A summary of Dmitry Glukhovsky’s "The Future"

Written in 2013, the novel is a harsh social dystopia about an overpopulated 25th-century Europe, where science has granted people eternal youth at the cost of free childbearing. For every new child, one parent is required to take an injection of an aging accelerator. Those who are rejected face violent death or forced aging, and their children are mercilessly taken away to state-run institutions.

The work won the European Science Fiction Prize Utopiales in 2014.

Towers and stormtroopers

The protagonist, Jan Nachtigal, serves in the Phalanx, an elite unit of soldiers recruited by the government from orphanages. Their primary responsibility is to detect illegitimate pregnancies, administer aging injections to parents, and remove infants. Jan lives in a two-by-two-meter living space, suffers from claustrophobia, and manages his anxiety with alcohol and sleeping pills. The artificial sunlight in his room only accentuates the gloom of his monotonous existence.

One day, Senator Erich Schreyer invites Jan to his spacious residence, located on an artificial island under a dome. The senator’s wife, Ellen, arrogantly provokes her guest, reminding him of his lowly status. The politician gives Jan a secret assignment: eliminate Jesus Rocamora. Rocamora leads the terrorist Party of Life, which fights for the abolition of strict demographic regulations. Jan and the leader are to kill his pregnant girlfriend, Anneli. For successfully carrying out this assignment, Schreyer guarantees Jan a promotion.

Before his mission, Yan visits an elite bathhouse. He accidentally sees the body of a drowned man floating through the transparent pipes. While the other patrons flee in horror from the dead man, Yan attempts to revive him. This episode reveals Yan’s hidden humanity, usually stifled by military discipline.

Hunting and Doubts

During a raid on the slums, Jan and his squad break into a terrorist’s squat. The leader cowardly flees, abandoning Anneli to the slaughter of stormtroopers. The girl is in the early stages of pregnancy. The hero suddenly gives up, refuses to kill the defenseless victim, and secretly hides her in his kennel.

His actions are driven by an old psychological trauma. Jan’s memories constantly return to his brutal childhood. Bloody hazing reigned at the boarding school, and future soldiers were forced to publicly disown their own parents via video link. Jan’s main enemy was the sadistic Five Hundred and Three. Jan survived only through blind rage: in one fight, he bit off his tormentor’s ear. His close comrade, Nine Hundred and Six, died in an underground prison cell, refusing to betray his mother. Anneli unexpectedly awakens long-forgotten human emotions in Jan.

Escape to Barcelona

The girl tricks Jan into leaving his cramped apartment. He dons a rare mask to hide his face from street cameras. The fugitives hide in Barcelona. This ancient city has been transformed into a gigantic, fetid ghetto for migrants, cut off from the rest of Europe by an impenetrable glass wall. Here, state laws do not apply, and people age and die naturally. Anneli hopes to find Rocamora, but events unfold in a worst-case scenario.

The heroes are attacked by local bandits, then caught by Phalanx fighters, led by the same 503rd. The soldiers beat and rape Anneli. Local residents — Hindus from the Raja community — save Jan and the girl from certain death, sheltering them in their overcrowded, cage-like apartments. At an underground clinic, the bitter truth is revealed: due to the injuries she suffered, Anneli will never be able to have children again. Anneli tries to seek medical help from her biological mother, Margot, who works nearby at a Red Cross mission, but she coldly refuses her daughter’s support.

Jan sleeps with Schreyer’s wife, Ellen, seeking revenge on the arrogant senator. Later, Ellen, unable to bear the pressure of eternity, commits suicide by jumping from the roof of the tower.

Rebellion and gas attacks

Political intrigues escalate. Pan American President Ted Mendez arrives in Europe on an official visit. Rocamora takes Mendez hostage right in a square in Barcelona, calling on a crowd of millions to rise up in arms. Security Minister Bering and Senator Schreyer exploit the rebellion to consolidate their own power. The government dispatches fifty thousand Falange fighters in black Apollo masks to brutally purge Barcelona.

Jan finds himself at the epicenter of the assault. The government deploys sleeping gas, plunging the vast city into slumber. Stormtroopers roam the dark streets, methodically injecting each sleeping person with an aging accelerator, then deporting the infected to Africa. Jan works himself to the bone, simultaneously searching for the missing Anneli among the mountains of motionless bodies.

Fukuyama’s laboratory

Schreyer sends Jan to destroy a hidden scientific base. Gerontologist Beatrice Fukuyama and her elderly assistants have synthesized a virus capable of killing the immortality gene. Beatrice is firmly convinced that the absence of death has halted evolution and deprived humans of the meaning of existence. Stormtroopers destroy old equipment, and Jan drives Beatrice to a nervous breakdown, but she manages to hide a vial of the finished virus. The hero abandons Beatrice in the burning building.

Soon, a soldier finds Annelie. She takes refuge with a Catholic priest, Father Andre, in a utility room of a massive waste disposal facility, where red vats of cultured artificial meat are located. It turns out that Annelie is expecting twins, and the pregnancy is Jan’s. During a difficult premature birth in unsanitary conditions, one baby is stillborn. Annelie’s heart gives out under the monstrous strain, and she dies in Jan’s arms. Only the tiny newborn girl survives. The grief-stricken hero names his daughter Anne and buries his beloved, sending her body into an industrial waste disposer. Seizing the opportunity, the sadistic Five Hundred and Three injects Jan with an aging injection, infecting him with mortality.

Family secrets

The captured 503rd squad attempts to take the baby by force. Jan engages in a furious fight, beating 503rd to death with a heavy pistol. Rocamora bursts into the room with a detonator in hand, threatening to blow up the entire industrial complex. Senator Schreyer contacts the terrorist via communicator.

During a tense exchange, a terrible truth emerges. Rocamora is Jan’s biological father. Thirty years ago, he seduced Schreyer’s wife, Anna. Upon learning of her pregnancy, Rocamora cowardly fled, terrified of the responsibility and the loss of his eternal youth. Insulted, Senator Schreyer locked his wife in a solitary confinement cell with a transparent wall. Her husband forced Anna to take an aging accelerator and watched her wither for years. The senator deliberately placed Jan in a boarding school to raise him to be an obedient executioner and take revenge on Rocamora at the hands of his own son.

Salvation through death

Rocamora surrenders to the authorities, realizing the gravity of her past actions. Schreyer cynically offers Jan a deal. The senator promises to restore his officer’s rank and ensure a carefree eternity in Europe if Jan voluntarily surrenders his young daughter to an orphanage. This is the final sadistic test of loyalty to the system.

Jan visits the local cemetery, where a single hair of his dead mother is preserved in a glass case, and silently asks her for forgiveness. The soldier finally realizes the emptiness of the imposed state ideals. He flatly refuses Schreyer’s offer.

Yan returns to the ruins of Fukuyama’s laboratory and retrieves a preserved vial of the mortality virus. The former stormtrooper drinks the drug, permanently erasing the immortality mechanisms in his body. Carrying his young daughter, he heads to a crowded transportation hub. The pathogen is airborne. Yan dissolves into the vast crowd, generously distributing restored mortality to unsuspecting people. A short time later, an aging epidemic will sweep the continent, erasing artificial youth forever, returning humanity to the natural cycle of existence.