Frank Cash, a distinguished lawyer, parks at a hospital located in Camden City, New Jersey, a "ghost town" besieged by poverty and corruption.

The night before, he received a call from a partner, telling him that a white police officer named Anthony Miles had fatally shot a black man. Miles' father is a Republican US Attorney to the State of New Jersey; Cash has been tapped to defend Miles in court. 

The "Democratic machine" has ruled over Camden for years; there's a theory that Miles was stationed in Camden in order to sniff out Democratic corruption on behalf of his father.

In the hospital, a bloodied and disheveled Miles recounts the shooting to Cash. Miles trembles and acts traumatized during the telling, which involves him entering an alleged trap house with two other police, being threatened, and shooting in self defense. 

Cash gives him tips on how to make his testimony more convincing, and presses Miles for details. When describing how he felt after the murder, Miles recalls his college anatomy professor, who framed humans as a system of organs and nothing else. Miles was fascinated by this, but also believed that humans were more than the sum of their parts. 

Staring down at the dead man, Miles concluded that the professor was right, and there was nothing distinguishing them beyond the fact that "one was alive and one was not alive." He began to weep for the death of his "incredible machinery." 

He implores Cash to understand that the "soul" is a false construct , and humans are no more than physical parts. Cash dismisses the philosophical talk. Before Miles leaves, he tells Cash that his father didn't want him to be a police officer, and that he joined the force because he genuinely wanted to help Camden. 

Alone, Cash wonders why Miles' two partners didn't shoot, and ponders "organs and brains, nerves and enzymes, anatomy and souls."