In January 2009, Stanford University dropout Jerry Shaw learns that his identical twin brother Ethan, an officer in the U.S. Air Force, has been killed. Following the funeral, Jerry is surprised to find $7100,000 in his bank account and his apartment filled with illegal firearms and bomb making materials. He receives a phone call from a woman who warns that the FBI is about to arrest him and he needs to run. Jerry is caught by the FBI and interrogated by Supervising Agent Tom Morgan.
While Morgan confers with Air Force OSI Special Agent Zoe Pérez, the woman on the phone arranges for Jerry’s escape and directs him to Rachel Holloman, a single mother. The woman on the phone is coercing Rachel by threatening her son Sam, who is aboard the Capitol Limited en route to the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. with his school band. The woman on the phone helps the two avoid law enforcement by controlling networked devices, including traffic lights, mobile phones, automated cranes, and even power lines.
Meanwhile, the caller redirects a crystalline explosive to a gemcutter, who cuts it and fixes it into a necklace. Another man steals Sam’s trumpet in Chicago and fits the crystal’s sonic trigger into the tubing before forwarding it to Sam in Washington.