chapter five

The afternoon of Wednesday the 12th of December 2012, Pasha stalked every aisle of the St Petersburg Public Library before finally coming to rest on a seat beside the so-called Gasman. Gasman seemed like one totally mad kind of gismo, consisting of a transparent metallic sphere, as if she were looking at a droplet of water, from the bottom of which emanated an old WW1 gas mask. All this was supported by a rudimentary tripod. As she looked at Gasman, Gasman looked back, replicating her visual perpective exactly. That is, through her eyes, the Gasman was admiring himself. She read the paperised plaque stuck to an archaic music stand: "Invented by Gomenko and Solovief, two students at the St Petersburg State Polytechnical University in 2019, Gasman was originally intended as an aid to the analysis of psychotic conditions…"
Pasha stopped reading. Why go on? This machine needed stealing.