It's mid-2016 and the presidential election cycle in hotter than a pistol. But Jake Bass, a doctor down on his luck, isn't thinking about the election; his wife, a model, is morbidly depressed. She has failed all drugs and is suicidal. There is a gizmo, developed by DARPA laboratories, that is said to cure what she has, but the entire brain research program at DARPA has been shut down. Their computer technician in charge of determining where to deploy brain electrodes has either been fired or quit, depending on whom you ask. Jake Bass finds her and learns that she is now freelancing, which fits him to a tee because he's a freelancer as well. Against his judgment, he trains with her in a laboratory in the old Meatpacking District in New York City, then since there is no other option, implants the thing in his wife's brain in a gamma knife clinic in West Texas. It works like a charm at first, but then things go awry.