In the Prologue, the omniscient third-person narrator describes the last evening of Howard Wynn before he enters a coma. A Supreme Court judge, Justice Wynn purposefully puts himself into this brain-dead state as part of a plan to unveil high-level corruption in the US government: The US president, Brandon Stokes, approved illegal government funding of genetic research that aimed to produce a genetic virus to kill Muslim people. The Indian company behind that research, Hygeia, has been succeeded by Advar Biogenetics, Ltd., which is trying to acquire a US company, GenWorks. If the merger goes through, the Hygeia research and the president’s knowledge of it will be revealed. President Stokes denied the merger, citing his opposition to genetic research as the reason. In reality, he’s protecting himself. Now, the potential merger is to be decided by the US Supreme Court, which currently has nine justices. Four justices want to block the merger, while four justices want to allow it. Justice Wynn is the swing vote that could decide the outcome.

Justice Wynn wants the truth of the corruption he’s discovered to be unveiled. He’s critical of the rampant corruption he sees in Washington, DC, where he lives and where the book takes place: