In 2084, Mars is a colonized world under the tyrannical regime of Vilos Cohaagen, who controls the mining of valuable turbinium ore. On Earth, construction worker Douglas Quaid experiences recurring dreams about Mars and a mysterious woman. Intrigued, Quaid visits Rekall, a company that implants realistic false memories, and chooses one set on Mars (with a blue sky) where he is a Martian secret agent. However, before the implant is completed he lashes out, already thinking he is a secret agent. Believing Cohaagen's "Agency" has suppressed Quaid's memories, the Rekall employees erase evidence of Quaid's visit and send him home. En route, Quaid is attacked by men led by his colleague Harry because he unknowingly revealed his past; Quaid's instincts take over and he kills his assailants. At home, he is assaulted by his wife Lori, who claims she was assigned to monitor Quaid by the Agency and that their marriage is a false memory implant. He flees but is pursued by armed men led by Richter, Cohaagen's operative and Lori's real husband. A man who says he is Quaid's former acquaintance gives him a suitcase containing supplies and a video recording in which Quaid identifies himself as Hauser, a Cohaagen ally who defected after falling in love. According to the recording, Cohaagen brainwashed Hauser to become Quaid and conceal his secrets before securing him on Earth. Hauser instructs Quaid to return to Mars and stop Cohaagen. On Mars, Quaid evades Richter and, following a note from Hauser, travels to Venusville, a district populated by humans and those mutated by air pollution and solar radiation within the cheaply built domes protecting the colony. He meets Melina, the woman from his dreams, who knows him as Hauser and believes he is still working for Cohaagen. In his hotel room, Quaid is confronted by Lori and Dr. Edgemar from Rekall, who tell Quaid he is still at Rekall on Earth, trapped in his fantasy memory and on the verge of permanent brain damage. Quaid notices Edgemar is sweating and, believing he is real, kills him. Quaid is captured by Richter's men, but Melina rescues him and Quaid kills Lori. The pair escape with taxi driver Benny to Venusville. The mutants lead them to a hidden rebel base, where Quaid meets their leader Kuato, a mutant growing out of the abdomen of his brother George. Kuato psychically reads Quaid's mind, learning that Cohaagen is hiding a 500,000-year-old alien reactor built into a mountain that, once activated, produces breathable air but could also destroy all turbinium, ending Cohaagen's monopoly over both resources. Benny shoots George, revealing himself to be in Cohaagen's employ, and Cohaagen's forces attack the base, killing the rebels. Before he is shot by Richter, Kuato implores Quaid to start the reactor. Cohaagen disables Venusville's air supply to slowly suffocate the remaining inhabitants. Quaid and Melina are brought to Cohaagen, who explains that Hauser was his close friend who volunteered to become Quaid as an elaborate ruse to bypass the mutants' psychic abilities, infiltrate the rebellion, and destroy it. Quaid's Rekall visit had activated him earlier than planned and Cohaagen has been helping him to survive the oblivious Richter's pursuit. Cohaagen orders Hauser's memories to be restored in Quaid and Melina to be reprogrammed as his subservient lover, but they manage to escape to the mines below the reactor. Benny, Richter, and his men attack them, but the pair outwits and kills them all. Cohaagen awaits them in the reactor control room, claiming that activating it will destroy the planet. He activates an explosive to destroy the controls, but Quaid throws the explosive into a nearby tunnel, where it detonates and creates a breach to the Martian surface. The explosive decompression blows Cohaagen out to the surface where he suffocates and dies. Quaid activates the reactor before he and Melina are also blown out. The reactor melts the planet's ice core into gas that bursts to the surface, forming a breathable atmosphere and saving Quaid, Melina, and the rest of Mars's population. As everyone beholds the now-blue sky, Quaid momentarily wonders if everything was a dream, before he and Melina kiss.

In 1991, Maksymilian "Max" Paradys and Albert Starski volunteer themselves for the first human hibernation experiment, created by professor Wiktor Kuppelweiser. Instead of being awakened 3 years later in 1994 as planned, they wake in the year 2044, in a post-nuclear world. They think they are in a clinic being taken care of by women; Max becomes attracted to Lamia Reno. After asking for professor Kuppelweiser, they are informed that he "doesn't exist", and that there was a war long ago and that males have long been extinct. The men are under constant surveillance; Lamia informs them their society reproduces without males through parthenogenesis. During a briefing, Max kisses Lamia, for which she knocks him down and threatens both men with euthanasia. However, the kiss causes Lamia's drug-inhibited passions to resurface. She finds the oldest living woman Julia Novack, who tells Lamia that the old world with two sexes should be restored. After several days, Max and Albert are permitted to go out to meet with Her Excellency, the supreme ruler of women. Waiting for her in the bio-sanctuary, they spot a tree with two tiny apples and eat them, having had enough of synthetic food. At the meeting they ask what womankind did to mankind. The women reply the extinction of men is not their fault, but Kuppelweiser's, who, during the war, invented an agent which was supposed to temporarily paralyze male genes, but instead destroyed male genes permanently. Max proposes he and Albert serve as reproducers to restore the male population. However, the women do not wish the old order to return; Her Excellency gestures to the "sacred apple tree " and says it was planted by Arch Mother, and from which, when once in paradise, a male took an apple and seduced a woman with it, by which act paradise was lost. Noticing the missing apples, Her Excellency becomes enraged and demands the men be confined again. Max and Albert escape by damaging the electric power grid, but are ultimately caught. The women provide them to submit themselves for "naturalization" - undergoing a sex reassignment surgery. When they refuse, the ceiling above the room reveals an assembly of women to determine their fate. In a trial, the women blame males for oppression, evil and vices, and praise their new society. They engage in historical revisionism by claiming that scientists such as Copernicus, Einstein and Pincus were women. When Max and Albert are taken away, the assembly votes on whether the men should undergo forced 'naturalization' or be 'liquidated'. Naturalization is passed by one vote. The men escape again, and encounter other women who have never seen a man. They are cornered by the security team and escape down a waste chute. They discover the nest of "decadency" - one of the anarchist, " hippie " women's groups, who do not wish to be part of the oppressive regime, playing loud music, and some engaging in lesbian relations. They mistake Max and Albert for government spies and, in the meantime, the pursuing regime forces attack, and subsequent chaos provides the men with an opportunity to escape. During their escape, the men stumble upon Lamia, who provides them with a way to see the outside - a periscope - and reveals that they live deep underground in expanded old mines. The periscope shows a dark, rocky landscape above ground, and sensors indicate high levels of "Kuppelweiser radiation ", a side effect of the M bomb. However, it transpires that Lamia's "help" was a ruse to capture the men and force them into surgery. Lamia is congratulated by Tekla and Emma Dax, but they also inform her that their section will now be in charge of the males, which devastates Lamia. In the hands of Tekla, the fate of the males is to be different. Their organs will be extracted for transplantation, and their remains will be tested as a food source due to a protein shortage. The chief surgeon, Dr Yanda, an old lady, is revealed to be Max's daughter, who now delights in taking revenge for his abandonment of his wife and child in favor of hibernation for profit. Lamia sabotages the surgery and helps the men escape as revenge for Tekla and Dax taking the men and her research. In the periscope room Lamia tells the guards she will blast the whole block if they do not give her the code activating a capsule reaching the surface, while Max and Albert find and change into protective suits. The guards claim that only Her Excellency knows the password required; enraged, Max shouts "kurwa mać!" (a popular Polish profanity as versatile as " fuck " in English, lit. " mother's a whore"), and the capsule is activated. Exploring the barren surface, Max bumps against an invisible barrier and is unable to go further. He cuts the fabric of the barrier, revealing a dazzling light. They all go through the hole and find themselves on a beach, the periscope area surrounded by a small tent-like structure with the barren landscape panorama painted on the inside of the canvas. They reach a forest, but the suits are running out of oxygen. Max points skyward to a flying stork and declares "if it can live, it means we can live too". After removing the suits, they come across a villa with food. While eating in the garden, they are found by Emma; armed with a harpoon, she demands their surrender, but she faints from lack of oxygen. Albert performs CPR on her. When she regains consciousness, Emma begins to fight with Albert; on the TV they see an official government broadcast of events, stating that Lamia and Emma are dead and including an interview with "naturalized" Max and Albert, who claim to be feeling well. Emma is shocked, unable to understand such lies and all the strange environment "with too much air". Max goes with Lamia to a bedroom and tries to explain to her what mating is, while Albert tries his luck with Emma. In the living room, Her Excellency emerges from the elevator hidden within a closet to feed her caged birds. When she opens the wardrobe, she is attacked by Max who was hiding inside. Her Excellency's breasts and hair are stripped, revealing that 'she' is a male in disguise. 'Her' Excellency tells the men that after the war, when the League of Women took power, the few boys remaining were naturalized into girls, but he was hidden by his mother. Growing up in a female disguise, he joined the League and was eventually elected 'Her Excellency'. He was too afraid of women to form a relationship with any and, by revealing himself, to try to restore the old order. The government has been exaggerating the radiation level to keep the inhabitants easier to control; likewise, the inhabitants are medicated to remove sexual desire. The three make a deal: Max and Albert will not compromise 'Her' Excellency's true identity, but they will stay in his home with Lamia and Emma. Later, Max and Albert, disguised as laboratory workers, add male gametes to flasks in the incubation centre. Months later, a nurse, routinely wrapping newborns in blankets, is horrified to see a penis.

Astronomer Dr. Ellie Arroway arrives at the SETI program at the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico. The film's prologue reveals that she was encouraged to pursue science by her father, who died in her youth. In the film's present, Arroway studies radio emissions from space to detect signs of intelligent extraterrestrial life. While in Puerto Rico, Arroway meets Christian philosopher, Palmer Joss. They have a brief romantic encounter, but Arroway does not contact him again. David Drumlin, the President's science advisor, cuts SETI funding, deeming it futile. Arroway is furious and instead pursues and receives financial support from S. R. Hadden, a reclusive billionaire industrialist. Arroway re-locates her team to the Very Large Array (VLA) radio dish observatory in New Mexico. Four years later, Arroway is about to lose access to the VLA satellite dishes. Before being evicted, she discovers a signal containing a sequence of prime numbers originating from the star Vega. Drumlin and the National Security Council, headed by Michael Kitz, arrive and attempt to federalize the facility. Meanwhile, Arroway's team detect a video embedded within the signal: Adolf Hitler 's opening address at the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin, Germany. The Hitler transmission was the first to penetrate the Earth's ionosphere and reach Vega. The project is put under federal security and its progress is monitored globally. It is discovered that the signal contains over 63,000 pages of encoded data, though it is undecipherable without a primer. Hadden breaches the government's computer systems and discovers the primer, providing Arroway the means to decode the data. It reveals schematics for what could be a transportation device for a single person. Multiple nations provide funding for the construction at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral. An international panel is assembled to select a candidate to travel in the machine. An American is preferred, and Arroway is a leading candidate until Palmer Joss, a panel member, focuses on her atheism during the interviews. The panel selects Drumlin. During the first tests, a fanatical religious terrorist destroys the machine with a suicide bomb, killing Drumlin and several others. Hadden, terminally ill with cancer, is now residing on the Mir space station. He informs Arroway that the US government and Hadden Industries have secretly built a second machine in Hokkaido, Japan. Arroway, the only remaining American candidate, will use it. In Japan, Joss and Arroway are reunited. Joss explains he voted against Arroway because he feared she would not survive the experiment. Equipped with multiple recording devices, Arroway enters a pod which is dropped through the massive machine's counter-rotating rings. She seemingly travels through wormholes and observes a radio array-like structure at Vega, signs of civilization on an alien planet, and a celestial event. Arroway finds herself on a beach similar to her childhood drawing of Pensacola, Florida. An alien assuming her deceased father's appearance approaches. He explains that the aliens detected humans' radio emissions and judged it worthy of a first step into the cosmos. Arroway is soon sent back through the wormhole. Arroway regains consciousness inside the pod. The mission control team reports that the pod fell through the machine into a safety net and that the experiment achieved nothing. Arroway insists she was gone for hours, but her devices recorded only static. A Congressional Committee headed by Kitz speculates the signal and the machine were a hoax perpetrated by Hadden, now deceased. Arroway admits she cannot scientifically prove her experience and requests the committee accept her testimony on faith. Joss tells the press that he believes Arroway's claim, and they leave the hearing together. Kitz and White House official Rachel Constantine discuss the confidential information and observe that Arroway's device recorded 18 hours of static. Arroway receives ongoing financial support for the SETI program at the VLA.

John Murdoch awakens in a hotel bathtub with amnesia. He receives a phone call from Dr. Daniel Schreber, who urges him to flee the hotel to evade a group of men who are after him. In the room, Murdoch discovers the corpse of a ritualistically murdered woman and a bloody knife. He flees the scene, just as a group of pale men in trenchcoats ("the Strangers") arrive. Police Inspector Frank Bumstead, who is investigating murdered prostitutes, identifies Murdoch as a suspect. Following clues, Murdoch learns his name and finds out he has a wife named Emma. When the Strangers corner him, Murdoch instinctively alters reality (an ability the Strangers share and refer to as tuning) to create an escape path for himself. Murdoch wanders the streets of the city where it is perpetually nighttime but no one seems to notice. When the clock strikes twelve, Murdoch witnesses everyone else fall asleep and the Strangers use tuning to physically rearrange the city's architecture. Afterwards, assisted by Schreber, the Strangers change the inhabitants' memories using an injection containing the new memories. Murdoch learns that he came from a coastal town called Shell Beach, which everyone knows, though no one remembers how to get there and Murdoch's attempts to visit fail. The Strangers inject a copy of the memories given to Murdoch into one of their men, Mr. Hand, hoping it will help them predict Murdoch's movements and track him down. Inspector Bumstead catches Murdoch, though he acknowledges that Murdoch is most likely innocent, as he has misgivings about the city's nature. They confront Schreber, who explains the Strangers' nature. They are extra-terrestrials residing in human corpses who share a hive mind, and are experimenting with humans to analyze individuality in hopes of making a discovery that will help their race to survive. Murdoch, as Schreber reveals, is an anomaly who inadvertently awoke before Schreber could implant his latest identity as a murderer. Murdoch and Bumstead take Schreber and attempt to reach Shell Beach but instead end up at a poster for the town on a wall at the edge of the city. Frustrated, Murdoch and Bumstead break through the wall, revealing outer space, just before some of the Strangers, including Mr. Hand, arrive with Emma as a hostage. In the ensuing fight, Bumstead and one of the Strangers fall through the hole and drift out into space, and the city is shown to be a deep space habitat surrounded by a force field. The Strangers bring Murdoch to their home beneath the city and force Schreber to imprint Murdoch with their collective memory, believing Murdoch to be the culmination of their experiments. Against their order, Schreber instead injects Murdoch with memories of decades of training about the Strangers, their machines, and tuning. Murdoch awakens with his powers fully realized. He frees himself and battles the Strangers, eventually defeating their leader Mr. Book in a psychokinetic fight high above the city. After learning from Schreber that Emma has been re-imprinted and cannot be restored, Murdoch employs his powers, amplified by the Strangers' machines, to create a real Shell Beach within the habitat. On his way home, Murdoch encounters a dying Mr. Hand and informs him that the Strangers searched in the wrong place—the mind—to understand humanity. He rotates the habitat toward the star it had been turned away from and the city experiences sunlight for the first time. Opening a door leading out of the city, Murdoch steps out to view the sunrise. On the pier in front of him is the woman he knew as Emma, who now has new memories and a new identity as Anna. Murdoch reintroduces himself and they walk to Shell Beach, beginning their relationship anew.

In the 23rd century, after more than a year's journey, the United Planets starship C-57D arrives at the distant planet Altair IV to determine the fate of the ship Bellerophon, sent there 20 years before. Dr. Edward Morbius, one of the original expedition's scientists, warns the ship not to land for safety reasons, but Commander John J. Adams ignores his warning. Adams and Lieutenants Jerry Farman and "Doc" Ostrow are met by Robby the Robot, who transports them to Morbius' residence. Morbius describes how all other members of their expedition had been killed, one by one, by an unseen "planetary force", with the Bellerophon being vaporized as the last survivors tried to escape. Only Morbius, his wife (who, Morbius claims, later died of natural causes), and their daughter Altaira were somehow immune. Morbius offers to help the starship return home, but Adams says he must receive further instructions from Earth. The next day, Adams finds Farman kissing Altaira. Furious, he rebukes Farman and criticizes Altaira for wearing revealing clothing. That night, an invisible intruder sabotages communications equipment aboard the starship. The next morning, Adams and Ostrow go to Morbius' residence to discuss the intrusion. While waiting, Adams happens upon Altaira swimming. After she dons a new, less revealing dress, Adams apologizes for his behavior toward her, and they kiss. They are suddenly attacked by Altaira's pet tiger, and Adams is forced to disintegrate it with his blaster. Morbius appears and tells Adams and Ostrow that he has been studying artifacts of the Krell, a highly advanced race that mysteriously perished in a single night 200,000 years before. One such device enhances the intellect, which Morbius had used. He barely survived, but his intellectual capacity had doubled. Another is a vast 8,000-cubic-mile (33,000 km 3) underground machine, still functioning, powered by 9,208 thermonuclear reactors. Adams tells Morbius he must share these discoveries with Earth, but Morbius refuses, saying, "Humanity is not yet ready to receive such limitless power." Farman erects a force field fence around the starship, but the unseen intruder easily passes through and brutally murders Chief Engineer Quinn, who was repairing the damaged communications equipment. Morbius warns Adams of his premonition of further deadly attacks. That night, the intruder is detected approaching. Its outline and features become visible when it enters the force field and blasters are fired at it, to little effect. The thing kills Farman and two other crewmen. When Morbius is awakened by Altaira's screams, the creature suddenly vanishes. Adams tries to persuade Altaira to leave. Ostrow sneaks away and uses the Krell intellect enhancer, but is fatally injured. Before dying, he informs Adams that the underground machine's purpose was to create anything by mere thought, anywhere on the planet. However, he tells Adams the Krell forgot one thing: "Monsters from the id." The machine gave the Krell's own subconscious desires free rein with unlimited power, causing their own extinction. Adams deduces that Morbius's subconscious created the thing that both killed the original expedition members and attacked his crewmen; Morbius refuses to believe him. Altaira tells Morbius that she is leaving Altair IV with Adams. Robby detects the creature approaching; Morbius commands Robby to kill it, but the robot knows it is Morbius and shuts down, being programmed to never kill a human. Adams, Altaira, and Morbius hide in the Krell laboratory, but the creature melts its way through the thick doors. Morbius finally accepts the truth and confronts and disowns his other self, but is fatally injured by the creature as it vanishes. Before he dies, he has Adams activate a planetary self-destruct system, warning them to be far away in deep space. At a safe distance, Adams, Altaira, Robby, and the surviving crew witness the obliteration of Altair IV. Adams reassures Altaira that in about a million years, the human race will stand where the Krell did. They embrace as C-57D heads back to Earth.

In 2046, Grey Trace, an auto mechanic, lives with his wife Asha who works for Cobalt, one of the companies contributing to human-computer augmentations. Grey asks Asha to help him return a refurbished car to his client Eron Keen, a renowned tech innovator. While visiting his home, Eron reveals his latest creation, a chip called STEM that can manage a human’s motor functions. Returning home, Grey and Asha's self-driving car malfunctions and crashes. Four men kill Asha and shoot Grey in the neck, severing his spinal cord. Grey returns home months later as a wheelchair-using quadriplegic, under the care of his mother, Pamela. Asha's death and the inability of Det. Cortez to identify their attackers causes Grey to sink into depression. After a suicide attempt, he is visited by Eron, who convinces him to accept a STEM implant. Grey regains control of his limbs and Eron has Grey sign a non-disclosure agreement, requiring Grey to pretend to still be paralyzed. While looking through a drone video feed of his wife's murder, Grey hears STEM speak in his mind. STEM says it can help Grey get revenge and quickly identifies one of the assailants, Serk Brantner, from the video. Grey breaks into Serk's home and finds proof Serk was "upgraded" through a secret military experiment, also connecting Serk to a local bar called the Old Bones. Serk arrives and attacks Grey, but STEM convinces Grey to temporarily give up control of his body, allowing STEM to turn Grey into a lethally efficient fighting machine, killing Serk with little effort. Cortez later sees drone footage of Grey’s wheelchair approaching Serk’s house, but his perceived paralysis negates him as a suspect. Eron has tracked STEM's movements and berates Grey for his vigilantism. Grey reveals STEM is speaking to him, which surprises Eron, who demands that Grey stop his investigation. Grey proceeds to the Old Bones and finds Tolan, another of the assailants. Grey allows STEM to torture Tolan to death, first getting the name of the assailants' ringleader, Fisk. Leaving the bar, Grey stumbles, and STEM informs him that Eron is attempting to shut them down remotely. STEM directs Grey to a nearby hacker, Jamie, who manages to remove STEM's input guard, then leaves just as Fisk arrives. Grey, with STEM's control restored, kills Fisk's companion. Grey returns home only for Pamela to see him walking, forcing him to reveal STEM's existence. Cortez arrives to interrogate them after finding Grey's wheelchair suspiciously abandoned at the Old Bones; she leaves after planting a listening device on Grey's jacket. Grey wishes to give up the hunt, but STEM explains that Fisk will track them down and kill them. STEM reveals that the hack gives it free control of Grey’s body. STEM uses Grey to drive to Fisk, causing an automated car to malfunction and crash into Cortez, who is tailing them. Cortez returns to Grey's home, where Pamela explains STEM. Grey and STEM find Fisk, who reveals he was only hired to paralyze Grey so he could be implanted. Fisk's own upgrades outpace Grey's movements. Grey taunts Fisk with the death of Serk, his brother, allowing STEM to gain the upper hand and kill Fisk. Fisk's phone reveals messages from Eron, suggesting he orchestrated all the events. Grey storms Eron's home, killing all personnel in his path, but is held at gunpoint by Cortez before he can kill Eron. Eron confesses how STEM forced him to do its bidding, having long since come to dominate all aspects of Eron's life in pursuit of its goal to become human. STEM kills Eron and attempts to kill Cortez, but Grey fights for control over his own body, managing to stab himself in the hand. Grey wakes up in a hospital room, not paralyzed. Asha explains he has been unconscious for two days following their crash. In reality, Grey is still in Eron's home. STEM, in full control, explains to Cortez that the psychological strain has finally broken Grey's mind; this was STEM's objective all along, as this allowed STEM to assume control over Grey's mind and body. Grey's consciousness believes the idyllic dream state it has found, while STEM kills Cortez and leaves.

There are four main story arcs, listed in approximate order below. In typical Wong fashion, they are presented in non-chronological order. Knowledge of Days of Being Wild and In the Mood for Love is assumed, but not necessary to understand 2046.

In a dystopian 2045, people seek to escape from reality through the OASIS (Ontologically Anthropocentric Sensory Immersive Simulation), a virtual reality entertainment universe created by James Halliday and Ogden Morrow of Gregarious Games. After Halliday's death, a pre-recorded message left by his avatar Anorak announces a contest, granting ownership of the OASIS to the first to find the golden Easter egg within it, which is locked behind a gate requiring three keys players can obtain by accomplishing three challenges. The contest has lured several egg hunters, or "Gunters", and the interest of Nolan Sorrento, the CEO of Innovative Online Industries (IOI) who seeks to control the OASIS and insert intrusive online advertising. IOI uses an army of indentured servants and employees called "Sixers" to find the egg. Wade Watts, an avid orphaned Columbus, Ohio -based Gunter using the avatar Parzival, participates in the first challenge, an unbeatable race, along with his best friend Aech, and Art3mis, a female avatar whom Parzival has a crush on. Parzival regularly visits Halliday's Journals, a simulated archive of Halliday's life and hobbies, run by the Curator. Wade receives the Copper Key from Anorak after he wins by driving backward, while Art3mis, Aech, and his friends Daito and Sho, all win the race afterward, later being collectively named the High-5 on the OASIS' scoreboard. Sorrento hires the mercenary i-R0k to learn Wade's true identity, intent on bribing him to win the contest on IOI's behalf. Wade and Art3mis discover from the Journals that Halliday once dated Morrow's wife Karen "Kira" Underwood. Wade and Art3mis visit the Distracted Globe night club to look for clues, where Wade confesses his love and true name to Art3mis. They survive an IOI raid in which Art3mis abandons Wade, explaining that her father died in debt to IOI. i-R0k, who was eavesdropping on their conversation, informs Sorrento of his findings. Sorrento contacts Wade with his offer. When rejected, Sorrento attempts to kill Wade by bombing his house, killing Wade's aunt Alice among others. Art3mis' player Samantha Cook takes Wade in. Together, they realize the second challenge relates to Halliday's regret of not pursuing a relationship with Kira. Along with Aech, Daito, and Sho, Parzival and Art3mis search for the Overlook Hotel 's recreation. Art3mis asks Kira to dance and wins the Jade Key. Sorrento's subordinate F'Nale Zandor storms the Gunters' hideout, taking Samantha to an IOI Loyalty Center to pay off her father's debt. Wade escapes with the help of the other High-5 users, Helen Harris (Aech), Toshiro (Daito), and Zhou (Sho) in Helen's truck. Samantha escapes confinement after Wade and others hack Sorrento's OASIS rig. The third challenge is found in Castle Anorak on Planet Doom, where players must guess Halliday's favorite Atari 2600 game to earn the Crystal Key. iR0k places a forcefield around the castle using the Orb of Osuvox, but Art3mis eventually disables it. The High-5 lead an army of OASIS players against the Sixers. Sorrento fights back but Aech, Daito, and Art3mis destroy his avatar. Parzival destroys Samantha's avatar, allowing her to flee IOI while the High-5 pick her up, and reaches the console, but Sorrento uses the Cataclyst bomb to wipe out every avatar on Planet Doom including himself. Parzival survives using an extra life coin given to him earlier by the Curator in a bet. He plays the 1980 game Adventure and wins the Crystal Key by locating Warren Robinett 's Easter egg. He uses the three keys to enter a treasure room where Anorak offers him a contract. Parzival recognizes it as the one Morrow signed when Halliday forced him out of Gregarious Games and refuses to sign it. Anorak transforms into Halliday, who expresses his regrets in life and hands over the Easter egg. Sorrento and F'Nale are arrested in the aftermath of the bombing. Ogden Morrow appears, revealing he is the Curator. Wade decides to run the OASIS with the High-5, inviting Morrow to join them as a consultant. As the IOI Loyalty Centers shut down, the High-5 make the controversial choice to close the OASIS every Tuesday and Thursday, so people can spend more time in the real world.

Eddie Morra is a struggling author in New York City. His girlfriend Lindy, frustrated with his lack of progress and ambition, breaks up with him. Eddie encounters Vernon, the brother of his ex-wife Melissa, who gives him a sample of a new nootropic called NZT-48, which Vernon implies will help Eddie with his "creative problems". Eddie tries the drug and discovers that he has acquired perfect recall, able to analyze minute details and information at incredible speed. Under the influence, he helps his landlord's wife with her law school homework, sleeps with her, cleans his apartment, and, now inspired, makes major progress on his book. Eddie visits Vernon's apartment to learn more about the pill, but finds him badly beaten. Vernon, refusing to explain what happened, sends Eddie to run some errands. When Eddie returns, he finds Vernon murdered and his apartment ransacked. Before the police arrive, Eddie finds Vernon's stash of pills. Eddie finishes his book and fantasizes about what he can accomplish on the drug, but with little money, he decides to day trade with a $100,000 loan from Gennady, a loan shark. He makes shocking gains and resumes his relationship with Lindy. His success leads to a meeting with finance tycoon Carl Van Loon, who tests him by seeking advice on a merger with rival Hank Atwood's company. After the meeting, Eddie experiences an 18-hour dissociative fugue, which he refers to as a "time skip". The next day, before a meeting with Van Loon, Eddie finds out that his drug supply has run out, forcing him to go without it. During the meeting, Eddie sees on a news telecast that a woman has been murdered in her hotel room. Recognizing her as a woman with whom he slept during his time skip, he abruptly leaves. Eddie learns that everyone who took NZT-48 is either hospitalized or dead. He repays Gennady but he finds one pill, and, after trying it, harasses Eddie for more. He and Lindy are also pursued by a man in a trench coat, and she tells Eddie that she cannot be with him while he is on the drug. Using pills that he stashed at Lindy's apartment, Eddie experiments and learns to control his dosage, sleep schedule, and food intake to prevent side effects. He hires a laboratory to reverse-engineer the drug, an attorney to keep the police from investigating him, and two bodyguards to protect him from Gennady. On the day of the merger, Atwood falls into a coma. Eddie recognizes Atwood's driver as the man in the trench coat and realizes that Atwood was on NZT-48 and is suffering from withdrawal. While Eddie participates in a police lineup, his attorney steals his supply of pills. Eddie enters into withdrawal, and while Van Loon questions him about Atwood's coma, Eddie receives a parcel containing the severed hands of his bodyguards. He hurries home but Gennady breaks in, demanding more pills, which Eddie is finally out of. Gennady flaunts his abilities while injecting himself with NZT-48, explaining that direct injection into the bloodstream causes the effects to last longer. As Gennady prepares to eviscerate him, Eddie grabs his own knife and kills Gennady. Eddie consumes Gennady's blood to ingest the last of the NZT-48. His mental abilities restored, he kills the remaining henchmen and finds the man in the trench coat, surmising that Atwood employed him to locate more NZT-48. Once Atwood dies, the two recover Eddie's stash from his attorney's apartment. A year later, Eddie is running for the United States Senate. Van Loon visits him and reveals that he acquired the company that produced NZT-48 and shut down Eddie's laboratory. Acknowledging that Eddie will likely become President of the United States one day, Van Loon offers Eddie a continued supply of the drug in exchange for political support. Eddie tells Van Loon that he has already perfected the drug and weaned himself off it, retaining his abilities without side effects. Defeated, Van Loon leaves. Eddie goes to lunch with Lindy. After Eddie speaks in fluent-sounding Mandarin with the waiter, Lindy looks at Eddie suspiciously. He looks at Lindy and asks, "What?".

The cast of the 1980s space-adventure series Galaxy Quest attend fan conventions and make trivial promotional appearances. Though the series' vain former star, Jason Nesmith, thrives on the attention, his co-stars Gwen DeMarco, Alexander Dane, Fred Kwan, and Tommy Webber resent him and their stalled careers. At a convention, a group calling themselves Thermians approaches Jason for help. Thinking they want him for a promotional appearance, he agrees. Jason also overhears two attendees mocking him and the fans. Despondent, he brusquely dismisses other fans, including Brandon, before going home to drink and watch reruns of the series. The next morning, when the Thermians pick him up, a hungover Jason does not grasp that they are actual aliens who have transported him to a working re-creation of the Galaxy Quest starship, the NSEA Protector. Jason believes he is on a set, and performs in character as he confronts the Thermians' enemy, Sarris, who demands the "Omega 13", a secret super weapon with unknown capabilities mentioned but never used in the show's finale. Giving perfunctory orders, Jason fires on and temporarily defeats Sarris. After the grateful Thermians transport him back to Earth, Jason realizes the experience was real and attempts to convince the other cast members. In his excitement, Jason bumps into Brandon again, accidentally swapping Brandon's toy communicator with a real one Jason acquired from the Thermians. When one of the Thermians, Laliari, seeks Jason's help again, the cast joins him, along with the convention emcee, Guy, who had played an ill-fated extra in one episode. Aboard the Protector, the cast learn that the Thermians, who possess no concept of fiction, believe the episodes of Galaxy Quest are true "historical documents". Inspired by the crew's adventures, they have based their society on the virtues espoused by the show. Sarris returns and demands the Omega 13 device. He attacks the Protector again, and the ship barely escapes through a magnetic minefield. However, the ship's power source, a beryllium sphere, is severely damaged. The humans travel to a nearby planet and take a replacement sphere from ferocious, childlike alien miners. Jason is temporarily left behind and fends off a rock creature until Fred beams him up. Back on the Protector, the crew discovers that Sarris has seized the ship. After Jason confesses they are just actors, Sarris forces him to explain the truth to the disillusioned Thermian leader, Mathesar. Sarris activates the Protector' s self-destruct mechanism and returns to his ship. Jason and Gwen contact Brandon via the swapped communicator, and Brandon and his superfan friends guide them to abort the self-destruct sequence. Brandon also explains that the Omega 13 is either a universe-destroying bomb or a "matter re-arranger" that sends the user 13 seconds back in time. Meanwhile, Alexander leads a Thermian revolt against Sarris' forces and takes back control of the Protector. With renewed confidence, the crew challenges Sarris and draws his ship into the magnetic minefield, destroying it. As they return to Earth, Sarris, who narrowly escaped his ship's destruction, ambushes them on the bridge and fatally wounds several crew members. Jason activates the Omega 13, which sends everyone 13 seconds back in time, allowing Jason and Mathesar to thwart Sarris before he attacks. The Protector' s bridge separates from the main vessel to return the humans to Earth, while the main vessel carries the Thermians into interstellar space. The Protector bridge crashes into the Galaxy Quest convention, and the dazed cast emerges to the cheers of their fans. Sarris awakens and levels his gun at the cast, but Jason shoots and destroys him. The crowd assumes it was all a display of special effects and cheers wildly. Jason, with newfound humility, invites his co-stars to share the stage with him and the crew basks in their newfound glory. Sometime later, Galaxy Quest is revived as a sequel series, Galaxy Quest: The Journey Continues, with the cast reprising their roles alongside Guy and Laliari as new cast members.

An amorphous parasitic alien race abandons its dying planet and travels to Earth, taking the form of small seed pods with pink flowers upon settling. Elizabeth Driscoll, a laboratory scientist at the San Francisco Health Department, brings one of the flowers home, and shows it to her boyfriend, Geoffrey. She awakens the next morning to find him being cold and distant while putting debris of the glass that once held the flower pod into a garbage truck. Elizabeth confides to her colleague and friend Matthew Bennell about the unsettling changes in Geoffrey, and that she fears he is an impostor. Elizabeth mentions following him and seeing him secretly meeting with people she does not know. Matthew advises Elizabeth to talk to his psychiatrist friend David Kibner, to which she reluctantly agrees. On the way to Kibner, a hysterical man warns Elizabeth and Matthew of danger as a mob pursues him. The couple follows the mob, only to find his dead body surrounded by emotionless onlookers. At Kibner's book promotion event, Matthew finds his friend Jack Bellicec, an aspiring writer, while Elizabeth meets Kibner, who reassures a woman who claims that her husband has changed. Kibner brushes off both women's concerns, insisting the behavior is just a case of non-commitment. Elizabeth is convinced to return home to Geoffrey. Jack returns to the mud bath spa he runs with his wife Nancy. The two find a mysterious embryonic adult-body resembling Jack, and call Matthew to investigate. At the disturbing discovery, Matthew goes to warn Elizabeth, and discovers a semi-formed duplicate of her near her bedroom. Matthew rescues Elizabeth and alerts the police and Kibner about the events, but when they arrive, Jack and Elizabeth's duplicates have disappeared. Elizabeth suspects the flowers are involved, but is unable to examine one at the health department offices. In the meantime Matthew tries in vain to alert the authorities. After encountering several doppelgangers, Matthew, Elizabeth, Jack, and Nancy hide out in Matthew's apartment. They call Kibner, who promises to help, but in fact is another duplicate. As the group fall asleep, big flower pods emerge from the garden and start birthing their replacements. They wake up, and Matthew destroys his own replacement. The pod people (the fully formed alien replacements) pursue Matthew's group. Jack and Nancy create a distraction, sacrificing themselves, while Matthew and Elizabeth take refuge at the health department. They take speed to remain awake. Jack and Kibner's duplicates ambush and inject them with a sedative, needing them to fall asleep to be replaced. Kibner's duplicate explains the aliens' plan to replace humanity with emotionless duplicates whose only goal is survival. Matthew kills Jack's double and locks Kibner's in a freezer, then escapes with Elizabeth. Matthew and Elizabeth find Nancy, who tricked the pod people by hiding her emotions. The three blend in among the duplicates. Elizabeth sees a dog-human hybrid – a byproduct of a damaged pod – and screams, alerting the pod people who emit high-pitched screams. In the commotion, Matthew and Elizabeth are separated from Nancy. Boarding a truck delivering plants to Pier 70, they find pods grown and processed in a warehouse. Noticing a nearby ship, Matthew leaves Elizabeth (whose ankle is sprained) to investigate, only to find it being loaded with pods. Matthew returns to Elizabeth, finding her asleep. She disintegrates while her duplicate emerges from the grass. Matthew flees the duplicate, breaks into the dock warehouse, and burns down the building, destroying several plants and killing many pod people. He hides underneath the pier as pursuers search for him. A flashlight shines in his direction. Later, Matthew resumes work in the health department, acting emotionless among the duplicated employees. While outside, Nancy calls out to him. To her horror, he points at her and emits the duplicates' high-pitched scream.

In 1975, a time-traveling agent, whose face is not seen, suffers severe burns while trying and failing to disarm a bomb in a public building's basement. An unseen person helps him activate his time-travel device, called a "field kit", allowing him to escape to his agency's headquarters in 1992. He receives reconstructive surgery for his burns, but is told he will now look and sound different. He is further warned about the risk of mental instability from his long career. Once he recovers, the agent is sent on his final mission before retirement and goes undercover as bartender in 1970 New York City, where he meets John, a bitter columnist who writes under the pen name "The Unmarried Mother". When pressed on how he writes confession stories so well, John begins telling his life story. A baby was found on the steps of a Cleveland orphanage in 1945, where she was taken in and given the name Jane. Jane exceled both physically and academically in high school, and upon graduation was recruited by Agent Robertson to join the space program as a concubine, but was disqualified after a medical examination. In college, Jane fell in love with a mysterious man, but was abandoned shortly into the relationship. Jane went back to Robertson to try to join the space program, but Robertson admitted that he was using the space program as a front to recruit Jane for an elite covert agency that recruits people with no past and no certain future. Jane joined the agency, but was forced to drop out when she discovered she was pregnant. Jane gave birth to a baby girl at a hospital, telling the baby "you are the best thing that's ever happened to me", but, during the delivery doctors discovered that she was intersex. Complications during delivery rendered the female organs unviable, and the physicians began the process of gender reassignment surgery. Jane spent almost a year undergoing further treatment to become male, during which time the baby was kidnapped from the hospital by an older man. After being rejected from the space program again, Jane renamed himself John and relocated to New York City, eventually becoming a columnist and still harboring resentment toward the man who impregnated and abandoned him when he was Jane. When John finishes his story, the agent reveals that he works for the Temporal Bureau, in which Robertson is either a high-ranking officer or the head. He offers John the chance to kill his mysterious lover, who the agent thinks may be the Fizzle Bomber, in exchange for John joining the bureau as an agent. Together they go back to 1963, where John encounters and falls in love with Jane (his past self), realizing that he was his past self's lover all along. John, determined to change the past, goes ahead with the relationship and vows not to abandon himself. Meanwhile, the agent illegally returns to 1975 and helps his wounded past self, which Robertson allows as long as the agent kidnaps Jane's baby and delivers it to the Cleveland orphanage in 1945, completing the bootstrap paradox that makes John both of his own parents. Returning to 1963, the agent compels John to leave Jane and join the agency in 1985, as their troubled past is what will make them so effective at saving lives. They travel to headquarters, where John passes out and is hospitalized. Informed his field kit will decommission after one final jump, the agent retires to New York City in 1975, but the kit fails to decommission. With information left for him by Robertson, he finds the Bomber, only in his horror to discover that it is his future self. The bomber says that all his bombings were designed to prevent much greater disasters, and that the field kit still working is evidence that he was predestined to become the bomber. The bomber gives the agent a chance not to kill him and break the cycle, but the agent shoots him. The agent records a message to be delivered to John at headquarters when he wakes up in 1985, repeating the line "you are the best thing that's ever happened to me" that Jane told her baby. He then takes off his robe to reveal scars from gender reassignment surgery, confirming he is an older John—an orchestrated paradox created by Robertson.