卡梅伦（斯蒂芬·莱克 Stephen Lack 饰）没有住所，没有工作，整日在街头闲逛的他内心充满了抑郁和怒火，没有人知道，他所拥有的能够肆意操纵他人的可怕超能力。一天，在超市里游荡的卡梅伦无意之中听到了两个女人对他的嘲笑，盛怒之下，他出手了。这一事件将卡梅伦带到了名为保罗（帕特里克·麦高汉 Patrick McGoohan 饰）的医生面前，就此改变了卡梅伦的人生。 保罗医生教会了卡梅伦如何控制和有效地使用自己的超能力，很快，他就获得了卡梅伦的依赖和信任。然而，卡梅伦并不知道保罗医生背后究竟存在着一个怎样的组织，亦不知道，自己已经被这个组织相中，卷入了一场巨大的阴谋之中。
Scruffy derelict Cameron Vale (Stephen Lack) stumbles through a shopping mall scavenging food and cigarettes. While eating leftovers left behind at a table at the mall food court, two rude middle-aged women notice him and openly talk (very out loud) about how disgusted they are by his appearance. As Vale angrily glares at them, one of the women suddenly goes into convulsions and falls to the floor shaking. Two men in trench coats appear and give chase. As Vale runs, one of the trench coat men shoots him in the hand with a dart gun. Vale runs, pursued through the mall and finally collapses to the floor.
Vale wakes up strapped to a bed in a warehouse. Dr. Paul Ruth (Patrick McGoohan) approaches Vale and tells him that he is a derelict because he is a "scanner". Ruth ushers in a group of people whose voices grow in volume but their lips do not move. Vale thrashes on the bed as he cannot block out their thoughts. Ruth administers an injection and the voices fade away.
At a lecture at the ConSec corporation, the audience watches a demonstration of "scanning". The demonstrator tells them that he is a scanner who can scan peoples thoughts and asks for a volunteer display his powers. A man (Michael Ironside) steps forward and offers to volunteer. The demonstrator asks him to think of something specific which the demonstrator will scan his thoughts to discover. The scanner soon directs his focus, but he is soon goes into great pain, shaking in unbearable agony until his head literally explodes, showering blood, brain and skull matter all over the stage. Panic erupts in the auditorium as people flee towards the exits. Security guards grab the volunteer saying that have another scanner among them. They take the volunteer away at gunpoint to a stairwell where Dr. Gatineau is told to administer a shot of "ephemeral" but the scanner makes him inject his own hand instead. As the volunteer is driven to "the factory" in a car with two security guards, a second security car suddenly swerves into a wall and explodes killing the two inside the car. The lead car stops to help. The man smiles as the chief of security shoots the two guards and then himself. The sinister scanner then escapes into the night.
The next day, ConSec Chairman Trevelyan address the board of directors saying: "Last night, we at ConSec chose to reveal to the outside world our work with those telepathic curiosities known as scanners. The result: six corpses and substantial loss in credibility for our organization". The new director of security, Braedon Keller (Lawrence Dane), wants the scanner program shut down. Dr. Ruth points out that the man responsible is a scanner. His own scanners have all been lost to a powerful underground organization led by the same man: Darryl Revok, the volunteer from the other night who has been identified from the security images on CCTV cameras. Ruth proposes infiltrating Revok's organization. Keller scoffs at the idea as foolish, but Ruth says that he has a "very special" new scanner who will help them.
Ruth shows Vale a film of a younger Revok in a psychiatric institute, a hole drilled in his forehead. Revok says he did it to "let the people out". Revok grows quite agitated and his pacified by two orderlies. In a local metro station, Keller informs an unseen man about Vale.
