to shut
one of those down, imagine what money he could make! He made a note
to look into the possibility later. But for now, he had to find a way
to approach this girl. Dammit, she was looking at the clock; this
could only mean she was thinking of leaving the lounge. How could he
make his approach with the time running out? Wasn’t there
supposed to be some kind of anti-anxiety medication you could take
for this situation? Wouldn’t do him any good now without a
prescription and time to get to a pharmacy. There was only one thing
he could do and that was to make an approach and do it now. Now !
Jada
watched the guy get up from the desk and walk over to her. Okay, he
was going to talk to her. She only had five minutes and didn’t
have time to deal with this. So help her God if he tried another line
on her today she was going to slam him in the head with the book. It
was hardbound and over a thousand pages, so it would do some damage.
But the young guy just came over to her and stared at the book. He
continued to stare at it until she closed it, put it down on the
floor and looked up at him.
“ Yes,”
she said. “Did you want something?”
“ The
book,” he said to her. “How far are you into it?”
She told
him the page and subject. He asked her what she thought of it and she
told him Wolfram had some good ideas, but the true test of any
science was how reproducible it was. If the results he claimed were
conclusive, then it would be a new kind of science. But she doubted
it was an entirely new branch, just a subgrouping of an existing
one.”
“ Oh,
I’m sorry,” he told her, “My name is David. I’m
sorry if I interrupted.”
“ Jada,”
she told him. “It’s okay. I haven’t found any other
people who’ve tackled this book. Do you have it?”
“ Yes
I do,” he said. “I’ve been a big fan of his
programming language, Mathematica. I’ve used it several times
to get some things to work I couldn’t in any other language.”
“ I
have to leave, David,” she told him. “I've got a class in
two minutes. You here for a class too?”
“ Yes,”
he told her. “Advanced math. It kicks off in a few minutes too.
You’re taking the bus back?”
“ At
ten,” she said. “My class only meets once a week.”
“ I’m
leaving at eight,” he told her. “I guess you’ll be
here on Tuesday nights?”
“ Yes,”
she said, gathering up her books and school papers to return to her
backpack. “I guess I’ll see you next week.” At
least he hadn’t tried something on her and seemed interested in
the book she was reading. It was a favorite tactic of Jada to shut
down the suitors when she was reading a book to ask them what the
last one was they had read.
“ Do
you live on campus?” he asked her. “I’m just off
the college, in one of the apartments at the corner of McGuffy and
Low Street.”
“ I’m
still in the towers,” she told him, hitching the pack over one
shoulder. “Will probably be there until I graduate.”
“ Would
it be alright if I called you?” he asked. “I’d like
to talk some more.”
“ Sure,”
she told him and gave him her phone number. “Just not tonight
and never after ten, I have roommates who don’t like to be
disturbed. See you later.”
He
memorized her number and watched her go, the lithely figure drifting
down the hall.
Chapter 2
David’s
hands were shaking as he picked up the phone to call Jada. It was
nine in the evening, well within the time frame he had allowed
himself to speak with her. He couldn’t believe this beautiful
woman had voluntarily given him her phone number. He only prayed it
was a legitimate number and didn’t go directly to some prank
line. That had happened to him one time; a woman had given him her
phone number at a party and when he called it, it turned out to be a
sex chat line. It was still a weeknight and he hoped she would be
able to talk. He was in the bedroom of the apartment he shared with
another computer science