In the near future, climate change has caused the seas to rise and flood Miami. Extreme daytime temperatures have forced most of the population to live at night.
Nick Bannister and his friend and fellow veteran Emily “Watts” Sanders operate a business that allows people to relive specific memories. Watts operates the equipment while Nick provides psychological prompts to help the clients. One day, a walk-in client, Mae, arrives, asking for his help finding her missing keys. Nick is instantly attracted to her and, the next night visits the club where she works as a waitress and singer. Mae makes an impression on him when she happens to sing his favorite song, “Where or When”. Nick and Mae begin a relationship, to the chagrin of Watts, who distrusts her.
Nick later wakes up in his company’s sensory deprivation tank, revealing that he has been reliving his relationship with Mae repeatedly, a dangerous practice that could forever trap him in the memory. Mae disappeared without a word months ago, and Nick has been searching for her ever since.
Prosecutor Avery Castillo hires Nick and Watts to retrieve the memories from a comatose suspect that they believe worked for a drug kingpin named Saint Joe. In the man’s memories, Nick sees Mae working as a waitress in a club. She quickly becomes Saint Joe’s mistress, and he hooks her on “Baca,” a highly addictive narcotic. The memories also contain evidence of Mae, made hard and cold by her addiction, stealing Saint Joe’s stash of Baca and fleeing town. Nick is devastated to learn that Mae was an addict, something that Watts already knew.
