The God Patent (48 page)

F
oster smiled into the flames of Jeb Shonders’s scowl. “We’re at the Heisenberg limit, almost there. Jeb, it was perfect. When I bring the decisive results, they will have to accept them.”

Schonders leaned back in his chair, looking down his nose at Foster. “Why did you go into their den? What were you thinking?” He rolled up his sleeves one at a time. “You’ve fed the beast, and National Engineering isn’t happy.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Foster said. “It couldn’t have gone more perfectly. They accepted, even praised our results. I have credibility on their turf. When I bring proof, they will have to accept it.”

Schonders spoke in a quiet guttural tone accompanied by a spray of spittle. “You can’t have it both ways. You can’t be part of the scientific establishment and part of God’s army at the same time.” He leaned forward and his elbows hit the desk.

“Jeb, listen to me. We have their flank.”

Jeb picked up the hammer-sized gold cross and tapped it in his palm. “No. We don’t
flank
our enemy. They got nothin’ we want or need. We fight on the field of American culture. We’re better off with the scientific elite denouncing us. The people in those churches you visit, them is who you need to convince. You’re done.”

“Take it easy, cowboy.” Foster rose from his chair, smiling. “Let me do my job. Everything is coming together. God is bringing the answer—if you needed another reason to believe the wonder of His way—the answer is coming on the wings of a fourteen-year-old girl.” He lowered himself back into the chair, arms outstretched. “The technology is going to work, and when it does, I will deliver the scientific establishment.”

“You are a fool.” Jeb pointed the cross at Foster. “Political advantage is more important than technology. Any technology.” He let the cross drop. “You stupid fool, National Engineering has demanded complete control of this project. You’re out. They’ve already replaced you.”

Foster stepped around the desk and put a firm hand on Jeb’s shoulder. “I know about National Engineering, Jeb. I know that they don’t believe. They are just another cynical element of the establishment.” He tightened his grip. “We can do this without them.”

Schonders lifted Foster’s hand from his shoulder, clamped down on his wrist, and, shaking with rage, said, “You will no longer be allowed in the collider lab.”

Foster stepped back. “What?” A million conflicting thoughts raced through his mind: the smug look on the Nobel laureate’s face; Ryan reporting that Katarina was en route with the answer; that the patent officer had never examined energy or software patents before granting theirs; that Rachel had been engaged to the patent officer; that his angel had lied to him; and, more than anything, that Jeb was banning him from his laboratory, his life’s work, his war.

In that instant, he wanted nothing more than to accept defeat, to die on the battlefield. But before Jeb looked up, just as fast as the doubts had swept in, a greater force pushed them away. As though carried in the warmth of his blood, with each pulse
of his heart, faith cleansed his mind. He didn’t need hardware; he didn’t need a lab for this. He’d already accomplished that part of the project. He would write a complete simulation of the collider, including every cable, magnet, vacuum pump, the positron source, and electron-rich target, modeled with perfect accuracy. Then he could test different neural networks, and when he discovered the soul, he would convince them to install it. It was a huge project, perfect for Foster to bury his frustration.

Jeb looked up with loathing in his eyes, but Foster was calm and prepared to continue along this carefully paved path. He patted Jeb’s shoulder and cocked his head at that comfortable angle and said, “Do what you feel you need to do. I will continue His work.”

Jeb released Foster’s wrist and said, “Get out of my office.”

K
atarina didn’t call. Ryan worried.

After four days, he called Dodge. Dodge told him not to worry, at least not yet. He loosed that mirthless laughter and said, “I’ll tell you when to start worrying.”

On the eighth day, Ryan printed a picture of Katarina and made copies. He sent them to police departments along the route from Lake Tahoe to San Antonio. Then he called the judge in Santa Rosa who had presided over her case. She gave him references to runaway support groups and then leveled with him: “All you can do is wait and pray that she is safe. Lots of kids run away. At least Katarina has a destination. If she’s not there soon, you’ll have to start looking for her.” He could hear the unspoken accusation in her voice.

He kept his cell phone battery charged, but it didn’t ring.

Early on the tenth morning, Foster came home after working all night. His face was drawn, his hair a mess, and he had the caffeine shakes. “Where is Katarina? I need her.”

Ryan’s worry and frustration started to boil.

Rachel stepped between them and lit into Foster. “You need Katarina? Your best friend is fixin’ to go crazy with worry, and you have the nerve to demand this child work for you?” Her hands rose in fists. “You’re out all night and come home demanding—”

Ryan grabbed Foster’s car keys from his hand, ran out the door, jumped in the car, and headed for San Antonio.

At Texas State Trooper headquarters, a woman in blue took a hundred copies of Katarina’s picture and promised to distribute them to every trooper on the force. Then Ryan drove to Dallas, just in case, and repeated the exercise all the way up I-35. On the way back, he posted the picture at every gas station between Dallas and Hardale.

He was at one of these gas stations when his cell phone rang. The caller ID said it was Emmy. He answered with “hello” and then wedged the phone between his neck and shoulder so he’d have both hands free to tape a picture to the gas station window.

Emmy said, “I’m sorry I missed the American Physical Society meeting this year. It would have been nice to see you. And speaking of the APS, I thought you should know that a letter I wrote under their masthead is being submitted to the Department of Defense tomorrow. I’m concerned that it might affect your job, Ryan. We’ve nominated an independent panel to review NEG’s contracts.”

After pressing down the tape, Ryan said, “Emmy, Katarina’s gone. She left Petaluma two weeks ago, hitchhiked. She said she’s coming here, but no one’s seen her.”

“Why didn’t you call?” Emmy said, “I’ll go to Petaluma right now—what can I do?”

“I’m going to search for her. She called me from Lake Tahoe—that’s the last anyone’s heard of her. I’ll head up to I-80 and try that route, and if I don’t find her, I’ll try another route.”

“Ryan, settle down. Take a deep breath. Okay? Tell me exactly what Katarina said.”

He told her about the phone message and described his conversation with her, concluding with, “She just kept saying how
blue the lake was. I keep telling myself that she’s streetwise and out there adventuring, but she had only twenty-five dollars and—two weeks—why hasn’t she called?”

“Is Dodge looking for her?”

“He looked around town but…Emmy, your brother is not helpful.”

“My brother has connections—I’ll call you right back.”

Emmy hung up and called Dodge. He answered on the third ring. Emmy said, “Where’s Katarina?”

He answered with that mirthless wet chuckle. “Emmy, I’m working on it. If Kat shows up in any city in the US, I’ll know within twenty-four hours. Look, she’s probably standing on a corner in Winslow, Arizona, with her thumb out trying to get to Ryan. I’ll find her.”

But then he sighed. It was a sound that Emmy had never heard him make before.

“Dodge, do everything you can.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Just that, well, I know that you got arrested once and that you went to jail, and I know that you’ve done business with some dubious people and, well…”

“Emmy, I love that kid. I’ll do everything I can to find her.”

She’d never heard Dodge use that word before in any context. “Do you think she’s okay?”

“It’s been two weeks. She should have been there ten days ago. Fifteen-year-old girls standing on the highway don’t have to wait for rides. No, I don’t think she’s okay.”

Emmy’s breath got caught in her throat. She said, “She has to be okay,” and hung up before Dodge could scare her any more than he already had.

She called Ryan back. He answered on the first ring.

“Hi, Ryan. Are you okay?”

“I’ve lost Katarina. No, I’m not all right. I should have been there, but I was here. This shouldn’t have happened. Where is she? All I can do is drive across the country and look for her. Oh God, Emmy, what else can I do?”

“Don’t give up, Ryan. She’s out there and she needs you.”

“You’re right. Damn. I just need to keep moving. Thanks for calling. I’m sorry I fucked up our relationship—it’s an acquired skill.”

“Okay,” she said. “I’m canceling my trip to CERN. I’ll head up to Petaluma in a few minutes. Stay in touch with Dodge. He’s got more resources than either of us can imagine.”

A
week after the physics conference, Steven Jones, the engineer Smythe had introduced to Foster at the men-in-black meeting from National Engineering’s Alternative Energy Research Group, moved into Foster’s former lab. He brought a staff of two dozen and installed a security system. Within two weeks of their arrival, NEG coauthored a press release with Creation Energy claiming a dramatic increase in energy production that violated the laws of thermodynamics. Since the details were now classified—as was everything that happened in the lab—there was no way for anyone to challenge the claim.

Foster knew NEG was lying, but that didn’t comfort him. Without the respect of his colleagues and—he had to face it—the self-esteem generated by leading a large well-funded team of technicians, he found himself reevaluating everything: the project, the patents, every step along the path of coincidental stepping-stones that had led him here. There were gaps. He could no longer ignore the irregularity of the patent officer. God wouldn’t deceive him, but his own lack of humility might. Had his father-in-law somehow rigged the patent process? And what if he had?

He looked all the way back to that day he’d been laid off. The same day that Ryan’s life had started to unravel, Foster’s had come together. When he got home that day, Rachel had been
waiting for him, barefoot in a light cotton dress, on a bench in their front yard. The recollection warmed him. They’d been so young and so close.

Unemployed for the first time in his life, with a big new mortgage and little hope for a new job, she greeted him with a smile so affectionate and optimistic, so warm that his worries went from solid to fluid to mist. When he sat next to her and she handed him a piece of junk mail that had arrived that day—a generic envelope inviting him to apply to the graduate program of Evangelical Word University—Foster had never been more certain that she was the angel come from heaven to guide him.

But as he reevaluated that path, he wondered. Had it been junk mail? Had her father, Blair Keene, primary investor in EWU, made certain that she got that letter on that day?

The vision through the fog of hubris wasn’t pretty.