The film follows mission controller Mackenzie “Mack” Wilson (Sackhoff) and ARTI, an artificial intelligence system (voiced by Cree), as they discover a mysterious object on Mars and witness it transporting to Earth by faster-than-light travel.

Six years later, United Space Planetary Corporation mission controller Mackenzie “Mack” Wilson finds herself subordinate to ARTI, an artificial intelligence system, as she lands a rover (which she nicknames "Little Red") on Mars.

While Mack is distrustful of ARTI, her sister and supervisor, Lena, insists that the AI will succeed where human controllers have failed.

Mack and ARTI download classified files from an older decommissioned rover on Mars, but encrypted data in them can't be unlocked without required authorisation level.

On a screen a recording plays, it is a disheveled Mack, who informs her that she is an elaborate simulation construct created by ARTI for a special task.