When a sudden plague of blindness devastates a city, a small group of the afflicted band together to triumphantly overcome the horrific conditions of their imposed quarantine.

Physician Jerri Nielsen finds herself stranded at the Amundsen-South Pole Research Station along with a tiny staff of researchers and technicians. Though there is at first little love lost between the somewhat aloof Nielsen and her more down-to-earth colleagues, a strong bond develops among them as the extreme winter progresses.

Factory worker Doug Quaid takes a virtual mind-trip vacation with the Rekall company, opting for implanted memories of being a spy. When the procedure goes wrong, Quaid becomes a wanted man by the police and joins forces with a rebel fighter to stop the evil Chancellor Cohaagen.

Missionary Father LaForgue travels to the New World in hopes of converting Algonquin Indians to Catholicism. Accepted, though warily, by the Indians, LaForgue travels with the Indians using his strict Catholic rules and ideals to try and impose his religion.

Rembrandt Macy (Tom Berenger) is a maverick cop assigned to a case where the primary evidence is a woman's hand found in a pond. Investigators identify the dead, and Macy is lead into a young woman's past. Macy's primary path to understanding the victim is through one of her roommates, Nikki. Through Nikki and others, Macy learns of the victim's shady contacts at City Hall, the involvement of a gang of Asian drug runners, and the sordid affairs of one of the city's bigwigs. As Macy begins to understand how all these crimes fit together, he learns that his new friend Nikki is not an innocent bystander.