At California State Prison, Corcoran, a 942-acre facility built on the former Tulare Lake, Ted Gaines, who is tired of the treatment at prison, including getting sprayed with Mace for even the smallest rules infraction, feigns an interest in learning about computers as a vocation. While online Ted discovers, through overhead photos on the prison's web site, a possible way to escape. Spotting this he researches thoroughly, tracking movements of guards in the massive compound in relation to an area he feels is not well guarded. Ted approaches fellow inmate Roger Wilson with his plan.

 
Two weeks prior to graduation Chris Walker, high school senior and state champion in the 100- and 200-meter dashes, jogs by a 7-Eleven store and hears a sound in the alley. Curious, he slows and, while witnessing what he believes the murder of a blonde woman, accidentally kicks a can. He is spotted, then yelled at and immediately turns and runs, narrowly escaping. Chris is noticeably shaken and questions what he saw.
 
Chris does not know what to do or where to go until events force him to confront his innermost principles, and corresponding fears, and what follows becomes a cat and mouse game leading the police into a mountain community in a desperate attempt to free the town's mayor, who had been kidnapped as part of Ted and Roger's escape plan - one that might have worked had Chris not decided to assist the police on his own terms and in his own way.