Rough Draft (novel) - Plot Summary

Plot Summary

The story starts with the hero, Kirill, being "erased" from daily life in present-day Moscow. Everybody forgets him (even his parents and dog), another person lives in his apartment, all IDs and files in all offices disappear. After a while he is phoned and invited to an old water tower — but inside is his future home and working place. There it is revealed to him that he is able to open doors, leading to other worlds — although at first all but one are locked. Once opened each door becomes rigidly connected to some world, but which one can't be predicted. All of the worlds have mostly similar environments and seem to be on the planet Earth but the societies and people are different.

After a while Kirill meets a special group of functionals, so called because they gained supernatural abilities making them excellent in some profession. They serve other people, but mostly other functionals. They say Kirill has become one of them — a customs officer. He benefits from taxes paid by people who pass through his tower. Also he has superhuman strength and is almost immortal, but only within 10 km of his tower.

Kirill enjoys these new worlds, people and abilities. A politician Dima meets him and asks to find a national idea for Russia. He informs Kirill about the world number One, which nobody can access and which seems to be exactly our world living 30 years later. Critical information from this world may enhance the prestige of the country.

Kirill also encounters an underground, that is, a few people fighting against the 'corporate laws' of functionals and their working for themselves or the elites of other worlds. But he remains untouched by the rhetoric of the underground, justifying most of this. Ideas of armed opposition are alien if not to say ridiculous for him. But a younger 20-aged girl who Kirril falls in love with is a genuine underground activist...

The last door opened leads to the world number One: A lovely Moscow filled with smiling people: there were no Second World War and no horrors of revolution, as this world lags for 30 years and the rulers of it carefully study the mistakes of other worlds. It's just what Dima proposed to Kirill, but applied in reverse.

Upon rather bloody returning to our world, Kirill faces troubles with his girl. Hating the system of functionals, she manifests disobedience. But their laws don't forgive this, and the functional Natalie murders her, Kirril being unable to resurrect her...

"An extreme foolishness," said I, "All these loud words and beautiful poses... 'they will not pass', 'yet it moves', 'motherland or death', 'am able to die for my beliefs' — all of this becomes nonsense when real death comes... All of this is for kids. And for adults who handle them..."

Natalie nodded with approval.

"But yet it moves" said I, "Doesn't it? It moves, and they will not pass, and motherland remains motherland even if death becomes death, and nobody is ready to die, but sometimes it's easier to die than to betray..."

In Kirill's fighting Natalie, his tower becomes devastated, thus he ceases being a functional and is restored to his former life. The ending of this story we will learn from the second book of the future duology.