The God Patent

by Ransom Stephens

  The Nobel laureate paused, leaning back slightly. “You see, when I was young, I chose to become a theorist to know the thoughts of God. Later, I became an experimentalist to hear His voice.” He spread both arms out as if to embrace the image projected on the screen. “Today, you show me this, these images of how the universe, ah, works—this graph, it is more beautiful than the ceiling of Sistine Chapel. The question I have, is this not enough?”

  Foster turned to the graph behind him, trying to give the impression that he was pondering the question. In fact, he was praying. The strategy would stand or fall right here. He had to answer this question in a way that would guarantee his credibility as a legitimate God-fearing physicist. The graph proved that he had built a collider of unprecedented efficiency. If he could win this man’s respect, the next time he presented this graph, in six months, a year, or even five years from now, when it showed the effect of spiritual energy flowing into the physical world, the scientific establishment would have to accept it. They would have to believe; they would have to surrender.

  His prayer was answered immediately but in a way that he wouldn’t understand for weeks.

  He spoke clearly and in the language of physicists. “We’ve shown a new technique for calibration and control of a positron accelerator and precise agreement with quantum electrodynamics.” He used a laser pointer to indicate the little bump in the graph, evidence for the short-lived state of “positronium” they had discovered. Every data point sat precisely on the theoretical prediction. “When I calculated the theory curve, it amazed me how an infinite number of Feynman diagrams would combine so perfectly—it was a mathematical ballet.” He circled three data points with the laser pointer. “That the theory actually tells us to expect this tiny structure is a miracle. Do you agree? A miracle?” He stopped talking, turned away from the screen, and looked directly at the Nobel laureate.

  The people who had headed for the exits filtered back into the room. Foster waited for them, and as he waited, the pieces started to come together. The words built up in his mind, and he concentrated on how he’d say them instead of what they meant.

  “To answer your question, is it enough? It’s more than enough for me. Is it enough for you? I have never felt closer to God than when I performed the calculations and plotted this data. Never. Think of it. A calculation, mathematics, something born wholly of free will, the collective free will of all of us.” He set the laser pointer on the podium and stepped forward. “But I feel close to God every day.” He focused on the Nobel laureate, “What about you? You made some of the original calculations. It’s your will and mine”—he swept his arms to embrace the auditorium—“all of ours. What greater evidence could any of you ask for of God’s existence? But still, most of you deny Him.” He whispered the last word.

  “I think that it is you. You deny.” The Nobel laureate took the microphone in his hand and stood. “Ah, what was it that the, uh, how-you-say—the Bard, yes, the Bard, that Hamlet’s father to his mother said? The physicist doth protest too much, methinks.” He sat down.

  Foster indicated the curve again with the laser’s dot. “Are you impressed by our results?”

  The laureate nodded vigorously. “That is point of mine.” He held up his notepad. “Your experiment, it is first to show that Heisenberg’s limit is also thermodynamic limit. Carnot and Heisenberg agree. In three lines of calculation I prove this.”

  Foster tried to withhold his triumphant smile. “You are impressed.”

  Still holding the notepad, the laureate shrugged. “It is shown. It is done.”

  Ryan’s head was going in circles. After Foster’s presentation, the Italian guy had handed him the three-line proof that their collider was running at the physical limit. He stared at it and couldn’t wait to send it to Katarina. The Nobel Prize winner had proven that the collider couldn’t operate any more efficiently? Couldn’t possibly? Couldn’t in principle?

  During dinner, Foster sketched diagrams on napkins, brainstorming techniques to improve the neural network, certain that the next version of software would make the transition to free will. He wouldn’t look at the proof.

  Ryan knew from his research at the Cal engineering library and discussions with physicists after Foster’s talk that their software was as close to attaining “strong artificial intelligence”—the Holy Grail of software—as any on Earth, but that was still a long way from violating the laws of thermodynamics.

  Later that night back in his hotel room, Ryan noticed that he had voice mail from Katarina. He smiled at the sound of her voice.

  “Hey Ryan, I went out to Point Reyes—I saw that pelican too. He actually typed on my keyboard. Ryan, I figured it out. I understand the soul, what it is, how it works, and why people never really die. It’s fucking amazing—oops, sorry, didn’t mean to say fuck.” She laughed for a second and sounded like the kid he’d met on the porch that day three years ago. “Since this is way too complicated, too important, just too hella killer for the phone, and since you said I could come with you to Texas once school got out and lo and behold, it’s finally out, I’m coming to see you. I don’t know how long it will take to get there, a couple of days I guess. See you then.”

  What?

  He replayed the message. No, she didn’t say how she was getting there. Typical Katarina, she just didn’t know any better. He called her back. The phone rang five times, and then Jane’s airy voice came on the answering machine. He waited for the beep and then said, “Katarina, call me right now, this instant.”

  Ryan woke in the middle of the night with a vision of Katarina sitting on a bus trying to explain Feynman diagrams to someone’s grandmother. He got up and paced around the hotel room for a few minutes, convinced himself that Katarina was a tough kid who would be okay, and then tried to get some sleep. The wake-up call came at six, but he was still awake. No denying it, guilt. Katarina was doing something stupid. Something that she wouldn’t be doing if he’d kept a closer watch on her. He thought of that judge who’d told him that the world is dangerous for Katarina.

  He called again before getting on the plane back to San Antonio—still no answer.

  The plane ride was surreal. Foster spent the whole time filling page after page in his notebook, occasionally glancing out the window. When Ryan told him about Katarina’s message, he said, “Perfect. Everything is perfect. Are you starting to see? God is showing us the way. Kat is bringing us the answer—perfect!” He trembled as though he would burst, looked out the window for a few seconds, and turned back to Ryan. “Don’t worry about Kat. She will be fine. God is watching over her.”

  Foster’s reaction just made Ryan more nervous. He couldn’t stop tapping his foot. The old lady in the seat in front of him asked him three times to stop hitting her chair. She was polite the first time.

  There were no new messages on his phone when the plane landed.

  Rachel met Foster and Ryan at the door. Foster hugged her tight, carrying her halfway down the hall before setting her down and saying, “I have to go to the lab right away. Don’t hold dinner.”

  Rachel’s eyes squinted together. It looked strange, as though she was wrinkling her brow but it wasn’t cooperating. She met Ryan in the kitchen. “My father called this morning. He said that you and Foster made a huge mistake going to Washington.”

  Ryan said, “Did Katarina call?”

  “She called yesterday.”

  “Anything today?” Ryan looked at the answering machine—the light wasn’t blinking. “What did she say?”

  Rachel followed. “She just asked to talk to you. I told her you’d be back today. What’s wrong?”

  “Oh, nothing.” He went to the fridge looking for a beer, but of course there weren’t any. “Okay, not nothing, maybe nothing—we’re going to have a visitor.”

  “She’s coming here? I can’t wait to meet her. She sounds like a real character.”

  Foster came back up the hall, his briefcase in both hands, passed the kitchen, and
went out the front door.

  Rachel said, “Ryan, what’s going on? What happened?”

  Still staring at the answering machine, Ryan said, “This Italian guy, a Nobel Prize–winning physicist in the audience, proved that everything we’ve done in the lab confirms what they already knew—but Foster doesn’t seem to get it. The software works perfectly. I mean perfectly.”

  She looked up at him and spoke as though she’d rehearsed what she was going to say. “I talked to my father today.” Foster’s Porsche roared out of the driveway, punctuating her discomfort.

  “Yeah? Why was it a mistake to go to Washington?”

  “Ryan, listen to me.” She cleared her throat. “I don’t think you’ll be able to keep your job.”

  “What?”

  “Don’t worry. My father said that with your work here, and the paper you and Foster wrote, that you can get a job anywhere—probably name your salary.”

  Ryan took his phone from his pocket and stared at it. “Katarina doesn’t know what she’s doing.” Then, as though what Rachel said had finally registered, “Yeah, I’ll be fine…”

  Ryan’s cell phone rang the next morning. He grabbed it on the first ring.

  “You should see this place,” Katarina said. “That lake is freakishly blue.”

  A great wave of relief broke over Ryan. “Katarina, where are you?”

  “Lake Tahoe. Have you ever been here?”

  “No. How did you get there?”

  “I hitched.”

  “Are you crazy?” His relief washed back out to sea. “You hitchhiked across California?”

  “It’s okay, old man, truckers are hella cool, and yesterday I got from Sacramento to Tahoe with this family—they even took me out in their boat. The lake is beyond blue. I mean blue. Have you seen blue? You haven’t even seen blue.”

  “Where did you sleep? How much money do you have?”

  “Almost twenty-five bucks,” she said. “Last night I snuck into this crazy mansion at Emerald Bay—the ranger-guy shit a brick when he found me, but then the dude cooked pancakes. I tried to explain the soul to him and—”

  “Katarina, listen to me.”

  “Ryan, it’s gonna blow you and Foster away.”

  “I want you to go to a bus station. I will buy you a ticket online—what city are you in?”

  “I think I’m in Nevada.”

  Ryan sighed. “There should be an address on the pay phone.”

  “Um, South Lake Tahoe—what a stupid name for a town.”

  “Okay, give me the number of that pay phone and stay right there. I’ll buy you a bus ticket and call you right back.”

  “I’m not taking a bus.”

  “Katarina, please.”

  “What? I’m seeing the world. Everyone is really nice. I haven’t even had to buy food.”

  “I’ll have Emmy pick you up. Just stay where you are. I’ll call her right now.”

  Her voice switched to impatient. “Ryan, I’m coming to Hardale to work with you and Foster. I’ll be there in a couple of days. I’ve got it figured out. Foster will be stoked. Later.”

  “Wait!”

  She was quiet, but Ryan could hear background noise. He said, “I’ll come and get you.”

  “That’s stupid.”

  “Please don’t hitchhike. Please.”

  “I’ll call you every time I’m near a phone—will that work for you, Ryan McParanoid?”

  “Katarina—”

  “I’m hanging up now.”

  “Katarina, I love you.”

  “Yeah, I know.” She hung up the phone.

  Foster 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.”

  Katarina 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?”