Stanley is employee number 427 at a large corporation, where his job consists entirely of monitoring data on a computer screen and pressing buttons as instructed. He has never questioned his work or his purpose. One day, the screen goes blank and Stanley realizes the entire office is empty. Every coworker has vanished without explanation. Guided by the voice of a narrator who claims to know Stanley's story, Stanley begins exploring the abandoned building. But the narrator's version of events may not be the only one, and Stanley must decide whether to follow the path laid out for him or forge his own way through a world that seems determined to tell him who he is.