Johnny Mnemonic

Johnny is a "mnemonic courier" who discreetly transports sensitive data for corporations in a storage device implanted in his brain at the cost of his childhood memories. His current job is for a group of scientists in Beijing. Johnny initially balks when he learns the data exceeds his memory capacity even with compression, but agrees given the large fee will be enough to cover the cost of the operation to remove the device. Johnny keeps it secret that he is overloaded; he must have the data extracted within a few days or suffer fatal brain damage and corrupt the data. The scientists encrypt the data with three random images from a television feed. As they transmit these images to the receiver in Newark, New Jersey, they are attacked and killed by yakuza led by Shinji, who wields a laser whip. Johnny battles the yakuza and grabs a fragment of the encryption key images before escaping. Shinji reports his failure to his superior, Takahashi, their conversation revealing the yakuza is working on behalf of Pharmakom, a megacorporation. Johnny witnesses brief images of a female projection of an artificial intelligence who attempts to aid Johnny, but he dismisses her.