The main action of the novel takes place in the nineties within the walls of a military school, where a small crook, a gambler and a desperate romantic nicknamed Cyrus fall into military service, in a support company. Here he finds like-minded people with similar interests and inclinations. This is an old employee named Copper and his two peers Afonya and Emel. From Copper, he learns that the school has a corruption scheme in which most of his company is blindly involved.