The God Patent (8 page)

“I believe it to the very core of my spirit. Look, I spent the last few years studying relativistic quantum field theory. It’s amazing how our two patents fit together.”

Typical Foster: the enthusiasm freight train blew right by Ryan’s admission that he knew something was cooking. He tried to spell it out. “Do we have any rights to those patents?”

“Rights? What do you mean?” Ryan thought he heard a suspicious edge in Foster’s voice.

“That’s sort of why I called. I signed this lease and—”

Foster made his confused
tsk
sound and said, “No, we have no rights—they’re owned by the university. We both signed the patent rights waiver, remember?”

“Yeah, I know, it’s just that I have this crazy landlord and—”

“But you know what?” Foster’s confusion converted back to enthusiasm. “We’re going to need a software director. Funding is kind of short right now, but we’re getting calls from investors all the time.”

“I just got here, signed a lease.” Part of him wanted to level with Foster and admit that he couldn’t go back to Texas because he’d go to jail, but pride got in the way. “I need to stand on my own two, you know?”

“This is the opportunity of a lifetime.”

“Yeah, that’s what my stockbroker said when I bought WorldCom at fifty bucks a share.”

They both laughed.

“Ryan, God was watching over our shoulders that day.”

“Foster, listen.” Ryan took a breath. “I signed a lease that gave my landlord twenty-five percent of my rights to those patents—”

“You don’t have rights to them.”

“I thought so too, but this guy—”

“We’re going to get major funding, and I’m going to need your help.” Foster paused, and Ryan could practically hear him look at his watch. “I have to go to a meeting now, but keep it in mind. This is big, Ryan. I understand that you need to prove a few things to yourself, but remember, I’ll be praying for you.”

“Foster, wait—my landlord thinks that—”

“Ryan, I have to go. E-mail me your address. I’ll mail you my book.”

It took his computer almost a full minute to bring up an e-mail window, and by the time it got there, Ryan was scrolling through the patents. He’d always felt funny about them, and now he realized why. It wasn’t because he thought they were bogus—it was because he’d always had this niggling feeling that they might not be bogus.

In his office downstairs, Dodge hung up the phone. He picked up the revolver and tapped it on the gavel pad a few times.

He loved watching the cards being dealt. Two new ones: the ace, that Foster Reed thought the technology could actually be developed, could mean a lot more money; and the deuce, that Foster might offer Ryan a job, could blow the whole scam.

His sister, Emmy, was the wild card.

He twirled the pistol on his finger like a gunslinger. “Timing. Timing and patience. Wait until these bozos smell cash, show them the wild card, let them sweat, and then pull the trigger while the pot is full.

“Bang.”

P
rofessor Foster Reed waited backstage, back-sanctuary really. This was the sixth huge church he’d been invited to. The ten-thousand-strong Greatest Good Christian Center in Alexandria, Virginia, had video screens showing the preacher from every angle, spotlights, and an acoustically tuned ceiling. Foster, like a paladin adjusting his armor before battle, tightened his tie and made sure his shirt was tucked in and his coat properly buttoned. The internal battle between faith in God and doubt in himself was a sure sign that he would be introduced soon. Every congregation he’d visited had been thrilled to welcome him, Foster Reed, a scientist defending Genesis on the atheists’ turf, but that initial excitement always dissolved into boredom, if not contempt, by the time he finished. At home, up in Evangelical Word University’s ivory tower, this sermon, more like a lecture really, seemed guaranteed to deliver the support he would need when the battle grew pitched.

The battle itself, though—that was a different problem. The project could survive but couldn’t move forward without substantial financial support. He knew better than to doubt that the right support would arrive at the right time. Not the time he thought was right, but at the time God made right. He would wait. Through Foster’s entire life, every seeming coincidence had
pushed him farther along this path. It was this knowledge, so certain in his heart, that impaled him with shame when self-doubt tried to possess him.

The preacher, a man in his sixties with big eyes and a bigger smile, spoke softly. “We are under attack.” His voice got louder with each word. “The courts tear down the commandments, evolutionists and homosexuals demean the Bible, and the humanists silence prayer in the schools you pay for.” He paused between sentences to let the audience know it was time to yell a “Hallelujah!” or an “Amen!” And when that crowd responded, it was probably loud enough to be heard clear to Washington, DC. Foster hoped so, anyway.

The preacher paused, scanning every row of the stadium, and then spoke softly. “Today, I present to you the man who will return the Word of God to science…”

The word
science
brought Foster to his feet.

A few scattered
Amen
s echoed up to the stage. “…Professor Foster Reed.” The preacher turned to face Foster and applauded.

The congregation joined in applause as Foster walked out. He shook hands with the preacher and, though he considered applause inappropriate in God’s House, beamed at the congregation. One woman who had sung loud enough for Foster to make out her voice among the thousands, looked content but determined, her jaw clenched so that her lips made a horizontal line. In a row behind her, a black man with a shaved head wearing a brown three-piece suit was scowling.

He waited for the woman to make eye contact. A thin older gentleman in the front row wearing a bow tie but looking as though he’d be more comfortable in coveralls returned a welcoming smile. Foster switched on the headset microphone. The lights, too bright to see past the first dozen rows, warmed his skin to a righteous glow. He took his time, glanced at his notes,
and absorbed the congregation’s faith. He felt his jaw tighten and the muscles down his back grow rigid. The inspiration, like everything else in his life, was there, not when he wanted it but when he needed it.

“Several years ago, when I was an engineer at a high-tech company, God guided me to a discovery. Like Paul on the road to Damascus, I was confused…” He told the story of the day he and Ryan had written the patent submissions, trying to impart his belief that they’d been guided by the Lord that day—but the thin old man’s eyes narrowed as though he were dozing off, the woman looked past him into the sanctuary, and the black man shook his head.

Foster stopped. It just wasn’t working. He fought a feeling of contempt for these people—they should embrace science, but instead, science offended them. He looked through his notes. The woman finally looked back at him, but she wasn’t happy. The black man snickered and looked away.

In that instant, Foster felt alone, a foreign feeling that contradicted his faith. He hadn’t felt this way since he was a child. Back in first grade he’d gotten lost during a field trip to a museum. He’d been meandering along, and when he turned around, no one was there. He went back the way he’d come but took a wrong turn and ended up alone in a huge room of gothic portraits. With all those strange faces staring down at him, he started to cry. Staring at the floor, he moped to another room and nearly walked into a wall. There, in front of him, as though greeting him personally, was a painting with a boy about his age being guided by two people in robes. As he sat in front of that painting, his fear and loneliness were replaced by warmth and strength. He talked to the boy in the painting, and when he asked the boy a question, the answer came to him. In that presence he could feel no loneliness. Finally, his classmates entered the room. His
teacher, surprised that she’d found him before realizing he had been missing, read the title,
Jesus Found in the Temple
, and told him it was painted by a man named Tissot.

Foster fumbled his notes. The pages fluttered around the stage, and he staggered about trying to collect them. Then he caught himself. On one knee with the pages a mess in his hand, the image of Jesus in that painting came back to him. As though something were lifting him up, he stood. The sheets of paper scattered about the stage, and he said one word: “Science.”

He waited.

The black man turned away and the woman scowled.

This time he yelled: “Science!”

A few muffled hems and haws echoed in response.

“Why don’t we embrace science? Why can’t you embrace science?”

The black man responded in a full-volume baritone, “Because it violates the Word.”

Foster dropped the pages still in his hand and stepped to the edge of the stage. “Science is the ultimate expression of God’s work. It can’t violate the Word.” The room went silent. “He gave us minds so that we could understand. The intellectual thieves of the scientific establishment stole science from us. They reject God, and in response we reject science.” He paced across the stage. “Do you believe in the Big Bang?”

The parish chanted, “No.”

Foster said, “The Bible is infallible, but it leaves out a lot of detail. My lab is filling in those details. The Big Bang is a fine theory, but it’s not finished.” Foster reached out. “When it’s all said and done, science will verify everything in the Bible. There can be no contradictions.”

Scattered voices responded, “Amen.”

He looked down and shuffled his feet. “Those scientists, they don’t believe.” Then he looked up and spoke with conviction. “But they will.

“That day in that Dallas laboratory, the Lord guided me to the key—the key that will unlock the glory of God as written in the laws of nature. In the coming months, you’ll hear from both sides in the battle between good and evil, the moral and the amoral, between faith and atheism. As I bring this new discovery into the world and demonstrate how God acts in the material world, as I submit proof to the faithless, we will face great opposition. I will be challenged and we will face doubt, but our faith must guide us. You know this to be true. As God grants us His power in a culture that has been ruled by the cold, sterile, faithless tools of science for the last century, that world will rise against us, and we must be prepared.”

Foster paused, crossed his arms, and raised his head so that he spoke to the rafters. “I will fight for you, for God, for Jesus.” Then he dropped his gaze straight into the lights and panned across the crowd. “But I can’t do it alone. I’ll call on you to fight this battle, this culture war. Driving the faithless out of our institutions takes more than one man, however well armed. When the entrenched atheists in the scientific establishment raise doubt, I’ll call on you. I’ll rely on you. Raising the power of the Lord from the forces of nature will not be easy. It will not be a spectator sport.”

He leveled his right arm and pointed at the crowd. “I need you at my side. Can I count on you?”

The audience responded with scattered responses of “Yes,” “Amen,” and “Hallelujah.”

“You can count on me,” Foster bellowed. “Can I count on you?”

It generated a louder response: “You can count on me.”

He pointed in another direction. “Can I count on you?” And another. “Can I count on you?” Each iteration generated a louder, more coherent response: “You can count on me!”

He repeated the process until he’d indicated every section of the stadium and then stepped off the stage with the entire auditorium in perfect synch, chanting, “You can count on me!”

The ad-lib lecture took half the time of the one he’d prepared, and as he left the stage, he felt a rush like none he’d felt before. He’d won them over. Ten thousand people in fervent support, whether for letters to Congress, phone calls to newspapers, or e-mails to TV shows, His troops were lining up for battle.

An hour later, exhausted but triumphant, a question danced into his mind. He’d given that lecture half a dozen times, so why did it finally come out the way he’d wanted today? He chuckled to himself, certain that the answer would come soon.