Plot
Theoretical physicist Niko Jovic is found fatally electrocuted in a remote Colorado laboratory, Technology of Tomorrow Today, under suspicious circumstances. Niko had been researching the wireless transmission of electricity, a scientific breakthrough which if accomplished could be sold for millions. The lab owner, Victor Lossett, has asked Nancy Drew to investigate the murder while going undercover, posing as a potential new buyer of the lab.
Research assistant Ellie York gives Nancy a demonstration of the lab's Tesla coil, which she explains had electrocuted Niko due to being configured incorrectly. Ellie says that lab engineer Ryan Kilpatrick had configured the coil that night, but that Ryan claimed Niko had insisted, for inexplicable reasons, that she do so. Ryan was arrested after Niko's murder, but was released due to a lack of sufficient evidence, although Victor still believes Ryan is the murderer.
Nancy distracts the lab's head security guard, Gray Cortright, away from his post and uses his computer to discover that the key card that swiped into the lab shortly before Niko was murdered does not match any other key card in the logs. She also finds a security tape that does not show anyone other than Niko entering the lab before he died. Gray later tells Nancy he believes the video has been modified to remove the footage of the killer entering the lab.
Nancy sneaks into the main lab, against Victor's orders, to learn more about its technology and investigate further clues. She learns that Ellie waited 30 minutes to call 911 after finding Niko's body the night he died. Ellie also deeply misses her home and family, but feels she must stay at the lab to pay off her large amount of student debt. Meanwhile, fellow research assistant Mason Quinto had an intense personal dislike of Niko and was concerned about Niko potentially stealing his work; Ryan has been bypassing the security system to sneak around the lab without being tracked; and Gray secretly has a PhD in theoretical physics and was a close friend of Niko, who hired him as a security guard after Gray decided he no longer wanted to work as a scientist.
Eventually, Nancy learns that Ryan was photographed at an award ceremony out of state the night of Niko's murder, clearing her name. Nancy gets locked in the photolithography lab with the oxygen turned off and has to climb through a vent to escape. Nancy runs into Mason in the main lab and must save him from the Tesla coil after someone activates the machine. Victor, who has until this point been absent from the lab and only reachable by phone, arrives at the lab just as Nancy is saving Mason. He asks Nancy to remove herself from the case and go home. Nancy discovers a computer inside a secret room in the lab that shows the unedited footage of the night of the murder, revealing that Victor entered the lab and killed Niko.
Nancy confronts Victor, who knocks her unconscious. She wakes up inside the Faraday cage and sees Victor about to turn on the Tesla coil and kill her. He admits that he hired Nancy in the hopes that she would mistakenly find Ryan, Mason, Ellie, or Gray responsible for the murder. Victor killed Niko because Victor wanted himself and the lab to get rich off of Niko's research, whereas Niko was not motivated by money and wanted his discoveries to be released to the public with no strings attached.
Nancy escapes the Faraday cage, and Victor is arrested and denied bail. Gray resumes his work as a scientist and decides to work with Mason, Ellie, and Ryan to try to finish Niko's work according to his wishes.
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