The God Patent

by Ransom Stephens

  It was his second anniversary in Petaluma, and he celebrated with a deep breath of Emmy, salty, sweet Emmy. She stretched and nuzzled against him. Wake-up sex might have been as good as make-up sex, but oh well.

  BAM!

  Emmy lurched against him. “What was that?”

  Again, against the door: BAM!

  Ryan groaned, “It’s my youthful ward.”

  “Ryan, wake up! You have to drive me to school.”

  He looked at his watch: 7:00. She was already late. “Okay, just stop—”

  BAM!

  “Stop pounding—Jesus H.…”

  He pulled on jeans and a T-shirt and unlocked the door.

  Katarina came in. She looked frustrated. The high school was on the other side of town and started early. Then she noticed Emmy and started to blush.

  Emmy said, “Hi, Kat.”

  Katarina looked at Ryan, who raised both eyebrows into his dorky-womanizer face.

  To Emmy, Katarina said, “I’m late for school.” Then she yelled at Ryan, “Come on!”

  That kid he’d met on the porch two years ago was long gone. She didn’t skate very much anymore, and her Converse All Stars had been replaced by an array of suede boots, the kind that Ryan’s sisters used to wear in the eighties. She’d painted them with acrylics—little dragons exhaling breaths of Feynman diagrams and equations. Her denim jacket was gone too, replaced by a formfitting coat like Emmy wore. At fourteen, the skirts she’d always worn looked different. Somewhere along the way, her legs had gotten long and graceful. Fading scars on her knees were the last evidence of the kid who used to skate down fire escapes. It didn’t take much makeup for her to pass for eighteen.

  “You have to stop missing the bus—what if I had to work today?”

  “What work?”

  He finished tying his shoelaces and followed Katarina down the hall. She carried a small leather purse and had her old backpack slung over a shoulder. Her hair, nearly all the way down her back, bounced in time with her steps.

  “Why aren’t you taking the banister?”

  She paused at the landing and scowled. “Mind your own business.”

  “Um, do you want a ride?”

  She let him pass and then followed down the stairs and out to his car.

  “Katarina, people don’t do favors for people who treat them like shit.”

  “Fine! I don’t want to go anyway.” She threw her backpack into the car, got in, and slammed the door.

  Ryan started the car. “So how’s school?”

  Katarina turned the radio up until it was too loud to talk.

  Upstairs in Ryan’s apartment, Emmy got up and showered. She liked it here. She liked the apartment’s unashamed masculinity: the football that Ryan said was his most valuable possession, the beach chair, the foam “bed,” the milk crates that held his clothes, the fridge with plenty of beer but barely enough milk for his tea. She liked that he drank tea instead of coffee too. In the shower, she noticed that he used pink soap and sighed. Wrapped in Ryan’s towel, Emmy stepped into the kitchen and took the small jar of instant coffee he kept for her down from the cupboard. She hated instant coffee, but he’d been so pleased with himself for thinking of her that she hadn’t told him. She knew that Dodge would have a full pot of high-octane French roast downstairs.

  That bastard. After thirty-six years, why did she still have faith in him? Yes, he doted on her. Yes, he had always been there when she needed help with anything. Anything. But he helped by twisting things, not just to his advantage either. It seemed like Dodge twisted things for amusement more than he did for profit—neither reason was acceptable. He had conned her again.

  She put the kettle on, scooped a double dose of coffee crystals into a mug, and got dressed. A few minutes later, she sat in the beach chair, Ryan’s towel in her lap, and sipped coffee. The whiteboard was covered in calculations. Kat’s handwriting was precise but with girlish curlicues. Emmy pictured Kat at the whiteboard with Ryan at her side, Kat guiding Ryan through mathematics while he guided her through life. She took a deep breath of the towel and felt as warm as she ever had. Then a thought crossed her mind. The thought wasn’t new, but there was a new element.

  Her choice not to have children was calculated from two realizations: first, guiding students through their most creative years ought to fulfill her maternal instincts; and second, she’d always assumed that she didn’t have the maternal warmth necessary to accept the burden of a baby. Right now, though, watching Kat dazzle Ryan in her mind’s eye, she realized that she had been wrong. What was it that had convinced her that she wasn’t a complete woman?

  She heard motion downstairs. Dodge. That was why. Growing up in Dodge’s cynical shadow had convinced her that motherhood would be more burden than reward. The realization made her feel weary. A baby?

  Her coffee mug empty, Emmy stood and shook off her reverie. She gathered her things and headed for the door. It was time to deal with Monday morning traffic.

  As she passed the whiteboard again, she looked at it. A thought invaded her mind: Kat needed a mother.

  Ryan drove Katarina down the hill and across the river to Casa Grapevine High. He pulled up to the curb and turned down the stereo. “Have a happy Monday, Katarina. Can I pick you up after school? We should work on those Feynman path integrals…”

  She looked at him without moving her head, her eyeballs swiveling up at him, said “whatever,” and got out of the car.

  Ryan started to pull away, but a clot of traffic was passing. He watched Katarina join a group of other kids standing under an awning. Most of them hung out at Skate-n-Shred. A tall thin boy smoking a cigarette took Katarina’s hand without looking at her. He wore a black jacket a size too large and big black boots. He also had a trace of what he probably considered a moustache over his lip. A green bandana hung from his back pocket. Ryan had “escorted” him out of Skate-n-Shred more than once. It was that kid, Alex, the one the kids called “The Ace.” For a scrawny kid, he commanded a lot of respect.

  When Katarina leaned into the circle and said something to one of the other girls, they leaned against each other laughing. The other girl was Katarina’s friend Marti. The two of them separated from the crowd and walked up the steps to school. Just before opening the big glass door, Katarina looked back at Ryan and waved.

  The rain had stopped, but when Katarina waved, a different storm came over him. Katarina was becoming a woman as beautiful as she was brilliant, and Ryan wasn’t ready. He wiped his eyes with the back of his hand and forced a smile. This is how it is supposed to be. As incredible as Katarina could someday become, right now she was a snarling, fire-breathing little bitch—exactly what fourteen-year-old girls are supposed to be.

  On the drive home, Ryan questioned whether he should let Katarina walk all over him like she had. At a stoplight, he watched the sun pass behind a cloud and decided that, more than anything else, Katarina needed someone she could rely on. That she could treat him like shit but still rely on him showed deep, if twisted, trust and affection.

  When he got back to the house, Emmy’s car was gone, and Dodge was sitting on the couch. “McNear, my office right now.”

  Ryan followed him in. Every time he sat there, Ryan automatically reached for something to twiddle with, but the only thing on the desk was that damn revolver. He reached for it, realized what he was doing, and jerked his hand away.

  “This,” Dodge said, holding a sealed envelope out to Ryan, “is notification that someone is pregnant.”

  Was Emmy pregnant? Ryan rejected the thought as soon as it came. Dodge would be the last person Emmy would tell and, even if she were, Emmy was quite clear that she had no intention of bearing children—she already had six graduate students.

  Trying to appear nonchalant, Ryan took the envelope. It was addressed to him, care of Wayne (Dodge) Nutter, Attorney at Law. The return address had the cross-and-lightning-bolt logo of Creation Energy, LLC. “You didn’t open it?”

  “That wou
ld be a federal offense,” Dodge said. “Besides, I know what’s in it.”

  Ryan tapped the envelope on the desk. “What?”

  “This is how it works. They start the bidding and we finish it. The main thing is that they’ve admitted we’re right.” Dodge cupped his chin in his hands. “Go ahead, open it. Let’s see where the games begin.”

  Ryan tore open the envelope. There were three sheets of paper. As Ryan read the cover letter, Dodge reached across and took the other sheets.

  Jeb Schonders was “pleased to compensate Ryan for his contribution to the success of Creation Energy under the conditions set forth in the enclosed documents.”

  “Ha!” Dodge wiggled in his chair with glee. “They think it’s stillborn.” He waved a page just out of Ryan’s reach. “How much do you owe your wife?”

  Ryan folded the envelope into a little triangle. How long had it been since he ran out of money, a little over three years? The monthly child support had been 20 percent of his income back when he was making almost $250,000 a year.

  “Come on—you don’t have to calculate to the tenth goddamn decimal place.”

  “Over a hundred and fifty thousand dollars. What’s the offer?” Ryan tried to grab the page from Dodge.

  Dodge waved it like a flag, just out of reach. “One fifty? I’ll get you that.”

  Ryan stood and set his hands on the desk, looming over Dodge. “What’s the offer?”

  “They’ve admitted they’re pregnant. That’s all you need to know.”

  Ryan picked up the revolver and glared at Dodge.

  Dodge let loose the annoying rasp. “You finally figured out why I leave that out—makes negotiation so much more interesting.”

  Ryan set it back on the gavel pad and slumped on the desk. “I just want to see my kid—tell me or I’m getting another lawyer.”

  “No, you should shoot me. Really.”

  “Dodge…” Ryan whined.

  “Your cut would be about twenty grand.”

  Ryan felt the blood leave his face.

  “We’re winning. Now go away. I’m going to drag this on. The longer it festers the more they’ll pay.”

  “Tell me what you’re going to do. You’re representing me, remember?”

  Dodge took a labored breath and then said, “I’m going to let it fester until it’s a big scabby pile of pus, and then I’m going to collect the gold at the end of the rainbow. I might even give some of it to you.” He rotated around and pulled a file from the cabinet behind him. He rotated back and took a yellow legal pad from his desk. Licking the tip of a pencil, he looked at Ryan as though he were surprised to see him. “Don’t you have coffee to spill or plants to water? Shouldn’t you be standing on the corner with the other Mexicans?”

  “God, you’re an asshole. Those guys are from Guatemala and El Salvador. They’re good men. You could learn something from them.”

  “Right. I could learn how to speak Mexican. Run along, now.”

  Several weeks later, for no reason he could decipher, Dodge awoke confused. Something was missing, or maybe not, but he sensed that cards were being dealt. He went into the kitchen and before grinding his coffee, connected his laptop to the Internet. It wouldn’t connect to the Creation Energy website, so he surfed to the National Engineering Group site. A press release in huge font greeted him: “The National Engineering Group expands alternative energy research to include propulsion technology based on vacuum fluctuation energy extraction.”

  NEG stock was up fifteen points, almost 20 percent. A link to an article at MarketWatch said the stock was riding the announcement of a deal for exclusive rights to “new technology being developed by an obscure university in West Texas” that had the potential to “change the way we think about energy.”

  He danced into the kitchen and poured a celebratory jigger of whiskey into his morning coffee.

  He turned the kitchen TV to Bloomberg. A woman yelled into the camera. “Already riding their deal for new technology, we just got word that NEG has been awarded a contract by the Department of Defense. A huge surprise to the market, investors are guessing that NEG could overtake Northrop Grumman in rocket-propulsion technology. It’s a big could right now, and details of the technology are sketchy. NEG officials are acting more cautious than their investors, but if the market believes the technology can end dependence of the world economy on fossil fuels, the stock should double today.”

  Trailing phlegm-riddled laughter behind, Dodge skipped into his office and added three zeros to the counteroffer.

  The phone rang just before ten. Dodge checked the caller ID—it was from a Texas area code—picked up the phone and said, “What have you got? And it better be good, because right now, I’m getting all I need from Bloomberg.”

  “It’s crazy around here—closed the gates to the university and canceled classes.” It was Mabel, secretary to Foster Reed and mother of Dodge’s current favorite informant. “Dr. Reed and Reverend Schonders were fixing to meet with the press up until a herd o’ Yankees showed up in black trucks.”

  The phone beeped, and the call waiting ID indicated Emmy’s office number at Cal. Dodge said, “I’ll call you back,” and connected to Emmy.

  “I heard National Engineering on NPR,” she said. Then the Vietnamese kid interrupted. Dodge could tell it was Tran by the complete lack of any accent. Emmy came back on the line, her voice cold: “Those two patents have disappeared from USPTO-dot-gov.” Away from the phone, Dodge heard her say, “Search for them in cache. Find them now.” Then into the phone, “I’ll call you back.” She hung up.

  Dodge dialed a Texas number. Dale Watson answered. “Still haven’t gotten the check, Nutter.”

  “Give me your account number, and I’ll wire a thousand right now.”

  “Account number? US mail’ll do fine. Just get it here.” The line went dead.

  Dodge put $500 cash in an envelope, stamped it, and attached it to the outside of his mailbox with a clothespin. The phone rang as he walked back in the office.

  It was Emmy. “Dodge, helping you scheme is anathema to me.” She went quiet, as though fighting an internal battle. But she was on the phone. Dodge knew he’d already won.

  She finally spoke. “I called our Department of Energy rep, the man who reviews our funding each year. Even he can’t access information on this technology.” She spat the word technology. “I am the only one who knows anything about it. Plus, just like the patents, Reed’s dissertation has disappeared from the web—hang on a sec.”

  Dodge heard her talking to Tran. She came back on. “It gets weirder. Tran found the dissertation cached on three nodes, but when he went back, they’d disappeared. Same story with the patents. Someone is scouring the web to remove all documentation of this nonsense—which, under other circumstances, I’d favor, but this time, it’s like a military-industrial complex conspiracy.”

  Dodge said, “And I’m sitting on the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow…”

  “I’m going to post Reed’s dissertation on the Lawrence Berkeley Lab website and send an e-mail to Bob Park at the University of Maryland—he’ll blow the whistle on them. Every physicist in the world will be attacking this thing within an hour.”

  “Emmy!” Dodge yelled into the receiver. “Dammit, no. Stop right now. You’re approaching this all wrong.” He switched to a relaxed tone. “Just let them go for a little while, short their stock first, let them capsize under the weight of their own bullshit.”

  “Dodge, shut up.” Emmy kicked into a voice that Dodge barely knew—quiet, soft, and demanding. “I am not going to allow ignorance to overwhelm reason. The press must be educated and these cozeners brought to justice.”

  “Emmy, what about Ryan? If you’re successful, Ryan won’t have a chance in hell. With his last hope gone”—he paused for effect—“would you blame him if he goes back to meth?”

  “Oh, please. You can still get your settlement. Ryan will be fine.”

  “Not if you blow the lid off,
” Dodge said. “Not much to settle for once everyone knows the real value of the patents.” He waited for her to respond. His confidence grew with every second of her silence.

  A minute passed, and in a voice much more familiar to Dodge, she said, “How long will it take for you to get a settlement?”

  “Well, the price just went way up, but I suspect they know it. Give me a week.”

  “Someone will find a copy of that dissertation, and it won’t take long for the American Physical Society to take a position.” She stopped, as though thinking about it, and then chuckled with no mirth. “Okay, you’ve got a week. Dodge, you better help Ryan. I’m watching you.”

  “Of course I’ll help him.” Dodge hung up the phone and waited.

  Half an hour later the phone rang again.

  “Jeb Schonders here. Mr. Nutter?” He paused, but Dodge didn’t reward him with a response. “It’s time we had ourselves another meeting.” Schonders spoke slowly and sounded comfortable, too comfortable. “This time, how about we do it in my neck of the woods—Monday in the big D? We need to settle this thing straightaway and, one other thing, Nutter, I advise you not talk to anyone until after our meeting.” The sound of Jeb’s laughter turned Dodge’s stomach. He had to find out what cards they were holding.

  Dodge stood and forced a smile. “Why wait until Monday? I’ve seen the news, and I’d like to help you out. I can be in Dallas tomorrow.”

  “Mighty neighborly of you,” he said. “How about you leave your client back there in California so as to keep the meeting short?”

  Dodge hesitated. Something was missing. “Jeb that sounds just fine. Better not to bother Mr. McNear—why, just this morning he was telling me how much he’s looking forward to putting this behind him.”

  Schonders laughed. “I’ll have someone pick you up at the airport.”

  Maybe he was just anxious to settle before the pot grew too rich.

  “I sure appreciate your southern hospitality, but you don’t need to go to any trouble. My people in Dallas will make arrangements. Only thing I need from you are directions to the best barbecue in DFW.”