Allegedly for research purposes, a private company is creating a computer-animated world where economic and social developments can be simulated to make forecasts and thus inform decision-making. After the sudden death of a senior employee, Fred Stiller is promoted to the position of head of security for the company. Soon, he suspects that his predecessor's death was no accident, and he begins to suspect that he himself is part of the simulation. For the first time, the script for the legendary science fiction film, which entered film history as the "Pre-Matrix," is presented here. Fassbinder collaborated with Fritz Müller-Scherz based on the novel by Daniel F. Galouye and aimed primarily to tell an entertaining story: about a world "where one can create projections of people with a computer. And this naturally raises the question of to what extent one is merely a projection oneself. Perhaps a different, larger world has created us as a thought model?".