A summary of "The Contemplator" by Alexey Pekhov Automatic translate

This book is a novel by Alexey Pekhov, published in 2016. The text immerses the reader in a dense atmosphere of dieselpunk and detective noir. Here, human superpowers and the emergence of terrifying mutants are the direct consequences of a man-made disaster caused by the widespread use of a new fuel. The work was named "Book of the Year by Readers" at the annual Mir Fantastiki magazine awards.

The novel opens the author’s eponymous "Contemplator" series. The second story in this series is titled "The Shadow of Ingenium."

Ethan Shelby works as a private investigator in the city of Hervingham. A thirty-six-year-old former soldier and veteran of a protracted, brutal war, he searches for missing persons. Ethan is hiding an extremely dangerous secret. He volunteered for a military experiment and gained ingenium — the unique ability to control deadly fire. The price of this power is incredibly high. Without regular injections of a special serum called "Anchor," the detective suffers from auditory hallucinations, colors and tastes confuse, and a terrifying shadow watches him from the darkness. His attacks threaten complete madness.

An elderly scientist, Jason Henstridge, approaches the detective. The old man helped develop a technology for refining motorium. This substance produces an incredibly powerful energy source, extracted from the bottom of a vast lake in the free city of Rierta. Motorium vapors cause mutations in ordinary citizens, turning them into aggressive monsters called contags. Henstridge reports an attack on a secret laboratory. The robbers killed the guards and stole a unique experimental fuel purification device. The scientist offers a hefty reward for finding the missing item. Ethan declines the assignment, citing his specialty. He searches exclusively for living people, not missing objects.

Soon, Police Inspector Billy Ewart informs Ethan of Henstridge’s murder. The trail of unknown perpetrators leads the detective to the old smuggling vessel Mandrake. After making his way into the dark hold, the detective encounters Sile, an agent of the hostile Iskiri Empire. The spy sets a three-armed, cannibalistic mutant on him. Wanting to survive in the confined space, Ethan is forced to use suppressed flame. After killing the monster, he escapes the ensuing fire by jumping into the frigid river. Determined to solve the mystery, the detective takes the scientist’s check and sets off for Rierta.

Return to the Water City

The journey takes place aboard the passenger airship Barnes Wallace. During the flight, Ethan meets a wealthy Confederate named Osmund, who is traveling with a disenfranchised black slave. Upon arrival in the rainy water city, the detective falls victim to a setup. During a customs inspection, ampoules of the "Anchor" serum are suddenly discovered in his belongings. Local gendarmes and a terrifying mutant killer with a bird mask — a weeper — arrest him. Ethan finds himself in a grim prison called the Nest. A forced double dose of the drug causes him to suffer intense physical pain. Political prisoners await trial in neighboring cells. Rierta is ruled by the dictator Mergen, who seized power after a coup, and tensions among the ordinary factory workers are growing daily.

That night, the Nest is subjected to an armed assault. A local resistance group, led by Colonel Willy and a young woman named Mureol, blows up the outer brick wall. Mureol, known to her friends simply as Mureol, is disfigured by a knife scar. The rebels have come for their comrade, Krazhovsky. The secret police managed to extract the prisoner shortly before the attack. Ethan is forced to flee with the rebels. During a chase through the narrow canals of the Rierta, their motorboat is pursued by gendarme boats. Ethan covers their escape with an army carbine, but the boat is damaged by a cannon shot, and he falls into the murky water.

Having reached the shore, the drenched fugitive heads to the Water Lily, a bar run by a former comrade named Moss. Ethan rests and meets another fellow soldier, Crawford. A former chaplain, broken by the horrors of trench warfare, heavily addicted to narcotic powders, and a master of wielding a captured Iskiri blade, Ethan asks Crawford to take him to the abandoned Moon Island, hidden behind Fin Rock. The secret laboratory of the murdered Henstridge was located there.

On a deserted island, the partners explore the empty workshops. There they find strange tanks with the markings of the Motoria Rierta company and steel chains for prisoners. Suddenly, they stumble upon Muir. The girl, holding a revolver, is also searching for traces of the stolen device. Suddenly, the area is cordoned off by armed Sile bloodhounds. Crawford, his mind completely clouded by the demons of his trench past, lunges at his enemies with a knife. He unleashes a bloody massacre in the bushes, drawing the squad’s attention. Ethan and Muir escape on a spare motorboat hidden in the reeds. During a nighttime chase, the girl reveals her dormant ingenium. She is able to teleport short distances, carrying a person with her. The police boats intercept them on the lake and sink the vessel with a point-blank shot from the turret gun.

Secrets of the Old Academy

Ethan and Muir are forced to take refuge in the Old Academy. This abandoned district of Rierta serves as a quarantine zone, where the authorities have been transporting motoria-infected citizens for years. The streets are teeming with contagions. The fugitives narrowly escape a swarm of ape-like nonhumans by taking refuge in an abandoned planetarium. The girl activates a star projector, and the hypnotic light captivates their pursuers. In the morning, they encounter the hunter Osmund, who has set up a luxurious camp on the roof of a building and is hunting rare contagions for trophies. Osmund offers them coffee and protection, but the fugitives decide to continue on their way.

Later, the detective and the rebel spot a squad of government soldiers secretly transporting a massive, dormant mutant giant. En route to the southern border, they are confronted by a pack of carnivorous monsters. Ethan uses flame and incinerates the Inhumans. To cross the destroyed Dead Canal bridge, Muir makes a desperate teleportation jump, transporting his companion to the safe shore of the Core.

The rescued fugitives are picked up by the boatman Belfoer. In a deep rebel hideout located in the Drowned Quarters, Ethan uncovers a hidden truth. The stolen device was indeed stolen by the revolutionary Krazhovsky. He discovered that the terminally ill Henstridge planned to hand over the purifier plans to Iskir agents. Krazhovsky took the device to prevent it from falling into the hands of an enemy of the Empire, and then fell into the clutches of Mergen’s secret police. The rebels ask Ethan to find their comrade. The detective refuses to interfere in someone else’s political struggle, planning to leave Rierta forever.

Dungeons of the confectionery factory

A few days later, Muir arranges a secret meeting with Ethan at the fashionable White Chair café. She asks for help infiltrating an abandoned candy factory, where soldiers have brought a mutant from the Old Academy. Ethan agrees to support his stubborn friend. They infiltrate the secure compound at night, covered by the aristocratic rebel Whitford and the experienced machine gunner McLeady.

Descending deep underground in a freight elevator, Ethan and Muir discover a hidden, monstrous laboratory. Government scientists are conducting inhumane, lethal experiments on infected teenagers, attempting to artificially breed new, obedient Weepers. Ethan, acting on mercy, shoots the tortured children hooked up to machines, ending their suffering.

In the adjacent technical room, they encounter an armed Sile. The spy locks the heroes in a sealed cryogenic chamber. She reveals the harsh truth. Henstridge’s stolen device is capable of completely purifying motoria without the use of living contags. Currently, the Riertan government is using the bodies of hundreds of mutants as a living catalyst to filter toxic fuel. It is for this purpose that the infected are exiled to the Old Academy and then transported to Bryce’s labs. Sile takes the capsules containing the valuable samples she needs and releases a freezing gas into the glass chamber.

Muir uses a thermal military sword, "Butcher," to cut through an armored window. Freed, she disables the facility’s power system to permanently stop the horrific experiments. Ethan helps her sever the power cables with an axe.

The heroes emerge onto the nighttime street. A massive firefight rages around them between Sile’s mercenaries and the arriving city guard. Ethan and Muir attempt to escape through a maze of narrow alleys, avoiding police. Suddenly, their path is blocked by a Weeper — an elite government mutant assassin with superhuman speed and a bird-like horny beak on his mask. He delivers a crushing blow to Ethan, instantly knocking the detective off his feet.

Muir bravely engages in mortal combat, using her teleportation abilities. She leaps and inflicts serious injuries on her enemy. Ethan rises and finishes off the mutilated mourner with a precise pistol shot to the forehead. The friends tear off the dead man’s protective mask and reveal a disfigured face. This is a horrific direct result of the fusion of human flesh and the pernicious effects of the motoria. Shocked by what she has seen, Muir vows to stop the dictator Mergen and save Rierta from complete destruction. Ethan mentally shares her stance.