The God Patent (21 page)

The two lines that ran up his forehead relaxed.

As he finished the story, Ryan paced back and forth from the table to the barbecue. “I moved in with her a couple of months later.” He stopped at the table. It had gotten dark, so he couldn’t see their reactions.

They were quiet for a few seconds, and then Rachel said, “Why did you move in with
her
?” She said
her
as though she’d swallowed a bug.

“I don’t really know.” Ryan sat down. “I had nowhere else to go, I guess. She took care of me.” He grimaced. “It sounds so gross, but you know, when you have nowhere to go, no work, no family, and everything you ever thought about yourself has disappeared, well…”

Ryan leaned back in his chair, unconsciously copying Foster’s pose. If there had been some light or if he’d leaned forward and looked at his hosts, he might have seen how Rachel, who had been holding his hand when he started the story, had recoiled. He might have seen Foster’s scowl. Instead, he sighed. “Yeah, you were right. As horrible as it is to relive that night, I guess it’s good to have it off my chest. Secrets, you know, even horrible ones.” He laughed and added, “Maybe I should go to confession.”

The fountain sprinkled in the dark, and Rachel gathered dishes together and walked into the kitchen. Ryan didn’t notice that she walked the long way around the table, away from him.

Foster did notice. He said, “Let’s go around to my study door.”

“We don’t usually drink alcohol,” Foster said, as if to make the point that Ryan had helped break some sort of vow. Then he poured two large glasses of brandy. “That was quite a story.”

The room was lit by a brass lamp on a small table separating the two leather chairs.

Foster added, “I wonder how your experience fits into His plan.” He swirled his glass, took a deep breath, and coughed. “You know it’s not that alcohol is a sin, it’s that ‘deliver me from temptation’ means you don’t walk right into it. We’re safe here.”

Ryan took a long sip and swallowed slowly. The warmth flowed down his neck and stretched out to his fingers. “You’ve really got it made, Foster. Fuckin’ A. This house, that car, the job you always wanted…”

“I am blessed. I was guided here to walk in the Lord’s footprints and understand. Since then, so many capital-T truths have been unveiled to me.”

“The chancellor told me I’d be better off reading the Bible than working on the PRD.”

“Remember when we were writing the patents? Remember how frustrating it was that Genesis was so short on details?”

“Yeah, it’s because the Bible was inspired by God but written by men.”

“No, no, no. The Bible is exactly the Word of God, but it is short on details.”

“Foster, doesn’t the Bible say that pi is exactly three?”

He chuckled, “Yes, ‘it was round all about, ten cubits from one edge to the other and a line of thirty cubits did compass it about’—missed by five percent.”

“Then the Bible isn’t exact. It’s an approximation. What’s wrong with that?”

Foster flashed a glare in response, as though something had fallen into place, a big clunking doubt. The look went away as fast as it appeared. “You need to trust the Lord, Ryan. If He had provided the mathematical details, it wouldn’t have meant anything to
people thousands of years ago. But now…” Foster leaned forward. “I think that a new book of the Bible is coming. I think that it will have the details that we can now understand. What if God had spoken through Einstein or Feynman? What if God told a mathematical story of Genesis to someone who could understand?”

“Who, you?”

“I don’t know. I can only tell you that every seeming coincidence in my life has led me here. I’ve sat with humility before the great math and science texts…”

Ryan almost choked on his brandy. Foster was a good guy and everything, but he’d never done anything with humility. “Did He talk to you?”

“I think He was speaking to us when we wrote those patents, and I think that we’ll find out for certain soon.”

“The chancellor kind of bothered me. He seemed to care more about how the project appears than if it will work.” Of everything he’d learned today, this kept coming back to him, Schonders tapping that gold cross on his desk and talking about the Rapture—it seemed crazy. Ryan tried to grab that feeling of certainty he’d had in Foster’s lab. “You have millions of dollars of equipment. Is there venture capital funding?”

“The chancellor is a good man. He’s a warrior who’s been fighting a long time.”

“Right, but who paid for all your equipment, and who’s going to pay my salary?” Ryan realized that he had just assumed the position. It felt good. He put the chancellor out of his mind, and the whole situation started to feel as warm as the brandy in his belly.

“Ryan, you need to have faith.”

Ryan clenched his teeth, giving Foster his get-to-the-point look.

Foster sat up straight and said, “Rachel’s father, my father-in-law, Blair Keene, donated seed money to a lot of projects at EWU, including ours. He and Chancellor Schonders have just signed a deal with a Fortune 100 corporation.” He nodded toward Ryan. “You don’t need to know who it is yet. The main thing is that you not forget who we’re working for.”

“Well, that’s exactly my question. Who are Creation Energy’s investors?”

“All right, Ryan, listen. I’ve been hoping you’d see this for yourself, but I can’t wait any longer. Make no mistake about it: we’re working for God.”

They were quiet. Ryan poured another shot in each of their glasses. “Hey, Foster, I’m a little uncomfortable with how you keep falling back on God whenever it’s convenient.”

Foster sat up straight and wagged his head as though he couldn’t believe what Ryan had said. “Ryan, listen to me, listen very carefully.” He pointed an unsteady finger at Ryan and held it a few inches from his face. “The Heisenberg uncertainty principle sets the scale for how close we can get to the universe; free will sets the scale for how close we can get to God.” He continued to point that finger and spoke a few decibels louder. “There is no room for questioning who defined those scales—and certainly not by someone like you…”

Ryan started to react, but one thought worked its way through the alcoholic haze: he needed this job. The only alternatives were to sue Creation Energy, Foster, and EWU, or continue on the road to nowhere.

Foster was staring at him. His face was red, and he looked mean. Ryan had seen him like this before, of course, back in the day, but this time Ryan needed him.

Ryan licked his lips, smiled that smile of his, and held out his arms, palms facing up. “It’s okay, Foster. I’m with you, and
I appreciate your honesty. You can trust me to follow your lead. I was just airing out my doubts.”

Foster’s condescending tone turned smug. “Of course, Ryan. I understand. Just keep fighting your doubts and embracing your faith.” He leaned back. “You know what? I envy you. You’re on the path to salvation.”

“You’re fuckin’ drunk is what you are.”

“No, Ryan, I’m right. Well, yes, I’m drunk, but I’m right too.” Foster reached a wavering hand to his glass and discovered it was empty. He took the bottle and splashed equal amounts of brandy in his glass and on the table. “Good thing the carpet matches the brandy.” Giggling, he took a long drink that ended with a choked cough. “It must have gotten pretty bad. Linda told Rachel that you haven’t been allowed near Sean in years—what happened?”

Ryan stared into his brandy. “Oh, Jesus, do I have to tell another story about something I’ve been trying to forget for three and a half years?”

“Hey! Told you not to curse.”

“Huh? Oh shit, I’m sorry.”

Foster giggled again. “That’s better.”

They were quiet for a few minutes. Then Foster said, “Yes, tell the story. You were such a fine father; what could you have done?”

Ryan sighed. Then he sucked down the rest of his brandy and refilled. “I don’t know exactly what happened.” But as he said those words, it became clear. It was his nightmare, not his memory, but he knew what had happened. Night after night he’d woken from that nightmare with nothing but smoky images of what Tammi might have done, and now, from a combination of what Sean had told the judge and what he knew of Tammi, his subconscious had finally worked it out. In that instant, it emerged from the haze of brandy in his head.

He spoke without thinking, listening to the words as he said them, half storyteller, half rapt listener.

“Three years ago—New Year’s Eve, in fact—Tammi was at work, flashing her pussy for dollar bills. Anyway, Linda dropped Sean off at the apartment, and the two of us watched Disney videos, ate pizza, and played Junior Monopoly. We fell asleep on the couch around midnight. Tammi got home a couple of hours later, and that’s when the nightmare starts.”

The first thing Tammi saw when she walked in the door was Ryan flopped on the couch with Sean. She reached under the couch for the mirror and her stash, but, of course, with the brat there, Ryan had hidden it. She shook him awake. “Where’s my stash?”

Ryan stretched and reached his arms around her and said, “Happy New Year, beautiful.”

She smiled in spite of herself but pulled away. “Let’s get a little New Year’s buzz.”

Ryan rested his arm across Sean. “Naw, I gotta be Dad in the morning. It’s in the closet on top of your shoes.”

In the bedroom, Tammi set the mirror on a nightstand, tapped some meth from a vial into a glass pipe, and held a pink lighter under the pipe until the meth liquefied and started to boil. She pulled it into her lungs and leaned back on the bed. The world took on that soft glow again. All better. She kicked off her shoes, took off her clothes, and climbed into a T-shirt that hung down to her thighs. She rubbed the shirt against herself, savoring its soft warmth.

She called, “Ryan, are you coming to bed?” When he didn’t reply, she danced into the living room. They looked sort of cute, Daddy and son. A bit of the edge crept back—Ryan was hers now. She leaned down and yelled in his face, “Go to bed!”

His eyes opened and Tammi took his hands. They were rough. She remembered how soft they’d been the night they met. He was hers. The edge faded back behind the glow. She tugged, and he sat up and then followed her into the bedroom.

Ryan climbed under the covers and fell asleep almost instantly. Tammi climbed out of the T-shirt and crawled in next to him. He pulled her close. That was what she wanted, except that she wasn’t quite sleepy. The longer she lay there, the more she wanted to play. She tugged at his groin, and just as she started working her magic, he rolled over, his mouth fell open, and he started snoring.

It was the wrong thing to do.

She ripped the covers off and turned the light back on. Ryan put his head under the pillow.

What a prick. He moves into her apartment, brings his asshole kid whenever he wants, and then rejects her?

She tapped a little more white powder into the pipe and had another hit.

Much better.

She rubbed her nipples in circles with her palms and skipped into the living room to look at Sean. A miniature version of Ryan, he couldn’t be any cuter. His bare knee stuck out of the sleeping bag. She tucked him in and zipped it up. She cooed at him, and he curled up against her. Maybe he wasn’t such a brat.