The protagonist finds out that some children were left behind in a sinking school, and is slowly driven mad as he tries to save them. A parable on the theme of the Last Judgment, numerous catastrophic events reveal a certain ambiguity in their origins, accompanied by the terrible suspicion that the things going on are some kind of a performance or theatrical production.

In the near future, writer Victor Banev gets himself on a UN commission to investigate what's going on in the remote town of Tashlinsk, where reports tell of a virus-created race of brainiac mutants. Banev's tween daughter Ira is enrolled at a school for gifted children which has been taken over by the mutants, who have grown to despise ordinary humanity.