It’s spring, 2022, and after two years of struggling with the COVID-19 pandemic, the world is slowly returning to some sense of normalcy, and people are breathing a sigh of relief. Finally acknowledging that the world is now a safer place to live, they have become more hopeful.

In North Korea, Kim Jung-un has signed a peace treaty with 34 countries, destroyed his nuclear facilities and opened his borders. During the ceremony he presents each signatory country with water lilies to bring to their countries as a sign of peace. But has the world truly found peace?

Cut to four months later when something menacing and frightening is beginning to happen. Something so deadly that modern science cannot begin to explain. Dr. Joseph Feratti and his husband (Peter) are celebrating their 10 year anniversary. It’s clear that Dr. Feratti and other neurologists are seeing increases in bizarre behaviors in the US – including significant increases in suicides, homicides and mass murders. They soon determine that this is also happening across the world – in 34 countries to be exact (but no one has immediately made a connection). This virus is being spread rapidly, aging the brains of those who have contracted it at an alarming rate. But how is it being transmitted and why are the brains atrophying so rapidly?

Dr. Feratti’s son, Alex, throws an anniversary party for his dad and husband (Peter), and he has invited his boss, Senator Demarcos (Republican antagonist from Texas). Senator Demarcos tells Dr. Feratti that he and the Texas governor and legislature intend to open camps for those afflicted with the brain atrophy – the term Atrophids is being used to identify these patients. Senator Demarcos and his supporters are falsely claiming that the disease is being spread by those who have received the COVID-19 vaccine in the “homosexual” and “black” communities only and that these groups need to be rounded up and quarantined.

In the coming weeks, suicides and homicides continue to occur more frequently, and most conservative news channels are spreading false claims of a vaccine link . Behaviors continue to change for the worse, crime is so prevalent that the police and courts cannot keep up with it. School and workplace shootings and killings are increasing rapidly. People are murdering their coworkers and families at an alarming rate. Criminal behaviors are out of control.

A man who claims to be from the future finds Alex and tells him his father (Dr. Feratti) is the key to finding the answers to and stopping this plague. He tells Alex that, unless his father finds the link, within a year 25 percent of the world’s population will either be dead or completely dysfunctional.

Dr. Feratti is asked by the President to convene a group to study the cause and effects of this epidemic and to make recommendations. Meanwhile, Senator Demarcos loses his reelection bid, and claims that homosexuals (he refuses to use the term LGBTQ) and blacks illegally voted multiple times, due to their brain disorders, and he seizes all ballot machines in Texas by executive order of the Governor. A state of emergency begins in both Texas and Florida due to false rumors of voter fraud.

During this time, governments begin shutting down, while Wall Street, currencies, and other markets around the world are crashing. The US President and world leaders are being moved to secret locations.

Senator Demarcos establishes an interim government which is being run in Texas. In some states, euthanasiums have opened and those afflicted by the disease are being asked to voluntarily submit to euthanasia. In Texas, gays and blacks are being forced from their homes by the interim government. Other states begin to follow Texas’ lead and forcefully and illegally begin capturing blacks and LGBTQ individuals.

Dr. Feratti teams up with Dr. Paul Han (a neurosurgeon) and other brain specialists in Boston to study the disease. While Dr. Feratti is away, his husband (Peter) has been detained and sent to a camp in Texas. His son, Alex, calls him with the bad news. A subsequent phone call from an anonymous source, tells Dr. Feratti that his husband will be set free if Dr. Feratti goes on television to support Senator Demarcos’ (false) claims that only gays and blacks who received the COVID vaccine are susceptible to getting the disease. If he does this, his husband Peter will be release, unharmed; if not, Peter will be euthanized in 72 hours.

Medical specialists have multiple possible hypotheses, but no clear defining link or cause as to why this is happening or how this brain disease is spreading. A random conversation with a team member provides Dr. Feratti the critical information he needs to link causation and transmission. Now he must make a choice between saving the world and saving the one man he loves, Peter.

Political division is at its worst, and civil wars are occurring across the globe. A well-known US senator has killed many in Congress. The President remains in hiding. Insanity prevails. What will Dr. Feratti do?