The story opens with a promotional video featuring a new government weapon, the Crossbow aircraft, which is outfitted with a powerful laser. The laser has advanced accuracy that will allow it to vaporize any target from high altitudes. Though development of the plane itself is on track, the laser has yet to be completed. At a high school science competition, Mitch Taylor, 15, is approached by Dr Hathaway, who has been given the government's laser project. Mitch himself is a gifted student interested in working with laser technology. Hathaway tells Mitch and his parents that he wants Mitch to enroll at his university, Pacific Tech. Mitch's parents eagerly accept. Hathaway meets with a government official who tells him that the work on the laser is behind schedule and that the grant money he's gotten could be cut off. Mitch arrives at Pacific Tech and goes immediately to the lab where the laser is being developed. He finds the project's current leader, Kent, who dismisses him as a restaurant delivery boy. Kent is instantly abrasive with Mitch, asserting that he is Jerry's right-hand-man, until Jerry walks in and informs Kent and his toadies that Mitch is going to lead the project. Jerry also asks of the whereabouts of Chris Knight, one of Pac Tech's smartest students and whom Mitch will be working with. One of Kent's buddies tells Jerry that Chris has blown off his time in the lab. Mitch goes to his dorm room, finding it a cornucopia of odd decorations and objects, with clothes strewn about. He looks in his suitcase and finds his clothes are all missing. As he looks around, a strange and silent man enters the room, walks into the closet and closes the door behind him. Mitch opens the door and sees that the man has disappeared. When he turns around, he finds his roommate, Chris Knight himself, doing a handstand, asking him what the world would do "if gravity suddenly reversed itself." Chris tells Mitch that Mitch reminds him of how he once was and that he requested Mitch be his roommate. Mitch realizes that Chris is not a button-down academic but more of a free-spirit who does everything he can to avoid responsibility but still exceeds academically. Mitch sees that the other occupants of their dorm have seemingly followed Chris' example: they use their high intelligence to play pranks, build contraptions for fun and have generally loosened up so that the pressures of their academic work don't drive them crazy. Chris also keeps a cylinder of frozen liquid nitrogen in the freezer from which he cuts slugs that he uses like coins in the dorm's vending machines. Chris meets with Jerry at his home - a large Victorian that he's clearly sprucing up with the government grant he's gotten. He tells Chris that, with Mitch's assistance, the laser will have to be five megawatts in power and must be finished by May. He also says he wants Christ to spend more time in the lab on the project. Chris and Mitch work on developing the laser while participating in the antics of the science dorm's students. Ick covers one of the hallways in ice, prompting the others to go sledding and skating. Mitch meets Jordan, a chatty, "hyperkinetic" woman who lives down the hall and claims she never sleeps. Kent walks in with a stack of research on the laser for Mitch to read and analyze and also informs Chris that Mitch's placement test scores were higher than Chris'. Chris doesn't seem to care and continues to enjoy the ice party. Kent complains that the ice will make a terrible mess; Ick retorts that he's rigged it to sublimate with no trace. The ice vaporizes a few minutes later and Ick scares Kent into his room when he gleefully exclaims that the steam might explode. Mitch soon begins to buckle under the pressure of his classwork and the laser research and finding out what Chris already knows; Hathaway is an ill-tempered, overbearing and overdemanding tyrant obsessed with the laser project. Mitch also becomes frustrated when Chris doesn't seem to take the project seriously. While working in the lab together one night, Chris starts up the laser, which throws a beam all through the building and outdoors to the school auditorium where Chris has set up a lavish indoor beach party with female students from a local beauty tech school. He tells his friends to have a good time. Mitch is mostly uptight about the party until Jordan shows up to test out a new rebreathing system she's invented. However, Kent sees the party and immediately runs off to tell Jerry. When Jerry arrives, he harshly admonishes Mitch in front of the crowd. Mitch goes back to the lab and, too upset to work, storms out to an office and calls his parents, begging to come home. One of Kent's friends sees him and calls Kent and the rest of his toadies. They secretly record Mitch's conversation. The next day in the cafeteria, Chris finds Mitch and consoles him about Jerry's unfair reprimand. After Chris leaves, Mitch suddenly hears his conversation with his parents being broadcast over the PA system. He rushes back to the dorm and begins packing his things. Chris catches up with him and talks him into staying by relating his own experiences from high school: he too was a nerdy kid whom his parents insisted be sheltered from an ordinary and fun life. Chris was also envied and disliked by his fellow classmates and his teachers because he was plainly smarter than they were. He also talks about the man who hides in their closet: Laslo Hollyfeld, who was the star student at Pacific Tech in the 1970s and who suffered a breakdown, leaving him hiding in the steam tunnels under the dorm. Mitch takes the conversation to heart, realizing that he can become a burnout like Hollyfeld very quickly and decides to loosen up. Mitch especially brightens up when Chris tells him the first order of business is to get even with Kent. The two, with help from their friends, take Kent's prized 1972 Citroen and somehow sneak it into his dorm room. Kent is infuriated and promises to complain to Jerry about it after Mitch and Chris happily confess to the prank. Jerry receives further pressure from the government to complete the laser. He tells Chris that he won't let him graduate unless the laser is done ahead of schedule. Chris protests but is quickly shot down. Later, while he sits around looking despondent, Mitch finds him and tries to boost his spirits, saying they have to get even with Jerry. The two work long hours and seem on the verge of completing the project. Chris takes Jerry's final exam, passing the professor a note saying he aced it, however Jerry is obviously undeterred in his wish to fail Chris. In the lab, Kent sabotages Chris and Mitch's work, causing catastrophic failure. When Kent suggests later that he caused the meltdown, Chris throws a tantrum, causing the thermos of frozen nitrogen he keeps in the dorm freezer to clatter to the floor. Chris looks at it for a few seconds, has an epiphany and rushes off to find Mitch. Chris later shows up at Jerry's house after hours and tells him he's solved the laser problem. He also discovers that Jerry was in the midst of a tryst with the daughter of one of the government officials overseeing the project. They go to the lab where Mitch and Chris show how they solved the problem with a new type of freezing technology that blasts through the solid steel target, the brick wall behind it through a statue and a few trees, even off campus to the marquis of a local biker bar. Jerry is overjoyed, and offers Chris a lucrative job with a high tech company, a job he was going to offer to Kent. Jerry quickly leaves the lab, over Kent's protests. While they all celebrate at the biker bar, Laslo asks them about the laser and the power level they achieved. He also asks about the applications of such a laser and they all realize with horror that they were working on a military project the whole time. Back at the lab, they find the laser is gone. They only have one lead: Kent, whom they think may know where Jerry took the unit. They knock Kent out in his dorm room with sleeping gas and rig his braces with a microphone and speaker. Pretending to be the voice of Jesus, Mitch asks Kent what he knows about the theft of the unit. The team begins to surveil Jerry, discovering he's gone to a nearby Air Force base. They craft fake ID cards for Mitch and Chris, who steal onto the base and find their invention in a fighter plane. When they connect via modem with Laslo at his hideout, Laslo is able to help them hack the weapon's operating system and change the coordinates of the target for the laser's test. They're forced to rush out of the plane when Jerry shows up for a final inspection. Jerry finds an discarded microchip replaced by Chris and Mitch in a circuit board and is suspicious but withholds it, not wanting to see the test delayed. The next day, Jerry oversees the test of the laser. The gang waits at Jerry's house. Chris has called in one of the university's high-ranking deans and a United States senator. They all hide when Kent, ordered to the house by Mitch's Jesus voice, walks up to the house. The test proceeds and the laser fires, completely missing it's intended target, the beam blasting its way into Jerry's foyer. Inside, Kent has found a huge aluminum foil tub full of popcorn that the beam hits. The popcorn expands and begins to destroy the house, tumbling Kent harmlessly out the front door. When Jerry tracks the location of the shot, he sees his house falling apart. Laslo shows up in an brand new RV and a trailer towing all the prizes he won with the contest tickets he'd been churning out. He remarks that this math may have been off and that they may have used too much popcorn in their prank. The gang celebrates their victory while the local kids all play in the popcorn. Jerry returns to his house later, upset that it's been trashed.
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