Mindbenders Read Online Free Page A

pulling to the right. We sped through the empty space and, for the next few miles, anytime anyone was ahead of us, they moved over as soon as we approached. Sometimes they jumped out of the way like something had startled them but Mr. Dulles wasn’t leaning on the horn and I didn’t see any reflection to suggest he was flashing his headlights or anything. The cars just seemed to be getting out of the way on their own, which didn’t seem a bit natural.
    “Dave was a spy,” I said, straight out. It just seemed like I knew all at once.
    “Not the way you’re thinking,” he answered. “Not James Bond.”
    I wasn’t thinking of James Bond. Well, maybe a little but not seriously. I turned on the radio. It must have been the original radio that came with the car because it had the rotary dial for the stations—you turned the knob to tune in. I hadn’t seen one of those before except in pictures.
    I didn’t like the music they were playing so we ended up with the news, the shooting of the Indian premier. The man who shot him was in custody and being interrogated; a state funeral was scheduled for the next morning. Most of the coverage wondered how the killer got through state security, close enough to fire at close range—and speculated about the next premier.
    There was the usual parade of all-male candidates but the headline was the premier’s daughter, a woman speaking with an eerie serenity (and Oxford English) to what sounded like a pretty unruly crowd. She proclaimed herself her father’s successor and said she would be meeting with party officials that afternoon to claim control. The experts didn’t think much of her—Western-educated and an engineer, an attractive face to put on the party, possibly, but untested and not ready for the hurly-burly of Asian politics, they concluded. Probably gone in a week, with the pack of experts and male politicians scrambling to take advantage.
    At the end of this, I realized we weren’t swerving or speeding any more. We were holding our place in traffic, maintaining a mere 60 miles an hour, Mr. Dulles more focused on the radio than I was. All he said was, “We need the newspapers.”
    We pulled off at the next exit and he bought every newspaper they had. “Read,” he ordered as we pulled back onto the highway.
    “Read what?”
    “The headlines. Everything. I’ll tell you what I’m interested in.”
    This was a torture. My mouth wasn’t used to three words in a row. It wasn’t used to two . Now he had me reading paragraphs. The muscles just weren’t in shape; the sounds were garbled half the time. I couldn’t figure out how he could understand what I was saying but he would bark at me to keep going every time I paused.
    The headlines were the usual: Gridlock in Washington, each side blaming the other, embargos and sanctions against our favorite enemies, unemployment and gas prices up, sales and real estate booming, some expert says now’s the time to buy something or other, if you’ve got any money. None of that did much for Mr. Dulles though he was paying attention to every line. Then I got to: POWERPLANT MISHAP ‘ONE-TIME GLITCH,’ SAYS OPERATOR.
    “Read me that,” he said immediately. And somehow, with him focusing on me, I could.
    “Second Sun Energy, operators of the Biggs Hollow nuclear powerplant, called yesterday’s radiation leaks ‘minor and harmless’ and blamed them on improperly calibrated instruments. State regulators, however, expressed concern at instrument readings that indicated a meltdown, leading to the plant venting radiation and the evacuation of three surrounding towns. After a ‘thorough and rigorous’ examination of the plant, no actual problems were found. ‘Instrument readings,’ said a source close to the state regulatory authority, ‘have to be foolproof. A false reading can cause as much chaos as a real crisis, as this incident proves.’ ”
    “Tear that out,” Dulles said. “Keep reading.”
    It took a while to