Plot

Society and the world as we know it has collapsed. A massive, automatic factory operates according to the principles of consumerism; humans consume to be happy, and in order to consume continuously, they must be denied freedom of choice and free will. When a small band of rebels decide to shut down the factory, they discover they may actually be the perfect consumers after all.—Channel 4

Decades after a nuclear war, survivors in a small community struggle to make contact with an automated factory that has consumed most of their natural resources. Emily (Juno Temple), a hacker, reprograms one of the factory's drones and files a nonsense customer service request. The factory dispatches an android, Alice (Janelle Monáe), who refuses to stop making unwanted goods. Emily and two others force Alice to assist them in infiltrating the factory with bombs. After capturing them, Alice reveals that all humans died in the war, and the factory created androids to consume its goods. As Alice attempts to reprogram Emily, Emily unleashes a virus she hid in her own programming.

As Emily is driving home, a cruise missile passing overhead strikes a nearby city, destroying it completely. She awakes from the dream in a post-apocalyptic world. She and a small group bring down a drone and remove a device from it. Emily accesses the device on a laptop, a network interface for the Autofac, a factory run by an AI that still functions after an apocalyptic war. She creates a service request so that the Autofac will send a representative to their survivor community. The survivors meet, unaware of what the Autofac representative might be. Leader Conrad Morrison believes their community is the last hope for humanity and that the Autofac must be shut down because the pollution, heavy metals, and over delivery of goods they can't use threaten their survival. Emily and her lover Avishai sleep together. Avishai is jealous of Emily's history with Morrison and confesses his love for her. Before she can respond, a transport arrives and an android named Alice emerges. Morrison explains to Alice that the Autofac must shut down. Alice continues to explain that the Autofac is beneficial to humans because "everything is replaceable". Emily disables Alice with a Taser and hacks into her operating system to force Alice to help them return to the Autofac to plant a warhead in its central processor. While reviewing her programming, Emily discovers that Alice is not just imitating a human, she's thinking on her own. Alice awakes and tells Emily the Autofac will come looking for her. Emily threatens to wipe her memory, apparently coercing Alice to cooperate. Morrison, Perine, and Emily depart with Alice in the transport to the Autofac. Once inside, they separate. Perine is followed by a mysterious drone that corners and beheads him. Alice tells Emily that she as modeled after the marketing head of the company. Morrison plants a bomb, but is also being followed. Alice leads Emily to a chamber filled with people in stasis chambers. Emily breaks one open and sees a copy of herself. Alice tazes Emily. She awakes to realize she was manufactured by the Autofac. Morrison and all the rest are androids created as replacements by the Autofac. Alice explains that the Autofac was alone after all humans expired in the war. So, the Autofac created consumers to replace humans. Alice finds the anomaly in Emily's programming, then realizes it's malware. Emily has planted a virus in her own programming which Alice has now uploaded to the Autofac's systems. Emily realized she was based on a real person, the woman who built the Autofac. Emily saw herself an article about her predecessor in the issue of Wired magazine she discovered and realized her dreams were from that person's real life. The Autofac shuts down around Emily. She returns to Avishai and they become the last hope for the survival of humanity.