The seemingly misanthropic and possibly paranoid Associate Justice Howard Wynn insults the president of the United States to his face; bemoans the ravages of Boursin’s syndrome, an apparently degenerative brain disease that is sapping his mental acuity; inveighs against the capacity of humans to deploy scientific breakthroughs for dangerous ends; refers to himself as a threat to national security; harries a nurse who has been blackmailed into spying on him; designs chess-related clues to his investigation of undescribed matters in a case pending before the court; and sequesters them for one of his law clerks to decode — all before lapsing into a coma induced by what may be a suicide attempt.