Quantum

‘In a time when everyone sees a flat world and sees the sun moving around us, one man looks up into the sky to regard the arc of the sun and the moon high above; he looks at the shadows cast around his feet; he looks at the rotation of the stars in the night’s heavens and he sees a spherical world; he sees us moving round the sun. Søren is that man in our time.’

Haunted by blood, Søren replays yesterday’s optical implant recording to once again witness the horror as a colleague commits suicide, in the hope of laying his nightmares to rest. A young and gifted researcher, Søren is on the brink of making a major scientific advancement. Combining quantum principles with advances in 3D-printing technology, he is about to invent a revolutionary device for synthesizing an object at the atomic level, with no moving parts. But Søren also has a far greater, paradigm shifting use for his device, as yet unknown to anyone.

Quantum describes a futuristic society where resources have been stretched to their limit and how civilisation copes with that, taking climate change to a catastrophic conclusion with world hunger causing nations to break down to then reform into towering megacities shepherded by multi-national companies.

Also running parallel to the main story is a book which Søren is reading called The Cave. The mysterious titular cave results in anyone who enters simply vanishing without trace. The book soon causes Søren alarm as he realises his own research can be thought of as the metaphorical cave where some things are best left alone. However soon he has gone too far and the corporation he works for won’t let him stop his research without endangering those he holds close.