"In Search of Paradise" by Alexey Pekhov, summary Automatic translate

"In Search of Paradise" is a post-apocalyptic novella by Alexey Pekhov, written in the early 2000s and subsequently included in various collections. The action takes place in 2237 in the former United States, transformed by nuclear war into a scorched desert: radiation, mutated fauna, and scattered settlements of survivors — this is the backdrop against which the protagonist travels.

The hero and his partner

Alex Repay is a short, red-haired traveler from California, a professional marksman who has twice won the Redding Prize. After twenty-five years in devastated California, he flipped a coin and headed northeast to seek lands where life had not yet died. He carries a modest backpack with a canteen of water, a pistol with an extended magazine, and a hunting knife. His advanced power armor was left in the sand after the servomotors failed.

The hero is accompanied by Scylla, a small, mutated creature resembling a cat with enormous ears, a stinger on its tail, retractable blades in its paws, and a chameleon-like skin. She is intelligent and communicates telepathically. Alex finds her in the desert at night: two Alien Visitors (large predators) have cornered Scylla on a pillar of salt. He shoots both creatures and rescues the creature, which immediately demands food and takes a place on his left shoulder. From then on, they travel together.

Road through the desert

The route passes through the Valley of Neon Lights, an area of such high radiation that sand has fused into glass. Alex traverses it at night and survives. The terrain gradually changes: stunted trees, wells, ruined cities glowing at night from radiation. Wildlife includes desert rats, packs of coyotes, and a gigantic bipedal predator — Alex’s New Mammoth — a monstrous beast standing sixteen meters tall at the shoulder with purple ears and two-meter-long teeth. A calf of this beast once chased travelers into the ruins for the entire night, but its father will give them a real hunt later.

Near the Montana border, Alex spots a twin-engine Douglas F-150 with "New Hampshire" written on its side. Both engines stall, and the plane crashes a mile from the travelers. The crew is killed in the crash — the cockpit is crushed. In the tail section, Alex breaks open a metal safe: inside is a Belgian.45-caliber Browning carbine with a telescopic sight, ammunition, and gold bars. The gold was clearly carried by the pilots themselves, who escaped with the cargo — they didn’t have time to reach settled areas. Alex takes the carbine, the ammunition, and a single gold bar; everything else is too heavy to carry.

Crossroads

New Mammoth’s father sets off after the heroes. Two days without sleep, a chase through the red cliffs of Montana. In pitch darkness, Scylla turns on her bioluminescence — her skin gives off a greenish glow — and leads Alex to a paved road. At a crossroads, he smells smoke and runs toward the village.

The village is called Crossroads. It’s a fortress with a hundred-meter-high palisade, machine-gun towers, a cannon, and a Vindicator above the gate. The guards initially fire warning bursts at Alex’s feet, but upon seeing a giant beast (the locals call it the Elephant) pursuing him, they open the gates. The beast is driven off with machine-gun fire.

Sheriff Irakli, a weathered man with a white scar across his forehead and steely eyes, interrogates a stranger. He’s shocked to learn he’s from California. Alex and Scylla are assigned to the Crossroads Inn, run by an elderly Japanese woman, Sabiro. The sheriff’s deputy is a mutant named Fang, a three-meter-tall, green-skinned giant.

Military base and satellite imagery

Near the Crossroads, Alex discovers a mothballed underground military base with an active command post. Logging in with Captain Wesley Sparks’s card, he activates the stealth satellite. The system warns: an orbital Russian nuclear battery will destroy the backup center in Hawaii three minutes after launch. Alex agrees to the transmission, and a bird’s-eye view of North America floats before him on the screen.

The map reveals the scale of the disaster: the Florida Peninsula is gone, the ocean has swallowed Georgia, Alabama, and South Carolina. The entire central United States is a dead, cratered desert. But three hundred miles to the east, beyond a canyon in North Dakota, a green stripe is visible — living land. Even further east are large cities and a huge lake in Canada. Alex manages to memorize the target coordinates before the orbital station destroys the backup center. The base falls silent, and Alex and Scylla fall asleep.

Children of the Wind

After the Storm, the squad moves on. In the middle of the night, in an old junkyard, Alex hears a child crying. Two corpses lie on the sand — a man and a woman with enormous silver wings, like eagles, and silver skin. They were shot — there are burn holes in their clothes. In the back of a truck, a silver baby, also with the beginnings of wings, cries. Scylla lulls the baby to sleep telepathically, and Alex carries it to the nearest village for milk.

The village is gloomy: dirty barracks, unfriendly residents, a drunk in the street. Alex heads to the Jackal’s Brew tavern, but before he can enter, someone behind him calls him "Shorty" and cocks a gun — and with this open ending, the story ends.