Logline:

Two college dropouts learn an important lesson. There is a basic conflict between technology and social interaction:  the only winner of this contest is THE APP.

Synopsis:

Adam Foote and Al Len met at Berkley and decided to drop out of college “just like Steve Jobs did” so that they would be young enough to make a difference in the world when their big idea hit.  Al is a technophobe who wants to bring people back together on a personal level.  Foote is a technophile whose experimental podcasts have been helping him scrape by in the hardest real estate market in the world.  Their lives collide with a young millionaire, an eccentric Facebook guy figure who ends up sleeping on their couch.  Now they have a lot more to figure out.

The story opens on a going away party.  It isn’t a going away party for a person.  It’s a going away party for THE APP.  The app (whose official title is simply THE) is a modern phenomenon.  It’s an app that gives a numerical score to anyone in its proximity.  A person can set it to LOVE, LIKE, FIGHT, or GRIEF and they will get a score when they hold it up to another person with the same app on the same setting.  So, if you’re searching for a friend, set it to LIKE and every time you go by a person at the party who is looking for a friend, you get a number.  Fifty is the middle ground.  Anything above is considered a good match.  Ninety is almost never seen.  A person who finds a 91 should drop everything and start knitting throw pillows with their names on them.  The same goes with love (updates come later that tell a person when they will be best and worst at sex, when they are most likely to commit to a relationship and other fun things that will propel Al and Foote into new adventures).  The app is being retired at midnight and the countdown concludes.  Now nobody will be able to download it again.  Nobody under the age of 25 will ever upgrade their phone again for fear of losing THE APP.

Foote has been talking to a 72 in the corner.  A 78 comes in and he immediately drops the conversation and moves on to her.  Al stops him in transition and tells him how unhealthy this kind of socializing is.  Foote agrees, “but since there is no cure, it’s best to embrace the disease, right?”  Al asks Foote if it’s okay if he tries a social experiment. Foote, worried about losing track of his 78 agrees to anything Al says.    Al breaks out with a board game and tries to bring the crowd together but instead partygoers use THE APP to rate and avoid him.

Party crasher FIA a college student who is doing a film class assignment on THE APP phenomena is having trouble getting people to give her interviews about what THE APP means to them. She sits down next to Al and the two bond and begin to play the board game. The party continues with Foote dumping the 78 when he spot an 87. Al shows Fia his game closet and the two kiss. Foote makes out with an 87 and his phone dings announcing an update.  He ignores it.  After the party is done, Al and  Foote consider cleaning but instead opt for the coffee shop. As they are leaving the apartment, Foote almost forgets his phone. He goes back for it, sees the update and freezes in his tracks. It is something of life-changing proportion.  “I missed a 99.”

Even Al knows this is a big deal.  There are no 99’s.  Finding a 97 is like winning the lottery.  Foote missed the love of his life while he was with an 87.  He feels so lost.  He has to find her.

They track down the programmer of the APP to see if he can lead them back to her.  He lives on his own block in San Francisco.  He was a security expert for the government before he wrote THE APP code, a code that nobody can crack.  Only he can untangle the program and find a way back to this mythic woman.

They surprise him in his house.  BURT is a very eccentric figure.  He appears to have no interest in helping them.  He belongs to several grief support groups. He is in a GoToMeeting like gathering when they arrive. Burt is deep, strange and dark.  He claims that he can’t eat or sleep even though he has crumbs all over his face and was napping before the doorbell rang. Foote and Al feel like they come at the wrong time but Burt assures them it is not. “I will die, but not today. Maybe tonight but not with the sun shining, that would be too cruel, unless of course it rains.”

When he hears that Foote has come in contact with a 99 he corrects him.  “There are no 99s.  Unless-“He runs to the computer.  He goes through a series of swipes and jabs with his virtual controller.  It looks like he’s doing fast Tai Chi. He whispers.  “She downloaded it.  At the last minute, she did it.”

Burt has been waiting for the girl who dumped him, to download the app.  He designed the app so that she would download it and find out that he was her 99.  He rigged the game.  She was the only 99 in the universe, but a glitch made the app constantly give her 99s with everyone she meets.  She turns off the app, but doesn’t delete it.  There may be a way to track her.

Burt needs to be in the exact GPS coordinates that she was at the party.  He might be able to run a trace, find her profile.  He needs to follow Foote and Al back to their loft.  He will do anything to find 99.  That’s exactly in line with what Foote wants.

Burt meets Foote and Al’s apartment super, DENISE and has another reason to stick around.  She’s in the apartment fixing the plumbing and orders him around, treats him like just another guy.  He loves the fact that she is so real.  Once she recognizes Burt she slaps him across the face for causing her to meet the loser, rap artist, stalker she met through the App who matched her at a 73 and then ruined her life by immortalizing her in a song. Burt offers her money which only makes her angrier and the two proceed to have a water fight in the kitchen. Totally drenched and stripping off clothing, Denise takes the money as she leaves the apartment leaving the guys gaping after her.

“Good God.”

“Yes, I would have to say that Denise is extremely blessed. “

“Yeah, I’d App that.”

Burt begins to make progress identifying 99.  He gets the very bottom pixels of her profile picture by the end of the first episode.  Those are her ANKLES!  Nobody understands why he is so excited.  Foote prints the picture of her ankles and tapes it to his microphone.