The God Patent

by Ransom Stephens

  “True, but look at this graph.” Foster indicated another monitor. This one showed a curve that started at zero and went up from left to right, at first gradually and then ever steeper until, on its right edge, it was nearly vertical. “Even with the simple software that’s controlling the reaction now, we’re getting exponential growth in energy generated.” He stopped and when Ryan looked at him said, “All the evidence shows it’s going to work.” He leaned against a lab bench and watched Ryan.

  Ryan stared at the graph: energy versus time—data + results = reality. This is what he needed. That feeling that drives every engineer, the thrill of creating something new, something that would work, shoved aside his doubts. It felt as though the floor had solidified beneath his feet.

  If they could maintain the rate of energy growth that this graph showed, they would reach breakeven in a few years. The Heisenberg stuff and the faith crap were one thing—theory always needs a big grain of salt—but the data spoke for itself. Ryan embraced a long-silent sense of excitement and urgency. “This could be the greatest power generator ever made. How come no one else ever thought of it?”

  Foster put a hand on Ryan’s shoulder. “Ryan, there’s more going on here than we control. When we wrote those patents, we weren’t alone. It will work. Questioning the inevitable will just slow us down.”

  Ryan spent the rest of the afternoon in the lab with Foster and the graduate student, Matt. They went over circuits, discussed software design, and reviewed a list of reference books that included one he’d already read, Feynman’s QED.

  Dinner was in the faculty lounge with the dozen professors from the Department of Earthly Science. Ryan found the faculty to be well educated, dedicated, and devout. By the time Foster dropped him off at the hotel, Ryan had convinced himself that he could be happy in the weird little college town of Hardale, Texas.

  The next day, a Friday, started and ended with interviews. Every interviewer asked about the patents, and when they did, they acted as though the inventions were a biblical miracle. The wiseass in Ryan wanted to say, “We were trying to bilk a company out of a few thousand dollars so we could buy a boat.” Instead, he nodded knowingly, emphasized his background in business and the fact that he’d coauthored the patents. The dean countered with, “The person we hire will run the technical side of an energy exploration company.” Of course, it was only an independent company on paper. All product development would be performed in Foster’s lab.

  At lunch in the faculty club, the university chancellor, Jeb Schonders, said grace. The others looked down and went silent. Ryan started to cross himself. The chancellor glared at him and Ryan caught himself in time, turning the gesture into a forehead scratch.

  The interview with the chancellor came immediately after lunch. He shut the door behind Ryan and offered a thick leather chair. The blinds were open but little light shone in. The chancellor’s desk was huge, yet it held only a blotter and a large cross that appeared to be solid gold—if you swapped the cross for a revolver, the office was almost identical to Dodge Nutter’s.

  Schonders sat behind the desk, looked at his watch, and leaned forward. “I just have a few questions.”

  Ryan didn’t like the way Schonders’s eyes bunched together. When he said grace at lunch, he’d looked almost serene, but now he was frowning. Ryan licked his teeth and leaned back behind his most disarming smile. “Anything you like, Mr. Schonders.”

  “On this side of that door you call me Jeb, understand? If you get this job, me and you, we’ll need to communicate in here—but, outside that door, I’m Reverend Schonders.” He nodded twice and then launched into a series of questions about Ryan’s background. Ryan answered each one in as few words as he could. The man’s frown intensified when Ryan admitted to being Catholic.

  Schonders said, “So you’re a Yankee Catholic come to Texas but went to California when the going got tough.”

  “Jeb,” Ryan said, “I’m an engineer.”

  It worked. Schonders laughed. It wasn’t a sincere laugh, but the frown was gone. “You got a little mettle, and I like that. It’ll be hard for me to trust someone as different as you, but Jesus guided you here, so I’ll give you a chance.” He brushed his hand across the desk as though sweeping the subject aside. “There are a few things you need to understand about what we’re doing here, a few things that might want to stay in this office.”

  He took a breath before continuing. “You need to understand that we are at war. It’s a culture war that’s been going on since the Romans and Jews crucified Jesus. We can’t give the enemy an angle for a wedge. These two inventions are more important than energy, technology, or wealth. They represent influence. Let me put it like this: the technology will work. Our investors will see to that.”

  “Yes sir,” Ryan said. “I have a question, though.”

  “Shoot.”

  “What is the source of financial backing?”

  Schonders started to speak but stopped. He picked up the gold cross and tapped it in his palm like a hammer. “We have a Fortune 100 corporate partner. They’ll announce themselves when they’re ready.” He set the cross down in front of himself, balanced on its end so that it cast a shadow across the desk. “Now, back to the point I was trying to make, once your power generator starts supplying free energy, it might get out of control, maybe start a chain reaction. This is not what worries me. What worries me is that if I can figure it out, then some tree-hugger can too and put us right out of business. If we hire you, this might be your biggest problem.” Ryan didn’t like the way the man emphasized if. “It’s a problem we’ll work on together. Maybe you guessed it by now, but I’m no tweed-wearing pipe smoker—I get things done.”

  “Jeb, sir, we’ll design a generator that we can control. Rest assured, the PRD—that’s product requirements document—will include a kill switch.”

  “No.” His frown came back. “You’ve got a lot to learn about faith.” He stared at Ryan for several seconds then said, “Do you understand what faith is? A man with faith would stay out of God’s way. If God sees fit for us to start the Rapture…well, what could be more glorious than that?”

  Ryan didn’t know what to say, and just as he was about to put his foot in it, he thought of his father and knew what he would have advised: never miss a good chance to shut up.

  Schonders stood and, as he rose, bumped the desk just hard enough that the cross fell down with a heavy clank. “You need to spend more time with the Bible than with your PRD.”

  Foster was waiting for Ryan on the path outside the chancellor’s office. He asked about the interview, but Ryan shook his head and asked, “Is that it for the day?”

  Foster nodded and guided him to the parking lot.

  “Good thing, because it’s beer thirty and I’m toast.”

  “We don’t drink.”

  “Whoa!” Ryan said. He stopped and took Foster’s shoulder. “After a day of interviews? We’re buying beer, plenty of beer, and you’re damn well going to drink it with me. Weren’t you the beer bong king once upon a time?”

  “That was a long time ago.” Foster said, then looked up in the sky and laughed. “All right, we’ll stop at the package store.”

  Ryan climbed into the sleek red car and inhaled the leather scent. “I think the interviews were okay. I don’t score big as a model Christian. How important is the chancellor’s opinion? That guy is crazy.”

  “Hold it. He is not crazy.” Then, a few seconds later, Foster sighed. “It’s a typical management scenario. The higher up in the administration, the less they understand what we’re doing—kind of like working at GoldCon, I guess.”

  The driveway to Foster and Rachel’s house curled through a pine forest and opened at a clearing of expansive lawns with sapling hardwood trees. Foster parked, leaving the car at an angle with the wheels turned so that it looked like an ad in Car and Driver magazine. The front porch consisted of white columns towering over terra-cotta tiles.

  Foster said, “T
his is my castle.”

  There had been a time when Ryan could have made a sarcastic wisecrack to his buddy, but “something hatched in Greece, raised in Memphis, and spoiled in Texas” stayed on the tip of his tongue.

  If the size and architecture of the house had surprised Ryan, it was immediately overshadowed by the change in size and architecture of Rachel. She wasn’t a skinny aerobics teacher anymore. Trying not to laugh, mostly at himself, Ryan realized what had bothered him about the picture on Foster’s desk. She was still a tiny woman except for two outstanding new features.

  “Rachel, you look fantastic.” He jogged across the porch and pulled her into a tight hug, successfully staving off the urge to add “my, how you’ve grown” or “you could put an eye out with those” or “do they float?”

  Once he got his eyes above her neck, Ryan noticed that Rachel was wearing dangling diamond earrings and as much makeup as he’d ever seen on a working girl. He also detected that she wasn’t uncomfortable with the trouble he had keeping his eyes away from her chest.

  Foster said something about what it was like to come home to an angel.

  Rachel guided them inside, through the kitchen, where she put the twelve-pack of beer in the fridge. She didn’t say anything about the beer but shook her head at the sight of the pint of brandy Ryan had insisted they buy.

  They went out to the backyard where three seasoned steaks sat on a table next to a barbecue with white-hot coals.

  Ryan drank beer from a bottle and sat at a table with Rachel where he had a view of their pond. “Fireflies! They don’t have fireflies in California. Sean loves them.”

  Rachel said, “I talked to Linda this morning.”

  Ryan tried to suppress the surge of adrenaline that shot through him.

  Rachel continued. “Ryan, we know you’ve made mistakes, but we want to help.”

  Ryan tried to relax, tried to exhale the gulp of air he’d just swallowed, but he couldn’t get it out of his throat. Did she know why Linda had been able to get sole custody? Did she know he was wanted in Texas?

  Foster was his best friend, but he would do whatever “his angel” told him. Ryan looked in Rachel’s eyes. She knew. He said, “How is Linda?”

  “She’s doing well.” She put a hand on Ryan’s arm and spoke softly. “Ryan dear, I understand. Linda was never a strong woman. It wasn’t her fault. She didn’t understand why you spent so much time at the office. She just felt lonely and loneliness, well…I hope you can forgive her.”

  Ryan peeled the label from the beer bottle and crumpled it in his fingers.

  She spoke more quietly, almost a whisper. “Ryan, you need to tell Foster. He’s your friend.”

  Ryan stared at the pond and Rachel stared at him. He had to tell Foster now, otherwise Rachel would.

  Foster came to the table with a plate piled with steaks, peppers, and onions. Rachel helped him serve. The three of them held hands and Foster said grace. He thanked the Lord for the food, friends, and beer. Rachel looked a little bit shocked at that last bit. Foster shrugged in response and said, “God made beer too.”

  Just as Ryan got his fork to his mouth, Rachel said, “Ryan wants to tell you something.”

  Foster turned to him, anticipating. Ryan took his time chewing.

  Rachel said, “Ryan, when things go wrong, there is always a turning point. Whatever happened, we will understand.”

  Ryan swallowed. How could they understand?

  “Come on, it’s me,” Foster said. “We’re back.”

  Ryan didn’t look at him.

  “Whatever happened doesn’t matter. I understand. I know these things happen for a reason.”

  Ryan ate some more. The three of them were quiet.

  Then Foster said, “Oh. I know. It was the day we were laid off, wasn’t it?”

  Ryan’s appetite for food was waning. He got up. “Can I get you another beer?” Foster looked at Rachel for an instant and then nodded. Ryan went into the kitchen. He looked at them through the window. They were talking, smiling. Rachel looked up and waved at him.

  No one had helped him more than Foster had, and Rachel seemed to really care.

  Back at the table, Foster said, “I remember that day. I went home to Rachel, and you wouldn’t tell me where you were going. After that day, you started avoiding me.”

  Rachel said, “Ryan, please tell us what happened.” She smiled and, in that light and with that tone, she reminded Ryan of his mom. The good version of Mom from before Dad died. She took his hand in hers. “It will cleanse you.”

  Foster was smiling, egging him on.

  Ryan had never thought that a single incident had triggered anything. It had taken a lot of stupid decisions to ruin his life, and Ryan knew that he’d made every one of them himself. There was no shaking this off as misfortune, but if there was one day, it would be that day. The day he met Tammi. The day of his first hit of methamphetamine. Foster was right; it was the day they had been laid off.

  Ryan took a deep breath. They were both staring at him. He said, “This is hard, you know. It was a difficult time. My divorce with Linda was a month old and everything was falling apart…”

  The day that Ryan drove away from GoldCon for good, he took his time. He’d given too much to that company and not enough to what mattered. Linda had left him before he even realized how much he’d neglected her. The image of who he had become haunted him—it was a short film loop: A divorced father and his cute son climbing out of a shiny BMW at a chain restaurant. Man and boy sitting at a table with nothing to say to each other.

  Of course, Ryan had known for weeks that the last day at GoldCon would come, that there would be a night when he would want to disappear.

  There was an ironic justice about returning to the scene of the crime. Every time he opened the sports page, he saw the ad for that same strip joint where they’d had Foster’s bachelor party. There was more justice there too. The place had gone downhill just as Ryan had. They’d lost their liquor license and converted to one of those totally nude places that encouraged men to bring their own booze.

  He had it all planned. First, he stopped at his apartment, changed into jeans and a T-shirt, and rolled a couple of joints. Next, he went to the bank and got a couple hundred bucks from an ATM, then to a liquor store for a pack of smokes and a half gallon of vodka. He got on the freeway, put AC/DC on the stereo, and lit a joint. The traffic wasn’t too bad, and he had the windows down with the music cranked. When he got off the freeway, he realized he was going about half the speed limit. He laughed and turned down the music, then realized he was going about twice the speed limit and turned it back up.

  There were a lot of “gentlemen’s clubs” on this side of town. The “Playthings” sign was made of flashing light bulbs. Half the bulbs were burned out—they’d all been lit at the bachelor party—and a piece of plywood had been added at the bottom with the words “Totally Nude Playthings, BYOB.”

  It sure wasn’t the classiest place, and that was fine with Ryan. He wanted a night that fit his mood: dirty and foul, exciting and wild. He had nothing left to lose.

  He got out and locked the car, realized the bag of booze was still on the front seat, unlocked the door, grabbed the bag, and headed inside.

  A woman greeted him. It was her, in the same light-blue lace bikini top and g-string, the woman who’d put her phone number in his pocket on a piece of paper that his wife found. He stopped. He had no idea what to say or do. He didn’t blame her. In fact, he found himself relieved to see her, that she was real, that she was sexy. Really sexy. He caught himself staring.

  She didn’t mind, though. She wiggled a little bit, her breasts quivering together. She took the bag from him and set it on a table. She pulled the strap of her bikini top to the side, exposing her right breast. It was full and round, and her nipple was light brown and pointed straight up.

  She interrupted his reverie. “Give me a tip, honey.”

  Ryan looked up slowly. She pulled his face down
between her breasts and made a high-pitched moan. Ryan yielded like a stoned ball of putty. She reached down and felt his groin. “Now give me a couple dollars.”

  He said, “I have to get change.”

  She guided him to the bar. On the stage, a skinny, bored-looking woman sat with her legs around a shiny pole. Ryan smiled at her as he walked by. She blew a kiss at him. Her hair was no more than an inch long; the roots were dark and the ends were white, maybe greenish. She looked silly sitting there in bright red shorts as if she’d just fallen down.

  Two men sat next to the stage, each with a little pile of dollar bills and a six-pack of beer. At the other end of the room, a couple of guys were playing pool with a tall, buxom black lady in white lace. It smelled like ashtrays, spilled beer, sweat, and industrial cleaner.

  Two other strippers sat at the bar. One woman was smoking a long cigarette and drinking from a green bottle of beer, Mickey’s Big Mouth. He stared at her for a second, enshrouded in a horny fog.

  “Ten dollar cover,” she said, “and you’ll need lots of change.”

  He took a handful of money from his pocket, and she converted it into a large stack of one-dollar bills. He took a couple of them and turned to his guide. She said her name was Candy.

  He said, “Don’t you remember me?”

  “You’ve been here before?” She lifted her breasts together, indicating he should put the bills between them. He let his hand linger. She asked if he wanted a lap dance, gesturing toward a dark alcove to the left of the stage.

  “Mind if I have a drink first?”

  She guided him back to the table and his vodka, nodded toward the woman on stage, and said, “That’s Tammi. Tip her well and have fun…”

  He opened the vodka, took a swig, and offered the bottle to the dancer. She came down, had a long drink, and then went back on stage.

  Tinny music blasted out of a dusty jukebox, dancing music with plenty of hard-rock chords. The song faded, and for a few seconds, the only sounds were bottles being set on tables and billiard balls colliding with each other.