The hero of the book, Eric Andersen (second), does not remember anything about his past life: doctors believe that all memory was erased by severe trauma. However, Eric receives letters from Eric Andersen (the first), who explains to him how to make a four-recorder non-divergent conceptual loop, how to find the Committee for the Study of the Extraspace World, how to decipher the Fragment about the lamp... But all these half measures will not save Eric from a ruthless predator tirelessly following his trail. The key to salvation is with the urban partisan Scout, with her menthol cigarettes and grenades assembled from typewriter keys...