The Subtle Cause is a work of speculative fiction presenting ideas which promise to spill over into so-called reality.
It is a story of how a terminal cancer diagnosis, a medication promising Utopia, a children’s book, a powerful sense of déjà vu, an accidental quantum computing breakthrough, and the Apocalypse bring several storylines into eerie symmetry while throwing others into disarray.
Or are these connections merely revealed?
Not just of separate storylines, but of entire branches of the multiverse. All of it connected in surprising ways as the fraying of spacetime manifests in even the most personal of trials. Or is it the other way around?
You’ll be left to wonder as you follow some of history’s most overlooked storylines and the eclectic cast of characters behind them. Sita, a budding yogi, explores the transcendental while contending with a clash of cultures in ancient India. Her influence finds its way into colonial Mesoamerica where the young Nanahuatzin, ridiculed spouter of doomsday prophecies, gains a cult-like following when his ramblings prove prescient.
Spanish coins from this period end up in a Jewish family’s collection of sacred heirlooms. When the mother and her young son are harbored by Albanian villagers during WW2, they are forced to hide these relics from the Nazi occupiers. One of the coins ends up in the possession of a struggling father, Joshua, in early 21st century U.S. It provides inspiration as he fights for the life of his daughter, Lilith, in her battle with cancer.
Joshua confronts his own terminal diagnosis in the early 2020s. With the end-of-life medication of Utopia already in his possession, he reflects on a life that was unremarkable by conventional measures. But even the smallest of ripples can find their way to distant shores which is how Freddie Galloway becomes a renowned violinist and covert conductor in a mid-21st century version of the Underground Railroad where he teams up with Redfeather of Blackfeet Nation.
While leading thousands to freedom during Jim Crow 2.0, they encounter Jarvis, an ex-marine militia member who becomes conflicted between matters of principle and patriotism. Like Joshua before him, Jarvis struggles to separate the real from the unreal. But a reoccurring pattern of déjà vu seems to provide a hint.
And this brings us to late 21st century Vancouver where Adrian, a quantum neurochemist, is spearheading the development of a mass euthanasia formula promising Utopia for the hundreds of millions trapped in conflict and climate disaster zones around the world in places such as South Asia and his homeland of the Philippines. It is a role he keeps hidden from the love of his life, Beth Galloway, who has her own destiny to follow—one at odds with Utopia.
And it will all tie back to where the epoch began, more than 67,000 years ago along the Horn of Africa. It is here that a visionary mother and her adventurous son will uncover a new truth, one which will ripple through the ages. From the subtle ways it imprints upon future cultures to the revolution their fossilized remains will later inspire. The Africa Ensemble movement will not only take over a continent, but spread to the rest of the world, saving the planet from the path of destruction upon which it had been set.
Or is this merely a wishful illusion based on a children’s book? Or a quantum computing program? Or both?
Perhaps the answer lies with Lilith herself and her own act of rebellion in her final days. However the reader interprets events, the larger narrative will come together in a way which is as mind-bending as the paradoxes of quantum mechanics and the unsettling implications they portend for the familiar world and universe—implications that will have you questioning the very ideas of reality and causation.
Ultimately, it is a story about truth, that which is both hidden and staring us in the face at the same time. If only we dare open our eyes.
