There’s no such thing as the truth, whole truth, and nothing but the truth. 

Awakened after being cryogenically frozen for 40 years, Phillip Rolfe, a death row inmate, is cleared of his wife’s murder by The Mechanical Magistrate, an infallible piece of machinery that has replaced juries and judges. 

There is also someone who has replaced God - Dr. Jalen Walker, the megalomaniacal inventor of The Mechanical Magistrate. Dr. Walker controls every aspect of life in the compound he has created, using a zero-tolerance policy to ensure compliance to his will.

Phillip decides to search for his son, the only witness to the murder. Walker, extracting a promise from Phillip that he will return to the compound, sets hi free into a landscape so ravaged by disease that only 10 percent of the population has survived.

When Phillip’s son is found, their reunion is not quite Phillip expected. Worse, Walker takes control of that situation as well, with disastrous results. Tired of Walker’s control of his life, Phillip decides to use The Mechanical Magistrate against him.

Phillip decides that he wants to be God, and he knows how to do it. He knows something that Walker does not - the Mechanical Magistrate is not infallible, after all.