At the end of the 22nd century, the horrors of the not-so-distant Jihad are gradually becoming a thing of the past. The Earth is still artificially divided into the Demon hemisphere and the hemisphere of Faith-Truth, and the mysterious quasi-living Karachi still sometimes kidnap infants for some incomprehensible purpose. Seventeen-year-old Egor, while on patrol, meets in the South Ural desert, not far from former Ozersk, a small group of Moscow scientists, whose goal is to visit the Chelyabinsk Combine, which once produced the “filling” for nuclear weapons. This trip becomes the most difficult and lengthy test for Yegor and his friends. The truth is revealed to them through pain, suffering, death and battle, testing their love, friendship and loyalty to the harsh laws of the desert.