The Concrete Jungle | Page 7

like a light bulb -- the dots are fading footprints
on the cold ground. "Yeah." We're making about forty miles per hour
along the road, sneaking in like a thief in the night, and I zoom out to
take in as much of the side view as possible. After a minute or so I see
the park ahead, off the side of a roundabout. "Eyes up, front: Can you
hover over that roundabout?"
"Sure. Hold on." The engine note changes and my stomach lurches, but
the FLIR pod stays locked on target. I can see the cows now, grey
shapes against the cold ground -- a herd of concrete animals created in
1978 by a visiting artist. There should be eight of them, life-sized
Friesians peacefully grazing in a field attached to the park. But
something's wrong, and it's not hard to see what.
"Barbecue at six o'clock low," says the copilot. "You want to go down
and bring us back a take-away, or what?"
"Stay up," I say edgily, slewing the camera pod around. "I want to
make sure it's safe first . . . "

REPORT 2: Wednesday March 4th, 1914
CLASSIFIED MOST SECRET, Imperial War Ministry, September
11th, 1914 RECLASSIFIED TOP SECRET GAME ANDES, Ministry
of War, July 2nd, 1940 RECLASSIFIED TOP SECRET REDSHIFT,
Ministry of Defense, August 13th, 1988
Dear Albert,
Today we performed Young's double-slit experiment upon Subject
C, our medusa. The results are unequivocal; the Medusa effect is both a
particle and a wave. If de Broglie is right . . .
But I am getting ahead of myself.

Ernest has been pushing for results with characteristic vim and vigor
and Mathiesson, our analytical chemist, has been driven to his wits' end
by the New Zealander's questions. He nearly came to blows with Dr
Jamieson who insisted that the welfare of his patient -- as he calls
Subject C -- comes before any question of getting to the bottom of this
infuriating and perplexing anomaly.
Subject C is an unmarried woman, aged 27, of medium height with
brown hair and blue eyes. Until four months ago, she was healthy and
engaged as household maid to an eminent KC whose name you would
probably recognize. Four months ago she underwent a series of seizures;
her employers being generous, she was taken to the Royal Free
Infirmary where she described having a series of blinding headaches
going back eighteen months or so. Dr Willard examined her using one
of the latest Roentgen machines, and determined that she appeared to
have the makings of a tumour upon her brain. Naturally this placed her
under Notification, subject to the Monster Control Act (1864); she was
taken to the isolation ward at St Bartholomew's in London where, three
weeks, six migraines, and two seizures later, she experienced her first
Grand Morte fit. Upon receiving confirmation that she was suffering
from acute gorgonism, Dr Rutherford asked me to proceed as agreed
upon; and so I arranged for the Home Office to be contacted by way of
the Dean.
While Mr McKenna was at first unenthusiastic about the prospect of
a gorgon running about the streets of Manchester, our reassurances
ultimately proved acceptable and he directed that Subject C be released
into our custody on her own cognizance. She was in a state of entirely
understandable distress when she arrived, but once the situation was
explained she agreed to cooperate fully in return for a settlement which
will be made upon her next of kin. As she is young and healthy, she
may survive for several months, if not a year, in her current condition:
this offers an unparallelled research opportunity. We are currently
keeping her in the old Leprosarium, the windows of which have been
bricked up. A security labyrinth has been installed, the garden wall
raised by five feet so that she can take in the air without endangering
passers-by, and we have arranged a set of signals whereby she can don

occlusive blindfolds before receiving visitors. Experiments upon
patients with acute gorgonism always carry an element of danger, but
in this case I believe our precautions will suffice until her final
deterioration begins.
Lest you ask why we don't employ a common basilisk or cockatrice
instead, I hasten to explain that we do; the pathology is identical in
whichever species, but a human source is far more amenable to control
than any wild animal. Using Subject C we can perform repeatable
experiments at will, and obtain verbal confirmation that she has
performed our requests. I hardly need to remind you that the historical
use of gorgonism, for example by Danton's Committee for Public
Safety