Logline:
Die Hard at a San Francisco software company.
Summary:
Blackquest 40 is the story of a San Francisco office turned upside-down by armed gateposts, phone seizures, and a mandate to build a staggeringly complex piece of software in 40 uninterrupted hours. The CFO describes the training exercise as, “the pinnacle of corporate readiness.”
Deb Bollinger has another word for it: lame. An ex-Google hotshot, Deb has zero interest in sleepovers with her intolerably straight/male/white coworkers, and is annoyed when a data block upends her beloved side-project carebnb, an app matching homeless people with spare beds. When she bolts to troubleshoot with a beta user, a guard physically restrains her.
Deb is dragged back inside. Nobody, for any reason, leaves the office before the 40-hour window expires. Before the software is built.
Convinced now the project is no exercise, Deb investigates. She breaks into a van marked "Elite Development" and finds documents tying the training firm to Russia. An Elite thug discovers her. When he dies in the ensuing struggle, Deb stuffs the body in a dumpster and returns to her cube as though nothing is amiss.
With Elite brandishing “extreme motivational techniques”—revoked options, forced amphetamine injections—Deb must keep the mysterious project on track while pursuing the truth. As menacing details emerge, she and quadcopter-drone Raven flee to the HVAC ducts: the employees’ best hope to reach the outside world and avert catastrophe.