Patrol Agent in Charge Jeb Maynard (Bronson) is trying to identify the killers of a young Mexican boy and Maynard's friend, veteran USBP Senior Patrol Agent "Scooter" Jackson (Wilford Brimley). Maynard is the Agent in Charge of Otay Border Patrol Station (a fictional composite of the actual El Cajon and Brown Field stations), located in the hills east of San Diego. He is later helped by the boy's mother, Elena Morales (Karmin Murcelo) and a rookie Patrol Agent, Jimmy Fantes (Bruno Kirby). Hotchkiss (Harris) is an illegal alien smuggler, known by the aliens only as "the Marine." Hotchkiss works for a local fruit rancher, Carl Richards (Bert Remsen), a ranch he uses as a front for his alien-smuggling operation. Jackson, on routine road patrol, stops Hotchkiss's truck full of aliens, driven by a subordinate smuggler. The truck has boxes of tomatoes on top but the main body, accessed by rear doors, is a compartment carrying illegal aliens. When Jackson demands the driver open the back of the truck, Hotchkiss riding in back with the aliens shoots Jackson with a sawn-off shotgun at close range. The Mexican boy is badly wounded by stray buckshot, so Hotchkiss kills him with another blast and drags both bodies into the roadside bushes where he also parks Jackson's Border Patrol sedan. The F.B.I. is called to investigate, having primary jurisdiction investigating murders of any federal agents. The truck's driver, disturbed by the murders, is later killed when Hotchkiss wrecks the truck, attempting to mislead the FBI and the Border Patrol into believing the murders were related to drug smuggling. Maynard thinks Jackson was murdered by smugglers of aliens and tries to convince the F.B.I. that the marijuana in the truck was merely a ruse, but the F.B.I. does not want to believe him. The FBI seems convinced the murders are drug related, but not Jeb Maynard who doesn't believe someone would go to the trouble of removing all identifying information from the truck but carelessly leave several bags of marijuana behind. Jackson's and the Mexican boy's bodies are found by USBP Agents where Hotchkiss had hidden them. Agent Fantes discovers some fresh tomatoes near the bodies and Agent Maynard notices military style boot prints with odd markings on the soles among the footprints at the crime scene. A Patrol Agent's professional skills include "sign-cutting," knowing how to examine, analyze and interpret tracks and marks made in the ground, a skill used to track illegal border crossings, and his suspicion is aroused. Maynard has Fantes take the tomatoes to a university's agriculture department for analysis. Meanwhile Maynard and Fantes start checking the trails in the hills that the smugglers use to bring in illegal aliens and drugs. They find the same military boot prints along a trail where a USBP electronic ground sensor has been dug up and disabled. Hotchkiss, running a sophisticated and highly profitable alien smuggling operation, is a former U.S. Marine who had been trained on such equipment while in the Marine Corps. He had discovered the sensor and had disabled it on a prior smuggling run. After Jackson's funeral Maynard tells his boss, INS Commissioner Malcolm Wallace, about his suspicions. Wallace cautions him to proceed carefully, so Maynard begins his own investigation with Fantes's assistance. Maynard had found a San Diego address on a piece of paper in the murdered Mexican boy's clothes, and so goes there to discover the boy's mother, Elena Morales, working as a nanny at a well-to-do family's home. He takes her to the morgue to identify her son's remains and then asks for her help to find the killers. Elena agrees, so Maynard goes undercover posing as her cousin. They cross into Mexico and she introduces him to an alien smuggler in Tijuana who had brought her over the border when she last crossed. This smuggler is Hotchkiss's partner in Mexico. Maynard's physical features are such that he can pass for Mexican, but he does not speak Spanish fluently, and so Elena tells the smuggler that her cousin is simple minded and doesn't talk much. Elena pays the smuggler with money Maynard gave her, and they are smuggled across the border into the United States along with a group of thirty other migrants. Maynard hears the smuggler guiding them mention "the Marine who runs things" to Elena, but then the group is ambushed by bandits. Maynard and Elena escape unharmed but lose their chance to encounter the ringleader (Hotchkiss) and walk on towards the suburbs of San Diego. He drives Elena home and thanks her for helping, saying that if she stops by his office next week, he will try to help her straighten out her U.S. immigration status. Maynard goes home, cleans up and tries to sleep. Fantes stops by to tell him the agriculture report on the tomatoes indicates they were treated with a particular brand of pesticide. Fantes has checked with the local office of the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture and discovered that only a few large farms in the area use the brand. They meet later at the Border Patrol station to plan their next move. Maynard and Fantes visit the local fruit farms using that pesticide and arrive at Richards's fruit ranch. Maynard knows of Richards's reputation for exploiting illegal aliens, hiring them at poor wages to harvest his fruit. Hotchkiss is in the main ranch house when Maynard and Fantes arrive but stays inside as Richards goes out to speak to the Agents. While talking to Richards, Maynard notices the military boot prints in the dirt near the main house that he had detected earlier. Maynard and Fantes set up a surveillance of the ranch with the assistance of Border Patrol Agents Lambert and Monroe. Using binoculars, they see Hotchkiss wearing his combat boots and camouflage marine field jacket leaving the house with other smugglers including the Mexican who had guided the group that Maynard and Elena had infiltrated. Maynard has found "the Marine." Hotchkiss plans a large smuggling run soon that will bring hundreds of illegal aliens into the U.S. in one night, after which he plans to shut down operations until things cool off. Maynard deduces Hotchkiss's plans from what he witnesses in surveilling the ranch over the following days, calls all his agents together at the station and plans an operation to raid the Richards Ranch next evening. They raid the ranch after dark, capture the illegal aliens and smugglers and hold them in the ranch's main barn. At dawn, Hotchkiss arrives with the last load of aliens. As the Patrol Agents attempt to arrest him, he pulls out a MAC-10 machine-pistol and fires at them. They take cover and Hotchkiss jumps in a car and speeds away, but Maynard pursues him in a Border Patrol S.U.V. Hotchkiss attempts to lose him on an old dirt road that comes to a dead end, and then runs into the surrounding trees and bushes. Maynard draws his revolver and tracks him through the woods. Hotchkiss circles back thinking he has given Maynard the slip, but just as he is about to get back into his car, Maynard appears with his revolver pointed at Hotchkiss and says, "The end of the road." Hotchkiss wheels about and starts firing but Maynard kills Hotchkiss with a single shot. Maynard and Fantes watch Richards leaving San Diego's United States District Court House after being sentenced to two-to-five years in federal prison. Richards' boss, also on trial, is not convicted for "lack of evidence." Fantes laments that Richards will probably go right back to work smuggling aliens within a month of release. Maynard smiles and responds by saying, "It's okay kid, so will we."

The film is shown through the eyes of Federico, a photographer from Italy. Tariq (a friend of Federico) is scheduled to marry Bilquis, the daughter of a rich judge. However, while out in the city one night, he catches sight of a woman he believes to be Bilquis, and falls in love with her. The woman turns out to be a nagsh (a black plant applied like henna) artist named Ines, and Tariq ends up having to choose between the two. The film ends with a shot of a jinn, played by Hirsi himself.

United States Under Secretary of Defense Michael Bergstrom commits suicide after being informed that he has tested positive for HIV. The relationships of freelance Venice, Los Angeles systems analyst Angela Bennett are almost completely online and on the phone, with the exception of forgettable interactions with her neighbors and visits to her mother, who is institutionalized with Alzheimer's disease and often forgets who she is. Angela's co-worker Dale, in San Francisco, sends her a floppy disk of the band website "Mozart's Ghost" with a backdoor labeled " π " that permits access to a commonly used computer security system called "Gatekeeper" sold by Gregg Microsystems, a software company led by CEO Jeff Gregg. Angela and Dale agree to meet the next morning, as he is planning on taking his own plane, but the navigation system in Dale's private aircraft malfunctions and the plane crashes, killing him. Angela travels to Cozumel, Mexico, on vacation, where she meets Jack Devlin. After seducing Angela, Devlin pays a mugger to steal her purse. He chases the mugger, catches him, and roots through the purse to find the disk before shooting the mugger dead. The robber takes Angela out on his speedboat to kill her as well, but she finds his gun and confronts him. While fleeing with the disk and Devlin's wallet, Angela's dinghy collides with rocks, knocking her unconscious. Three days later, Angela finds that the disk was ruined by the sun and all records of her life have been deleted. Because none of the neighbors remember her, they cannot confirm her identity. Angela's Social Security number is now assigned to Ruth Marx, for whom Devlin has entered an arrest record. When Angela calls her own desk at Cathedral Software, Ruth, impersonating her, answers and offers her old life back in exchange for the disk. She contacts the only other person who knows her by sight, psychiatrist and former lover Alan Champion. He checks her into a hotel, offers to contact a friend at the FBI, and arranges to have her mother moved for her safety. Using her knowledge of the backdoor and a password found in Devlin's wallet, Angela logs into the Bethesda Naval Hospital 's computers and learns that Under Secretary of Defense Bergstrom, who had opposed Gatekeeper's use by the federal government, was murdered by altering the results of his HIV test, leading to a misdiagnosis. Fellow hacker "Cyberbob" connects π with the "Praetorians", a group of cyberterrorists linked to recent computer failures around the country. Angela and Cyberbob plan to meet, but the Praetorians intercept their online chat. Angela escapes from Devlin, who is revealed to be a contract killer for the cyberterrorists, but the Praetorians kill Champion by tampering with pharmacy and hospital computer records. After Angela is arrested by the California Highway Patrol, a man identifying himself as Champion's FBI friend frees her from jail. She realizes he is an impostor and escapes again, resulting in the impostor's death in a car crash. Now wanted for murder and thought to be Ruth, Angela hitchhikes to Cathedral's office where, using Ruth's computer, she connects the cyberterrorists to Gregg Microsystems and uncovers their scheme: once the Praetorians sabotage an organization's computer system, Gregg sells Gatekeeper to it and gains unlimited access through the backdoor. Angela emails evidence of the backdoor and Gregg's involvement with the Praetorians to the FBI from the Moscone Center and tricks Devlin into releasing a virus into Gregg's mainframe, destroying Gatekeeper and undoing the erasure of her identity. During a battle on the catwalks of the convention center, Devlin accidentally shoots Ruth dead, but Angela ambushes him, causing him to fall to his death. Regaining her identity and life, Angela reunites with her mother, and the conspiracy is exposed, with Gregg being arrested by the FBI.

About 20 years before the story takes place, solar flares irradiate the Earth, killing over 99% of the world's population. The survivors gather in a network of safe cities and build primitive humanoid robots, called Pilgrims, to help rebuild and operate in the harsh environment. These robots have two unchangeable protocols: They cannot harm any form of life and may not repair, modify, or alter themselves or other robots in any way. Initially seen as humankind's salvation, they are relegated to manual labor when they fail to stop the advance of desertification. Society has regressed due to lack of technology besides the Pilgrims, as a lack of functional aircraft or other transport prevents travel and cars are a rare commodity, and humanity is on the brink of extinction. In 2044, Jacq Vaucan—an insurance investigator for ROC, the company that manufactures Pilgrims—investigates a report from Wallace, a police officer who shot a robot he claims was modifying itself. As Jacq looks for a robot they suspect was stealing parts, it leads him outside the city. When he finds it inside a shipping container, it sets itself on fire. As he and a team open up the burned robot to see what it was hiding, they discover the robot had a rare nuclear battery that could power a robot indefinitely. They are able to power up the robot once more, but when he asks it why it set itself on fire, it burns out again. Jacq salvages the remains and speculates to Robert, his boss and brother-in-law, that there may be a "clocksmith", someone who illegally modifies robots, who is overriding the second protocol. Incredulous, Robert rejects this possibility, but offers Jacq a transfer out of the city if he can find evidence. Jacq had asked for the transfer to a city on the coast, because he feared raising his unborn child in the decaying city, even though Robert is skeptical whether the ocean still exists. Jacq's pregnant wife, Rachel, initially rejects his plans, but she eventually relents. Jacq and Wallace investigate a brothel, where they find Cleo, a modified robot that Wallace subsequently shoots in the leg. When Jacq objects, Wallace says that Cleo's owner will lead them to the clocksmith; Wallace also threatens to kill Jacq if he does not split the proceeds of the battery on the black market. Jacq follows Cleo's owner to a clocksmith named Dr. Susan Dupré, who claims not to know who altered Cleo, an action that would destroy Cleo's CPU. Jacq leaves the burned robot's CPU with her and offers to give her the battery if she can locate information on the clocksmith. When Dupré installs the modified CPU in Cleo, Cleo begins self-repairing. Dupré contacts Jacq, who alerts Robert; however, ROC intercepts Jacq's message and sends a team of assassins to Dupré's laboratory. Dupré is killed, but Jacq escapes in a car driven by Cleo. When Cleo takes them into a maze of stanchions, both cars crash; the assassins are killed, and Jacq is injured. Cleo takes Jacq with her into the desert, where they are joined by three other robots, none of whom will obey Jacq's orders. However, the first protocol forces them to prevent his death. Desperate to return to the city to be with his pregnant wife, Jacq makes contact with Robert, who sends Wallace to recover him. Wallace threatens Jacq's life and destroys two of the robots, who have objected to his actions; Jacq kills Wallace with a flare gun before he can also destroy Cleo. Wallace's partner flees after taking a battery from one of the robots. Robert's boss discloses that the predecessor to the first Pilgrim was a quantum mind created with no security protocols and no artificial restraints on its computational power. Before they deactivated it, its makers tasked it with designing the security protocols that govern Pilgrims. Robert's boss informs Robert that no one has been able to break Pilgrim security protocols, because they were created by the unrestricted quantum mind and ROC purposefully limited the computational power of all subsequent AI. ROC forces Robert to accompany a team sent to kill Jacq and the unknown clocksmith before the robots can evolve further beyond human understanding. When Robert objects to their kidnapping Jacq's wife and baby daughter, Conway, the leader, shoots him and leaves him for dead. Meanwhile, Jacq meets the robot responsible for modifying the others. The robot says that he and the other robots plan to go to the radioactive area where humans cannot go. Initially skeptical, Jacq eventually accepts that the robot naturally evolved, like humanity. The robot cannot understand why Jacq is afraid of dying, as death is a normal part of human living, just as the impending extinction of humanity is normal. "No lifeform can inhabit the planet eternally." It points out that the androids were conceived of and built by humans, so humanity will continue to exist through the robots that they created. Accepting this, Jacq gives them his battery, which they use to complete a new design, a sort of dog/insect robot. The robots repair a vehicle for Jacq, and he leaves for the city. When Conway reaches the robot outpost, he destroys two of the four robots. Jacq finds the dying Robert and returns to the outpost as Conway wounds Cleo and kills the evolved robot. Jacq kills all ROC assassins except for Conway, though he is further wounded in the battle. As Conway prepares to kill Jacq, the new robot saves his life by pushing Conway off a cliff in violation of the first protocol. Jacq fears the uninhibited robot will now attack him and prepares to shoot it, only to lower his weapon as his wife arrives with their child. He works the crane so Cleo and the new robot can cross to the other side of the canyon into the irradiated area. Jacq and his wife take a car and drive toward the city on the coast. Jacq appears to be dying of his injuries, but takes comfort in their child. As she drives Rachel suddenly breaks out into a smile and tells Jacq she can see the ocean ahead.

Liu Xing is a humble but brilliant Chinese student who arrives at the fictional Hubble University and makes a bumpy transition into American life with the help of Joanna Silver. Silver is a wealthy university patron who has a fascination with Chinese culture and takes a liking to Liu Xing. Xing joins a select cosmology group under the direction of his hero, the famous cosmologist Professor Jacob Reiser. The group is working to create a model of the origins of the universe, based on Reiser's theory. Xing's enormous talent leads him quickly to become Reiser's protégé, and it seems that only hard work stands between him and a bright future in science. Xing is obsessed with the study of dark matter, an unseen substance that he believes shapes the universe, and a theory that conflicts with the Reiser model. Xing makes scientific breakthroughs of his own which improve the Reiser model. Without Professor Reiser's approval, Liu Xing proposes to research dark matter for his doctoral dissertation. Reiser explains to Xing that this type of research is too complicated and suggests that he should pick a simpler dissertation topic. Refusing to work with Xing, Reiser finds a new protégé in Feng Gang, another Chinese student who was Xing's rival in undergraduate school in Beijing. Professor Reiser approves of Feng's dissertation proposal as it sticks to the Reiser model. Feng's English skills are far superior to his fellow Chinese students', and he refuses to speak in Mandarin with them. Feng changes his name to Laurence so that Americans would be more comfortable pronouncing his name. Without the permission of Professor Reiser, Xing publishes an article in an astronomy journal. Reiser is enraged by this and refuses to accept Xing's doctoral dissertation. At a graduation party for the Chinese students it is announced that Laurence Feng has won the university's Gell-Mann honorary doctorate prize for that year. Joanna Silver urges Professor Reiser to do something to help Liu Xing. Reiser informs her that he has written a "very fine" recommendation for him. Professor Reiser also attempts to belittle Xing by telling Silver that Xing is not a "team player." Xing does not graduate and finds his dream of winning the Nobel Prize shattered. He goes on to sell beauty products to try to make money. His roommate offers to find him a job in China, but Xing refuses to leave. A few months pass and Xing mails all of his money (a check for ten thousand dollars) to his parents in China. One day, Xing returns to campus. He heads into an auditorium where Laurence Feng is giving a presentation to the cosmology department. Unable to cope with his emotions, Xing pulls a revolver out of his coat and begins firing, shooting Laurence and Reiser before making his way to Reiser's office and shooting himself in the head.

Amy Benic takes a vacation at a spa outside New York City. Virgil Adamson is a masseur at the spa and gives Amy a massage. Amy inexplicably cries and Virgil comforts her. While complimenting Virgil on the massage, Amy realizes that Virgil is blind. Virgil asks her out, and the two eventually begin a relationship. Virgil lives alone, though his over-protective sister Jennie lives next door and takes care of him. Virgil reveals that he went blind when he was three and that the last thing he saw was something fluffy. While researching Virgil's condition, Amy learns of Doctor Charles Aaron, a specialist in eye treatment who suggests to Virgil that, with surgery, he could restore his sight. Virgil angrily refuses. Jennie reveals that their father left the family after putting Virgil through several kinds of treatments in order to restore his sight. Virgil eventually decides he will give the operation a try. It is a success, but after Virgil regains sight, he becomes confused and disoriented, unable to perceive light and distance. Dr. Aaron suggests that he should visit Phil Webster, a visual physiotherapist. Webster in turn suggests that Virgil needs to learn everything from scratch himself, through experience. Virgil and Amy begin living in New York City. The pair begin drifting apart, as Virgil finds it hard to decipher the look on Amy's face at times. Amy finds herself constantly having to explain basic things to Virgil. While at a party, Virgil walks into a glass pane due to his poor perception. Virgil's father sees him on television and arranges a reunion; Virgil goes to his father's workplace, but decides at the last minute that he cannot face him yet. On one of the regular visits with Webster, they engage in a deep conversation, where Webster notes that instead of just "seeing", Virgil should "look"; there are a lot of things that sight alone cannot solve. Virgil confesses that he and Amy are drifting apart, but insists that Amy is the most important thing in his life. Upon returning from a work trip to Atlanta, where she and her ex-husband shared a sensual moment, Amy decides to save the relationship. She finds Virgil in a park looking for "the horizon" in the city. Virgil's sight begins deteriorating. After consulting with Dr. Aaron, Virgil realizes that he is losing his sight yet again. He decides to look for his father. Virgil reveals to him that he is going blind again, and asks him why he left. His father tells him that he felt he was a failure when he did not find a way to help his son regain sight. Virgil states that he should not have left because his mother and sister suffered greatly after his father walked away. Virgil looks for Amy, who tells him about her plans to travel with him to places like Egypt and Europe. Withholding the fact that he is again going blind, Virgil tells her there is one thing he really wants to see, and brings her to a New York Rangers game. At the game, Virgil realizes that the "fluffy cloud" he last remembers seeing was cotton candy. He suffers a lengthened vision blackout and admits to Amy that he is going blind, which Amy refuses to accept. Back home, Virgil and Amy argue. He asks if she wants to spend her life with him if he is going to be blind forever. Amy hesitates, and Virgil decides to return home. Virgil eases back into his old way of life. While losing his sight, Virgil decides to look at as many things as possible, going through magazines and pictorial books in the library. He stays up to watch the sunset, seeing the horizon for the first and last time. After he has been blind again for some time, Virgil is at a park with a guide dog. Amy approaches and they reconnect. Amy apologizes to Virgil for trying to change him and for moving too fast. She asks if he wants to take a walk and "see what they see". They leave the park together.

Nick "The Zone" Falzone and his fellow air traffic controllers at the New York TRACON pride themselves on their ability to handle the intense stress of being a controller for one of the busiest airspaces in the country, even boasting of the 50% drop-out rate for new additions to staff unable to cope with the pressure. The group is joined by the quiet and confident Russell Bell, a veteran of TRACONs in the Western US. Russell quickly proves to be exceptionally capable of handling the increased workload using unorthodox and risky methods. Nick feels challenged by the new controller's ability to outperform him at seemingly every task. He warns his supervisor Russell is a loose cannon, especially after discovering that Russell once stood on a runway to allow himself to be violently propelled by a landing commercial airliner's wake turbulence. At a supermarket, Nick encounters Russell's despondent young wife Mary, who is sobbing over a grocery cart full of alcohol. In consoling her, he ends up at the Bells' house, where they cheat on their respective spouses. Several days later, Mary informs Nick that she immediately told Russell about their one-night stand and that the confession has actually improved their marriage. Fearing retaliation, Nick confronts Russell at work and is confused and surprised by his even-tempered response to the situation. Meanwhile, Nick's wife, Connie seems to become more and more intrigued by Russell, and Nick becomes increasingly paranoid that he will eventually seek revenge by having sex with her. While out of town for his father-in-law's funeral, Nick can't bring himself to lie when a grieving Connie challenges him to say that he has never cheated on her. As their flight home approaches New York, she sarcastically boasts that she slept with Russell. The plane then makes an odd turn, and he believes Russell is harassing him, or possibly going insane, purposely directing the plane into a dangerous storm. Soon after going to TRACON to confront Russell, a bomb threat is called into the facility. The building is evacuated and both Nick and Russell volunteer to stay behind to handle the daunting task of landing all the planes on approach before the alleged bomb is set to go off in 26 minutes. Successfully routing all but one plane that has lost radio contact, Nick leaves the building as the deadline approaches while Russell remains inside to make contact with the plane by calling one of its passengers via Airfone. Russell is lauded as a hero for making the effort despite the threat, which turned out to be a hoax. Russell abruptly quits and he and Mary move to Colorado. Connie leaves Nick, and his performance at work suffers; the once cocky, boastful controller is sent home after being responsible for two "deals" (near mid-air collisions) in one shift. After learning that Russell had ordered the diversion of his flight not to provoke him, but rather to clear a path to make a plane with a medical emergency on board next in line for a landing, Nick impulsively drives out to Colorado to make amends. Nick seeks his advice on how to get his personal life back in order, but Russell is unable to make him understand with words. He instead brings Nick to a runway so that he too can experience being caught in a landing aircraft's turbulence. They engage in the stunt together, and it has a profound effect on Nick, who thanks Russell. He returns to New York, where he regains his form at work, and reconciles with Connie.

Sleep Dealer is set in a future, militarized world marked by closed borders, virtual labor, and a global digital network that joins minds and experiences, where three strangers risk their lives to connect with each other and break the technology barriers. Memo Cruz works at a factory, one of several sleep dealers. Workers in these factories are connected to robots across the border, so they may control them. The story is told as a flashback, as Memo remembers his home in Santa Ana Del Rio, Oaxaca. His father wants him to participate in growing crops on the meager family homestead. Memo's passion, however, is electronics and hacking. Memo and his father must trek on foot to buy water by the bag while monitored by security cameras armed with machine guns. The media on American hi-def TV shows glimpses of a technological dystopia, although in a positive light with superficial spin-doctoring. Memo is building an electronic receiver that can tap into communications as a hobby. As he continues to work on it, its range increases to faraway cities. One summer, a remote-controlled military aerial vehicle operated by the security forces of Del Rio Water catches Memo monitoring a frequency used by the drones. This act warrants a brutal attack. He disconnects in time before the drone can locate him with certainty. On another occasion, he and his brother watch a live TV broadcast about a drone action that is about to destroy a building known to be intercepting drone communication. They quickly realize that the building is their own home, where Memo has his equipment, and run to save their father, whose life is in danger. However, they are too late, and the vehicle launches a rocket at the father, wounding him. The drone pilot then faces their father, seeing him through the drone’s camera, before killing him. The drone pilot is a Mexican-American named Rudy Ramirez. After the tragedy Memo boards a bus to Tijuana to find work in order to help sustain his family. On that same bus Memo meets Luz Martínez. Memo notices that Luz has nodes on the wrist for interfacing with the digital network and asks her where he can get them for free. She tells him that he can find someone, known as a coyotek, to connect him by asking around in a certain alley. Luz has loans and may default. She makes a living by uploading memories to an online memory trading company, TruNode, where viewers pay for content. Luz uploads her memory of meeting Memo to TruNode expecting nothing to come out of it. Memo is robbed of his money during his first attempt to seek a coyotek. He finds an abandoned shack in which to stay at the edge of the city, where other node workers live. Luz gets a sale for her memory of Memo and a prepaid offer for her next memory of him. Luz finds him and learns he is out of money. She helps him get a node job at a bar that has the equipment. She is the coyotek, having learned from her ex-boyfriend, and she does him a favor. Luz tries to upload more experiences. TruNode makes her reveal feelings rather than just the story. The person who requested the information is revealed to be Ramirez working for Del Rio Water. Luz and Memo open up to each other and have connected sex. Upon receiving the next upload, Ramirez has his doubts confirmed that his work made him kill a good man. Memo discovers that Luz has been paid to upload her memories of him, and so he leaves her feeling betrayed. He works overtime at the sleep dealer, risking exhaustion. Luz writes to him and mails him a recording of her memories as a parting gift. In the meantime, Ramirez has crossed the fortified US-Mexican border to meet Memo. As Ramirez explains himself, Memo tries to run, perceiving danger. Ramirez catches up and explains he was under orders and offers to help. Memo rejoins Luz and recruits her help to connect Ramirez to the network. He accesses the Del Rio Water security network to control one of the company's drones. Upon discovery that Ramirez is not heeding orders, other drones pursue Ramirez. After heated aerial dogfighting, Ramirez manages to blast a hole in the dam, directly where Memo's father had once tossed a pebble in helpless frustration. Memo receives news from his home and neighboring subsistence farms, celebrations of returning ancestral waters, albeit not necessarily a permanent one. Ramirez goes farther south in Mexico as he can no longer return to his family in the US. Memo moves on with his life in Tijuana.

The characters drive to a remote location to hike at a site marked "Wilderness Trail". As they start, they see some other hikers passing by. In order to not be bothered by these hikers, they decide to go off-trail. After some walking, talking, and an impromptu foot race, they decide to head back. Before long, they realize that they are lost. That night, they build a campfire. Over the next couple of days, the two hikers wander through the wilderness without food or water. They try to split up for a while, retrace their steps and follow some animal tracks, all to no avail. They grow increasingly irritated with each other as the situation becomes dire. They eventually find themselves slowly walking mostly in silence through a desert. They finally collapse due to fatigue and dehydration. The weaker of the two (Affleck) proclaims that he is "leaving" and reaches towards Damon's character. Damon's character rolls on top of Affleck and wordlessly strangles him before collapsing again. After some time, Damon's character awakens and realizes that a highway is not far away. In the final sequence, he is badly sunburned but watches the passing landscape from the car of the father and son who have seemingly rescued him.

Jim Bennett is a Los Angeles literature professor who uses gambling as a way of self-destruction. He ends up owing $260,000 to Lee, the proprietor of an exclusive, high-stakes underground gambling ring, and another $50,000 to Neville Baraka, a loan shark. Lee gives Jim seven days to pay off his debts or be murdered. During one of his classes, Jim begins an awkward discussion of literary excellence using Shakespeare as an example, arguing how almost all aspiring writers fail to accomplish literary excellence. He singles out exemplary athletes in his class for discussion, including Dexter, an emerging tennis star. Jim later confronts a collegiate basketball star, Lamar Allen, who pays no attention in class but intends to play in the NBA. Jim expresses his extremist view on achieving excellence in one's field or vocation: if you cannot be exemplary, he reasons, then you might as well not try. He tells them that only Amy Phillips, a quiet student, is capable of a career in literature. He identifies her as a potential writing prodigy based on her work in his class, as well as having previously encountered her working secretly as a waitress at the underground gambling house. They develop a mutual interest in each other. After class, Jim visits his mother Roberta at the family's luxury estate, but she says that she will not give him any more money. Jim considers borrowing money from Frank, another loan shark, to consolidate his debts and buy himself some time, but refuses to do so when Frank first demands Jim admit, "I am not a man." Jim convinces Roberta to give him enough to pay off his debts, expressing no gratitude, then gambles it all away in a casino with Amy. Neville kidnaps Jim, has him tied up and tortured, confronting him with an ultimatum —convince Lamar to win his college basketball semifinal by seven points or less, or he will kill Amy. Jim goes to Frank, who advises him to change his version of a "fuck you" attitude towards life by getting enough money to build a safe house and make reliable low yield investments for protection against his severe gambling losses. Frank lends him $260,000 to pay his debt to Lee but also threatens to kill everyone in Jim's personal life if he is not repaid. Lee's men assault Jim when he comes to ask Lee to stake him $150,000, saying the only way he can pay the full $410,000 debt to Lee and Frank is to gamble and win. Jim uses the $150,000 to bribe Lamar into doing the point shaving. He sends Dexter to Las Vegas to bet on the game with the $260,000 he got from Frank. Lamar succeeds, so Jim uses his winnings to pay his debt to Neville, denying he knows anything about the large bet made in Vegas. Jim then convinces both Lee and Frank to meet him in a neutral gambling den, where he wagers enough money to pay both men off—if he wins—on a single roulette spin. Successful, he leaves the money at the club for Lee and Frank saying, "I am not a gambler." The payment to Frank is more than he owed; Frank finds Jim and offers to give back the "cream", but to Frank's amusement, Jim responds "Fuck you." On an apparent adrenaline rush, Jim runs miles through the city to arrive at Amy's apartment; he is broke, but free from debt.

The film begins with Ross Ulbricht's arrest in San Francisco in 2013. It then delves into Ross's background, portraying him as a well-educated aspiring entrepreneur living in Austin, Texas. Ross comes up with the idea for Silk Road as a way to challenge government control and regulations, believing in the idea of taking back liberty. He starts the website to allow anonymous buying and selling of illegal goods using cryptocurrencies, and it flourishes, with Ross making millions by facilitating the sale of illegal items such as drugs, weapons, and identity information. Julia connects him with a contact at Gawker in order to drive interest in the site, and though the plan works, the increased attention leads to Meanwhile, DEA agent Rick Bowden has returned to work following a mandated stay in rehab after abusing drugs. Despite having little experience with technology, he is punished with a reassignment to the cybercrimes unit, where he is instructed to wait out nine months until he can retire with a full pension. Unwilling to merely languish, Rick begins to investigate Silk Road by registering and posing as a regular user, though his findings are ignored or dismissed by his superiors and colleagues, who are much younger and mock his seemingly outdated methodology and tactics. He is eventually assigned to an FBI task force unit dedicated to taking down Silk Road and tracking down Ross. Rick manages to ingratiate himself with Ross, building a friendship with him over Silk Road chatrooms with the help of the more tech-savvy Rayford, a former informant that Rick had blackmailed into lending assistance. After Ross hires Curtis Clark Green, a longtime user and seller on Silk Road, as Silk Road's sole employee, the task force manages to track down Green. Rick apprehends Green, and Ross grows increasingly panicked as Green apparently disappears. Rick, posing as a disinterested third party, offers to assist, and Ross agrees. After squeezing information about Silk Road and Ross from Green through torturous interrogation, Rick manipulates Ross into ordering Green's murder (which he feigns) while privately using Green to steal cryptocurrency from Silk Road's escrow. Both Ross and Rick's personal lives begin to fray: Julia, already having become disillusioned with Silk Road's impact on poor communities after learning that crystal meth and crack cocaine are being sold there, breaks up with Ross for good after he grows increasingly paranoid and obsessed. Ross also begins to question his own mission after learning of a teenager who died while taking drugs purchased from Silk Road. Meanwhile, Rick's investigation puts an emotional and financial strain on his family as he remains engrossed in the case. Ross begins to rely on Rick as a fixer, with Rick even showing up to his apartment incognito to coach him upon learning that FBI agents will be coming to his address for questioning after intercepting forged passports that he purchased from Silk Road. Cognizant that he will be arrested for his involvement once Ross is captured, Rick extorts Ross for hundreds of thousands of dollars by posing as both a hacker and hitman offering to dispose of said hacker, intent on providing for his family while he is in prison. The FBI task force, completely unaware of Rick's activities, eventually close in on Ross, and he is arrested in a public library. Rick is arrested not long afterwards, though not before confronting his superiors and warning that actors like Ross will soon be running the world. Ross and Rick are both sentenced to prison, where Ross passes Rick by chance one day and stares after him in disbelief.

A group of wealthy industrialists gather at the home of Mr. Lloyd, a millionaire who introduces them to Richard "Mack" McAllan, the engineer who successfully spearheaded the construction of the Channel Tunnel (the story takes place in the unspecified near-future, though it is noted in the film that the Channel Tunnel is built "in 1940") and so is the Bahamas-Miami tunnel. McAllan informs the group that the "Allanite steel" he developed, along with a "radium drill" developed by his friend Frederick "Robbie" Robbins, makes it possible to construct an undersea tunnel linking England with the United States. Though the group is initially skeptical, the backing of Lloyd and his associate Mostyn convinces the group to buy shares in the project. Three years into construction of the tunnel, McAllan is a worldwide celebrity, but his work keeps him from his devoted wife Ruth and their young son Geoffrey. Called away to New York, he is informed that the people are losing faith in the project. Lloyd needs to have him use his fame to get support. Lloyd's attractive daughter Varlia, who is secretly in love with McAllan, keeps him company to intensify the attention of the press. The photos of the couple add to Ruth's sense of isolation, and she decides to work in the tunnel as a nurse. There she is affected by an unknown gas afflicting the workers and loses her eyesight. Worried that her husband no longer loves her and not wanting him to stay with her out of pity, Ruth leaves McAllan, taking their son with her. Heartbroken at her unexplained departure, McAllan throws himself into the project, alienating Robbins in the process. Years pass. Though the cost of the tunnel in lives and money continues to mount, the British prime minister and American president eagerly anticipate its completion and the unity and peace they promise it will bring. Ruth lives in the countryside with her now-grown son, who lobbies Robbins to find him a job working in the tunnel. The tunnel is nearing completion, but the workers encounter a submarine volcano that will necessitate a detour. McAllan needs more money to establish a detour, but is opposed by Grellier, an arms manufacturer, and Mostyn. The two men earlier manipulated the stock market to become the controlling shareholders in the company. Lloyd suspects that Grellier and Mostyn plan to use the delay to depress stock prices again, and this time gain total ownership of the tunnel. However, Varlia convinces Mostyn to fund further construction by promising him the one thing he has always wanted, but never gotten: her hand in marriage. Though the project goes forward, Grellier has Mostyn killed for backing out of their deal. Despite the renewed effort, samples indicate the volcano may be too large to drill around. The drill breaks through to volcanic gases that kill hundreds of workers, including Geoffrey. The project seems on the verge of collapse. Determined to see the project through and fortified by the reappearance of Ruth (who came to the tunnel site to discover Geoffrey's fate), McAllan vows to continue. With three volunteers, McAllan and Robbins man the radium drill, and despite near-fatal temperatures, break through to the American side of the tunnel.