The Total Democratic Republic in which Andrey Belkin lived seemed to him the model of justice. Indeed, each of its citizens held a place in society strictly in accordance with his intelligence status, as determined by an impartial computer. But then a moment came when Andrey realized that everything around him was far more complicated, and that invisible puppeteers were at work in a person’s fate. There remains either to comply and become a pawn on the chessboard of life, or—risking that very life—to try to stop the game.