Brain Storm Read Free Page A

said tightly. He tried to force the cheerful-ness of a moment before, but the words sounded terse. He glanced impatiently out toward the parked van. Andy noticed that he wore a hearing aid.
    "Shut up!" the head of the Butler Bank security force ordered. "Down on the floor, hands behind your heads! Now!"
    The man looked back from the door, eyeing the guard balefully. "Do you have any idea how much this suit cost?" he asked. He shot another glance toward the bank entrance. The traffic seemed to be picking up. The pizza truck had moved a car length down the street.
    "Down! Now!"
    The robbers were beginning to comply. They dropped to their knees, all the while watching their leader expectantly. The man refused to move an inch.
    The pizza truck drove away.
    Andy felt an odd tingling sensation at the back of his head.
    It was a sort of tickle, as if someone had brushed his neck with a feather. The sensation made his ears itch.
    The robber turned victoriously back toward the guard. With a boldness that was surely suicidally motivated, the man strode purposefully up to the guard and, wrapping his fingers around the barrel of the gun, tugged the weapon from the guard's out-stretched hand. The guard didn't react, didn't move an inch.
    With obvious relish, the robber tucked the gun back into the guard's holster. Frozen once more, the other two security men watched helplessly as the same procedure was repeated with them.
    Andy tried to move but realized that he, too, was immobile. All around the bank, patrons and employees alike were once again rooted to wherever they stood.
    Bags of money in hand, the robbers clustered around their leader in the center of the lobby. Some people were staring stonily off in other directions, but most were looking in the general direction of the thieves, their eyes darting helplessly from side to side. Drool leaked from one man's parted lips.

    The lead thief grinned triumphantly around the lobby of the bank.
    "And now, with your kind assistance, gentlemen..." With a nod from their leader, the thieves began to circulate through the frozen crowd.
    This was it. They were going to start killing people. Or worse.
    All thoughts of his dreaded commute were ban-ished from Andy's mind as one of the thieves—a sinister-looking man in his forties—approached his desk. He reached into the money bag he had taken from one of the teller windows and, stuffing his hand deep inside, proceeded to remove a handful of bills.
    As the young mortgage officer watched in disbelief, the thief stuffed the wad of bills into the pocket of the old man in front of Andy's desk. Moving on, he found a patron who was standing nearer the door and went through the same motions.
    Eyes straining to catch every movement at the limits of his peripheral vision, Andy saw the other thieves stuffing money into satchels and jacket pockets. While they seemed to carry out this task grudgingly, their leader performed it with unreserved joy.
    One bank patron was dressed in only jeans and a T-shirt, but the gang leader carefully wrapped up a tight roll of crisp new fifty-dollar bills and tucked it neatly into the pocket of the man's torn shirt.
    Oddly the Butler Bank employees seemed to be the only ones who were left out of this bizarre re-distribution of wealth.
    When all was done and the bags were once more empty, the thieves clustered back around their leader.
    There was something cultured, almost regal about him. He raised his hand in a casual gesture that would have made the Queen of England feel as if she'd just rolled off the back of a turnip truck.
    "Ladies and gentlemen," he called happily to the crowd. "My name is Lothar Holz, and you have just been privileged to witness the premier nonlaboratory test of PlattDeutsche, America's Dynamic Interface System."
    Andy felt the strange sensation at the back of his head return. He realized immediately that he could move. All around the bank, patrons and employees alike were coming to the same conclusion.