A high school student at an ordinary Soviet school, Ruslan Zagorovsky, at the end of the USSR, lives in a large Siberian city. By the age of 15, he begins to understand that powerful forces are interested in him, one of which is hostile to him, and the other helps him. His beloved school teacher Pal Palych partially reveals the secret. It turns out that the history of mankind is the history of the secret Great Game, which is carried out invisibly by most people by some secret organizations. There are always two sides to the Game. In our time, it is led by the Club, representing European (in a broad sense) civilization, and the Artel, which defends the Eurasian world. The parties are given an advantage by possessing certain artifacts - mystical objects for which secret battles are fought. But from time to time a “joker” appears in the Game; players call him the Youth. This is a young man who must commit an Act - find the most important Artifact, and dispose of it at his own discretion. Ruslan is the new Youth, the twelfth from the beginning of our era. The novel is intended for people slightly less than middle-aged and middle class.