"HACKERS" (1995)

HACKERS

Written by

Rafael Moreu

SEATTLE 1988

Slow motion. Armed troops in black uniforms pour out of unmarked vans and swarm across a lawn in a middle class residential neighborhood. Yuppie neighbors look on in shock, confused. Two of the troops carry a battering ram to the front door of a white two-story house. A leashed Rottweiler snarls and barks. In position, their comrades point M-16s into first-floor windows, ready to be ambushed. Pan into a window in the kitchen. An attractive woman in her thirties is making breakfast.

Now, in regular motion, the battering ram breaks open the front door. The woman, startled, drops her spatula.

Troops pour into the house.

The troops, and one or two trenchcoated agents, continue entering the house and heading upstairs, still with rifles ready.

Upstairs, crowded in the narrow hallway, the troops descend on a bedroom.

The battering ram knocks down a bedroom door.

The prosecutor, a woman of about forty, gives her closing argument blandly. She'd rather be somewhere else.

As she speaks, the camera pans across the court, panning down and stopping on the defendant: eleven year old Dade Murphy.

Fast forward to the sentencing.

The court gasps, Dade's father winces

Now Dade winces, in fact we almost expect him to cry.

Opening credits roll to a backdrop of Dade and his family and lawyer fighting through a gaggle of journalists and photographers, in slow motion, and driving away.

SEVEN YEARS LATER.

Aboard a jetliner, Dade Murphy is staring blankly out the window, wearing headphones. Exterior view from the aircraft of approaching New York City.

The view becomes a direct overhead of the buildings and streets of the city, which then metamorphoses (through animation) into chips and digital signals on a stylised computer board. The title logo.

Segue to Dade Murphy, now 18, wearing mirrorshades indoors and at night, working on his new computer. His mother calls him.

In the OTV Studios security department, a phone rings, a man answers nervously.

Dade goes to work on OTV. He closes his eyes and a flurry of half-second video clips from old TV shows flashes by. He opens his eyes. His screen says ENTERING ARPS 331 and then wipes to another screen. Automated Record Playback System. There is a graphic representation of the station's automatic videotape changer. Dade turns on his TV set and turns to OTV. It is running a Rush-Limbaugh type TV show.

Dade presses a key on his keyboard. The Video Changer diagram lights up in red. At the station, a robotic arm selects a videotape from a huge rack of thousands of tapes. The "America First" tape slides out of the VTR and is replaced by an episode of "The Outer Limits" as Dade watches, drinks Coke and smiles, full of himself.

Suddenly, the ARPS screen is replaced by an ominous message:

He starts to type ZERO...

Dade types:

CRASH OVERRIDE. WHO WANTS TO KNOW?

Dade's screen dissolves into:

ACID BURN

Then the screen changes again:

"The Outer Limits" suddenly flashes off.

Dade starts hacking. Apparently so does Acid Burn. The tape changer machines at OTV are swamped, sometimes fighting over the same tape. The program on TV keeps changing.

The message comes up on Dade's computer screen:

More dueling tape changers, more half second video clips. Another message.

As the duel continues, Dade types back a taunt of his own:

One last from Acid Burn:

Then his own computer confirms for him that the connection is terminated.

Next morning. Mrs. Murphy is unpacking. Dade emerges from his room in a housecoat. He makes a beeline (dodging moving boxes) for the fridge.

Dade's mom picks up the phone, mocking a call to the building superintendent.

Dade slams the bathroom door. Mrs. Murphy quickly checks his room. Dade is showering.

She pauses and regains some of her cool.

We enjoy several views of New York, the morning sun shining between skyscrapers, neon signs that stay lit day and night. Dade emerges from the ground-floor apartment on rollerblades and skates down the street to school.

At school, hundreds of teenagers converse, move around, head to class. Dade looks lost among them. He walks up to a skinny latino kid in a faux leopard-skin muscle shirt. The kid is on a pay-phone, speaking in Spanish.

Now Dade really looks lost. He heads off in search of the office.

Dade is filling out a form.

Dade stares at her, stunned. The girl has a decidedly unconventional appearance, yet is a first-rate beauty.

Dade notices her lips, and in his imagination launches into a flurry of half-second video clips and art bites, all involving lips and kissing.

He gives them to her.

She starts leaving. He doesn't.

Dade clues in, gets up and follows her. She takes him on a brief tour.

They arrive at a classroom.

Kate starts away.

A guy in the halls notices Dade.

Kate starts away again.

Dade enters, and lets the door slam behind him. Across the roof, a dozen or so geeky looking kids are looking over the edge, apparently trying to get someone's attention. One of them notices Dade.

He's too late. The geeks look pretty angry. There is no pool.

Dade (realizing he's been had) No pool.

Dade tries the door but it's locked. He hammers it with his palm, furious. Above, thunder roars and it begins raining.

Dade is soaking wet, and trudges among his classmates leaving a muddy trail. A three-second video clip rolls through his mind: it is a screaming woman being strangled in an old movie. He walks past Kate, who giggles.

The kids are all seated at computer workstations. Dade is hacking, the latino kid who was on the phone to Venezuela is running a demo involving dirty-dancing skeletons.

Meanwhile, the latino kid notices that Dade has been looking up Kate Libby's school records. And hacking himself into her advanced English class.

It's after school, kids are heading home, Dade too. The latino kid notices Dade and catches up with him.

The name rings no bells with Dade.

Another kid, younger and a little geeky looking, runs up to Dade and The Phantom Phreak.

Phreak starts to hand Dade a flyer.

Phreak hands Dade a flyer for Cyberdelia.

Phreak walks away.

Dade rolls in on rollerblades. Street vendors hawk computer parts and bootleg software. A bootleg music vendor catches Dade's attention.

The small crowd around him finally gets the joke.

Dade wheels into Cyberdelia, which just happens to be equipped with a ramp down to its main floor for the benefit of skaters. The place pounds with loud, bassy techno music and coloured light. Video monitors with psychedelic patterns complete the atmopshere. There is a video game with a huge screen. Phreak is at a pay phone.

Phreak holds a small box up to the receiver, presses a button, and the box emits a series of tones.

Dade checks out the scene. Kate is playing the big video game. Dade skates up to her. She loses her last man. She's got the high score, in fact her name dominates the top-10 list.

Kate yields the controls to Dade, who begins playing. Kate's boyfriend looks on from a mezzanine several feet above.

Kate obliges and joins Curtis. Dade continues playing. He plays brilliantly. The game is a flashy 3-D high-speed chase game with lots of surprises. Dade loses, but his high score is about to come up.

Dade's score comes up. He's in the #1 position. Phreak is amazed.

Kate, defeated, leaves. Curtis follows.

Kate and Curtis are sucking face, oblivious to the busy world around them. Dade and Phreak watch, more than a little disgusted.

Kate and Curtis start to take off on Curtis' motorcycle. Kate and Dade make eye contact briefly. The motorcycle speeds off into the night.

The clock says it's 4:16. As the camera pans up to Dade, it changes to 4:17. Dade is hacking again. It's the school's administration system. Dade schedules a test of the school sprinkler system for 9:30am.

Dade stands alone in the hall, watching the time closely. Phreak rounds a corner and meets Dade.

Dade doesn't answer. He watches the time a couple of more seconds, then opens an umbrella.

Immediately the fire sprinklers turn on. Phreak starts getting drenched. He realizes what is happening.

A bell rings and students pour out into the halls by the hundreds. They're all being showered on. A tall cheerleader bounces by Phreak, pushing her pom-pom in his face.

Dade nods in the affirmative.

Kate walks up to Dade, also understanding what has happened.

Kate gives Dade a look that could kill and skulks away.

Dade walks away under his umbrella, smug and dry.

Dade, Kate, and a couple of other students are writing on the chalkboard. Kate finishes first.

The class giggles.

The teacher reads Dade's quotation.

Kate leaps across a desk and snatches the list from the teacher. Dade is on it. She gives Dade another filthy look, both Dade and the teacher just shrug. The teacher moves on to Cereal.

The teacher grabs the list back from Kate.

The class cracks up. Kate and Dade exchange looks as the teacher escorts Cereal to the door.

She indicates a pile of college applications.

She starts to the door.

She leaves. Dade looks over the college applications for a second, and pushes them away. He'd rather not do this now.

Dade, Phreak and Joey are sitting at a table. Joey is giving a dull account of his hacking adventures. Enter Cereal.

Cereal pauses, notices Dade, whom he has never met formally but seen around, and then continues.

Dade and Cereal acknowledge each other.

Cereal brings a book out of his bag.

Cereal pulls out another book.

Cereal hands the orange book to Phreak.

Another book comes out.

Another one.

Another one.

Cereal brings out a large red book.

By now Phreak has made a pile of the books, and the Red Book looks wholly out of place on the top of the pile.

It's like, it's like choice, it's just beautiful, okay. Like four hours I'm just messing around in there. Finally I figure out, that it's a bank. Right, okay wait, okay, so it's a bank. So, this morning, I look in the paper, some cash machine in like Bumsville Idaho, spits out seven hundred dollars into the middle of the street.

Joey takes a drag from his cigarette and just nods, with a big grin on his face.

Cereal pauses a second.

Joey is hacking. A Gibson. He gets in. Using GOD as a password. Nice graphics represent the machine's vast systems.

A system operator at Ellingson Mineral Corporation, a large oil company, notices the intrusion. He gets on the phone.

The place is a mess, typical of the hacker bachelor pad. Empty chinese food boxes and Jolt Cola cans litter the place.

Plague's phone is ringing, waking him.

Joey starts looking for something to download as proof he was there.

He selects a Garbage file and starts the download. His screen becomes a psychedelic mind trip.

The Plague glides in on a skateboard. Short and thin, bearded, about 35 but still trying to be a teenage anarchist, yet not consciously realizing he sold out that ideal years ago.

The huge monitor lights up with the display of the Gibson's resources. Hal and the Plague watch. Plague starts "surfing" around.

He sees what Joey is downloading. A file called "Garbage".

He puts on a telephone headset. Hal dials for him.

Joey is sneaking a cigarette while his computer downloads. There is a knock at the door. It's his mother.

He puts out the cigarette and sprays the room with air freshener.

He unlocks the door. Joey's mom bursts in. He's still clambering into bed.

She turns off the computer. It wasn't finished downloading.

Joey takes a disk out of his computer and stashes it in an air vent in the cieling.

Phreak, Dade and Cereal are rollerblading through the halls of an apartment building that is filled with graffiti. It appears that most of the spray-bomb art was created by the residents.

Cereal knocks on a door spray-painted "Hackstock"

Cereal shrugs.

A hooded black man in his early twenties answers the door.

Phreak motions to Dade.

Nikon slams the door.

Phreak knocks the door again. Nikon opens again.

Nikon and Cereal do a fake Kung-fu move together.

Later, the four are watching TV. On TV is a secret service agent giving a news interview.

Cheesy music plays. Razor and Blade, androgynous asian brothers, have a community access TV show. "Wayne's World" in eye liner.

Now Razor and Blade have a disconnected payphone in their studio.

Joey is taking a shower, wearing walkman headphones, singing along with the music. Joey finishes, turns off the shower, still singing. He draws open the shower curtain to find two secret service agents with shotguns pointed at him.

The agents drag Joey, still naked and wet, out of the shower and into the living room. His mother is hysterical..

Joey is pushed into a sofa. He sees his computer, "Lucy", being carried away.

Joey dives onto the agent carrying Lucy away, losing his towel. His mother, seeing his exposed buttocks, is shocked.

A police-type vehicle pulls up. It's Agent Richard Gill of the Secret Service. He stops a young agent for an update.

They split up. A reporter and her sound man run up to Gill.

While Jennifer conducts the interview, agents lead Joey into an unmarked car. His mother is behind him, still hysterical.

A tall, impressive building. A cavernous atrium filled with busy people.

A handsome looking woman in her late thirties walks in.

Margo just blinks prettily.

Plague hits a button on a remote control, and the virus - a long haired male model - appears on a large screen, in psychedelic colors. The virus speaks in a hammy Italian accent.

These ships are totally computerized. They rely on satellite navigation, which links them to our network, and the virus, wherever they are in the world.

Plague, Margo and two suits from the boardroom are riding down an escalator.

SUIT #1 Now look, now we expect you to get onto this right away, yeah?

SUIT #1 Well, how soon?

SUIT #2 Yeah, right.

SUIT #1 Now, you're sure about that, Mr. The Plague?

SUIT #2 Yeah.

SUIT #1 Okay.

The suits get off the escalator, Plague and Margo take the next one down.

Plague stops a passing secretary and snatches a piece of paper from her hand.

Joey is distraught over the dismantling of Lucy. Agent Ray examines the Mac's innards.

Joey's apartment building is an L-shaped skyscraper about 30 storeys high, unimpressive by New York City standards. Two Secret Service agents are staking Joey out in a car outside.

His radio crackles.

"This is our world now. The world of the electron and the switch, the beauty of the baud. We exist without nationality, skin color, or religious bias. You wage wars, murder, cheat, lie to us and try to make us believe it's for our own good, yet we're the criminals. Yes, I am a criminal. My crime is that of curiosity. I am a hacker and this is my manifesto." Huh, right, manifesto? "You may stop me, but you can't stop us all."

Dade, Cereal and Phreak check their faces. Cereal brushes his teeth.

Dade shakes his head.

Dade just smiles.

Cereal and Phreak leave, Cereal dancing.

Plague is wearing a VR helmet and gloves, playing some sort of action game. He is unaware that Gill has just entered the room.

He thumps the VR pedestal.

Plague finally notices, and takes off the helmet.

Gill hands Plague a folder. It has the logo of Stanton High.

Plague looks it over and recognizes a name.

It's after school. Dade's just unlocking the front door, only to find a Secret Service agent behind it. And one behind him in the hallway. Both point pistols at him.

They slam Dade against a wall and start frisking him.

They lead him into his room and throw him down on the bed. Plague is there.

Dade has a flashback.

The three secret service agents leave Plague and Dade alone. Plague shuts the door behind them.

Plague is holding Dade's baseball bat. He shrugs, turns around, and smashes Dade's stereo to smithereens.

Plague replaces the baseball bat.

Plague leaves.

Dade is lying in bed. A door opens. It's Kate. She opens her motorcycle jacket, revealing her bare breasts. Dade starts to get up, she pushes him back own on the bed and starts kissing him passionately. He responds in kind. Then, Gill, Agent Ray and Agent Bob burst into the room, handcuff him, break the two up and haul them away as Plague looks on smugly.

Then Dade wakes up in a sweat. It was only a dream. He regains his composure. The sound of New York City at night surrounds him. He goes back to sleep.

The party. A large, well-furnished apartment in an elegant old skyscraper in the fashionable part of town. Teenagers dance and writhe to loud, bassy music. Dade and Phreak arrive.

Phreak shows Dade the book.

Kate, the lovely and gracious hostess, mingles and greets her many guests, not noticing Dade or Phreak. Cereal offers Dade a drink from a plastic bottle. Dade, not knowing what he's in for, drinks. Nikon is the Deejay.

Nikon and Cereal are checking out a truly fine babe.

(Into the crowd) Lisa!

Cereal and Phreak move through the crowd. Cereal notices something.

A 12-step recovery group. Addicts, including Joey Pardella, sit in a semi-circle.

Joey takes a drag. The group reacts indignantly.

Joey takes another drag.

Joey downs his coffee.

Phreak is checking out Kate's computer.

Dade hits the lights. The four ooo and ahh at its graphics. Kate and Curtis walk into the room and hit the bed, unaware of the hackers in the corner by her laptop.

Their cover is blown.

Cereal hides under the desk.

Kate barely acknowledges him.

Curtis leaves.

Kate finally notices that Dade, whom she didn't invite, is at her party and in her bedroom.

Cereal breaks into hysterics.

Plague is hacking.

She turns her back to him. He does up the zipper on her dress. Their relationship becomes apparent.

Kate's room is empty, and Dade can't resist going back in to play with her laptop, which far outclasses his own, some more. On the balcony, Kate notices and comes back in.

Dade starts working furiously on it.

Dade slows to a two-finger keypoke, not missing a beat.

They uncomfortably exchange glances.

MONTAGE: Scenes of Dade and Kate preparing for the challenge.

Dade spray paints camouflage onto his keyboard.

Kate rifles through her address book.

Dade plays quick-draw with disks.

Dade, having mastered the quick-disk-draw in the mirror, looks satisfied.

All five are together at the beginning of the challenge.

Dade and Kate shake hands and the challenge begins.

At a public phone, Kate hacks into Concourse Bank, looks up Richard Gill, and has his credit card maxed out. "Destroy Card" is the final instruction. The other hackers look on.

A waiter runs a credit card through a validation machine, sees the message and returns to the patron's table. It is Richard Gill. Right there, the waiter chops the MasterCard in two with a pair of scissors, to Gill's horror.

Dade hacks into an electronic personal ads system and changes an ad.

At his office, Gill is on the speaker phone with someone responding to the ad.

Gill punches a button on the phone, another caller comes on.

Gill punches another button, another caller comes on.

Gill punches another button.

Gill punches another button. He is becoming quite flustered.

He punches another button.

Another caller comes on, and Gill hangs up the phone, disgusted, offended, and distraught. The Plague is there, witnessing the whole thing.

It's Kate's turn. Kate is hacking into the Department of Motor Vehicles. She adds 113 traffic violations and DUI offender status to Gill's record.

Gill is being arrested quite forcefully by a NYC police grunt. He is thrown onto the hood of his car and handcuffed.

Dade's turn. He hacks into the Secret Service's personnel file, and changes Gill's status to "Deceased."

The five are playing pool.

Phreak clicks the pool scoreboard so it says 60 - 60.

The other four protest.

Dade thinks about it a second.

Kate gives Dade a look that says "I'm going to hold you to that."

A shapely figure wearing a red leather legless suit with a zipper that goes all the way around the crotch. Hands caress the sultry figure as the camera pans up. The body belongs to Dade Murphy.

Kate wakes up gasping. It was only a dream. She pants and regains her breath. Then she smiles. She enjoyed that dream.

Kate, at her locker, stops Dade.

She opens her locker to reveal a red leather bustier and bikini bottom.

Dade walks off.

Dade signs an electronic pad for a package from UPS. He takes the package.

He closes the door and opens the package. It is a laptop computer, clear plastic shell, full colour screen. Very high- end, perhaps the equal to Kate's machine. He turns it on. The Plague's face, distorted, appears. It speaks.

Plague's face vanishes.

Joey lies on his bed with a comic book, looking despondent. His mother enters.

She kisses his forehead and leaves. He springs back to life, gets up and gets the disc from where he stashed it in the air vent.

Joey is nervously waiting on a park bench. Phreak arrives. Agents Ray and Bob still have Joey staked out.

Joey hands Phreak the disc. Agent Bob is taking pictures, and Phreak notices.

Joey sees, and runs for it.

The agents split up, one runs after Joey, the other after Phreak.

Phreak has lost his tail. He puts Joey's disc behind a condom machine in the boys' room at school, and sticks it there with gum.

Phreak frantically destroys all records of his hacking career. He knows he's about to be busted.

DREAM SEQUENCE.

The Secret Service is about to burst in on Phreak. He still hasn't destroyed any records, and starts manically going through everything. Gill is on his laptop screen.

A knock on the door. Phreak awakes. It's his mother.

The secret service bursts in through the window just as Phreak's mom opens the blind. She screams, Phreak leaps to his feet.

Phreak's mom becomes very angry and starts slapping Phreak, cursing in Spanish.

The undersized Phreak is just a morsel to the hardened thugs behind these bars and they taunt him viciously as he is led to his one phone call.

The cop locks the dial on the phone.

Phreak waits for the cop to leave, and hangs up. He starts rapidly pushing the hangup hook, and he hears a ringing tone.

Kate answers.

He hangs up just as the cop returns.

Kate is entirely out of place in the boys' room, as the boys look on amusedly. She finds the disc behind the condom machine and pockets it. Then she buys a condom from the machine and struts out, smiling sweetly, hot as fire.

Kate knocks. Mrs. Murphy lets Kate and Cereal in.

Well, now I see what all the fuss is about. (she shows them to Dade's room) Dade... you have company.

Kate starts to leave.

Cereal leaves the room.

A knock on the door. Dade's mom peeks in.

She leaves.

Later. Plague phones Dade. Plague has Lauren Murphy's records on his screen.

Dade does.

An extensive criminal record with a strange woman's picture comes up. The strange woman transforms into Dade's mother.

Forgery, Embezzlement, two drug convictions, plus she jumped parole. When she's arrested, she will not have a trial, she will not pass go, she will go directly to jail. Then I change this file back to the original, and your mom disappears.

Dade emerges from his room. His exhausted, overworked mother is asleep on the couch. He pulls a blanket over her.

Shortly after, Dade is outside on a payphone.

Dade hangs up and waits for some time. A limousine drives by, with a skateboarder tailing. Plague grabs the disc, jumps in the limo and speeds away. Dade tries to chase but gives up quickly.

Dade shows up. Kate, Nikon, and Cereal are working on the disc.

Nikon points out part of the code.

Dade takes Nikon's place.

Hours pass. Dade studies and reverse engineers the garbage file. The other hackers watch, and do just about anything but be hackers. Finally, over boxes of half-finished pizza, Dade makes an announcement.

Dade indicates a rapidly scrolling data display.

Nikon whistles.

Nikon closes his eyes and access his photographic memory.

Dade and Kate cut through a chain link fence and jump into a dumpster at Ellingson. Kate lands on Dade.

Kate fishes around in her pants, never breaking eye contact with Dade. She pulls out a flashlight. They start trashing. They get up to leave and are spotted by a security guard.

Kate pulls out a flare gun and fires it at the security guard. He ducks.

Nikon is staring down a manhole, Cereal is fishing through an adjacent phone company truck.

Cereal emerges with a beltload of equipment and a hard hat. But he forgot the most important thing.

Cereal goes back to the truck and gets a thick manual. The phone company technician comes up from the manhole.

The phone company tech jumps back in the hole, Cereal and Nikon take off.

A woman is seated at the desk. Agent Gill walks by.

Cereal emerges from the desk, between her legs. His tool belt dangles obscenely from his crotch.

Cereal walks away with his buttcrack seriously showing.

Nikon poses as a flower delivery boy. He winds his way through the offices of Ellingson Mineral, "shoulder surfing", watching the workers entering passwords. His photographic memory captures everything. The Plague walks past him, noticing briefly but not making the connection.

The Da Vinci virus' launch/cancel prompt is up.

Margo starts to protest.

Plague clicks on "Launch". The virus repeats its demand.

As the virus speaks, a supertanker sails on a choppy sea.

Plague leaves a message on Gill's answering machine.

Gill gets on the phone.

As Gill gives the order, a mysterious device under his desk blinks. Cereal put it there.

Nikon and Cereal taped Gill's orders.

Nikon calls Kate.

Cereal, Nikon, Dade and Kate skate through a run down subway platform and get on the "A" Train. They go over the results of their password gathering spree.

Kate gets ready to get off the subway.

Dade gets up.

Weird music plays, lots of weird people dance. Razor and Blade are on stage, dancing in front of a huge speaker.

Dade and Kate push through the crowd. The song changes to a fast industrial rap number, Razor and Blade leave the stage, and Dade starts getting moshed. He climbs on the stage to follow Razor and Blade. For his trouble, he is thrown back onto the crowd, who pass him around overhead.

Finally the crowd lets him go. He catches up with Kate.

Dade tries to explain, but is at a loss for words.

They make their way to the entrance to Razor and Blade's lair. Video monitors are everywhere.

A robotic arm with a revolver swings around to point at Dade.

Dade winces at his own corniness.

The gun goes off. It's only a cigarette lighter! No one can accuse Razor and Blade of not having a sense of humor.

Dade just smiles.

Dade hacks into the city traffic light control system. Suddenly there is gridlock on the streets of New York City.

Nikon is playing chess against two Hassidic Jews. Cereal's beeper goes off. It displays the message:

Nikon checkmates his opponent and the two leave.

Dade, Cereal, Nikon, and Kate skate through the streets. Dade's program to freeze all the traffic lights on green, runs on schedule at 9:00:00 precisely. Picture New York City in morning rush hour, and every traffic light is green. Instant gridlock ensues. The four skate through the traffic easily, while the Secret Service, now pursuing them, is stuck. Gill punches a parked car in frustration. Its alarm goes off.

The four hackers skate into Grand Central Station and head to the lowest level. They meet up with Joey.

The hackers are now setting up laptops at a bank of pay phones. Dade is wearing a "Pirate Eye" eyepiece.

Cereal screams.

Cereal takes off to fix the phones.

Joey takes Cereal's place.

The four boot up their machines. Various vanity screens come up on the laptops. They begin to hack. We see the inside of the Gibson. Viruses of all kinds begin to pour in. In the offices and data processing rooms, the Ellingson staff are in pandemonium. Happy faces with eye patches appear on their screens. "Sit on my interface." "Shit for Brains." "Arf Arf Arf!" Cookie monsters.

The big monitor shows the attack in progress.

The main screen is filled with:

I WANT A COOKIE. GIVE ME A COOKIE NOW!

Another virus appears.

The systems display comes up. Red flashes everywhere, signifying new attacks. Plague presses a key.

Rabbit icons start to fill the systems display.

The Da Vinci Virus sings "Row Row Row Your Boat". Tanker ballasts start filling - for real.

The Secret Service and NYPD are stuck. They turn around and head for Grand Central Station.

The public phone next to Dade's rings. Dade answers. It's The Plague.

Kate's phone rings. It's Razor.

Hackers in England, Italy, Japan, Russia, everywhere mobilize and start attacking the Ellingson Gibson. The English hacker looks and talks suspiciously like Annie Lennox's husband. Our heroes relentlessly search for the right garbage file.

Duke Ellingson arrives.

Dozens of armed Secret Service and SWAT troops push through the crowded station looking for the hackers.

INSIDE THE COMPUTER.

The garbage file lights up. The familiar psychedelic swirl of equations and fractal graphics returns.

Dade is disconnected.

The SS and SWAT are still closing in on the hackers.

The SS and SWAT push through crowds.

The SS are nearly there.

Joey has found the file.

The SS arrive. Gill himself has his .357 drawn.

It's an empty bank of payphones, the receivers are linked together and taped up. No hackers. They keep going.

Joey completes the download.

Margo and Duke are awed by Plague's imminent failure and total unprofessionalism.

The Da Vinci virus dies. The tankers stop capsizing and right themselves.

The main screen lights up:

ARF ARF! WE GOTCHA!

The Gibson dies in a flash of light.

The hackers cheer and congratulate each other.

The SS have caught up with the hackers. Agent Bob seems to be choosing which pore on which hacker's face to blow away first. Only Joey thinks to put his hands up.

As they are led away, a handcuffed Dade surrreptitiously tosses the disc with the worm into a trashcan.

Outside, he notices Cereal, who wasn't present to be arrested. He yells to the crowd, but really is addressing Cereal.

Later, Cereal is trashing through the garbage cans in Grand Central Station. Eventually he finds the disc. To Cereal's disgust, it has gum stuck to it.

Gill phones The Plague to report the successful takedown.

At Plague's place, Plague and Margo toast with champagne, giggle, and then scurry off to bed...

Dade and Kate are there.

The intercom beeps.

Gill leaves.

She pauses, realizing his gesture.

Dade turns on the intercom. Gill can be heard through it.

Agent Bob enters.

The news crew interviews Gill.

Nikon and Joey are led in.

The monitors cut into static, then Cereal appears.

Razor and Blade busily work on keeping him on the air.

Cereal is now seen and heard on the big screen in Times Square.

Margo watches this and sits bolt upright in bed.

An account number scrolls below Cereal's chin.

His voice echoes across the earth and among the satellites.

Almost supernaturally, Plague is already gone. He was right next to her, stark naked in bed a second ago.

The hackers embrace and congratulate each other again, Lauren Murphy hugs her son.

Margo Wallace has been arrested, and is being led into the women's lockup. Some of the other women grab at her expensive Italian leather jacket as she is led to her cell.

"Babbage" is The Plague in disguise; he now appears about 60 years old.

The pillow slides in behind his head, he reaches up to adjust it.

A handcuff snaps onto his wrist. It's Gill.

Dade and Kate are on their date. Dade is smartly, somewhat androgynously dressed. Kate is heavily made up, and yes, she is wearing a dress.

Dade and Kate swimming, fully clothed, in a pool on a roof.

They look out at the skyline. Suddenly, the lights in three buildings change. They spell out:

Kate laughs, honestly impressed.

Kate continues laughing.

They kiss passionately.

The credits roll.