Max and Natalia, husband and wife, have discovered a way to recode the human brain to eliminate hierarchical behavior – that element of human behavior, they believe, that is responsible for violence, jealousy, capitalistic greed, and all conflict and general planetary ruin that humans experience and engender. These neuroscientists – and the U.S. government – see enormous potential in their treatment for rehabilitating violent criminals.
What’s more, after secretly performing the operation on themselves, the couple find they no longer experience the jealousy that has plagued their marriage. They attend sex clubs, swinger parties, polyamorous socials, and secretly, they begin giving the treatment to any they meet in the underground who want it, fostering a growing cult of sexual freedom with no figurehead except for the treatment itself.
But after a violent patient dies on the operating table, the neurosurgeons have their funding stripped away. What’s more, they are spending less time with each other and more time with their other lovers… And only Natalia seems to care that their marriage is falling apart.
What’s more, Max seems to care less and less about saving the world and wants only more time to spend with his various lovers.
As their group gains followers, American government and society see the renegade “mad” scientists as a threat. It doesn’t help that Natalia is a Russian national. But with increasing violence in the world, who truly is the real threat to society, those who condone violence and the planet-destroying tendencies of capitalism, or those who propose restructuring the human brain to stop that violence? And what do marriage, commitment, and love itself mean when love is completely free and available at any time with anyone?