Hi, I'm Lovar Burton, and this is Lovar Burton Read.

In every episode I hand pick a different piece of short fiction and I read it to you.

The only thing these stories have in common is that I love them, and I hope you will too.

And today, the story is by the author Steven Graham Jones.

Now he is the New York Times best-selling author of nearly 30 novels, collections, novellas

and comic books.

And as you might expect, he's won a big old stack of awards, like the Texas Institute

of Letters Award for Fiction and the Bram Stoker Award.

His most recent books are the only good Indians, Knight of the Manikins, and my heart is a

chainsaw.

Wow, what a title.

Steven lives and teaches in Boulder, Colorado.

Now the story I'm going to read today appeared in the anthology about psychic warfare entitled

Sigh Wars, classified cases of psychic phenomena edited by Joshua Viola, and it was also reprinted

in light speed.

It's going to take you on a ride.

I mean, truly, we are following the thoughts of a spy who has jumped out of an airplane

and is hurtling through the air, ready to breach a federal facility and retrieve secrets

using only telepathy.

Like I said, it's a ride.

I was drawn to it initially because I, myself, have enjoyed a bit of skydiving in the past,

but I stayed because this character and his motivations are just fascinating.

...