19. No Coincidences
It was a boring day at the hospital in Baseball, CenFlo. It was plenty busy in the hospital. There was just nothing for the security people to do. Ransom was in the parking lot headed for the break room when he heard Julius, another officer who was walking with him, curse loudly.
"What is it, Julius?" It was an old car parked in the executive parking lot. Julius ran to go look at it. He appeared to be salivating.
"My grandpa used to have one of these. A 1978 Dodge Charger, perfect showroom condition!"
"Yeah." said Ransom. "It looks like it should be in a museum."
"Holy shit! Ransom, look at the tires."
"What? They're black."
"These are Fukuyama brand Immortal tires. Each tire is worth more than the whole car."
"Immortal tires?"
"It's a new technology. There are tiny veins in the tire that run out from the hub. They carry rubber molecules out to the edge of the tire and rebuild the tread lost from driving. These tires never need to be replaced."
"Sounds convenient." said Ransom.
"Not totally." An older man approached the two officers an leaned on the hood of the car. "Every six months of regular driving, one has to remember to refill a small reservoir under the hood with a hydrocarbon feedstock. These tires were a gift to me from The Nippon Fullerene Corporation. Right now, they are working on a tire that would make rubber without needing a feedstock. It would utilize carbon dioxide and water vapor absorbed from the air."
"This is your car?" asked Julius.
"Yes." he answered.
"I'm sorry sir. These spaces are reserved for hospital administrators."
"I am an administrator."
"But every car needs a decal on the windshield. This car doesn't have one."
The man sighed. "Why are young people always so eager to sacrifice the spirit of the law for the letter of the law?"
While Julius and the man were speaking, Ransom pointed his wristserver at the man's face and asked it to search the employee database for the man's face. After a second, the watch beeped, and Ransom looked at the display.
Dr Atom Dacron, MD, CD
Senior Vice President
World Healthcare Division
Seventh Day Wellness Corporation
Special Note: In 2025, Dr Atom Dacron, along with three collegues, won the Templehouse
Prize for the Advancement of Science and Religion for his role in developing the QGT, Quantum Gravity Tomography, the most advanced medical scanning technology known to man.
"Hey, Julius. I think it's okay for him to park here. He's like our bosses, bosses, bosses, boss."
"I think you forgot a few bosses. But that's fine. Hello, I'm Dr Dacron. But you boys can call me Atom."
"Sorry for the inconvenience, sir." Ransom nodded and turned to walk away.
"Actually, I would like to speak to one of you. You, Mr Archer."
Ransom looked at Julius and shrugged. Julius left. Ransom suddenly started to worry once he realized that his name tag didn't give his last name.
Dr Dacron made his way around the classic muscle car and opened the passenger side door. "Let's take a ride, Ransom."
"Uh... where are we going?"
"I want to talk with you about something. We're gonna take a ride down to my office, in downtown Orlando."
Ransom couldn't believe it. Why would a top level executive of a Big Ten corporation, a man who prolly had more power than the governor of Central Florida, want to speak with him? Might as well ask. "What do you want to talk about?"
"About how you cost our company over a hundred million dollars in revenue."
"What?"
"Calm down. A hundred million dollars isn't as much money as it used to be." Dr Dacron started up the Charger. The sound of the primitive carburetor-fed gasoline engine starting up sounded deafening to Ransom. "Are you getting in, or not?"
Ransom had that vague feeling of angst, that feeling that he was in trouble, but he had done so many things wrong in his life, he didn't know what exactly had finally caught up with him. "What is this about, sir?"
"You're an intelligent young man." said the doctor.
"Huh?" said Ransom.
"I said that I think you're a smart young man."
"I'm a college dropout who makes sure people don't park illegally for a living."
"So you have problems applying your intelligence for practical means. Don't underestimate people because they have a lazy job."
Lazy? Who the Hell does this guy think he is? Someone apparently rich and important, thought Ransom.
"Most people, college degree or not, cannot name the Big Ten corporations off the top of their head. Funny, considering these ten corporations hold so much power." said the doctor.
"Uh..."
"Go ahead, Ransom. Name all of the Big Ten."
"Um..."
"Humor me. I'm old. Name all ten corporations, their world headquarters city, and their main industrial product."
"Okay... United Cell and Clone, Shanghai, they produce donor cells, tissues and transplant organs."
"Okay."
"World Motor Company, Detroit, cars, vehicles. Terra Pharma, Raleigh Durham, pharmacueticals. ABM, San Francisco, computer hardware. EuroSpace, Stuttgart, aerospace jets and satellites."
"That's five. Five more."
"General Telepresence, New York, media. HGP Biotech, Boston, gmo livestock and agriculture. Fuzion Energy Corporation. Houston, energy. Nippon Fullerene, Tokyo, electronics and nanotech."
"And last but not least."
"Seventh Day Wellness Corporation, Orlando, health care and opium."
"Opium?" Dr Dacron took his eyes off the road to look at Ransom. "Seventh Day does not produce opium. Okay, I think we subsidize one small farm in Afghanistan. But compared to Terra Pharma Company, the amount we make is miniscule."
"I mean the opium of the masses. Seventh Day owns the Transadventist Church, which is now the largest Protestant denomination in the world."
The doctor looked angry. Ransom didn't care. He could argue all night long on the Net. Why not real life? He had nothing to lose.
"Seventh Day does not own the Transadventist Church, it's the other way around, and you know this."
"Okay."
"My point," said Dr Dacron, "in getting you to name all ten corporations was to remind you that each of those corporations carved their massive domain out of the economic upheaval of the teens through innovation. For example, World Motors perfected the fuel cell powered engine. And in the teens when most of the computer hardware industry believed that Moore's Law would be broken by the skyrocketing cost of improving processor manufacturing, ABM in California used nanotech assembler technology to create smaller transistors. And they took processor technology to a new dimension by assembling the circuits into crystal lattice structures, instead of conventional flat microchips. Innovation is not just good for a business. It's vital if a company expects to survive."
"Gotcha."
The doctor looked at him incredulously. "I suppose you think it's wrong for a church to run a business. Even if that business is non-profit."
"How many Hindus or Muslims does your company have on your board of directors?"
"Hmmm. Two Muslims, would you believe? You should know that the Transadventist church believes that religious liberty is essential for salvation. We take freedom very seriously. We do not believe in pushing our religion on anybody. Which is why when the Transadventist Church incorporated Seventh Day, it established a strong policy of separation of church and company."
"Except when it comes to money. You guys raid the Transadventist coffers whenever you need to acquire another hospital. How is using religion to build a business considered innovation?"
"We make it clear to church members that a certain percentage of the offerings and tithes go to the healing ministry." Dr Dacron sighed, "The American people were sick and disillusioned with the power-mongering of the Christian Right. When spiritual hunger became stronger than ever before in the early twenty-first century, people turned to the Transadventist Church which stayed true to the original spirit of the Seventh-Day Adventist Church, in that it treated the separation of Church and State as a spiritual imperative. That's where the innovation comes in. Even though it's an idea as old as Jesus himself. We refuse to use our assets to influence government and whore our church for political power. The Adventist Church was founded by members of the body of Christ who refused to compromise their faith in exchange for control."
"I thought that the Adventist Church was founded by a seventeen year-old girl who couldn't get over the, Great Disappointment." said Ransom
"Ah... Okay, you know your history. But you know that the Transadventist Church is a reformation of the Adventist Church. So characterizing us by nineteenth century millennialism would be as misplaced as blaming the modern Vatican for the persecution of Galileo. We did away with the old heretical dogmas. Adventist founder Ellen White is recognized as the flawed human she was, and not considered a prophetess. We don't look down on Catholics and Sunday-worshiping Protestant brothers. And we no longer presume to set dates for the Day of the Lord Almighty. Can other Evangelical churches claim that they've done away with their heresies? Take the old family values heresy for example."
"Family values is not a heresy, doctor." said Ransom.
"Family values are very important. An undeniable part of God's plan. But any values that become so esteemed that they are placed over love and obedience to God, they become an idol. Is it right to deny homosexuals their basic needs, like health care and employment, in the name of family values? Wasn't Jesus who said that you must hate your family for the gospel's sake? And what about the other dogmas that seem to overshadow the gospel in the modern Evangelical church? School prayer. Creation science. What about the pro-life movement?"
"No matter how much of a pretty picture you try to paint of Seventh Day, it doesn't change the fact that it's a business. It's biggest concern is money." said Ransom.
"You can call it one thing, but I can call it another. It's the healing ministry of Christ."
"It's interesting how you doctors like to compare yourselves to Jesus."
"There is no way we can be like Jesus. It's futile to think we can heal the world on our own. But until He returns, we must strive to follow His example. We must bring health and healing as much as possible to the world, and treat each patient as an individual of infinite worth."
"I bet that your finance department has no trouble assigning a dollar value to these infinitely valuable people."
The doctor let out a sigh, almost a growl. "How loud do I have to yell for you to hear me over your youthful cynicism?"
"Why don't you just show me whatever confession I need to sign so that you can fire me and we can get this over with."
The doctor was silent for a while. "Do you believe in coincidences, Ransom?"
"Yeah, I guess so."
"I don't. There are no coincidences. Everything happens for a reason. For example, when a poor African immigrant came to my clinic for a QGT scan, who knew that we would become friends and he would make me a part of an organization that would change the world?"
"Claude Virunga." said Ransom.
"The most extraordinary man I've ever met. Not a perfect man, by any means. But his fervent faith could move mountains. Three years ago, when he won the Templehouse Prize for the Advancement of Science and Religion, he gave the entire ten million dollar prize to medical research. He didn't keep a single penny. Does this sound like someone who's biggest concern is money?"
"No." said Ransom.
"I've been looking for the right man. When you came to my attention after causing our company to lose so much money, I foolishly thought that it was only a coincidence that we had met before. But when I saw that you were also an employee of Seventh Day, I knew that this was God's will."
"Wait, we've met before? When?"
The doctor took his eyes off the road to look straight at Ransom, "Data."
Ransom was speechless.
"You see, Ransom. I didn't come to fire you. I wouldn't have bothered with that. No. I brought you here to offer you job. A job for which you will be well compensated. But a job that has risks, including including the risk of loss of life." By this time, they had reached Dr Dacron's private parking space in the garage. The gasoline fired engine shuttered mightily when he switched off the ignition.
"What job?"
"Not yet. Your lack of faith is a problem. I need to make sure you know the full scope of my dilemma." The doctor got out of the car. He headed towards the stair and motioned for Ransom to follow. "Come on. I have much to show you."
"What is it, Julius?" It was an old car parked in the executive parking lot. Julius ran to go look at it. He appeared to be salivating.
"My grandpa used to have one of these. A 1978 Dodge Charger, perfect showroom condition!"
"Yeah." said Ransom. "It looks like it should be in a museum."
"Holy shit! Ransom, look at the tires."
"What? They're black."
"These are Fukuyama brand Immortal tires. Each tire is worth more than the whole car."
"Immortal tires?"
"It's a new technology. There are tiny veins in the tire that run out from the hub. They carry rubber molecules out to the edge of the tire and rebuild the tread lost from driving. These tires never need to be replaced."
"Sounds convenient." said Ransom.
"Not totally." An older man approached the two officers an leaned on the hood of the car. "Every six months of regular driving, one has to remember to refill a small reservoir under the hood with a hydrocarbon feedstock. These tires were a gift to me from The Nippon Fullerene Corporation. Right now, they are working on a tire that would make rubber without needing a feedstock. It would utilize carbon dioxide and water vapor absorbed from the air."
"This is your car?" asked Julius.
"Yes." he answered.
"I'm sorry sir. These spaces are reserved for hospital administrators."
"I am an administrator."
"But every car needs a decal on the windshield. This car doesn't have one."
The man sighed. "Why are young people always so eager to sacrifice the spirit of the law for the letter of the law?"
While Julius and the man were speaking, Ransom pointed his wristserver at the man's face and asked it to search the employee database for the man's face. After a second, the watch beeped, and Ransom looked at the display.
Dr Atom Dacron, MD, CD
Senior Vice President
World Healthcare Division
Seventh Day Wellness Corporation
Special Note: In 2025, Dr Atom Dacron, along with three collegues, won the Templehouse
Prize for the Advancement of Science and Religion for his role in developing the QGT, Quantum Gravity Tomography, the most advanced medical scanning technology known to man.
"Hey, Julius. I think it's okay for him to park here. He's like our bosses, bosses, bosses, boss."
"I think you forgot a few bosses. But that's fine. Hello, I'm Dr Dacron. But you boys can call me Atom."
"Sorry for the inconvenience, sir." Ransom nodded and turned to walk away.
"Actually, I would like to speak to one of you. You, Mr Archer."
Ransom looked at Julius and shrugged. Julius left. Ransom suddenly started to worry once he realized that his name tag didn't give his last name.
Dr Dacron made his way around the classic muscle car and opened the passenger side door. "Let's take a ride, Ransom."
"Uh... where are we going?"
"I want to talk with you about something. We're gonna take a ride down to my office, in downtown Orlando."
Ransom couldn't believe it. Why would a top level executive of a Big Ten corporation, a man who prolly had more power than the governor of Central Florida, want to speak with him? Might as well ask. "What do you want to talk about?"
"About how you cost our company over a hundred million dollars in revenue."
"What?"
"Calm down. A hundred million dollars isn't as much money as it used to be." Dr Dacron started up the Charger. The sound of the primitive carburetor-fed gasoline engine starting up sounded deafening to Ransom. "Are you getting in, or not?"
Ransom had that vague feeling of angst, that feeling that he was in trouble, but he had done so many things wrong in his life, he didn't know what exactly had finally caught up with him. "What is this about, sir?"
"You're an intelligent young man." said the doctor.
"Huh?" said Ransom.
"I said that I think you're a smart young man."
"I'm a college dropout who makes sure people don't park illegally for a living."
"So you have problems applying your intelligence for practical means. Don't underestimate people because they have a lazy job."
Lazy? Who the Hell does this guy think he is? Someone apparently rich and important, thought Ransom.
"Most people, college degree or not, cannot name the Big Ten corporations off the top of their head. Funny, considering these ten corporations hold so much power." said the doctor.
"Uh..."
"Go ahead, Ransom. Name all of the Big Ten."
"Um..."
"Humor me. I'm old. Name all ten corporations, their world headquarters city, and their main industrial product."
"Okay... United Cell and Clone, Shanghai, they produce donor cells, tissues and transplant organs."
"Okay."
"World Motor Company, Detroit, cars, vehicles. Terra Pharma, Raleigh Durham, pharmacueticals. ABM, San Francisco, computer hardware. EuroSpace, Stuttgart, aerospace jets and satellites."
"That's five. Five more."
"General Telepresence, New York, media. HGP Biotech, Boston, gmo livestock and agriculture. Fuzion Energy Corporation. Houston, energy. Nippon Fullerene, Tokyo, electronics and nanotech."
"And last but not least."
"Seventh Day Wellness Corporation, Orlando, health care and opium."
"Opium?" Dr Dacron took his eyes off the road to look at Ransom. "Seventh Day does not produce opium. Okay, I think we subsidize one small farm in Afghanistan. But compared to Terra Pharma Company, the amount we make is miniscule."
"I mean the opium of the masses. Seventh Day owns the Transadventist Church, which is now the largest Protestant denomination in the world."
The doctor looked angry. Ransom didn't care. He could argue all night long on the Net. Why not real life? He had nothing to lose.
"Seventh Day does not own the Transadventist Church, it's the other way around, and you know this."
"Okay."
"My point," said Dr Dacron, "in getting you to name all ten corporations was to remind you that each of those corporations carved their massive domain out of the economic upheaval of the teens through innovation. For example, World Motors perfected the fuel cell powered engine. And in the teens when most of the computer hardware industry believed that Moore's Law would be broken by the skyrocketing cost of improving processor manufacturing, ABM in California used nanotech assembler technology to create smaller transistors. And they took processor technology to a new dimension by assembling the circuits into crystal lattice structures, instead of conventional flat microchips. Innovation is not just good for a business. It's vital if a company expects to survive."
"Gotcha."
The doctor looked at him incredulously. "I suppose you think it's wrong for a church to run a business. Even if that business is non-profit."
"How many Hindus or Muslims does your company have on your board of directors?"
"Hmmm. Two Muslims, would you believe? You should know that the Transadventist church believes that religious liberty is essential for salvation. We take freedom very seriously. We do not believe in pushing our religion on anybody. Which is why when the Transadventist Church incorporated Seventh Day, it established a strong policy of separation of church and company."
"Except when it comes to money. You guys raid the Transadventist coffers whenever you need to acquire another hospital. How is using religion to build a business considered innovation?"
"We make it clear to church members that a certain percentage of the offerings and tithes go to the healing ministry." Dr Dacron sighed, "The American people were sick and disillusioned with the power-mongering of the Christian Right. When spiritual hunger became stronger than ever before in the early twenty-first century, people turned to the Transadventist Church which stayed true to the original spirit of the Seventh-Day Adventist Church, in that it treated the separation of Church and State as a spiritual imperative. That's where the innovation comes in. Even though it's an idea as old as Jesus himself. We refuse to use our assets to influence government and whore our church for political power. The Adventist Church was founded by members of the body of Christ who refused to compromise their faith in exchange for control."
"I thought that the Adventist Church was founded by a seventeen year-old girl who couldn't get over the, Great Disappointment." said Ransom
"Ah... Okay, you know your history. But you know that the Transadventist Church is a reformation of the Adventist Church. So characterizing us by nineteenth century millennialism would be as misplaced as blaming the modern Vatican for the persecution of Galileo. We did away with the old heretical dogmas. Adventist founder Ellen White is recognized as the flawed human she was, and not considered a prophetess. We don't look down on Catholics and Sunday-worshiping Protestant brothers. And we no longer presume to set dates for the Day of the Lord Almighty. Can other Evangelical churches claim that they've done away with their heresies? Take the old family values heresy for example."
"Family values is not a heresy, doctor." said Ransom.
"Family values are very important. An undeniable part of God's plan. But any values that become so esteemed that they are placed over love and obedience to God, they become an idol. Is it right to deny homosexuals their basic needs, like health care and employment, in the name of family values? Wasn't Jesus who said that you must hate your family for the gospel's sake? And what about the other dogmas that seem to overshadow the gospel in the modern Evangelical church? School prayer. Creation science. What about the pro-life movement?"
"No matter how much of a pretty picture you try to paint of Seventh Day, it doesn't change the fact that it's a business. It's biggest concern is money." said Ransom.
"You can call it one thing, but I can call it another. It's the healing ministry of Christ."
"It's interesting how you doctors like to compare yourselves to Jesus."
"There is no way we can be like Jesus. It's futile to think we can heal the world on our own. But until He returns, we must strive to follow His example. We must bring health and healing as much as possible to the world, and treat each patient as an individual of infinite worth."
"I bet that your finance department has no trouble assigning a dollar value to these infinitely valuable people."
The doctor let out a sigh, almost a growl. "How loud do I have to yell for you to hear me over your youthful cynicism?"
"Why don't you just show me whatever confession I need to sign so that you can fire me and we can get this over with."
The doctor was silent for a while. "Do you believe in coincidences, Ransom?"
"Yeah, I guess so."
"I don't. There are no coincidences. Everything happens for a reason. For example, when a poor African immigrant came to my clinic for a QGT scan, who knew that we would become friends and he would make me a part of an organization that would change the world?"
"Claude Virunga." said Ransom.
"The most extraordinary man I've ever met. Not a perfect man, by any means. But his fervent faith could move mountains. Three years ago, when he won the Templehouse Prize for the Advancement of Science and Religion, he gave the entire ten million dollar prize to medical research. He didn't keep a single penny. Does this sound like someone who's biggest concern is money?"
"No." said Ransom.
"I've been looking for the right man. When you came to my attention after causing our company to lose so much money, I foolishly thought that it was only a coincidence that we had met before. But when I saw that you were also an employee of Seventh Day, I knew that this was God's will."
"Wait, we've met before? When?"
The doctor took his eyes off the road to look straight at Ransom, "Data."
Ransom was speechless.
"You see, Ransom. I didn't come to fire you. I wouldn't have bothered with that. No. I brought you here to offer you job. A job for which you will be well compensated. But a job that has risks, including including the risk of loss of life." By this time, they had reached Dr Dacron's private parking space in the garage. The gasoline fired engine shuttered mightily when he switched off the ignition.
"What job?"
"Not yet. Your lack of faith is a problem. I need to make sure you know the full scope of my dilemma." The doctor got out of the car. He headed towards the stair and motioned for Ransom to follow. "Come on. I have much to show you."
posted by Graham at 4:37 AM
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