The Gorgon

The days were short on Sarpedon, the nights long, cold and desolate. Medusa sat on the hard granite floor of her lonely home, as the last embers of the sunset went out. It was always dark inside her home, but when night fell the darkness became so thick and dense she felt she could grab it by the handful. She wished she could wrap it around herself like a blanket, becoming a shadow. Nothing could hurt the darkness but the light, and she missed the light.

However much she longed for it, though, she would never dare venture into the light of day. Not since she had received her sentence. Her crime had been to insult Stratigos Pallas Athena, to allow herself to be used as an instrument of mockery. It had been Sydon who had truly insulted her, of course, debasing himself in grand hall of Athena's cynosure, but the technocrat was far too well-connected and revered for her to even consider confronting him, let alone direct retaliation. So the general took it out on her enemy's favourite, not considering for a moment that he had immediately lost interest once he'd used her.

Medusa cursed Sydon, and Athena, and herself, as she so often did, reserving the most venom for her own self-loathing. She cursed her decision to enlist in the military along with her sisters, enthusiastically applying for the Elite Units, where the best soldiers would be enhanced to be even greater. There was no greater honour for those who wished to serve the Republic; to represent the marriage of science, strategy and might of Athena's army.

Stheno and Euryale, both older, had been stronger, more athletic, more imposing than Medusa, but she had made up for this in stamina and enthusiasm. Though striking in their own way, and certainly with their share of admirers, neither of her sisters had been beauties. That was hardly important for a soldier, though, and there were times that Medusa had hated her own beauty, wishing that she could trade it in for greater strength, or intelligence, or simply the chance to be taken as seriously as her sisters. It had, however, meant that Sydon – fleshy, old Sydon, who wore his wealth and power like armour – had taken to the new recruit as soon as she'd appeared in the Elite's laboratory for initial tests.

The physicians had poured over the readings for her and her sisters with glee. They were excellent candidates, they said. Perfect for enhancement, all three of them. They would be remade as the perfect soldiers: untiring, unstoppable, unbeatable. Stheno had puffed up with pride; Euryale had smiled, but Medusa had recognised the shadow of nervousness beneath it. Medusa's own anxiety was palpable, but still she was determined to serve her world, and would offer herself to the process so that she could become something more than human.

It was Sydon who had requested further tests with her, identifying something special in her results. She should have known then that he had something else in mind; for all his education and influence, Sydon was here as little more than a sponsor, the lab his personal investment, set to make him indispensable to the war effort and even wealthier at the same time. Medusa couldn't submit to the tests, not then; the sisters had to return to base for mandatory training. Sydon had a habit of “reviewing” the new recruits, she learned eventually, and he'd become an even more regular presence now that she was there. Athena had been there too, on some occasions, running her imperious eyes over her latest resources. She'd stand a half-level above them, exaggerating her already intimidating height, looking down on them literally and figuratively. She was an imposing presence, powerfully built and supremely confident. Some said that she had been enhanced by the Elite programme herself; others claimed that she was part of the genetic blueprint for the process.

Athena had been visibly unhappy with the attention Sydon lavished on Medusa, but he carefully ensured that he broke no actual rules. There were additional physical tests, a great deal of up close observation, and gushing praise. While she found the old man overbearing and creepy, Medusa had appreciated the results of the extra training, and finally felt like she was on equal standing with her sisters.

It had been months later, after the pomp and circumstance of their passing out, that the three sisters had taken the final step, and that Sydon had taken what he wanted. He could be very patient when it came to his favourites, but this was to be his last chance. After the enhancement had been completed, Medusa could have shrugged him off with a flinch, and broken him in half with a kick. Instead, he kept her isolated for additional tests after the first round of treatment, with some spurious justification. All three sisters had been left weakened and sickly after the initial injections of mutagens to prepare them for genetic augmentation, but while Stheno and Euryale had returned to the infirmary to recuperate, Medusa had stayed in the laboratory itself. The tests had never happened, though; Sydon took Medusa by the hand and led her to his transport, with the technicians and scientists turning a career-minded blind eye.

Even if she had enjoyed Sydon's company, Medusa would have been too weak and unwell to appreciate his tour of the cynosure, the heart of the complex. Officially, of course, it was Athena's domain, but with the ceremonies over and most of the troops taking a rare chance to rest and relax, it had been all but deserted. He took her in the grand hall. She resisted, even knowing that he could end her career or condemn her to a nightmare posting, but she was too weak. Her mind was willing to fight, but her body was already fighting the treatment.

He'd had his personal transport dump her back at the infirmary for recuperation; he hadn't said whether it was for the scientists' treatment of her or his. Of course, the cynosure had wall-to-wall security monitoring, but it might still have remained Sydon's secret if some low-level grunt, bored to madness with his posting, hadn't made the idiotic decision to leak the footage to the first-level network. Anyone could see it then, from galley slaves to Athena herself. The grunt had found himself quickly identified and executed for breaching security protocols. Medusa's punishment, for sullying Athena's personal domain, was to be worse.

Stheno and Euryale, she had learned, got what they expected from the Elite programme. Taller, stronger, more formidable than ever, they had been moved straight to the frontlines. She had no news on what had happened to them after that, no idea if they were even still alive. Medusa, however, had been handed over to R&D, Athena's way of telling Sydon not to play with her toy soldiers. Medusa had already been prepared for enhancement, genetic, chemical and physical, but the degree to which she was altered was down to the experimental surgeons; curious, callous, and inventive.

The next few weeks passed in a painful, confusing blur. When she finally woke up following the final treatment and seen her reflection in the metallic walls of the infirmary, she vomited. The bile had been acrid, and burned a blackened mark into the floor.

She forced herself to look at her reflection again. Her skin had become a pallid green, save for her upper arms and shoulders, which had darkened to grey-black scales. Her limbs were powerful, she had felt that even in her weak, post-treatment state. Her fingers, of which there were now six on each hand, ended in curved brown claws. It was her face that had made her feel sick. It was no longer a human face. It was animal. It wasn't her. Above it writhed a mass of slender white tentacles, twitching and twisting as if they had minds of their own. She gingerly touched one of the appendages, and snatched her hand away, her fingers stung.

Medusa was their great experiment, a living weapon to be tested on their enemies. Her internal chemistry was now toxic to human life; even being in the same room as her would make someone weak and nauseous, her presence tainting the very atmosphere around her. Anyone who managed to overcome that would get close enough to experience her incredible strength, her stinging cells, and her acidic venom. She scarcely needed to eat anymore, which was a mercy; she could hardly stomach the way food tasted on her altered tastebuds. She even had technological implants, which provided her skin with resistance to energy fire, and turned her tentacles into radio antennae.

She had been designed for land engagements, to take out the enemy's own elite troops. Athena had quashed this idea, for now. She didn't want Medusa to receive any glory, even as a jumped-up weapon. Instead, she'd be a bomb. Technicians in isolation suits had stunned her and bundled her into an escape capsule, before dropping her onto the surface of Sarpedon.

That had been around two years ago, as far as she could piece together. She would sometimes sleep for days, alone in the building she had made her home, when the city had been abandoned in the days following her arrival. Medics and soldiers had attended the crashed pod, only to find themselves sickened and dying once they prized it open and they'd breathed in her miasma. More troops had arrived, tried to take her out, but her enhanced body had repelled their fire. She had run away, found safety in the basement of a rundown block, where she was able to access water from the city mains. It hadn't occurred to her until later that this was all part of her purpose. Trained to find a reliable water supply, she had inadvertently infected it with traces of her own poison. It hadn't taken the enemy long to find her, but even heavily armed and wearing masks they hadn't been able to take her out in close, confined quarters.

There had been many times when she had wished she'd never fought back, and had simply let the enemy kill her. Even with her toxic presence and resilient skin, it wouldn't have been too difficult for a group of them to take off her head if she'd lain there and let them. She would cautiously sneak out at night sometimes, picking up local broadcasts. At first they reported the sickness that was now plaguing the city, as her poison had spread through the water. Soon after, when attempts to take her out had failed, they became calls for evacuation. Civilian radio had long since ceased, but occasionally she would intercept coded military transmissions from either side, which she would slowly decipher. There was little else to do, and it took her mind away from her memories, for a time.

The latest transmission had surprised her, once she had decoded it. It hadn't been challenging; she was thoroughly trained, and it wasn't a complex code. Not high level security at all. She suspected that she had been meant to hear it. The Republic and the enemy had agreed a truce, albeit a tenuous one. As part of the agreement, Republic forces were going to cleanse the city on Sarpedon. An Elite soldier was coming, someone who had joined up after her banishment and received the latest enhancements. Lochagos Perseus would be virtually unstoppable, with unmatched strength, speed and stamina, and the latest in offensive weaponry and training.

Medusa had longed for death many times since she had been abandoned on Sarpedon. Finally, it was coming for her. She should let this Perseus saw off her head and be done with it.

No. She would not submit to again, to another man who was expecting easy prey. Even with her deadly enhancements, she might not stand a chance against him, but she would fight. She would not make it easy. She would always fight.