The Prisoner

A New Yorker who recently resigned from his job, awakens in a desert mountain location. He doesn't know where he is. He sees an elderly man being shot at, the elderly man who eventually dies of his gunshot wounds. The New Yorker thinks he will befall the same fate as the elderly man. The New Yorker makes his way into a nearby city - a desert oasis - and learns that everyone there is called by a number, and that this city is called "The Village". Although knowing it is not his name or his home, everyone is calling him Six, and he lives in an apartment in the The Village. The face of the authorities of The Village is Two, who tells Six that The Village is the only reality there is. Six is told he's a free man, but he feels like he's a prisoner in The Village. He believes the elderly man, who Six learns was named 93, knew that there was an alternate reality outside of The Village and found a way to escape, which is the reason he was killed. With the help of a waitress named 554, Six also learns that there are a few in The Village who also believe there is a world outside of The Village. As Six tries to figure out what's going on, he has a recurring memory of a situation in New York involving a woman named Lucy.

Number 6's feeble attempt at escape soon comes to an end and he is returned to the Village. There he is introduced to Number 16 who claims to be his brother. Number 6 is understandably skeptical about it all and has no recollection of 16. He also learns that he is a bus driver by profession, giving tours around the the Village. When he comes across a ship's anchor in the middle of the desert he begins to think there may be another way to escape. We learn more about Number 6's life in New York City and that he had resigned as an analyst with a security company that reviewed CCTV footage from around the world. It is also clear that he was under observation even then. As Number 6 goes from what he thinks is reality to waking dreams, he is longer sure what is real and what is imagined.

Six is forced into attending a matchmaking service, the matchmaker, 1891, who appears unwanted on his television screen. He is matched with a blind woman named 4-15, who looks exactly like Lucy with whom Six had a sexual liaison in New York. Six is convinced that she is indeed Lucy, although 4-15 appears not to know anything about life outside of The Village. Both Two and 11-12 ask 313 for assistance on specific matters. With Two and 313, she knows that he is aware that she is a dreamer, the reason why she feels she needs to help him. But she still has to decide if what he asks her to do is worth her long term happiness. Meanwhile, all the talk around The Village centers on the mysterious holes that have been appearing in The Village, which Two dismisses as weather related anomalies. To combat these, pigs are distributed to residents, as swine breath is deemed to be a atmosphere stabilizer. One of those holes is in 147 and 21-16's backyard. A tragedy occurs in their family because of the hole.