The God Patent
Authors: Ransom Stephens
PRAISE FOR
THE GOD PATENT
“What distinguishes this classic battle between faith and free will is its unusually deft infusion of legitimate but accessible science… An ambitious first novel that uses Stephens’ experience as a particle physicist, director of patents, public speaker and single father in a narrative that sings of the heart and the scientific method as two parts of the same song.”
–
San Francisco Chronicle
“
The God Patent
tackles the biggest question in the universe in a brand new way. Who knew science could be this entertaining? Stephens takes on technology, existentialism, and confronts religious dogma, in a novel that will provoke the ultimate water cooler conversation.”
–Kemble Scott, bestselling author of
The Sower
and
SoMa
“When software engineers ruled the world… The heart of this tale is a science-versus-religion battle over a couple of patents that promise to unlock the secrets of the universe and turn the power of God into an ExxonMobil wet dream… Ransom Stephens skillfully weaves together multiple plot lines and characters in a fast moving story that kept me hungry for the denouement and some baby back ribs. I loved hating the bad guys in
The God Patent
…. Ransom Stephens got it right.”
–
Book Case
“The God Patent really drew me in, not just because of the hard-charging plot and the vivid characters but also because this story is wrapped around one of the central conflicts of our time: faith in science versus faith in religion. Ransom, to his credit, avoids easy or didactic answers. Instead he pulls readers into a dense and nuanced argument that leaves us buzzing with questions.”
–Tamim Ansary, bestselling author of
Games Without Rules
and
Destiny Disrupted
.
“This story of life, physics and spirituality will blow your mind. You won’t put it down until the last page, and when you look up, you will see the world in a totally different way.”
–Joe Quirk, bestselling author of
The Ultimate Rush
and
Exult
The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.
Text copyright © 2009 by Ransom Stephens
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.
Published by 47North
P.O. Box 400818
Las Vegas, NV 89140
ISBN-13: 9781611099126
ISBN-10: 1611099129
Library of Congress Control Number: 2012951473
For Karen, who both loved and tolerated me the whole time I wrote this.
In memory of Uncle Sherman, whose tail went thump, thump, thump after every revision…except this one.
T
he constable set the arrest warrant on the counter between them.
Ryan, stalling for something to say, scraped dirty oil from under his thumbnail with a screwdriver. Jail meant he had no other options. It was tempting to relax in this pool of defeat, but no, he never wanted to be that man again.
The constable said, “Don’t make sense to me how jailing you helps anybody. If you can’t pay your child support changin’ oil, how you gonna do it from jail?”
“Officer, the judge won’t reduce my child support, and there aren’t any jobs that pay anything close to what I was making when Linda threw me out.” His words flowed together. “I’m not allowed within a hundred feet of my son, I want my wife back, I want my family back, but I can’t even—”
The constable, well over six feet tall, had to lean forward on the counter to make his eyes level with Ryan’s, and, as he did, his eyes narrowed in recognition. “Ryan McNear. Didn’t you used to coach peanut league football?”
“Um, yeah.” Struggling to recover some poise, Ryan forced himself to speak slowly. “I coached my son’s team two years ago, the Shorthorns.” He licked his lips into a smile. Framed by his chisel-cut jaw, and in the light of blue eyes and auburn wire-brush hair, his smile looked calm and warm, and sometimes it was, but
not now. Ryan’s wet-lipped grin was his response to stress. As a boy, he used that smile to soften arguments between his sisters; in school it broke up fights; in business it brought opposing sides together. It gave the appearance that he saw humor in the situation, that he couldn’t be rattled, and, in so doing, it disarmed conflict. Pretending to look down at the counter, he stole a glance at the name tag above the constable’s badge. “Holcomb? Bill Holcomb?” And as he spoke the name he remembered, “Your son—Willie, right? Didn’t he get hurt in our first game?”
“Yes sir, he did.”
Ryan leaned back on his heels and set the screwdriver next to the cash register. Along with his smile, the movement gave the illusion of confidence, but the memory of Willie Holcomb screaming in pain felt like another count against him.
“After the cast come off, my boy wanted nothing to do with football,” Holcomb said. “Nothing I could say would get him back on the field—until you called. I don’t know what you said, but he’s turning into quite a linebacker.” He squinted at Ryan’s name tag. “Assistant manager? I thought you were an engineer. What happened?”
Ryan shut the door to the garage, directed Holcomb to the waiting room, then sat next to him and told the story. Not the complete story—that would have sent him straight to jail—but he couldn’t have described all his failures in ten minutes anyway. Holcomb nodded occasionally and barely blinked. Ryan finished with the words he’d said to a judge six months ago. They hadn’t helped then. “I made plenty of mistakes, but all I can do is keep trying to fix them.”
“And I’m here to arrest you.” Holcomb, with his elbows on his knees, rested his face in his hands and started speaking. He didn’t stop for fifteen minutes. He talked about what it takes to break a man. Maybe he’d seen it in his job, but it sounded to Ryan
as though he had walked close to the line himself. For Ryan, it had been a line of white powder, a line that he’d crossed. As the constable spoke, he looked out the window past the cars waiting to have their oil changed to the used car lots down the street, and by the time he focused on the tired cinder-block saloon next door, he was talking about his wife and children and how the smallest decisions can destroy the greatest dreams.
Finally, he looked at Ryan. “Sometimes it just don’t seem like justice is very just.” He stood, handed Ryan the arrest warrant, and ran his hand along his belt, over his sidearm, past the radio module. “I have to cuff you,” he said and stared deep into Ryan’s eyes.
Ryan’s smile disappeared.
“You see, I have to handcuff you,” Holcomb continued, “but danged if I didn’t leave my cuffs out in the cruiser. I’ll have to go back out and get them and, before I come back in, I think I’ll call my wife just to hear her say she loves me, just to check in. A man only gets so many chances in life, you know what I’m sayin’?” He paused for a second, shook his head, and added, “What you’re going through scares hell out of me.” Then he tipped his hat as though offering a farewell, turned his back, and stepped toward the front door.
Ryan looked down at the arrest warrant and wondered if he’d ever get a chance to put his life back together. For the hundredth time that day, like every day, he recalled the last time he’d seen Sean, his son, and how the look of disappointment on the boy’s face had turned to scorn and then to tears. Only one thing could dull the pain of that memory, but Ryan had sworn he’d never surrender to that desire again.
He looked up, out the shop window, and saw Holcomb open the cruiser door and climb in.
Ryan did a double take.
He could see Holcomb’s handcuffs dangling from his waist as he climbed into the car.
Ryan set down the screwdriver, picked up the arrest warrant, took a deep breath, and decided to make his second chance count.
