Milo Hoffman (RYAN PHILLIPPE) is a young computer programmer who, with his friends Larry Banks (TYGH RUNYAN), Teddy Chin (YEE JEE TSO) and Brian Bissel (NATE DUSHKU), is about to launch a start-up computer company. Yet, his and Teddy's programming prowess has garnered the attention of
Gary Winston (TIM ROBBINS), the CEO of NURV, a multi-billion dollar software corporation.
While Teddy is against everything that Gary and NURV stand for, and Justice Department agent Lyle Barton (RICHARD ROUNDTREE) wants him to work for them against NURV, Milo accepts a job from them and moves with his girlfriend, Alice Poulson (CLAIRE FORLANI), to the company's Pacific Northwest campus.
Milo is immediately assigned to work on Synapse, NURV's latest digital convergence product that will tie together all communications devices around the world. With a deadline of just over a month to get Synapse completed, Milo and his fellow workers, including Lisa Calighan (RACHEL LEIGH COOK), put in a lot of time and energy into realizing Gary's vision.
Yet, not everything is as perfect as it might seem. After receiving mysterious bits of code and having one of his friends murdered, Milo begins to get a bit suspicious about Gary and his company. As the CEO's right-hand men, Phil (NED BELLAMY) and Randy (SCOTT BELLIS) and chief of security,
Bob Shrot (DOUGLAS McFERRAN), begin watching his every move and equally become suspicious of him, Milo tries to figure out exactly what's going on and what to do once he figures that out.