 Lenny Nero deals in dreams. Formerly an LAPD vice cop, he now deals in illegal  squid  recordings - recordings made directly from the cerebral cortex of the participant, which allow the viewer to feel and experience everything the participant experiences as if they were there. One of life s perpetual losers, he ekes out a lonely, miserable existence at the end of the millennium, still pathetically yearning for his beautiful ex-girlfriend Faith, a beautiful singer, and is dependent on his friend Macey, who both loves him unquestioningly and despairs for him completely, in equal measure. But Lenny s life is about to be shattered; when he is anonymously sent the recording of the brutal rape and murder of a prostitute he is acquainted with, he and Macey soon find themselves reluctantly embroiled in a dark web of murder, blackmail and intrigue amid the civil unrest surrounding the suspicious death of an influential, politically active rap singer. Lenny and Macey are soon running from Faith s brutal manager, Philo Gant, and a pair of menacing police officers, as they try to uncover the connection between the two and stay alive long enough to see in the millennium.