Plot

The world had changed. Violence, war and hatred have been eliminated and replaced with kindness, peace and love. But at what price?

On November 25, 2011, documentary filmmaker Howard Fornoy tells the story of his family, and more specifically of his younger brother Robert. Bobby, a genius from birth, was troubled with the human race's violent tendencies. One day he discovers a small town in Texas with a non-existent crime rate, and he attempts to find out the cause. He finds chemicals in the local water supply that have a calming effect. In an effort to bring about world peace, he decides to spread the chemical worldwide using a volcano eruption. But Bobby's plan has effects he did not foresee.—Claudio Carvalho, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

The world had changed. Violence, war and hatred have been eliminated and replaced with kindness, peace and love. But at what price? Renowned filmmaker Howie Fornoy, with just one hour to live, recounts the details of his brother's worldwide experiment gone terribly wrong.

Howard Fornoy, renowned documentary filmmaker, tells a story to his video camera, alone in a cabin in New Hampshire in the then-future year of 2011. He begins by saying he has only an hour to finish, so he'd better make it concise. Howard's story is how his little brother engineered the end of war, but also the end of mankind.

Howard starts the story with his childhood. His parents were highly intelligent and educated, successful and upwardly mobile, and so it seemed quite normal that Howard himself proved to be gifted. But even they were surprised when their second son Bobby was born. Bobby was a super genius, on a level with Newton or Einstein, of the kind maybe seen only once a century. Bobby read at the age of two. He had difficulty writing because although his mind was brilliant, his body and fine motor skills were very average for a small child. His parents got him a word processor to write with.

Howard describes some of the stunts Bobby pulled as a young boy, including making his own pirate radio station, and building and flying a glider in a park, hurting himself in the process. Bobby graduated high school at age ten, but never got a college degree, because despite his ability to master any subject he studied, he was still a child and did not have the patience to stay on one topic for very long.

Howard himself grew up to become a successful filmmaker, though he failed at marriage. Bobby's interests eventually came to world peace, and he homed in on this after seeing the September 11 attacks on TV. Now full grown, he stuck to this interest, and Howard didn't see him for several years, until he came for a visit to discuss his research.

Howard, continuing to narrate for his video camera, tells how Bobby's research in an unusually tranquil Texas town called La Plata isolated a protein in the town's water supply, which had the effect of reducing anger and aggression. Howard travels with Bobby to La Plata and meets Bobby's geologist friend Duke, and they witness a fender bender between two large, drunk men, which almost anyplace else would have resulted in a fight or worse, but the men simply shrug and drink a toast to their trucks.

Bobby's research team has isolated and concentrated the chemical at breakneck pace, but they need tens of thousands of gallons more, and then they must transport it to Borneo, and dump it onto a volcano that Duke says is expected to erupt soon. Bobby's idea is for the volcanic eruption to disperse the chemical all over the world through clouds and rainfall, reaching the water supply of everyone on Earth, thus bringing its calming effect in La Plata to the whole world. Bobby fears World War III is imminent and begs Howard to raise money for the project. Howard has misgivings, concerned about unintended consequences, but he agrees to help.

Howard continues recording. Bobby's team transported the chemical, the volcano erupted, and Bobby's dream of world peace came true. Hostility and aggression at all levels went down, and there were no wars anywhere for three years. Bobby is hailed as the greatest hero alive. But Howard's fears of unintended consequences are confirmed when their mother is diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer's. Bobby's ongoing research has shown that the chemical has another effect besides suppressing aggression, it also causes and/or hastens dementia.

Howard and Bobby are careful from then on to drink only bottled water and stay out of the rain, but their project has indeed dispersed the chemical all over the world, and they are helpless to prevent every human alive from developing Alzheimer's over the next few years, their own parents included. They realize that their project is in the process of destroying human intellect and will cause human extinction in the near future, and there is no cure for Alzheimer's, so there is nothing they can do to fix it. Duke contemplates his role in the project and commits suicide.

Bobby then comes to the New Hampshire cabin and asks Howard to do something he doesn't quite have the courage to do himself: inject him with a syringe filled with the chemical. In small amounts, the chemical does its work over several years, but the concentrated version will ruin the brain in just an hour. Bobby dies of rapid dementia, begging forgiveness for his mistakes. It is then revealed that Howard injected himself with a second syringe before starting to record his story. That is why he had only an hour to tell it, and by this point, that hour is almost up.

In the last few minutes of his allotted hour, Howard sits alone in front of his video camera. He says aloud that he loves his brother Bobby, and forgives his mistakes, but by now he is showing obvious symptoms of rapid dementia, slurring his words and repeating himself. He stares blankly at the video camera, as if he has no idea what it is. Finally, he begins to hallucinate, imagining himself as a boy, flying through the air with his beloved little brother. As the battery in the video camera dies, so does Howard.