Curse of the Gorgon

Chapter One
 Security Defense Collective Headquarters 
 Almaty, Kazakhstan 
 
 The darkness of complete stasis. To Cass’s body and brain, it was more familiar than sleep. Inside the upright pod, she floated, suspended in a metallic gel that kept her body at perfect temperature, a buffer between her body and any stray stimuli. Black tape covered her eyes for good measure. Various tubes snaked through openings bringing her oxygen via a mask that covered her nose and mouth. Those tubes brought nutrients along with a cocktail of sedatives, and psychoactive drugs went directly into her veins.
 In the pod, her consciousness folded in on itself, an Ouroboros feeding on the fuel of its own destruction while simultaneously existing to feed. In theory, there was to be no coherent brain activity. In theory. She suspected that they knew she had learned to beat the process. She would have never been able to betray Thora and escape Olympicorp if she had not been able to break the thrall. She would have never been able to slip the yoke and switch sides if her mind had not been able to hold on to something to sustain it in the raging darkness. That something was the one sole determination that had not been programmed into her mind by Thora or anyone else, and that was getting back to Elle.
 Elle.
 The few memories she had of her burned intact with such permanence that nothing could ever swallow them up. She had favorites of course—Elle in that black bikini pressed close to her, smelling of salty sea air, murmuring sleepily into her ear. Her laughter as they sipped forbidden alcohol prohibited in Kuwait. There were memories of Elle that broke her heart, like the night on that Kuwaiti airstrip after escaping the madman Lyles, neither of them able to comprehend why it was so hard to part ways. The memories that pained Cass the most were the final glimpses of Elle as they fought off the men in black tactical gear. 
 That had been over a year ago.
 Her memories of Elle, besides the ones of this awful place, were the only ones she owned. They brought her comfort as she struggled with the SDC agents whose task it was to sedate her and prop her up on the platform base of the pod. It was Elle’s face she thought of when she succumbed to the drugs as the agents sealed the pod. Elle’s touch she imagined in the close-to-panic moments when the metallic gel filled the pod. As the prop sank away to leave her floating. It was Elle’s voice that echoed in her head long after the darkness had taken over.
 Those memories allowed her to hold on to a shred of her consciousness until the moment the prop rose from the platform hooking under her armpits like crutches to hold her upright. 
 She could feel her mind returning as she felt blood returning to her tingling limbs. Now that it was exposed to the air, the gel cooled and clung to her like a fatty carapace causing her skin beneath to prickle. 
 She heard the door of the pod slide open. Someone removed the tape from her eyes and she squinted as the overhead lights burned as bright as torches through her closed lids. She heard their buzzing hum exaggerated by the drugs that lingered in her system.
 As usual, the agents handled her with a clinical disdain if not rougher than usual. She could hear the soles of their shoes on the concrete floor as they moved about removing the tubes and finally the face mask. She breathed in the chilly air of the lab but continued to keep her eyes shut from the stinging light.
 “Are you with us?”
 Over the too-loud buzz of the lights, she recognized the voice of the agent, a greasy-haired weasel who wore a smart pair of round spectacles. Ingman. He saw to her entombment into the pod, as well as her release with the aid of two to three other SDC agents.
 “She was off the rails when they brought her in,” a second agent said and let out a snigger that bounced around her. “Fought like a bitch about getting back into the pod.”
 “She fought sedation the entire ride back from Jove Island,” said a third agent. “But we managed to keep her under.”
 At the mention of the island, she felt a flash of light behind her eyes as if someone had stuck her finger into an electrical socket. The jolt of memory hit her like high voltage and her eyes snapped open, tearing instantly from the light.
 “Charybdis,” she said, her voice hoarse from disuse. 
 She remembered the rocky island called Jove, and the events that had taken place, and the journey back to SDC headquarters. She’d still had blood on her hands as they dragged her from the helicopter. Fletcher had been waiting on the landing pad, black shades covering his eyes. His attempts to calm her only infuriated her more. She’d wanted to see Elle. He had promised her that much. 
 Fletcher and his games.
 They’d had to tie her down to prepare her for the pod after she kicked Ingman in the groin, and he had lost his cool and removed his Glock, threatened to kill her. She’d only grinned. Now, she lay limply on the prop hooked beneath her arms, squinting in the swirling glare of the fluorescent lights. She had just enough strength to lift her head.
 How long had she been in the tank? Three days? Five days? Fletcher never kept her in for longer than a few days. Then again, he had not been pleased that she and the team had come back from Jove Island empty-handed and light a few members.
 Through the fog that covered her eyes, she saw one of the agents step close. She felt the prick of a needle in her neck,