In the nearby future, policewoman Sarah is having dinner with her coworker Mario at their
favorite burger place.
She's very distracted, barely paying any attention to what her partner is saying, and snapping
at him without meaning to when he brings her out of her thoughts.
Mario thinks they're chasing tales by staying here because the criminals they're looking
for have probably already escaped into another country, he also thinks Sarah needs a break.
Sarah is offended by the implication that she isn't fine and rushes back to their car,
where Mario reminds her she isn't the only one suffering.
The massacre of a big group of cops a year ago affected the entire department, and Mario
lost friends he had since the academy.
When Sarah gets home, she quickly begins drinking, and her wife Katie catches her in the act.
After taking away the bottle, Katie offers Sarah a massage while listening to her worries:
Sarah knows she has to let go, but every time she closes her eyes, she's back in the middle
of the massacre, standing in a pool of blood waiting for her turn.
Like Mario, Katie thinks Sarah needs a break, so she takes out a special implant that she
calls "a vacation".
This implant works like virtual reality, putting your brain through a dream where you're another
version of yourself.
Every user's experience is different because the implant bases the dream on your own wants
drawn directly from your own subconscious.
Sarah accepts to try, and before the simulation takes over her mind, Sarah tells Katie she's
too good to her and that she doesn't deserve her.
Once the simulation begins, Sarah wakes up as George, lying on the ground next to Chris
and seeing various fires around them.
George doesn't understand where he is or what's going on, but Chris drags him away through
some old buildings while taking out a gun.
Before they can do anything though, they're captured by a group of criminals that suddenly
surrounds them and holds them at gunpoint to drag them into a small office to see their
leader Colin.
This Colin guy knows George and, after making his thugs take the gun in George's jacket,
he expresses how disappointed he is that George just didn't do what Colin had asked him to.
Taking out a knife, Colin decides George should lose a finger and eat it.
This is enough to send George into a frenzy where he beats the thugs up, which Chris takes
advantage of to recover his gun and shoot them all.
Unfortunately, Colin also takes advantage of the confusion to run away in his car.
Chris wants to go after him and takes George to his own car, but this is the 2010s, so
the car is old-fashioned and George doesn't know how to drive it.
He asks Chris to drive instead, and Chris shows worry over George's state of mind, wondering
if he should call Paula to check on him as if George was supposed to know who that was.
George concentrates and realizes this man is Chris, a really old friend, but everything
else is still fuzzy.
Chris takes George to his apartment and calls their friend Paula, who is a professional
doctor.
She tells George that he had a concussion and he should stay awake for six hours.
She also asks him a few questions that help him bring back some memories: his full name
is George Miller and he runs Avacom Data Systems, a company he opened a few years ago and its
net worth is around four billion.
After Paul leaves, Chris comes back with some news: the police have found the bodies, but
there were no signs of Colin.
As soon as he hears the name, George sees some flashbacks of Colin's face and a gun,
which makes him feel like he wants to cry.
Chris mentions that what happened is never gonna get easier to accept and that George
needs a vacation without leaving the house, so he grabs a gadget from the night table.
It's a virtual reality headset that Chris calls a prototype, and George recognizes it
as a creation of his own, remembering when he and Chris presented the product to potential
investors.
Chris leaves George to rest, and as soon as he puts on the headset, George wakes up as
Sarah again.
After taking off the implant, she notices Katie is sleeping next to her, and out there
is already morning.
Sarah goes through her day as usual and has lunch with Mario at their favorite burger
place, but she's more distracted than ever.
She also thinks the food is flat, like it has no taste.
Mario asks her if she's distracted because of her vacation, and Sarah admits it had felt
too real, stable, and rational.
The more she was there, the more familiar it became.
Their conversation is suddenly interrupted when they get a message from the station telling
them Sarah's right, the criminal group that killed all those cops is in the area and they
were picked by a surveillance scan.
Intel indicates the place where they'll be meeting tonight, so Mario is looking forward
to catching them, but Sarah can't shake the feeling this is too easy.
In the evening, Sarah and Mario arrive at the meeting place, and Sarah realizes this
is where she had woken up as George.
Colin is there too, and he's offering a big group of criminals the opportunity to attack
the City Hall.
Seeing their numbers, Mario decides to leave to call for backup while Sarah stays to keep
an eye on them.
Unfortunately, a thug finds her and attacks her from behind.
Sarah quickly reacts by defending herself, pushing him away before running away, but
the other thugs heard them and come after her as well.
One of the men throws a special electric wave grenade at her back, instantly knocking her
out.
Sarah wakes up again as George, falling to his knees in the middle of his company's floor.
Chris picks him up and his lawyer brings him water, pointing out they should cancel the
meeting with the Justice Department.
However, George wants to keep going, saying he's only a little dizzy.
During the meeting, George is asked where he was the night those thugs died, but most
importantly, he's also asked why he's spent the last three months acting like a vigilante
around the city, which has endangered the public on numerous occasions.
His lawyer points out George is still recovering from the trauma caused by his wife's murder
going viral, during which the justice system had done nothing.
Memories of seeing his wife tied up on a screen flood George's mind and he falls to the floor
again, this time also throwing up.
Later at George's apartment, Paula checks on him and comes to the conclusion that his
concussion's worse than she thought, it's probably affecting his memory centers.
It's not unheard of for head trauma to cause amnesia, but it's usually temporary.
George can't understand why he doesn't remember his wife, and Paula explains that his unconscious
mind's trying to protect him from a traumatic memory.
There aren't pictures of her around because he put them all away after she was killed,
but Paul still has a few on her phone.
When she shows them to him, George begins to remember the good times they had together,
the awful livestreaming of her kidnapping, and the most shocking of all: his wife looks
exactly like Sarah's wife.
They also share the name Katie.
George says aloud that there are two of them, so Paul explains the theory behind the concept
of deja vu.
However, George's absolute sure this wasn't deja vu, in fact, he feels like the memories
have been there all along.
All the flashes he keeps experiencing feel real and true, but Paula reminds him they're
memories from his simulated program that his traumatized brain may be misinterpreting as
real.
George still thinks there's a deeper truth here, causing Paula to forbid him from using
the headset again because it's getting in the way of his recovery.
George promises he won't do it again, but as soon as Paula leaves, he puts the headset
back on and wakes up as Sarah.
She finds herself in the hospital in the company of Katie and Mario, who has great news for
her.
The backup arrived soon after she passed out, and now the criminals responsible for the
cop massacre are in jail awaiting trial while Colin is in a coma.
Later, when Sarah is finally discharged, she and Katie go home to celebrate in each other's
company.
Once they're done, Katie wonders if Sarah had any lovers in the simulation and Sarah
says no before telling her all about George's life.
She explains those memories still feel real to her and they're hard to shake, especially
because Katie looks like the dead wife, which Katie finds quite unsettling.
She also finds it weird that Sarah keeps calling it "both worlds" when this is the only reality
she should call that, but Sarah confesses she finds this reality too good to be real.
A lesbian supercop that easily beats up bad guys in a futuristic setting sounds, after
all, like a straight dude's fantasy.
Sarah says she isn't sure what she did to deserve this, making Katie remember that before
she started the simulation she had also said she didn't deserve such a good wife either.
In Katie's opinion, since the simulation customizes the setting according to the user's subconscious
desires, Sarah's survivor guilt over the massacre has built a reality where she's punished for
her sins.
The best option is to return to the hospital the next day and wipe out the implant, which
Sarah agrees to after some hesitation.
However after Katie falls asleep, Sarah cries at the idea of losing this other life and
turns on the simulation again.
When she wakes up as George, he finds himself walking on the street and visiting a burger
place where he's recognized as a regular.
Chris comes over too and they sit down to have lunch while Chris shares some news.
George has been cleared of all charges, but sadly, Colin has fled the country.
George though, is too distracted to make conversation.
Everything here looks exactly the same as the place Sarah visits with Mario, even the
people and the fries.
Thinking he finally knows what's going on, George returns to his apartment, where Paula
is waiting for him.
After telling her he's giving away the company, George looks for the headset, but Paula's
taken it away.
George yells at her, telling her he knows this is a fantasy and she isn't real, thus
Paula gives him back the headset as she explains it'll permanently damage his cerebral cortex
and he won't wake up.
Before he makes his final decision though, Paula grabs his wrist and asks him to hear
her out, this gesture makes George remember that he and Paula had been having an affair.
George had meant to end it because he loved his wife, but before they could do anything,
Katie had been kidnapped by Colin, who wanted George's latest software to hack into the
government's systems.
Colin killed Katie after George tried to buy him off with money, and her death inspired
the development of the headset.
Paula points out that the perfect sci-fi world is the fantasy, and George could have a dream
forever or he could stay here with her so they can work through the horrors of the world
together.
Crying, George accepts he doesn't deserve that dreamed, perfect life and destroys the
headset to stay with Paula in this gritty but real world.
In the hospital in the future, Katie is watching the George simulation destroy the headset
on a screen connected to Sarah, and this action causes Sarah's brain to shut down.
Her survivor guilt had been such a strong and overwhelming feeling that she chose the
simulation to live in so she could be punished for her sins, both real and imaginary.