In San Francisco, sous-chef Tom, and PhD graduate Violet, are happily engaged. Their wedding plans are interrupted when Tom's best friend Alex gets Violet's sister Suzie pregnant at Tom and Violet's engagement party, and Alex and Suzie quickly marry. When Violet is accepted into the University of Michigan 's two-year post-doctorate psychology program, Tom agrees to move with her and delay their wedding. Later, he is disheartened to learn his boss planned to make him head chef. Unable to find a suitable chef's position in Michigan, Tom is resigned to working at Zingerman's deli and takes up hunting with Bill, a fellow university faculty spouse. Violet settles into her new job under professor Winton Childs, working with Doug, Ming, and Vaneetha. A prank results in Violet being chosen to lead the team's research project, studying people who choose to eat stale donuts rather than wait for fresh ones to arrive. Tom and Violet's nuptials are further delayed when Winton receives funding from the National Institutes of Health with Violet's help and extends her program. Tom is upset by the news, and he and Violet fight over his unhappiness with their new life. As years pass, Tom becomes disillusioned and obsessed with hunting. Alex, Suzie, and their daughter Vanessa visit, and reveal Suzie is pregnant again. Tom responds that he no longer wants to have a child, surprising Violet, who offers to look after Vanessa with him, but the night turns into a disaster after Vanessa shoots Violet with Tom's crossbow. Tom's downward spiral becomes evident when Violet sees him eat a stale donut. At a bar with colleagues, a drunken Violet and Winton kiss, which Violet instantly regrets. She tells Tom that she wants to plan their wedding immediately, and he happily agrees. When Violet confesses to kissing Winton, Tom loses faith in their relationship, which reaches a climax when Winton comes to their rehearsal dinner to apologize. Tom chases Winton away, then leaves to get drunk alone. He runs into Margaret, an amorous co-worker, but opts not to have sex with her, and wakes up half-naked in the snow with a frostbitten toe, which is amputated. Violet visits Tom at the hospital, and they call off their engagement once they arrive home. Violet starts a relationship with Winton but often reminisces about Tom. He wishes her a happy birthday via email, including a video of Ming's ridiculous experiment on his friend Tarquin. Violet calls Tom, who has returned to San Francisco, working as a sous-chef under Alex and dating the hostess, Audrey. Their friendly-but-awkward conversation takes a turn as they argue over Violet's stale donuts experiment as a metaphor for their relationship, and both end the call upset. Realizing Tom's unhappiness, Alex fires him out of love, telling him that he is the better chef and should open his own establishment. So, Tom launches a popular taco truck. Violet receives an assistant professorship but learns she was hired because she is dating Winton, and breaks up with him. After lunch with his parents, Tom decides to win Violet back and breaks up with Audrey. He surprises Violet at her grandmother's funeral in England, and they agree to spend the remainder of the summer together in San Francisco, rekindling their relationship while sharing an apartment and working in the taco truck. Driving Violet to the airport, Tom offers to take his truck to Michigan and continue their relationship. Violet proposes to Tom at the side of the road, just as he did five years before, and Tom produces the ring he originally gave her, explaining that he was planning to re-propose at the airport. They head to Alamo Square, where Violet has organized their family and friends for an impromptu wedding. Tom chooses between Violet's various options for the officiant, clothing, and music, and they finally marry. Tom and Violet share their first kiss as a married couple, and the film flashes back to their first kiss when they first met at a New Year's Eve party. Alex and Suzie sing " Cucurrucucú paloma " on a carriage ride with the newlyweds.

In 1986, Elizabeth "Lizzie" Wurtzel is a 19-year-old accepted into Harvard with a scholarship in journalism. She has been raised by her divorced mother since she was two years old and has not seen her father at all in the last four years. Despite his lack of interest and involvement, Lizzie still misses her father, a contributing factor to her depression. Through a series of flashbacks, it is clear that there was a total communication breakdown between Lizzie's parents, which is soon reflected in Lizzie's own relationship with her mother, Lynne. Soon after arriving at Harvard, Lizzie decides to lose her virginity to an older student, Noah. Lizzie proceeds to alienate Noah by throwing a loss-of-virginity party immediately afterwards with the help of her roommate Ruby. Although she and Lizzie begin as best friends, Ruby soon becomes another casualty of Lizzie's instability. Although Lizzie's article for the local music column in The Harvard Crimson earns her an award from Rolling Stone early into the semester, she soon finds herself unable to write, stuck in a vicious cycle with substance abuse. Lizzie's promising literary career is at risk, as is her mental and physical health. Lynne sends her to expensive psychiatric sessions with Dr. Sterling towards which her father, pleading poverty, implacably refuses to contribute anything. She begins a relationship with another student, Rafe, but struggles with trust issues and fears of abandonment. During the holiday break, she visits his home in Texas. Upon discovering that his sister is severely autistic, Lizzie accuses Rafe of being "a creepy voyeur" who gets off on witnessing the pain of others. Rafe breaks up with her. Dr. Sterling prescribes Lizzie medication to cope with her spiraling depression following her breakup. Meanwhile, Lynne is hospitalized after a violent mugging. Lizzie helps take care of her, and a relationship of honesty, accountability, and mutual support develops between them. After a long period of treatment under medication and a suicidal gesture, Lizzie stabilizes and begins to adjust to her life.

Derek Echevaro, a gifted mathematics student at the University of Cincinnati is haunted by what he believes was a UFO he saw as a child. In 2017, a UFO briefly appears over Cincinnati International Airport and causes electromagnetic interference to the ATC broadcast. Cover stories dismissing it initially as a UAV and later a Gulfstream IV are released, but Derek does calculations that invalidate the airport's claims. He decrypts the ATC interference, ascertaining it is the fine-structure constant in 14 digit chunks. Derek later finds an unexplained executable running on his computer, which prompts him to reformat the interference into binary code. His obsession begins straining his relationships with his friends and roommates Lee and Natalie. Derek’s efforts attract the attention of Franklin Ahls, a senior official with the clandestine FBI Committee on Aerial Phenomena. Ahls is in Ohio with a team of scientists overseeing the coverup and trying to decipher the message, and believes it is from at least an extraterrestrial Type 1 civilisation. Believing he has a limited time to decipher the interference, Derek approaches his professor, Dr. Rebecca Hendricks, for help. Although initially apprehensive, she helps him investigate the cell phone signal disruptions that took place during the UFO incursion, but ultimately concedes there is a missing unit of measurement in the calculations. However, during a lecture on eigenvalues and eigenvectors, Hendricks deduces and tells Derek the missing unit of measurement to decipher the coordinates is 21 centimeters (the wavelength of neutral Hydrogen). Borrowing Lee’s car, Derek travels to the coordinates and briefly observes the UFO. It broadcasts a further signal, before disappearing again. Derek is briefly detained by armed operatives, before being released into a car with Ahls, who confirms the UFO operators put the fine-structure constant in their message to help build a common mathematical language. Ahls tells Derek the new message is more complex and likely contains 3D coordinates to the extraterrestrials location. He confirms humanity is not alone in the universe, and offers to recruit Derek to assist in calculating a more refined version of the FSC to ensure the interstellar location they determine is accurate.

At the close of the Iraq War, U.S. Army Staff Sergeant Shane Matthews, a sniper, along with his spotter, Sergeant Allen Isaac, are sent to investigate a pipeline construction site in the Iraqi desert where contractors and their security detail have all fallen victim to a sniper. The pair patiently wait 22 hours on overwatch before determining that the site is clear. Matthews proceeds to investigate the site, but is shot by a famed Iraqi sniper nicknamed "Juba". Isaac tries to rescue the dying Matthews, but he is also wounded in the right knee and has his radio damaged and his water bottle destroyed in the process. Alone, Isaac takes cover behind an unsteady wall and tends to his wounds. The sniper has a radio tuned into the American channel, and uses it to communicate with Isaac initially under the pretense of being a high ranking allied soldier at another site. The deception allows the sniper to get other useful information from Isaac. Throughout their various one-sided attempts at conversation, we learn that the sniper does not claim to be the mythical Juba mentioned earlier in the film, a nom de guerre for various Iraqi Insurgent snipers notorious for filming their attacks on American soldiers. Matthews regains consciousness and subtly gets Isaac's attention that he is still alive. Matthews slowly crawls towards his rifle in the midst of the dusty wind while Isaac distracts Juba with small talk. Matthews believes that the sniper is hiding at the top of some rubble nearby and fires in that direction. The dusty wind settles quickly. The sniper sees Matthews and fires, injuring Matthews in the left shoulder as he crawled towards the wall, and kills him with a second shot. Isaac's attempts to call headquarters for help are stymied by the loss of his radio antenna. He attempts to repair this with one from a dead contractor's radio, only to discern that the sniper had used the earlier response team as a ruse to call for help and lure another response force into his jaws. Isaac hears the rescue helicopters coming, so he pushes down the wall and uses Matthews' rifle to try to kill Juba, or at least flush him out so the rescue chopper can see the trap. Juba fires at Isaac twice and misses. Isaac now has the sniper's location and fires his only round. Isaac stands up and waits for Juba's next shot, but it never comes. Thus he assumes his shot was successful, and Juba is either injured or dead. The helicopters then land and the rescue team picks up Isaac and Matthews. Once the helicopters take off, Juba shoots down both in rapid succession. He is then heard over the radio, calling for another rescue to set a new trap.

Stockbroker Vincent Zaleski pitches Bryan Taylor on investing in a fiberoptic cable from Kansas electronic exchange to the New York Stock Exchange in order to more quickly execute orders in a new high-frequency trading (HFT) operation. Taylor buys into the idea. Meanwhile, Vincent and his cousin Anton Zaleski are still employed by Eva Torres, where Anton programs trading software. Eva is also working on several ideas for HFT. Soon enough, Anton and Vincent quit, infuriating Eva. She insists that any code Anton created for her firm belongs to it, and even the thoughts in his head might be proprietary. Vincent has hired Mark Vega to oversee the building of the fiberoptic cable tunnel. Vincent occasionally helps Mark purchase or lease the rights to land in order to make the cable as straight as possible. Any deviation in the shape of the tunnel will create delays in the trade. Anton is hard at work trying to shave 1 millisecond off the time it takes to transmit orders to NYC. Currently, his software will do it in 17 milliseconds, which is not fast enough to be competitive. It needs to be at most 16 milliseconds to be a viable enterprise for Taylor's firm. Eva finds an NYU student who has written a paper about microwave pulses to effect HFT. She hires him and starts the process of building a series of towers to make trades with microwaves. As Vincent struggles with acquiring land, being diagnosed with cancer, and broken drill bits, Eva manages to finish her microwave towers first, dominating the market. Eva also takes revenge on Anton by having him arrested by the FBI for stock market fraud by using stolen property in the form of the software that he wrote for her company. While Anton is in jail, he triggers a logic bomb that he left in Eva's software as an insurance policy; this results in a 20 millisecond slowdown in her trading, rendering her microwaves useless. She subsequently drops Anton's charges in exchange for learning how to fix the bug. In the hospital Bryan visits Vincent and accuses Vincent of failing him, costing him hundreds of millions of dollars and revealing he might lose his company. As Vincent undergoes chemotherapy, Mark shows him that he has completed the project and the speed achieved is 15.73 milliseconds, although Vincent admits that they are now obsolete. Vincent bought a cheap insurance policy on the project, but the insurance company denied to pay the claim and the project has cost him all his money. Anton reveals his next idea for HFT involves neutrino messaging, believing it could cut the time from Kansas City to NYC down to as little as 9 milliseconds.

In Melbourne, Errol Wallace is a financial business consultant whom we meet in the course of his being hired by the board of Durmack, an automotive component manufacturer, where he assesses a large work force redundancy and recommends major layoffs. Balls, a moccasin factory located in the Melbourne suburb of Spotswood, is his next client. Mr. Ball, the owner of the company, is affable and treats his employees benevolently. Wallace on a factory tour finds the conditions wanting with shabbiness, old machinery and the workers lackadaisical. A young worker at Balls, Carey, who is finding his place in the world and life, is asked by Wallace to assist in his review, compiling worker condition and performance information. Carey is reluctant until he learns that Mr. Ball's daughter Cheryl, whom he fancies, is part of the review staff. Wallace learns that there is an instigator in the midst, his colleague Jerry, who leaks the Durmack report, inflating the quantity of sackings as a means to demoralise the union. Kim Barry, a salesman at Balls who also has his sights set on the boss's daughter, shows his ruthlessness and ulterior motives when he comes to Wallace's home one night with a complete set of the company financial records that detail non-existent profit for years and reveal that Ball has been selling off company assets to keep the outfit afloat. Wallace realises that whatever productivity improvements have been implemented are not enough to save the company even with an elimination of workers and yet that is his recommendation. Mr. Ball responds, "It's not just about dollars and cents. It's about dignity, treating people with respect". Wallace's mind set starts to change when his car is vandalised and some Ball workers come to his aid, workers who then start to include him in their off-hours activities. Mr. Ball announces the work force redundancies and Wallace is clearly uncomfortable seeing them, knowing that it was his recommendation that sealed their fate. The union at Durmack capitulates and management celebrates with a party during which Wallace becomes further disenchanted by what he sees as the rash sackings. He then realises that Balls may have a competitive advantage that could potentially make the company profitable. If Balls stop trying to compete on price on a few products, but instead have a very large product range, then all the perceived inefficiencies (old machinery and a large number of highly skilled experienced workers), become opportunities for growth. Carey realises he has feelings for his work mate and friend Wendy and together they climb up onto the roof of the factory and hold hands. In the final shot, they look out over the West Gate Bridge, which opened in 1978 - an ending which deliberately leaves it ambiguous as to when the film is actually set.

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 1918, a man named Burt Berendsen is sent by his estranged wife's parents to fight in World War I. While stationed in France, Burt befriends African-American soldier Harold Woodman. After sustaining injuries in battle, Burt and Harold are nursed back to health by nurse Valerie Bandenberg. After the end of the war, the three live together in Amsterdam. Burt returns to New York City to be with his wife. Harold begins a romantic relationship with Valerie. Valerie, however, eventually abandons Harold, who also returns to New York. Fifteen years later, Burt has opened his medical practice treating veterans of the war. Harold is now a lawyer, and they have not heard from Valerie since they left Amsterdam. Harold asks Burt to perform an autopsy on Bill Meekins (a senator who served as the commander of their regiment during the war) at the behest of Meekins's daughter Elizabeth, who believes that he was murdered during his recent trip to Europe. Aided by medical examiner Irma St. Clair, Burt performs the autopsy, which reveals poison in Meekins's stomach. Burt and Harold meet with Elizabeth to talk about the autopsy results, but she is soon killed when a hitman pushes her into traffic. The hitman frames Burt and Harold for her death, and they flee as the police arrive. Burt and Harold try to find out who told Elizabeth to hire them. This leads them to wealthy textile heir Tom Voze, his patronizing wife Libby, and Tom's sister Valerie (whose real surname is Voze). Valerie had persuaded Elizabeth to hire them, knowing that they were trustworthy. Valerie is under constant supervision by Tom and Libby, who claim that she suffers from a nerve disease and epilepsy. They were actually poisoning Valerie to keep her compliant. Burt and Harold talk with Tom, who suggests that they talk to General Gil Dillenbeck, a notable veteran who is friends with Meekins, to learn who accompanied Meekins on the trip (and might have poisoned him or be able to lead them to the person who did). While Burt attempts to contact the general, Irma visits him at his medical practice. She says that she was attacked and her wrist broken while trying to bring him the autopsy report, and the attacker took the paper from her. After resetting her wrist, Burt kisses Irma. Meanwhile, Harold and Valerie notice that the hitman, Tarim Milfax, has been watching the house. They follow him to a forced sterilization clinic owned by an organization known as the "Committee of the Five". After a fight with Milfax, Harold and Valerie reunite with Burt. Valerie takes them to the Waldorf Astoria New York. There, they meet Paul Canterbury and Henry Norcross, Valerie's benefactors from Amsterdam. They are secretly spies in the intelligence community. The Committee of the Five is a cabal in the US with ties to Germany and plans to overthrow the American government. Dillenbeck can help foil their plot. The trio meets with Dillenbeck, who is offered a large sum of money from a man on behalf of an unnamed benefactor to deliver a speech advocating for veterans to forcibly remove U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt and install Dillenbeck as a puppet dictator instead. Dillenbeck agrees to help the trio foil the plot and to speak at a veterans reunion gala that Burt and Harold are hosting to draw out whoever is behind the plot. At the gala, Tom introduces Dillenbeck to the industrial leaders Nevins, Belport and Jeffers. Burt realises that they actually want Dillenbeck to become the fifth member of their cabal. Dillenbeck reads his speech instead of the one he was paid to read. Milfax tries to shoot him, but Harold, Valerie, and Burt stop him in time. Milfax is arrested and the Committee of the Five is revealed to be four industry leaders, including Tom. They intended to turn the United States into a fascist country. Tom and the other leaders are arrested by the police, but do not stay in jail long, and expose Dillenbeck in the press following their release. Dillenbeck testifies about the incident to Congress. Harold and Valerie leave the country since they cannot be together in the United States. Burt wishes them farewell, planning to reopen his medical practice and pursue a relationship with Irma.

Lawrence "Larry the Liquidator" Garfield is a corporate raider who has become wealthy by acquiring companies and selling off their assets. With the help of a computerized stock-analysis program called Carmen, he identifies the family-owned New England Wire & Cable Company as his next target. Although the Rhode Island company remains profitable overall, its aging Wire and Cable division is struggling, leading Lawrence to conclude that the company's assets are worth more than its market value. After failing to persuade company chairman Andrew "Jorgy" Jorgenson to sell the division, Lawrence begins acquiring shares in an effort to gain control of the company. Desperate to prevent a hostile takeover, Jorgy is persuaded by his wife Bea, and company president Bill Coles to hire his stepdaughter, corporate lawyer Kate Sullivan, who is not fond of Jorgy or his business. Lawrence becomes attracted to Kate and aggressively pursues her romantically. The pair agrees to a temporary truce, but both continue working behind the scenes to advance their positions: Kate encourages the board and its allies to acquire additional shares, while Lawrence continues purchasing stock through a front organization. Kate later obtains a temporary restraining order preventing Lawrence from buying further shares. Despite their professional rivalry, the relationship between Lawrence and Kate becomes increasingly flirtatious. Lawrence proposes exchanging his shares in the company for the Wire and Cable division, allowing him to profit from its assets while leaving Jorgy in control of the remaining business, but Jorgy refuses to sacrifice the jobs of the division's employees or surrender his family business to a man like Lawrence. Concerned about the company's future and his own financial security, Bill pressures Jorgy to accept a compromise. Instead, Jorgy decides to let the shareholders determine the company's future at the annual meeting, believing it is the only course he can accept. Kate persuades Lawrence to let the shareholders settle the matter. During their negotiations, Lawrence argues that he and Kate are alike, both caring more about winning than the people affected by the outcome. Seeking to protect his and his family's interests, Bill secretly approaches Lawrence and offers him the voting rights to his shares in exchange for compensation. Bea later meets with Lawrence herself, offering him $1 million to abandon the takeover, but he refuses. She chastizes him for his callous attitude towards the people affected by his actions. Afterward, Lawrence confronts Kate outside her apartment and unexpectedly proposes marriage, confessing that he has fallen in love with her and fears losing her once the takeover battle ends. Overwhelmed, Kate leaves without answering. On the day of the shareholders' meeting, Jorgy confides in Bea that he fears his values and methods have become outdated. Addressing the shareholders, Jorgy argues that businesses have responsibilities to their employees and the community, and warns against dismantling companies solely for financial gain. Lawrence responds that technological change has rendered the Wire and Cable division obsolete and urges shareholders to prioritize their own financial interests. When the votes are counted, Lawrence is given control of the company. Kate leaves, and the company is soon shuttered. Back in Manhattan, Lawrence finds little satisfaction in his victory. Kate telephones him with a new proposal: she has secured a long-term agreement with a Japanese company to manufacture stainless-steel wire cloth used in airbags, providing a potential future for Wire and Cable. She asks Lawrence to sell the company back to the employees so that they can modernize the plant and pursue the new opportunity. Intrigued, Lawrence excitedly agrees to discuss the proposal over dinner.

In a secret military laboratory operating under the guise of a pesticide manufacturer, a sealed tube is broken, starting an outbreak of a virulent bacteria. Detecting the release of the biological weapon, Joanie Morse, the plant's security officer, activates "Protocol One," a procedure sealing all of the workers inside from the outside world. Tom Schmidt, believing the cause for the lock down to be a pump malfunction, and co-worker Bob restart the pump. Cal Morse, a County Sheriff and Joanie's husband, is advised to retain the help of Dr. Dan Fairchild, a past employee who is a known alcoholic. Fairchild created an antidote to the weapon. Vic Flint, Bob's father, joins the mission. The United States government's Accident Containment Team (USACT), led by Major Connelly, arrives and sets up quarantine procedures. Connelly tells the public a cover story of the contamination of experimental yeast while a rescue team arrives to administer the antidote to the workers. Upon the release of the weapon, workers sanitize the lab, destroy animals, and inoculate themselves with the antidote. Hours later, the USACT team locate Dr. Nielsen and his team incapacitated on the floor near an air lock. They later notice that the bodies have disappeared, the air lock smashed open from inside, and a power outage caused by Dr. Ramesh Kapoor, a P4 worker, by destroying a power box. A group of workers—including Bob, Schmidt, and Tippett—believe themselves to be unaffected and want to leave, despite the quarantine. Unbeknownst to the workers, they became infected by the breach of the air lock, the bypassed pump circulating contaminated air throughout the building, and Schmidt's contact lens contaminating the building with the weapon. Joanie destroyed the piece of paper containing the code to deactivate the lockdown, but remembers the code. The group, now led by Tippett, torture her for the code, which is discovered to be invalidated once USACT tapped into the system. The rescue team eventually encounters this group of workers. The team order the group to remain under quarantine; Tippett is killed when he refuses. The rest are placed in a room to await inoculation when the team returns with the antidote. Fairchild directs the team into an unoccupied service conduit as a direct way to the P4 lab. The team encounters Nielsen. Suspecting something to be wrong, Fairchild directs the team to retreat, leaving Nielsen behind. The team are ambushed and murdered by the P4 workers, one of which is murdered by Kapoor. Despite being inoculated, the antidote did not work; suffering from the effects of the weapon, all of the infected workers become homicidal maniacs. Upon the rescue team's death, USACT activates "Protocol Two", leaving all employees to await the deadly effects of the weapon and sanitize the location afterwards. Hearing this, Cal urges Fairchild to assist him in retrieving the antidote, stopping the contagion, and saving Joanie. At the facility, Cal and Fairchild encounter an infected Bob. He tries to attack, but is killed by Cal, armed with the revolver. Most of the workers succumb to their infections, but Joanie is unaffected. Schmidt convinces her to go to the P4 lab to retrieve the antidote. En route, they encounter Nielsen, who wants to contain the knowledge of the incident, and Kapoor, who wants to kill them. They eventually escape the attack. While in the P4 lab, Schmidt succumbs to his infection while the P4 workers hunt them down. Joanie retrieves the antidote and flees while Schmidt attacks the workers, breaking Kapoor's neck before being killed by the rest. Joanie eventually encounters Cal and Fairchild. They later repel a group of workers who rip Fairchild's biohazard suit, exposing him. They enter the P4 lab to learn why Joanie is unaffected while the antidote did not work. A test discovers that her blood is full of estrogen, progesterone, and antibodies; she is pregnant. While attempting to enter P4 to attack the trio, workers are set on fire by booby traps. One worker rips Cal's biohazard suit before being killed by Joanie. Before being incapacitated by his infection, Fairchild enters a recipe for a new antidote based on Joanie's condition into a computer; it contains thorazine to make the patient sleep during their recuperation. They try out the new antidote on Fairchild, and it works. Armed with injection guns, Cal and Fairchild inoculate infected workers while Joanie takes a batch of the new antidote to the building's decontamination system. Nielsen, refusing to be injected, flees back to the lab. Eventually realizing his failure, he commits suicide. Using the decontamination system, Joanie administers the new antidote throughout the building, eradicating the weapon and treating workers breathing in the aerosolized antidote. Joanie then deactivates the quarantine and Fairchild inoculates Cal. USACT then evacuates the victims, retrieves the dead and seals the building.

"Cutters" edit the collected memories of the recently deceased into feature-length memorials that are viewed by loved ones at funerals. The "cutters code" forbids them to mix footage from implants, to sell memories, and to have the implant themselves. Ten-year-old Alan Hakman, while visiting a city with his parents, meets another boy, Louis, and the two bond as they play together. Louis reluctantly joins Hakman in exploring an abandoned factory, and Hakman crosses a wooden plank suspended high above the ground. Goaded by Hakman, Louis also attempts to cross the plank, but he loses his confidence and falls. Hakman races to the ground and panics when he steps in what he thinks is Louis's blood. Hakman flees the scene and tells no one what has happened. Later that day, he leaves the city with his parents. Years later, the adult Hakman has become a skilled cutter who specializes in editing the memories of controversial people into flattering life stories. When Fletcher, a former cutter, confronts him at a funeral, Hakman describes himself as a sin-eater, who brings redemption to the immoral. Fletcher offers him $500,000 for the memories of his latest client, wealthy businessman Charles Bannister, but Hakman refuses. In a meeting, Fletcher demands the memory recordings so that he can use Bannister, who he suspects was a pedophile, as a scandal to shut down EYE Tech, the implant manufacturer. Hakman again refuses and, worried for his safety, uses his knowledge from memory tapes to shake down a shady criminal for a pistol. As Hakman works through Bannister's memories, he encounters a scene that implies that Bannister was molesting his daughter Isabel, and Hakman wordlessly deletes it. He eventually comes across a person who he is convinced must be his childhood friend Louis. Excited, he sets up a meeting with Bannister's family to find out more information. Bannister's wife Jennifer is dismissive, but Isabel reveals that the man, recently dead of a car crash, was a teacher named Louis Hunt. Hoping that Hunt had an implant, Hakman organizes a break-in at EYE Tech, but they have no record of Hunt. However, Hakman surprisingly finds a file on himself that contains documentation of his parents' purchase of an implant for him. In his distress, Hakman turns to his lover, Delila. At his apartment, he shows her the equipment that he uses to view memories, and he demonstrates surreal footage from a defective implant. He leaves her alone as he seeks help from anti-implant protestors, who have discovered a way to block the implant through specialized body modification. When he returns to find his apartment in disarray, he assumes that Fletcher has broken in; instead, Delila confronts him, having found memory tapes that document her prior relationship. She accuses him of voyeurism and angrily destroys his memory viewer, which results in Bannister's files also being damaged. Fletcher and his associate finally break in, but they find nothing. Hakman tells Bannister's wife that the erased footage was lost in an accident, and she feigns disappointment, content to let dirty secrets stay hidden. Hakman asks his colleagues to recover live footage from his own implant, a potentially deadly process. They agree but admonish him that he can never cut memories again; a cutter with an implant is a violation of the "Cutter's code". The recorded memories show that Hakman had attempted to dissuade Louis from crossing the plank, and that he had stepped in red paint, not blood. Hakman, relieved, visits Hunt's grave but is confronted again by Fletcher, who has learned about Hakman's implant. After chasing Hakman through the graveyard, he hesitates and seems willing to let Hakman go; however, Fletcher's associate kills Hakman. Fletcher loads Hakman's memories (which contain the memories of everyone he had viewed as a cutter) into a viewer and promises to use them for the greater good. As he pages through Hakman's memories, looking for evidence of Bannister's guilt, he sees the young Hakman looking in a mirror.