to go free.

Advocate Steve Myers (Billy Connolly) is a disillusioned lawyer who becomes fed-up with the corruption within the judicial system. He quits law, buys a small fishing boat and takes up fishing for a living. Steve's fishing boat is struck by lightning and explodes into pieces, burns and sinks. He informs his insurance company, which reviews and then subsequently declines his claim on the grounds that it is not liable as his fishing boat was destroyed due to an " act of God ". Frustrated that his claim is repeatedly declined, Steve files a claim against God, naming religious officials (Christian, Jewish, Muslim, etc) as representatives of God and thereby the respondents. The religious leaders, their respective lawyers and their insurance companies get together to find a way to settle this dilemma, which catches the fancy of the media. It is in court that God's representatives will have to admit that the destruction of Steve's fishing boat was actually God's act, accept and compensate him, or deny it altogether thereby denying God's existence, leaving the onus on Steve to prove his claim. Steve's battle brings media attention leading to a meeting with journalist Anna Redmond (Judy Davis) who helps to raise his public profile, enlisting the support of others who had fallen victim to insurance companies' "acts of God" clause. He also faces heavy criticism and protests from religious groups as his profile grows, and he backs the church into a disadvantageous position. However, the attention takes its toll on Steve's family, who are exploited by the media, his ex-wife already crippled by debt as the guarantor of the boat. Steve faces a reality check as his family considers moving to Perth, on the other side of the country. Meanwhile, Anna Redmond comes under fire for a history of disputes and attacks on insurance companies, drawing criticism that the case is little more than a publicity stunt. Facing a drawn out legal battle and the impact it would have on those around him, Steve decides he has won a moral victory, and withdraws from the case but not before convincing the judge that insurance companies' use of the term "acts of God" is a misleading term.

When an unspecified global catastrophe looms, an underground city known as Ember is constructed to shelter a large group of survivors. In addition, a small metal box intended for a future generation of Emberites is timed to open after 200 years. This box is entrusted to first Mayor of the City of Ember, and each Mayor passes it on to their successor. When the seventh Mayor dies suddenly, the box is placed in a closet and forgotten about. The box opens by itself at the allotted time but goes unnoticed. Several decades later, Ember's generator begins to fail, and food, medicine, and other necessities are in dangerously short supply. At a rite of passage event for all graduating students of Ember City School, Mayor Cole stands before the students as their adult occupations are assigned by lottery. Doon Harrow, the son of inventor and repairman Loris Harrow, is assigned "Messenger" while his classmate Lina Mayfleet is assigned "Pipeworks Laborer". Shortly afterwards, the two secretly exchange assignments and Doon is apprenticed to the elderly technician Sul. At home, Lina, a descendant of the seventh Mayor, finds the opened box and enlists Doon's help to decipher its contents. Gradually, they learn that it contains a set of instructions and directions for an exit from the city in the Pipeworks, left by the city's builders. Later, after evading a gigantic star-nosed mole, they also discover that Mayor Cole has been hoarding food in a secret vault for his own benefit while the people go hungry. When Lina attempts to report this, the Mayor captures her and tries to confiscate the box, but she escapes during a blackout. Now fugitives from the Mayor's police, Lina and Doon, accompanied by Lina's baby sister, Poppy, use the instructions and assistance from Sul to flee the city via a subterranean river. When the repercussions of their actions trigger a panic in Ember, the Mayor locks himself in his vault, only to be devoured by the giant mole. Lina, Doon, and Poppy eventually reach the Earth's surface, where they witness a sunrise for the first time. They also locate Ember through a hole in the ground, too far for them to call to anyone. Before they explore, Lina and Doon write a letter with instructions on how to get out of the city, which they tie to a rock and throw down to the city. The rock lands by Loris' feet, who picks it up.

Dr. Samantha Unger, CEO of Europa Ventures, narrates the story of the Europa One mission. Six astronauts embark on a privately funded mission to Jupiter's moon Europa in an attempt to find extraterrestrial life. The crew members are commander William Xu, pilot Rosa Dasque, chief science officer Daniel Luxembourg, marine biology science officer Katya Petrovna, junior engineer James Corrigan, and chief engineer Andrei Blok. After six months of mission time, a solar storm hits the ship, knocking out communication with mission control. Blok and Corrigan perform an extravehicular activity (EVA) to repair the system from outside, but an accident rips Blok's suit. While he is being guided back into the airlock, Blok notices that Corrigan's suit has been coated with hydrazine and he cannot enter the airlock or else he would contaminate the rest of the ship. Blok attempts to save Corrigan by taking him out of his suit, but he blacks out from a lack of oxygen. Knowing there is no hope for himself, Corrigan pushes Blok into the airlock, thus propelling himself away from the ship. Stranded, he dies in space; the crew continue with the mission, demoralized by Corrigan's death. After twenty months, the ship goes into orbit around Europa. Its lander lands safely on Europa, but misses its target zone. The crew drills through the ice and releases a probe into the underlying sea. Blok, who is sleep-deprived to the point of concerning the rest of the crew, sees a light outside the ship; he is unable to record it or otherwise convince the crew of its occurrence. The probe is struck by an unknown luminous object and contact with it is lost. Petrovna insists on collecting samples on Europa's surface; the crew votes and she is allowed to go. Analyzing the samples, Luxembourg discovers traces of a unicellular organism. Petrovna sees a blue light in the distance and decides to investigate it. As she approaches the light, the ice below her breaks and she falls through. Her head-mounted camera continues to broadcast, displaying her last moments as blue light is reflected in her eyes. The camera broadcast then cuts out. The crew agrees to leave to report their discovery to Earth, but the engines malfunction. As the lander hurtles back to Europa's surface, Xu unbuckles from his seat to dump water shielding to reduce the impact speed. The ship crashes at the originally targeted landing site. On impact, Xu is killed and the lander is damaged, leaking oxygen and losing heat. It begins to sink into the ice. Blok and Luxembourg put their EVA suits on to make repairs outside the ship. Luxembourg tries to descend but dies as he falls through the ice. Blok knows that there is no chance that he alone will be able to repair the lander before it sinks. Instead, he manages to fix the communication link to the orbiting mother ship, at the expense of turning off the life support systems. Like Petrovna, he sees a blue light and is killed as he falls through the ice. Alone now, Dasque re-establishes communication with Earth; all the collected images and data that have been saved since the solar storm are relayed to Earth via the mothership. The ice cracks and the lander begins to sink. Anticipating her death, Dasque opens the airlock to flood the lander in hopes of revealing the source of the light. As the water rises to the cockpit, she sees a tentacled, bioluminescent creature rising toward her before the camera cuts out. In the epilogue, narrator Samantha Unger confirms that the crew of Europa discovered life as footage plays from an earlier scene of the crew posing in front of the camera.

Mathias/'Jim', a down-and-out New Yorker, travels to Paris planning to sell the large, valuable apartment in a coveted area he has inherited from his estranged father. Once there, he discovers an old woman, Mathilde, living in the apartment with her daughter Chloé. Jim quickly learns that the apartment is a " viager " – an ancient French system for buying and selling property – meaning he will not actually be in possession of it until Mathilde dies. Until then he owes her a life annuity of €2,400 a month. All this is a surprise to him, as his father never told him and Jim had communication problems with the French lawyer, who does not speak English. Jim has no money and no place to live, but Mathilde will allow him to stay in the apartment with her if he pays rent. However, to pay for the next life annuity payment, he takes and sells furniture from the apartment and also asks a prospective buyer of his contract for advance payments. Inquiring after Mathilde's health her doctor, one of her English students, tells Jim she is in excellent health. Chatting over dinner, he learns she also trades English lessons with the fishmonger. Mathilde asks him if he had visited France over the years, but he had not as his mother considered it to be enemy territory. The next day, Jim invites Chloé and developer François Roy to a café as he wants to discuss possibly selling part of the house by dividing it into two apartments. Neither likes the idea, so Jim asks for a modest deposit while he considers Roy's offer (his way of getting some cash). Discovering Chloé is going to dinner with her male companion, Jim follows her after class. She goes to a café, waving towards the man with whom Jim has seen her entering a hotel some days before. He waves her off, as he is going to dine with his wife and daughters. Observing this, Jim calls her out on it, trying to blackmail her to avoid paying the 2,400 euros. Mathias/Jim discovers that Mathilde and his father had a very long-lasting affair which had started seven years before he was born, while both were married (they could not afford to marry each other). Jim tries to make Mathilde see how her affair with his father affected him and his mother. He felt unloved and ignored, so he turned to drink and had a string of failed marriages. She had a string of failed suicides, finally succeeding when he was 19, which he saw upon his return from college. After meeting with Roy to accept the sale, Jim returns to the apartment. Finding a photo of himself and Chloé together at ten, Mathilde mentions it was the only time he has been there, and that his father stopped coming by after his mother died. Then Jim himself confesses to having slit his own wrists at 40, but although his father lived a few blocks away he did not visit. Upon reflection of how the adultery of their parents affected them emotionally, Chloé breaks off her affair. Both she and Jim recall and bond over their childhoods. At 10 she realised about her mother's affair, at the same time he was trying to prevent the first of many suicide attempts by his. The next day, Jim accepts the papers from Roy's lawyer, and Mathilde comes in, postulating that his mother must have known and approved of her affair with his father. When he divulges that she had 10 to 15 suicide attempts, the last being successful, she collapses from shock. Jim and Chloé have a moment and kiss, but then when she asks Mathilde if she shares a father with Jim, she says she is unsure. He overhears, so goes to run blood tests at the doctor's. Once Mathias/Jim gets the confirmation that he and Chloé are not related, as she wants to stay in the apartment, he decides at the last minute to decline Roy's multi-million Euro offer for the apartment/contract. Mathilde points out that they do not have to worry about money if they sell en viager, albeit they would receive a modest income due to their relatively young ages.