A summary of Sergey Lukyanenko’s "KvaZi"

This is a detective fiction novel by Sergey Lukyanenko, published in 2016. The events unfold approximately ten years after a global apocalypse: the dead have begun to rise again across the globe, and civilization has survived only because some of the "resurrected" have gained sentience, transforming into a new form of existence — quasi. These undead creatures have grayish-blue skin and a body temperature of around 38 degrees Celsius (100.4 degrees Fahrenheit). They are incapable of lying, significantly stronger than humans, and strict vegetarians — not by conviction, but by biology. Each quasi retains in eternity only the character trait that defined them in life.

Moscow after the disaster

Around twenty million people live within the Moscow Ring Road, including approximately fifty thousand quasi, scattered primarily in the Southwest and Lyuberetskiye Polye regions. Beyond the ring road are "dead lands" with hordes of speechless rebels; armored trains connect the cities through this wasteland. St. Petersburg has effectively become the capital of the quasi: living people there make up only 12.5% of the population.

At Moscow’s central police station, there’s a special position — the investigator of death cases. This position is held by thirty-year-old Captain Denis Simonov: he travels to the site of a death and the risk of rebellion, taking the necessary measures. Denis hates both the speechless rebels and the sentient quasi-humans equally. He lost his wife, Olga, and their young son in the early days of the apocalypse ten years ago, and has since lived in an empty apartment, where a photograph of Olga holding a baby hangs on the wall.

Murder in the Last Lane

The novel begins with a call: the concierge heard a suspicious gunshot in the apartment of biochemistry professor Viktor Aristarkhovich Tomilin. Denis rises to find two rebels — the professor himself and an unknown man with a slit throat — both already decapitated with machetes when a third man emerges from the balcony doors: a heavyset, elderly man with grayish-blue skin. Quasi jumps from the third floor and disappears, and Denis manages to fire two bullets at him, missing both.

During a debriefing with the station chief, Lieutenant Colonel Amina Idrisovna Dauletdinova, it turns out that Denis has a 65% "final death" rate, compared to a 20% average, and three complaints have already been filed against him by quasi-combatants. The solution is mandatory pairing. The partner turns out to be the very quasi-combatant Denis just shot: Mikhail Ivanovich Bedrenets, a former police officer from Myshkin and now the personal inspector of the Representative of all Russian quasi-combatants.

In the station hallway, Denis bluntly declares, "I hate you. All the undead." Mikhail lifts him to the ceiling with one hand — demonstrating the quasi’s physical capabilities — and then offers him the only reasonable option: working together. Denis chooses to cooperate.

Solving a murder

The professor’s widow, a quasi named Victoria, is in no hurry to return home and, during their conversation, is more concerned about the disrupted lab experiments than about her husband’s death. Mikhail and Denis head to the biochemistry institute where she works. The climax comes with Mikhail’s act: as he says goodbye, he kisses Victoria on the lips and tastes traces of paralytic poison.

The picture emerges: Victoria herself orchestrated the murder — she seduced a repeat offender, smeared a paralytic on her lips while kissing him, let him into the apartment, and then went to work. The killer shot the professor and then, paralyzed, watched in his senses as he rose and devoured him. The motive: Victoria couldn’t bear to watch her husband grow old and wanted him to die young and "rise" as a quasi — forever young. "Forever dead," Denis quietly tells her. "Forever young," she repeats.

Mikhail breaks her neck and puts on reinforced handcuffs; Victoria recovers within a minute. However, she soon manages to escape custody — and this turns out to be only the beginning of a much more serious story.

Conspiracy and biological weapons

The GSB intercepts Tomilin’s case — Agent Vladislav arrives with the relevant ministry orders. Mikhail retreats without resistance; he explains to Denis that confronting state security for evidence that essentially doesn’t exist is pointless. But now they know: the case is of interest at the highest levels.

The context gradually emerges. Professor Tomilin, according to indirect evidence, was working on a virus that selectively attacks adults. It’s a potential biological weapon: adults die, children survive — and are taken over by quasi-extremists whom Denis and Mikhail call "brothers." They drive heavy "apocalyptic" vehicles and are heading toward Moscow. It was precisely because of this threat that the Representative sent Mikhail to the capital even before the assassination.

Victoria doesn’t leave Moscow, even though she could easily pass the checks on the Moscow Ring Road with false documents. She takes over the Lazarus of Bethany Orphanage, where orphans live under the care of quasi-humans, and begins working in the orphanage’s lab. Denis and Mikhail conclude that Victoria is completing the project that Tomilin either didn’t manage to complete or deliberately stopped.

Center for Postmortem Psychology

During the investigation, the couple visits a specialized center where quasi come for potassium chloride injections. The drug temporarily activates the ventromedial prefrontal cortex — the area responsible for emotional moral evaluation — and gives the quasi about a quarter of an hour of almost human-like feeling. Mikhail explains to Denis that the quasi go there for the same reason people go to church — to experience something beyond reason. The effect weakens with each injection, eventually wearing off.

The scene reveals the novel’s key contradiction. The Quasi are rationally moral: they would shoot the sixth passenger without hesitation to prevent the lifeboat carrying five from sinking — after all, logic sees no difference between "left for dead" and "killed." This decision is painful for people, and it is precisely this pain, according to Lukyanenko, that distinguishes the living from the dead.

Denis’s personal story

Throughout the novel, memories of the beginning of the apocalypse arise. Young Denis and Olga, married less than a year ago, fight off rebels. On one of the first days, Olga kills a dead man with a kitchen knife — slitting his throat while Denis lies stunned. They make a promise: if one of them is bitten, the other will kill them. They believe they will make it to Moscow for the sake of their son, who is sleeping in his crib.

Mikhail came to Moscow for more than just official business. During the apocalypse, barely regaining his senses, he found a living infant among the rebels and raised him — a boy named Naid, now about ten years old. The circumstances matched Denis’s story, and Mikhail hoped it was his son. Denis categorically dismisses this possibility — he’s certain the family perished. However, Mikhail adds: there was a red-haired woman with the child, while Olga was dark-haired. This means Naid is a different child, but the fate of Olga and Denis’s son remains open.

Nastya and the forced union

Meanwhile, Denis develops a close bond with Anastasia, a young forensic expert involved in the investigation. Mikhail, with quasi-directness, admits he was partly counting on this connection: his investigation is dangerous, and if he’s killed, Naidu needs a full-fledged foster family. Denis laughs at this plan, calling it the craziest idea he’s ever heard — but it’s this laughter that truly relieves the tension of several days for the first time in a long time.