In a future where deadly STDs have made sex illegal, a technophobic cop with an axe to grind has to find out who put a killer virus in the international virtual sex network before more people die.

SYNOPSIS:

TITLE: The Killing Dream

WRITER: Aaron Heinrich

FORMAT: Feature/Sci Fi Thriller

LOGLINE: In a future where deadly STDs have made sex illegal, a technophobic cop with an axe to grind has to find out who put a killer virus in the international virtual sex network before more people die.

COMPS: Blade Runner, Brainstorm, Contagion

WHYTHIS STORY NOW: As artificial intelligence creeps into all elements of our public and private lives, combined with the possibility of a worldwide pandemic that could significantly alter society, the background in which The Killing Dream takes place is clearly possible. There’s also relatively nothing stopping big corporations and governments now from working together to control how society works, regardless of how drastic that control might be.

Virtual Sex Becomes Deadly

Several decades from now, rampant sexually transmitted diseases have made real sex illegal and any kind of physical touch something to be avoided. The most intimate aspects of humanity are monitored and controlled. Those who break the law are sentenced to life in penal colonies or federal labor camps. SexNet provides the AI driven global virtual network to fulfill everyone's fantasies. This status quo is broken when a deadly virus is unleashed in SexNet, turning dreams into deadly nightmares, and the victims’ brains are literally baked in their skulls.

NEMO MARKONIN (early 40s) is a hard-bitten, old-school cop thrust into the case when a man, JEREMIAH BENSON, turns up dead while plugged into SexNet. Nemo has no fondness for SexNet since his wife died while trying to avoid hitting a sex addict who wandered into the street while wearing AI SexNet goggles. He constantly finds himself at odds with the times and his boss, CAPTAIN GUSTAVO “GUS” DELGADO.

Burn marks at Benson’s temples cause Nemo to want to treat the man’s death as a murder. JONATHAN BANNER (early 50s, head of communication for SexNet, wants to keep the situation quiet and call it an accident due to an equipment malfunction.

Banner insists that Nemo work with SexNet’s cyber security chief, GAIL VANDERPOOL (late 30s), a brainiac who gave up a cush job with the government to work with SexNet. Nemo resists, but Delgado orders him to accept it.

More Deaths and Few Clues

The death of BETH MONTGOMERY, wearing SexNet AI goggles while walking in a park, and mass deaths at a night club soon prove Nemo was right about murders vs tech errors. When Gail shows them they have a network virus on their hands and it must be found and stopped before it kills more people, Banner is forced to admit they have a bigger problem on their hands.

As Nemo and Gail work together, they discover that a research team working on a serum that would destroy all known STDs had been funded by SexNet. Before the team could perfect the serum, GEORGE LAKEWOOD, one of the scientists on the team was committed to a penal colony where he has slowly gone insane. Another scientist, DR. FALLOW, became a teaching professor, and the youngest and most brilliant – TIM WALDEN - died in a lab fire. Jeremiah Benson and Beth Montgomery, the first two victims, helped bury the project.

Nemo gets a clue that a fringe sexual liberation group is trying to bring down SexNet, making them a suspect. They arrest the leader, LEARY, and discover it’s a dead end. But Leary gives them more backstory about the team that had been working on the serum.

A visit to the penal colony where Lakewood is held leads nowhere but to the man’s insane ramblings. But it nearly gets Nemo and Gail killed when one of the inmates whom Nemo had gotten sentenced years earlier, escapes and commandeers their car. Nemo finishes him off just before they are about to be blown away by the penal colony security system.

Nemo finds DR. FALLOW while Gail enlists the help of one the SexNet’s lead programmers and network virus experts – an androgynous woman named KRIS – to help find the virus and its source. Fallow confirms to Nemo that SexNet stopped the serum research before the team came apart, not after. He also tells him that Walden and Lakewood were in a relationship. When Lakewood went to the penal colony, Walden killed himself by setting fire to the lab.

As Nemo relentlessly continues the investigation, he realizes Fallow lied and Kris is Walden. He faked his death and became a woman so he could work at SexNet and put the virus in their network. He created it to destroy them for hiding the serum and locking up the love of his life.

Nemo’s discovery is too late to keep Gail from jacking herself into the SexNet network to try to find and destroy the virus. Kris kidnaps Nemo as he's trying to get to SexNet headquarters to stop Gail from possibly getting herself killed.

Nightmares and Endings

When Nemo comes to, he finds Kris and Fallow working together in a secret lab. Kris has connected him to the network where the virus forces him into nightmarish visions of his wife’s death.

With Gail and Nemo nearly overcome by the virus, Banner and technicians at SexNet finally locate the virus. However, their attempts to destroy it cause massive electric surges at Kris's lab and SexNet, killing Kris, but freeing Gail and Nemo. On Kris’ dying breath, she tells Nemo that Banner has the serum and Nemo needs to get it before Banner destroys it.

Nemo escapes Kris’ lab and tracks down Banner trying to escape the burning SexNet headquarters. In a fight on the roof, Nemo narrowly escapes, recovers the serum, and forces Banner to fall to his death.

SexNet goes up in flames, Nemo and Gail share a kiss, and the serum promises a return to a world where people can touch and be intimate again.

THE END

THE KILLING DREAM