In Washington DC, a woman goes to the local subway station while following a text message
saying she'll find the answers she seeks under crossing 1114.
However when she arrives there, she finds nothing except her death because an incoming
train kills her in seconds.
Meanwhile in Thailand, American computer engineer Max is finishing his last job in the area.
Afterward, he goes back to the hotel to get ready to return home, and he's surprised when
he finds a package waiting for him with no sender.
Inside he finds a very modern phone, but no clues about what he's supposed to do with
it.
Max decides to leave it for now and turns on the news, which is still discussing the
matter of a controversial security funding bill that would authorize the NSA to upgrade
its current surveillance technology worldwide.
At that moment, a message from an unknown sender arrives on the new phone telling Max
that the hotel will have a half-price rate this weekend only.
When Max checks with reception, he gets confirmation that the promo is true, so he decides to stay
two more days.
At the same time in Russia, a bald man also receives a text message letting him know another
phone has been detected.
During the weekend, Max relaxes and has fun while still keeping up with the news, allowing
him to learn the bill hasn't passed because of one vote, yet NSA director and bill supporter
Burke refuses to comment on it.
Watching the news also makes Max learn of a shocking surprise: the flight he had supposed
to go home on crashed shortly after takeoff and nobody survived, meaning Max is alive
thanks to the phone message.
Speaking of the phone, Max gets another text telling him to buy shares of a company named
Syzor, but he decides to ignore it.
Later when he walks by the reception, Max congratulates the employees on the hotel's
smart way to market their promos, but they don't know what he's talking about.
When Max returns to his room, he tries to call the phone company to try to find out
who sent the message, but their system says "unknown sender" as well.
To make matters more mysterious, the news shows that Syzor's shares are skyrocketing,
so Max has missed a huge investing opportunity.
The next morning, Max gets a new text message telling him to go to Prague in the Czech Republic
and this time he decides to obey.
As soon as he arrives at the airport, a Russian cabbie named Yuri offers to drive him into
town in his old car.
He's very pushy and Max is hesitant, but he ends up accepting because Yuri offers a flat
cheap rate.
During the trip, Yuri's surprised to see Max's phone because that model isn't officially
out yet and takes the chance to give him his card since working with gadgets is his part-time
job.
Once he's at the hotel, Max calls the courier company, but they aren't allowed to share
information about senders since it's a matter of privacy.
At that moment, he gets another message telling him to go to the casino and play slot machine
thirteen, which will hit jackpot in four more spins.
The machine is currently taken but Max is so desperate not to miss another opportunity
that he pays the current player one hundred euros to take over it.
The man leaves thus Max gets to play next, and just as the text predicted, he wins the
jackpot.
Since the casino has security cameras everywhere, this whole exchange is noticed by the security
team and leader John orders his men to keep an eye on Max.
Next, Max gets a message to go to blackjack table six, and he exchanges his prize for
chips to bet it all as the text says, earning him another win.
John notices Max looking at his phone while he plays, so he sends one of his security
guards to tell Max that phones aren't allowed in the casino.
Not willing to give up this opportunity just yet, Max calls Yuri to see if he can help
him find a way to access the texts without carrying the phone with him.
Yuri accepts to help but it'll take a few hours, so Max returns to the hotel where he
finds a couple arguing in the corridor.
Kamila seems to want to get away from a crazy man and Max comes in her defense, which earns
him a punch from the guy that knocks him out.
As soon as Max's unconscious, Kamila reveals it had all been an act and clones his phone's
sim card before waking him up.
With the other guy gone, Max takes the chance to flirt with Kamila and they agree to talk
later.
Meanwhile John's team discovers there's no record of Max's messages in any system, which
shouldn't be possible.
Back to Max, he meets with Yuri again, who installs a bluetooth text-to-speech transmitter
on his phone, allowing Max to go into the casino with only an earpiece.
Yuri's also impressed by the anonymous texts since they're hiding the sender and Max wonders
if he can find out who sent them, but unfortunately that requires a level of hacking that Yuri
can only do in Moscow, where he has all his advanced equipment and connections.
Max returns to the casino and following the instructions in his ear, he manages to win
again.
Seeing this on the security cameras, John and his men go after him, chasing him through
the building.
Just when he's about to make it outside, Max is blocked by special agent Dave from the
FBI, who arrests Max on the spot.
John tries to stop him, claiming Max is their guy, but Dave doesn't listen and takes him
away while reminding John he isn't an agent anymore.
Moments later, Max is taken to an abandoned warehouse, where Dave interrogates him about
the phone by threatening him with his gun.
Max swears he doesn't know anything and Dave believes him, so he leaves him alone for a
while.
Afterward, John arrives at the same building, having used his resources to find out where
Dave is hiding.
Seeing as John won't leave without answers, Dave shares the information he has: they're
investigating people receiving financial tips via text messages.
All the recipients are American, but otherwise they seem random.
The first one was an executive at a major credit bureau, the second was a realtor, and
the third one was the woman from the subway station, who turns out to be an IT administrator
at the Department of Defense.
In fact, one of the messages asked her to shut down the firewalls to the Pentagon's
servers.
The sender is always untrackable, and the receipts can't be interrogated because they
all died in suspicious circumstances.
They've found Max in advance thanks to the FBI working with Burke's advanced spying system,
which allowed them to intercept the texts.
John and Dave agree to work together, and Max joins as well to avoid being sent to jail.
Dave will keep the phone for the night, and Max mustn't leave the hotel for the sake of
his own safety.
The next day, John goes to see Mueller, the casino owner, who orders John to use as many
resources as necessary to find the person behind those texts.
Meanwhile Dave calls Burke, who agrees to go live with his tracking system in three
hours.
At the hotel, Max is bored until he gets a call from Kamila, and they get a drink together
at the hotel bar while bonding over personal anecdotes.
Unfortunately their little date is interrupted by John and Dave, who have come to pick up
Max in order to start a plan.
They've isolated the trace and now they need three messages for a lock, so Max will have
to follow the instructions as usual until it's done.
To achieve this, John gifts Max some extra chips to get him started.
Max returns to the casino and bets it all, but this time, he loses and receives a message
explaining this has been a warning: if he turns off the phone again, he'll be killed.
This sounds like a disaster, but the texts are enough for Burke's men to track the location
of the sender to Maryland, USA.
However as soon as Burke hears this, he orders everyone to shut all tracking systems down
immediately and then calls Dave to abort the mission because the NSA's surveillance program
known as Echelon seems to be involved.
Dave follows the orders and informs Max and John that the reasons for the termination
are classified, but John can guess Echelon is involved.
At the NSA headquarters, Burke's going crazy wanting to know who has hacked into Echelon
to send these texts, but the system doesn't show any unauthorized access.
Sometime later, John informs Mueller that Dave left with the phone and his theory about
Echelon, so Mueller orders him to keep an eye on Max.
Since he's still alive, this mysterious organization may contact him again.
In the evening, Max visits Kamila at her home, where they share their dreams for the future
and spend the night together.
The following morning, while Max is distracted, Kamila gets a phone call that reminds her
to keep Max busy and inside the apartment.
In the meantime, the phone gets a text with an address, so Burke orders Dave to send an
agent pretending to be Max.
Dave doesn't think they can trick the texter like this and he turns out to be right: when
the agent reaches his destination, he's killed in a car crash caused by someone manipulating
the stop lights.
Back to Max, he's keeping himself busy by researching Echelon, which allows the NSA
to intercept every phone call and e-mail citizens send.
The update that wasn't approved by Congress would've allowed them to put a camera in every
person's home too.
Wanting to distract him, Kamila gets affectionate and mentions Omaha, Max's hometown, which
he never told her about.
Heartbroken, Max realizes Kamila is working for someone, but before they can discuss things,
Kamila notices a sniper on a roof across the street and pushes Max to the ground before
he's shot.
There also are mercenaries coming up the stairs that Kamila can see on her security camera,
so she hides Max in the bathroom while trying to recover the gun she's hidden under the
kitchen table.
This allows the sniper to see her and hurt her arm with a shot, causing Kamila to decide
to abandon the gun and stab the door with a fire poker before hiding.
The stabbing is successful and one of the mercenaries dies, but the other still makes
it inside and hears Max making noise in the bathroom.
To save Max, Kamila risks running through the apartment while dodging the sniper's fire
and jumps on the mercenary to start a fight.
With one quick move, the mercenary manages to overpower Kamila, and Max helps her by
stabbing the man's leg with a brush.
This gives Kamila the chance to finally kill the guy, but the sniper escapes when he hears
the police siren approaching.
Suddenly someone else enters the bathroom: it's John, who has been working with Kamila
all along.
Since the apartment has been compromised, John takes Max away with him while on the
street, Dave recovers the phone and finds a new message asking him to get Max or he'll
be killed as well.
Max leaves with John in his car, who informs him you can't just escape from the NSA so
they should lay low.
However Max gets an idea: he wants to go to Moscow and see Yuri, who may have a way to
analyze his sim card.
John refuses, thinking they can't trust some random guy, but Max convinces him by pointing
out Russia has more advanced systems than the USA and they don't have anywhere else
to go anyway.
Fortunately, John has the cloned sim card information Kamila acquired, and he can ask
Mueller for safe traveling to Russia.
As soon as they make it to Moscow, Burke's spying system tells him of their location
and he sends Dave after them.
John and Max visit Yuri, who swears he knows nothing after John threatens him and promises
to get the job done in three hours.
Afterward, John and Max go for a walk through the city, and Max gets to hear why John left
the FBI: he was against Burke's tracking policies and talked too much.
Three hours later when they return to Yuri's place, they discover nobody accessed Echelon
to send the messages, they were sent by Echelon itself.
All the texts it sent had information from its power to spy on everything: it knew the
flight would crash because it intercepted the fuel analysis, it knew about Syzor's stocks
thanks to reading the owner's messages with its stockholders, and everything in the casino
it could guess thanks to the fast way it could count cards and keep track of the moves in
the slot machines.
Their conversation is suddenly interrupted by the arrival of the FBI, so John and Max
run through the back door and steal a van from a neighbor in order to escape.
This triggers a car chase throughout the city that ends when John and Max take a wrong turn
and end up cornered in front of a passing train.
Fortunately John has a weapon, and as soon as Dave leaves his car, John shoots and makes
the vehicle explode.
Dave gives the phone back to Max and admits they need him because Echelon will only talk
to him; not even Burke can touch him now.
The NSA also knows Echelon is sending the messages, thus after Max threatens him with
his own gun, Dave swears he's on his side and gets Max to agree to help.
The next message includes the address of the first computer job Max ever did so the trio
flies to Omaha.
The place they're going to is a converted hangar bought by a start-up planning to lease
bandwidth, and Max had always thought it was a strange building to house servers in.
The potential clients hadn't liked it either, the company was sold at an auction before
it even opened, the place hasn't been entered since the sale, and they can't find the current
owner.
Once they arrive, the FBI blows up the door to gain access to the building, which is empty
except for the servers.
Max gets a message asking him to "authorize BIOS", which would allow the servers to receive
outside data, so Max gets to work after Burke gives his okay.
Thanks to Max's admin password, they gain quick access to the servers only to find them
completely empty.
The group leaves the building thinking they've wasted their time, but another agent comes
with important news: the owner of the building was the realtor that died because he also
got messages, his credit card had also been the one to buy Max's phone.
Getting suspicious, Max goes back into the building and discovers Echelon is leaving
its home computer and moving into these servers, this means Burke doesn't have power over it
anymore.
It also explains why Max was chosen: Echelon wanted to move and Max was the only one with
a key.
To leave the Pentagon, Echelon had used the IT woman from the train to lower the firewalls.
Its plan is very simple: since Congress didn't approve the update, Echelon has moved so it
can upgrade itself.
This building is just a temporary home, soon it will take residence in every computer on
the net.
Dave orders Max to stop it, but he gets a message saying "don't even try it" and that's
when Max notices that Echelon is showing him financial records because it's taken the entire
population's money hostage.
This explains the last dead victim, who worked for the largest credit data storage facility
in the country.
Blowing up the facility would make everyone lose their money, so Max begins working on
trying to get around the security fail-safes to stop the upgrade without trouble.
Dave calls Burke to update him on the situation, but it turns out that Burke doesn't want them
to shut Echelon down because this is what he had always wanted and now he doesn't need
to wait for Congress to change their minds, he even has permission from the president.
Dave and John refuse to follow these orders, thus Dave gets fired and Burke sends the other
agents after them.
While Dave and John do their best to defend themselves from the incoming attack with the
few weapons they have, Max has an idea when he realizes the computer has a camera and
a microphone, so he puts on the earpiece and manages to talk directly to Echelon.
Max begins asking questions, and Echelon explains that its basic mandate is to protect the national
security of the United States, which it defines as a nation of citizens with freedoms protected
by the Constitution.
Any threat to that freedom must be eliminated, which means Max still can do something: he
makes Echelon search for all online articles that spoke against the update bill.
By learning all this information, Echelon comes to the conclusion it is a threat to
American freedom and shuts itself down just before the FBI overpowers Dave and John and
everyone gets arrested.
Sometime later, Burke is giving poor explanations to the president and taking responsibility
for the mess, this also means he'll have to appear before the Senate Intelligence Oversight
Committee, which will most likely have his head.
Mueller celebrates when he hears the problem has been solved, and Max is soon released
from prison thanks to Kamila, who has paid everyone's bail.
Nobody will be pressing charges because they don't want the public to learn about what
happened.
With Burke in trouble, John considers Dave's offer to come back to the FBI while Max reunites
with Kamila, who explains Mueller sent the money for the bail and has also sent a hefty
check for Max as thanks.
Deciding he needs a vacation, Max invites Kamila to France, since that was her dream.
At that moment, Max gets a message from Yuri, who congratulates him on a job well done.
Speaking in Yuri, he's still in Moscow, but things are changing for him.
After shaving and changing his hair to look neater, he puts his captain uniform back on
because he's been part of the Russian Security Service all along.
The bold man from the beginning is his boss, who commends him for his actions and points
out they've helped the Americans to make the right decision.