In Chapter 1, the omniscient third-person narrator shifts the focus to Avery Keene, the 26-year-old law clerk working under Justice Wynn. Avery is not yet aware of Justice Wynn’s brain-dead state or the fact that he has appointed her his legal guardian. She is at home when she gets a call from her mother. Rita, who has alcoholism and a substance use disorder, is calling Avery in the middle of the night because she needs money to “settle up” (16). Avery assumes that Rita owes someone money for drugs. Avery asks Rita to tell her where she is and leaves to go help her.

Chapter 2 focuses on Dr. Indira Srinivasan, the head of Advar Biogenetics, Ltd., in Bangalore, India. Indira’s significance in the narrative is revealed via an implicit tie to Justice Wynn:

The US Supreme Court continued to fritter away time as her destiny hung in the balance. Her company’s acquisition of GenWorks, a closely held biotech company in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, now relied entirely on the whims of nine men and women who knew little about genomics, epistasis, or bioinformatics (20).

Indira blames the “vindictive American president facing a tough reelection” for her situation: “He’d called the denial of their merger an act of national security, but she knew his actions for what they were.