The God Patent (12 page)

“Yeah, the
math
book. Math books make great reading.” He picked up the text and took it to a tired couch he’d pilfered from Skate-n-Shred. “It’s story time, children!”

She rolled her eyes and stayed at the desk, but the corners of her lips sneaked up into a smile.

Ryan held it out like a picture book, pointing to the equations as he read the text, emphasizing the
if-thens
and
if-and-only-ifs
, the way kindergarten teachers emphasize the morals of fables.

Katarina said, “That’s not human speech.” There was ridicule in her voice, but he noticed that those bright green eyes didn’t leave the book. A few seconds later, she reached over and turned the page.

I
t took a couple of weeks of self-pity, but Ryan’s goodwill reasserted itself, and he pushed forward. He added more off-the-books work, safe from the OCSE. He got a job watering the potted plants that decorated Petaluma’s sidewalks. Most days, he also joined the Central American migrant laborers who stood in front of the mini-mart hoping for an honest day of work at a decent off-the-books wage. At first his freckled arms, auburn hair, and inability to speak Spanish kept him on the fringe of the day-labor subculture, but soon his easy wisecracks and disarming smile were welcomed by his comrades. He kept pushing—picking grapes, fixing fences, and laying concrete—kept stashing his pay, kept his confidence that the money would accumulate. He made sure he was home twice a week for Katarina after school. Watching Katarina reformulate algebra and geometry and helping her address questions in set theory and topology provided the intellectual stimulation that Ryan had always gotten from solving high-tech puzzles.

Then the rains came and drowned the day-labor work. It rained through December and January. He had to dip into his savings to make rent. He made some money during a rain-free week in February clearing vineyards of brush, but that was it. The storms blew through the rest of February and into March.
His funds deteriorated, and reality clashed with his drive to succeed. He had too much time to himself, too much time to think.

On the first day of spring, he got an e-mail from his old neighbor, Ward. It included a link to a newspaper story. Sean, who was in his first year of high school, had hit the game-winning home run on opening day.

Wind-driven rain pummeled the copper turret, and Ryan stared into the storm. As the hours passed, any joy he’d felt for his son’s accomplishment faded behind a great screaming message: your boy doesn’t need you!

He stood and his bones felt heavy. There was no bounce left in him. He slumped under his coat and trudged out the door. He was halfway downstairs when he realized what he was doing. That same old desire—would it ever go away?

He was going to score some meth.

He stopped and shook like a wet dog, turned around, went back to his apartment, and grabbed a beer from the refrigerator. As he took a swig, beer for breakfast, he smiled at the irony. He looked around the apartment, from the frumpy couch to the pile of foam he called a bed. It sure didn’t look as though he’d made any progress. Time was wasting. As long as his child support was pegged to an executive income, it would be impossible to get forward on the wages of a working man. As frustration engulfed him, he felt something in his spine. Gently, from deep inside, Grandma spoke to him: “What sort of man would you be then?”

“Not the kind who sits around waiting to win the lottery,” he said to himself.

He paced back and forth in front of the rain-streaked window. The valley was fogged in. He could barely see across the street.

There were only two ways that he could reclaim his life, and they both sucked. He trotted out the idea of suing Creation
Energy. Fighting had tremendous appeal, but fighting Foster—well, Foster wasn’t his enemy. He finished the beer and tossed the bottle across the apartment to the recycling bin. He missed, but it didn’t break; it just rolled around the kitchen floor.

The second option was no better. Dodge was right: if he took a real job, he’d be arrested. In California, he’d be arrested for a federal crime, leaving Texas to avoid paying child support. At least if he got a job in Texas it would come with one less count against him.

He leaned his head against the window. It was cool against his skin. Listening to the rain, a thought came to him. It came to him in his father’s voice: “Do you want to do it on their terms or yours?”

No matter what he did, he would eventually have to face a judge in Texas.

It took almost ten minutes to boot up his computer. He sent an e-mail to Foster, phrasing it as though they were in adjacent cubicles. “Have you got funding for that project? I might have some breathing room next month.” He didn’t even sign his name at the bottom. There was something ecstatically normal about that note.

A few seconds later, his phone rang. It was Foster. “Ryan, I got your note.” The phone made a series of clicking noises, probably caused by the weather. It cleared up as Foster said, “Are you really interested? If you are, I won’t interview anyone else.”

“Yeah,” Ryan said, “I’m interested.”

“It’s the software director position,” Foster said. “The pay is pretty good, about what you were making at GoldCon before we got laid off.”

If Ryan were making that kind of money, it would only take a couple of months to accumulate enough cash to put a dent in his child support. He might even be able to appear in court before
the payroll information made it to the deadbeat-dad office. The charges would at least be suspended. Like Constable Holcomb had said, “Can’t pay child support from jail.” A few months after that, there had to be a way to repeal the legal mess that kept him away from Sean.

“Yeah, yeah, I’m interested,” Ryan said. “When can you put together an offer?”

“We’re really close to having funding—a couple of months? Two or three? Three max.”

When Ryan hung up the phone, he didn’t feel the relief that he thought he should. Foster had changed. Everything had changed. Going back to Texas felt off balance, like going backward when the solutions to his problem should be forward. It all nagged at him. What had led him to Petaluma in the first place? It sure had seemed like he was here for a reason.

Something nagged at Dodge when he hung up the phone too. Why would Ryan choose to be arrested when he could just sue the bastard? This one was getting away from him. He had to play a card.

Dodge picked up the phone and called his sister, Emmy, or, more properly, Professor Amolie Nutter, Department of Physics, UC Berkeley.

Upstairs, Ryan dug up the book Foster had sent him months before,
The Cosmology of Creation
. As he read, the mix of religion and science both tugged his curiosity and ticked his bullshit meter. Ryan couldn’t tell where the science ended and
the religion began, but he knew that Foster wouldn’t budge on biblical literalism. Was it just a big scientific-seeming rationalization of religion or a genuine treatise of discovery? By midnight, barely halfway through, the math and physics were completely over his head. Still, it convinced him of one thing for certain: Foster believed that he’d discovered a link between science and spirituality.

As he went to sleep, a question kept ringing in his head: which came first, matter or consciousness?

Five hours later he awoke to someone pounding on his door. He jerked up from a nightmare, the same nightmare he always had, another view of his past, the part that had led to the restraining order that kept him away from Sean. Tammi. Damn Tammi. You’d think that, at least in his dreams, she’d have found her way to hell. He looked around, not sure where he was.

Katarina yelled through the door, “I need a ride to school. It’s raining.”

Ryan grabbed his trousers, glad to be among the awake.

“Come on! I’ll miss a test, fail eighth grade, never recover, and become a junkie. Do you want that on your head?”

Katarina was sitting in the hallway opposite his room when Ryan stepped out the door.

Ryan said, “Are we late?”

“A smidge.” She stood and handed Ryan her backpack.

Ryan ran down the stairs and Katarina launched down the banister—a slope of polished oak. The two of them reached the bottom at the same time. Ryan caught her around the waist, kept going, and pretended like he was going to ram her head in the
door. Katarina let out a high-pitched shriek. Ryan set her on her feet and pretended to dust off her shoulders.

Once they were in the car, Ryan told Katarina that he might be going to Texas for business.

She said, “Business? Is there a city there that needs you to water their plants?”

“Yeah, watering plants is the next big thing, sort of like the Internet.” The old Probe stuttered and threatened to stall in the long, slow procession of minivans depositing eighth graders at the school entrance.

Katarina stared straight ahead.

“It seems like the only way I can get my shit together and see my son again.”

“You don’t even know your son.”

“Thanks for reminding me of that.” He elbowed her. “Too bad I know you.”

“You wish.”

E
mmy was finally visiting her brother in Petaluma. This time, at least he’d pretended that he wanted to see her. She would reward any positive step, no matter how small—sort of like domesticating a dingo. Besides, she was curious.