Chapter 1

The local bookstore, like many others, had a small area off to one side. There they served coffee and provided tables where customers could read books, while enjoying their ‘gourmet’ brew. There was a public wifi, and many of the people seated in the coffee area were bent over laptops surfing the web, answering emails, or just writing.

The coffee shop existed with the expectation that the customer might actually buy the books they were reading. What actually happened, was that books collected on the tables, and had to be re-shelved almost hourly. It was probably accurate to say that the bookstore made more money by selling coffee, than by selling books to the people who took advantage of the coffee shop.

One of the regulars at the bookstore coffee shop was a gentleman by the name of Alex Cage. Physically, Alex was not an impressive example of the male gender. He was of average height, average build, brown hair, and brown eyes. Except for the constant expression of distracted introspective thought, he had rather bland facial features.

He was so well known by the people who worked at the bookstore coffee shop, that he didn’t need to order. As soon as they observed him enter the bookstore, they started preparing his coffee. He had a standing account with the coffee shop, on which he prepaid for a month’s worth of coffee on the first of the month. It was a mutually beneficial arrangement in that it stream-lined the process of getting his morning coffee, and made it easy on the staff on those rare occasions when they were particularly busy.

It was a few minutes after ten when Alex Cage entered the bookstore. The barista had noticed him enter, and filled a styrofoam cup with simple black coffee. He put the lid on the cup, and set it on the counter at the same time Alex reached for it. Alex grabbed the cup of coffee and headed to one of the tables. He sat down and took a tentative sip of the hot beverage through the small hole in the lid. Frowning, he removed the plastic lid, and watched the steam rise from the open cup.

He blew across the top of the cup, hoping to speed up the cooling process. He didn’t know if it actually helped or not. As he did most mornings, he vowed to look it up, knowing even as he thought about it that he would forget by the time he returned home. He took another little sip, despite the fact that the coffee was still too hot to drink.

A young woman had been watching him, as he crossed the bookstore and grabbed the coffee without saying a word. She took a deep breath to gather her courage, and walked over to his table. She stopped in front of him and stood there looking at him, as if to get his attention.

When he looked up at her, she signed, “Good morning.”

Surprised at having someone greet him using American Sign Language, he stared at her for moment. Then, with fingers moving twice as fast as hers, Alex signed back, “Good morning.”

They were not using the full expressive version of American Sign Language, with the thousands of hand gestures, but the less complex fingerspelling. Where the woman used slight pauses between words as is proper, he used a rather odd slashing motion with his hand between words.

“Do you mind if I join you?” she signed thinking that trying to keep up with him was going to be a real challenge.

One would think that a single man in his early thirties would spend more than a second giving an attractive young woman the once over; but Alex tended to live inside his mind, and people just didn’t register with him immediately. His thoughts were more concerned with the cup of coffee, which was too hot to drink at the moment.

Alex gestured to the seat across from him, and then signed, “Be my guest.”

The young woman took a seat rather surprised by the indifference with which he looked at her. His eyes seemed to rest on her face or her hand rather than taking in the whole package. In her humble opinion ... well. perhaps not quite that humble ... she felt that she was a very attractive young woman, who should be able to turn the head of a guy like him.

Wondering if he was bothered by her interruption, she signed, “I hope you do not mind me intruding on your reading time, like this. I do not have many chances to practice signing.”

“I am not reading. I am just having my morning coffee,” he signed back, again making that unusual slashing motion between words. He glanced down at his coffee cup and then signed, “How did you know I knew ASL?”

“I saw you signing to someone the other day,” she signed back.

“Oh,” he said trying to remember when he signed in a public place where someone could see him signing. He drew a complete blank.

Surprised to hear him speak without that flatness in voice pitch that many hearing impaired individuals possessed, she said, “You aren’t hearing impaired?”

“No, I’m not,” he answered.

“Oh,” she said somewhat at a loss.

She had honestly felt that he might enjoy a little company with someone who knew ASL. Her brother, who had been totally deaf since birth, often signed about the delight of discovering someone new who knew ASL.

“You look disappointed.”

Flustered, she said, “No. Is your wife or one of your kids deaf?”

“I’m not married; and, if I have kids, I’ve never met them,” he replied with a smile. He had to laugh at the shocked expression on her face.

“So who do you sign to?” she asked.

“Nobody, really,” Alex said. After a moment of thought, he added, “In fact, you’re the first person I’ve ever signed with.”

Convinced that he was lying to her, she frowned while looking at him. She had clearly seen him standing in his front yard, facing the window, and signing for someone to open the garage door. After he had finished signing, the garage door starting opening. He had even signed back a simple thank you. She wondered if he was actually married, and if this lie wasn’t some weird attempt to get into her panties.

Unaware of the effect that his answer had on her, he took another sip of his coffee. It was still a little too hot to comfortably drink it. He blew across the liquid hoping to cool it down a little more. He asked, “Do you know if blowing on hot coffee actually cools it down?”

“I think so. Everyone does it. If I remember correctly, it is cooling the coffee through evaporation,” she answered.

“I know that. Does blowing across the coffee speed up the evaporation process?”

“I’m not sure,” she answered.

“I’m going to have to look that up when I get home,” Alex said thinking that if he really thought about it that he’d know the answer, but it wasn’t really that important.

“Why wait? I’m sure there’s a book here that has the answer,” she said gesturing to the rows of books that filled the bookstore.

“It would take me forever to find it. At home, I’d have the answer in ten seconds or less,” he replied dismissing the entire contents of the bookstore with a lazy wave of one hand.

He took another sip and decided that it had cooled down enough to really drink it. He took a big swallow of the coffee, and then sighed in satisfaction. It was as if he could feel the caffeine rushing into his blood stream.

“I love the first cup of coffee in the morning,” he said.

“I usually have one five minutes after I wake in the morning,” she said.

Looking a little embarrassed, he said, “I don’t have much luck with coffee pots. It’s a lot safer coming here first thing in the morning.”

There was an awful lot of information in his reply that tickled Sherry’s curiosity. For one, what did luck have to do with coffee pots? It’s not like they were rocket science. In addition, it was well after ten, and he was talking about it as though it was the first thing in the morning.

“It’s after ten.”

“I know. I had to get up early today,” he said while scrubbing his face with his left hand. “I’ve got a lunch meeting. Actually, it’ll be a breakfast meeting for me.”

“What time do you normally get up?” she asked.

“Noon or there abouts. It depends, really.”

“On what?”

“Lots of things.”

“Like what?”

“Mostly on when I go to bed. It’s kind of hard to wake up at seven in the morning when you go to bed at eight. I don’t keep regular hours. I’m more likely to cat nap than sleep for eight straight hours like most people. I guess you could say that I don’t keep hours much at all,” Alex answered.

It had taken a reminder to take a heavy duty sleeping pill to get to bed at two in the morning, so that he would wake at nine. He had been rousted out of bed at nine. A quick shower, shave, and scraping the fuzz from his teeth took thirty minutes of his morning. The only caffeine he had gotten before this coffee, was from a half empty can of soda that had been sitting on his desk, since an hour before he had gone to bed. It was flat, room temperature, and served no gastronomic purpose other than to suggest it was something best consumed while fresh and cold.

“It must me nice to have understanding bosses,” she said.

“I don’t work for anyone. I have customers ... and they’re worse than bosses. I can never figure that one out. I have something they need from me, and they give me attitude. One of these days, I’ll give them what they want, made out of pure plastic explosive. Boom! No more customers.”

He took another sip and, figuratively, felt that at least twenty percent of his higher order brain functions were beginning to come on line. Details of his upcoming meeting with his accountant started percolating through his conscious mind. Anytime he wanted to do something, his accountant would start spouting nonsense words involving taxes, assets, and returns on investment, when all he wanted to do was purchase something.

She shook her head and said, “That’s a hell of a way to run a business.”

He took another drink of his coffee and sat there looking at her. He had run out of conversation topics and didn’t know what to say next. He yawned, just barely getting a hand over his mouth in time. The sleeping pill always left a metallic taste in his mouth.

“By the way, I’m Sherry Miller.”

“I’m Alex Cage.”

The name sounded familiar to Sherry, but she couldn’t place it at first; which was odd, since she actually used the name several times a day when talking about her work. When she did realize where she had heard the name before, she discounted the possibility that the man was the individual who she regularly mentioned.

“One of my textbooks is written by Alex Cage,” Sherry said thinking he would be interested in knowing that someone with his name had published a book.

“Which book are you talking about? Neural Nets and Genetic Algorithms or Algorithms in Signal Processing?”

“Neural Nets and Genetic Algorithms,” Sherry answered surprised that he knew about the author Alex Cage.

He frowned in disgust and mumbled, “Evidence of a misspent youth rises once again to bite me on the ass.”

“It’s a great book. Half of my doctoral research is based on applying the concepts laid out in it,” Sherry said.

“Who’s your professor? Gary Tiege?”

“Yes,” Sherry answered, realizing that this man was the famous Dr. Cage. She was also rather pleased that he actually knew her thesis adviser.

“He’s better than most of them.”

“Them?” Sherry asked wondering what he meant by that.

“The ego-driven, wannabe egg-heads.” He snorted at the shocked expression on her face and added, “You know ... university professors.”

Her initial shock at his dismissive attitude towards academicians, turned into amusement. She said, “It sounds to me like you don’t think too much of university professors.”