a Philip K. Dick story in which an electrical engineer, who is working on a top secret project, wakes up one morning unable to remember anything about his job.

Based on a short story by Philip K. Dick, Paycheck is a futuristic tale centering on Jennings, a man who has part of his memory erased by his employer and begins to find clues to his whereabouts for the past two years.

Ben Affleck stars as Michael Jennings, a brilliant computer engineer hired by high-tech corporations for specialized top-secret projects. Once a job is complete, Jennings routinely has his short-term memory erased so as not to divulge any sensitive company information to future clients. Highly paid for his work, he expects to earn $4.4billion at the end of his latest 3-year project. But upon completion of the job, instead of a big paycheck, Jennings is handed an envelope filled with random objects and told that he has agreed to forfeit all payment.
 
With his memory erased as usual, Jennings has no way to prove them wrong until he discovers the objects are clues to the puzzle that once was his past. But with Federal agents hot on his heels, Jennings quickly learns that more than just his paycheck is at stake. In a race against time, Jennings must put the pieces together with the help of Rachel (Uma Thurman), the woman he has worked with and loved for the past three years who rekindles his memory of their life together, before the people he once worked for have him killed.

The sci-fi thriller Paycheck is based on a short story by Philip K. Dick, which first appeared in June, 1953 in the magazine Imagination. Dick was a prolific science fiction writer, whose work "I Can Dream It for You Wholesale," was turned into the celebrated film "Total Recall," although the two pieces bear only passing resemblance. His "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" became the visually stunning, Ridley Scott piece "Blade Runner." The 1995 film "Screamers" and 2002 film "Impostor" were also based on his stories. Dick lived most of his life in California, but was born in Chicago in 1928. Over his career, he wrote 36 novels and five short story collections between 1952 and 1982, when he died in Santa Ana, California. In 1962, he won the highest award in the science fiction world for "The Man In The High Castle." Intensely distrustful of government and authority, Dick is known for his interest in the twin subjects of paranoia and delusion. Not surprising, since he suffered from paranoia and went through five marriages. Later in life, Dick claimed to have contact with a force beyond Earth called Zebra. Recently, two films have been done on his life: "The Nervous Breakdown of Philip K. Dick," a 22 minute film produced in 1996 and "The Gospel According to Philip K. Dick," a low budget biography released in 2000 and directed by Mark Steensland. The fast-paced, pulp style story "Paycheck" is available in The Philip K. Dick Reader (Citadel Twilight, 1987), The Best of Philip K. Dick (Ballantine, 1977), and The Collected Stories of Philip K. Dick: Vol.1 Beyond Lies the Wub and The Collected Stories of Philip K. Dick : The Short Happy Life of the Brown Oxford (Vol 1) (Citadel Twilight, 1990). According to the Wall Street Journal, the estate of Philip K. Dick was paid $2 million for the story rights, approximately $200 a word.
 
The story, which explores Dick's favorite theme -- the question of "What is real?" -- is about a man named Jennings, one of the world's most highly skilled electrical engineers, who wakes to find himself getting paid a large sum of money for a two-year contract job he just completed for his employer, the Rethrick Corporation, which has erased his memory of the past two years as a security measure. He heads off to collect his paycheck, but learns that he previously signed a release that replaced the money with a pouch of everyday objects including a wire, bus token and ticket stub. He leaves the office of his former employer and gets picked up by the Security Police who insist that he tell them about his work for the past two years. When he says he cannot remember anything, the police prepare to arrest Jennings, but he uses the wire to narrowly escape arrest and a life in prison. Jennings comes to realize that he is caught up in a far-reaching conspiracy that penetrates to the highest levels of government and industry. By using the items left by his former self as clues to discover the nature of his previous job, he works to clear his name with both the authorities and the Rethrick Corporation. The story, which is set in a futuristic but familiar world, is filled with dubious loyalties and illusory reality, creating a paranoid tone.