He lived in a small town and had inherited a bookstore from his mother; who had died prematurely in a furnace explosion and the resulting fire. At first, the job of managing the store was almost too much for Bradly. He had worked in the store for years, but always as a stocker and sales clerk. Most of Bradly's spare time had been spent doing odd jobs for friends and neighbors in the village. He had washed windows, cleaned lawns, and helped old people around their homes. In all the years of working with his mother, Bradly had never learned to keep the store books. He had never had to worry about the business because; "Mother always took care of all that."

Sometimes, in the late hours of adding columns of figures, and not getting the same answer more than once, Bradly's mind would wander. He would think that it might have been he that was meant to die. Or, at least, that it was his fault the furnace exploded. Sometimes, he would even think that he had planned the death of his mother. Forced to do it by some demon that lived in his brain, hiding behind the speech center, who only came out when Bradly wasn't on his guard.

Bradly had read about the Demon Within in one of the books his mother had ordered but had sent back because it hadn't sold. Bradly thought the book hit too close to home to the closet skeletons people don't like to think about.

Bradly had heard about closet skeletons on TV, and how people didn't like to think about them. Some doctor woman had spent most of her time saying this reaction was all right, though, because everyone felt that way. But Bradly could see a glint in her eye, and he knew she was joking because she didn't want to hit too close to home and have everyone turn her off.

Bradly prided himself on seeing the truth behind things and the true character of people, as well as being self-educated past the eighth grade. He was quite happy when he finally got the hang of paperwork and bookkeeping. He only felt a little bad when he took his taxes to H & R Block. He had seen people on TV do it, and some of the people he knew went there, so what the hell? Besides, Bradly didn't want to make a mistake and have the government try to take over his business and reprogram his brain.

Bradly told this to the H & R man, who laughed and said something about reading too much science fiction. Bradly knew the poor guy didn't want his brain reprogrammed either. He thought about how terrible it must be to spend all of your life in fear of making a mistake and having your brain reprogrammed. Bradly wondered how many people got their brains reprogrammed every year. A lot, most likely.

As the days passed, Bradly found it easier to keep the daily receipts. Ordering became the highlight of his work. Bradly followed the best seller lists, for the most part. He found most of his customers liked to read the #1 bestsellers. Bradly thought all this #1 stuff was just another trick by the government to get people to buy and read things that didn't say much. He wasn't even sure anyone cared if the books got read so long as they were sold. Bradly never got a single letter asking if anyone liked the books, only letters asking if his supply was low.

Some people came in and ordered books. Bradly liked that, because he knew that he was filling a need. He almost always ordered two of those special orders so he could see what other people were reading. "Besides, you never know when someone else would want that book."

When Bradly made out his weekly order, he would spend the whole day looking at all the books in the catalogs. He was always on the watch for any book that might have the secret of living forever. Bradly liked to think of it as research. He always sent for a couple books for himself, but usually sold them because they were of no use to him.

That is, until one day when he read The Time Masters. The book was about people who fell out of space from a spaceship damaged some way or another. The people had been on earth for a few hundred years, but time here didn't affect them because their molecules were different from ours.

Bradly thought about the book for several days. He almost forgot to make out the week's orders. When he did make out the order, he looked for all the books he could find on time. He also sent for a couple science books so he could look up them "molly" things. Bradly thought that if he could think of a way to change his molly-what's-its, he could live forever. Bradly was excited.

Reading all the books on time he could find, Bradly found some books that talked about big machines that could take you into the past or future, depending on where you wanted to go. Other books talked about space warps that, if you broke through them, would put you in another time. Other books said that, if you traveled at the speed of light to someplace and back again, hundreds and hundreds of years would have passed on earth.

But none of the books Bradly read talked about living forever, except Dracula, and who wants to go around sucking blood all the time?

Bradly felt defeated. He thought about the problem for many days. He tried to see what a molecule was, but found that he didn't understand science talk. Bradly found it hard to think about his work. He forgot to order two weeks in a row. His daily reports were piling up under the counter.

Then it hit him. Bradly saw through the stories. Most of them were written to cloud the issue. In fact, he was sure most of the writers were reprogrammed by the government, and the rest, if any were still alive, were working for the government for fear their brains would be reprogrammed. Maybe the government had a clever computer writing the stories. Somewhere Bradly had read that computers, the really big ones, could suck a man's brain up inside of itself. He figured the computers could suck more than one brain by now. Sometimes, he wondered if the government wasn't just a giant computer of sucked brains.

What he didn't know was what the computers did with all the bodies. Reprogrammed them, most likely. Bradly started reading books about computers to figure out how they sucked brains, but the books only talked about older models and theories.

The only computer that he could figure was doing the brain sucking was the one the phone company used. He thought the government could call you about taxes or something, throw the switch, and by the time you heard the click your body would be empty of brains, just sitting there holding the phone. Then they either reprogrammed you or murdered you and pretended to look for the murderer. Bradly had his phone taken out.

Through the months and years of his search, the town and Bradly's business grew. He decided to expand the store. Bradly had some carpenters come in and work on the addition while he spent most of his time upstairs reading. Bradly hadn't had a vacation since his mother died. One day Bradly was talking to one of the carpenters about a thing called telepathy. Bradly liked the idea of telepathy, so he started to read about it. He found telepathy was the name for his ability to see through the books he read and the people he knew.

He read somewhere the government was trying to do telepathy with computers, but without much luck. Bradly wondered if the government wasn't trying to find a way to suck the brains out of people without phones.

Bradly Gunwail left the shop early that day to try to work out a way to fight the government. The only way he could think of was to live forever and build his own brain-sucking computer. As Bradly walked he could feel something behind his speech center getting nervous.

A phone rang. Bradly stopped and looked around and saw the phone booth. The phone in the booth rang again. Bradly looked around again and saw he was the only one anywhere near the booth. The phone rang once again. Bradly walked toward the booth. Another ring. Bradly opened the door.

"Hello?"

"Mr. Bradly Gunwail?"

"Yes?"