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Number 5 is one of five blood-searching prototype robots proposed for use by the U.S. military, although the scientist mainly responsible for creating them, Newton Graham Crosby, Ph.D. (Steve Guttenberg), is more interested in peaceful uses of their artificial intelligence, like playing musical instruments. A demonstration is under way in the grounds of the company that makes them and other robots, Nova Laboratories, in Damon, Washington. After a lightning storm shuts down the presentation of the prototypes, a power surge hits Number 5 while it is recharging and alters its program, causing a malfunction. An associated accident causes it to be taken outside company grounds and it wanders off, unable to communicate and not knowing where it is.
Number 5 ends up at the home of animal-lover Stephanie Speck (Ally Sheedy) in Astoria, Oregon, who initially thinks it's an extraterrestrial visitor, but then determines the robot to be built by Nova. She decides that the robot is sentient and subsequently tries to help it escape from its creators, who only see it as a very dangerous, expensive and wayward machine. At the same time, Number 5 develops an understanding about the value of life and, realizing that he himself is sentient, develops a fear of his militaristic programming and the disassembly that awaits him back at Nova, believing it to be the same as death for him.
There are several escapes made from a small army of armed guards and regular soldiers led by the head of security at Nova, Captain Skroeder (G.W. Bailey). For unexplained reasons, he defies orders from Nova president Dr. Howard Marner after he develops a personal vendetta against Number 5 and his men successfully destroy what they believed to be the wayward robot. Unbeknown to the soldiers, it was only a copy and not the real thing. Skroeder gets fired after Howard says that his years of research have been wasted by the "destruction" of the robot. Number 5 (who renames himself "Johnny 5" after hearing the song "Who's Johnny?" throughout the movie) takes off to Havre, Montana with Stephanie and Newton, who has quit his job after siding with the robot.
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