Chapter Two
Queen Bitch

Jennifer Shepherd returns the salutes of the guards outside the Laboratory on the top floor. Then she pushes back her eight point black cover with the metallic gold band so the Iris Scanner can inspect her retina and grant her permission to enter the sanctum. When she pushes the door open, her eyes first take in the room as a whole. Here most especially she is cautious, alert for dangers.

The room is tremendous, the unbroken space covering 4,900 square feet. A dozen long worktables dominate this section of the room, the rear half of the 70 foot room filled by machines of formidable technology. In the midst of this wonder Dr. Abigail Sciuto, clad in a short black lab coat so dark her long black pony tail is almost lost in the midnight hue, holds court like the High Priestess of the Temple of Science.

Her bare legs under the coat's extremely high hem are her only color, incongruous below the short blackness. Sciuto turns, sees her and her salute is just a touch of her loosely closed fist to the tip of her left breast. Her fist, instead of coming out with a snap of military precision, comes all the way around in a wide arc, leading her body as she turns back to her work.

Shepherd wants to grab that long black pony tail, wrench the insolent bitch's head around and teach her the foolishness of turning her back on an enemy.

She can do nothing.

x

"Sciuto!"

"What do you want? I'm busy."

Outraged, Shepherd stalks across the cavern to her. "You will show me the respect due my rank! I am a Level One Inquisitor!"

"Oh, wow, Level 1," she says tonelessly, and doesn't even glance from the graduated test tube in her hand, into which she carefully pours a blue liquid from a beaker. "Well, until I get that particular memo, you will always be number two to me." She sets down the beaker and tube and finally turns to the angry woman. "Whereas I am the Chief Scientist of INCIS. I answer to Grand Inquisitor Gibbs and only to Grand Inquisitor Gibbs. Now what do you want?"

Jennifer strives to keep her temper, her impotent fists clenched at her sides. She may be a Level One, but there are ranks and there are ranks. Abigail Sciuto has no 'Level' as far as Inquisitors are concerned, yet neither of them operates under any illusion as to which of them is favored.

"I've come for Todd."

"Good, I'm sick of her. Get her out of my lab so I can get some work done."

x

Abigail Sciuto actually manages to flounce in the very short zippered black lab coat and low soft shoes as she leads the way to the left rear corner of the lab, to a steel chamber three feet wide by three deep by seven high. It's tall enough for anyone to stand upright but only to stand. There's no room to crouch, sit or fall, and this is where Inquisitor Level Two Kait Todd has spent the past 120 hours.

The Punishment Chamber is Dr. Abigail Sciuto's brainchild, but if she'd known it would be housed in her own lab she would have had a cognitive abortion. A Sensory Deprivation / Overload device, it works on multiple fronts to punish those who fail in their duty. With the prisoner within, one does not have to resort to debilitating beatings that keep an Operative out of commission for days afterward, nor is anyone required to take time out from important duties to impart the punishment. This device doesn't punish through pain - all of the torment inflicted is focused upon the mind.

The only torture to the body is the requirement to stand upright in the three foot square chamber for the prescribed duration. Thus far, the longest punishment inflicted has been for 8.37 days, a most unenviable record since the man died prior to completion.

It's completely soundproof, but not so the screams for mercy can be ignored. No sound, no light penetrate it, and only just enough air is pumped in to ward off death. But it is not soundless or lightless within, oh no. At irregular intervals searing light flares from all sides, just short of enough to overload optic nerves. At irregular intervals thunderous explosions or piercing shrieks or bone rattling bells fill the chamber at levels just short of shattering eardrums. At irregular intervals bursts of electricity erupt from walls and floor, a charge only a careful measure short of causing unconsciousness. Monitors record vital signs without touching the subject; when they detect the slowing that presages sleep the chamber responds with a vengeance.

A prisoner condemned to this fate doesn't eat, doesn't drink, doesn't rest and is assaulted at unexpected times, particularly when he or she is most vulnerable. If he soils him or herself that is not Sciuto's concern, since aside from input and exhaust tubes leading to excellent filters the chamber is air tight.

For failure to obtain necessary information on an underground railroad that had eluded INCIS investigation for months, for killing all three prisoners without obtaining answers and in the processes losing the life of one of their best Interrogators, Kait Todd had been sentenced to 5 days in this chamber.

x

Abigail Sciuto unlocks the door and stands to the side as she shoves it open.

Inquisitor Level Two Todd crashes to the lab floor and lies shaking violently, her breath coming in sharp gasps. She's still wearing her black uniform, but it and her hair are a disheveled mess.

Sciuto slams the door of the chamber, her other hand covering her nose and mouth.

"Oh, you stink!" she waves her free hand to dispel the stench. "Get the fuck out of here; I have to fumigate the entire lab." She turns to Shepherd. "Get her out of here!"

"Give her a moment, can't you? Look at her," she points down to the violently trembling woman. "She can't get up to go anywhere yet."

Sciuto takes a deep breath and bends down, grabs a handful of Todd's tousled hair and twists her head violently, forcing her to look up. She pulls a dagger from the sheath at her bare left leg and presses it to the trembling woman's throat. "Michelle Lee was my friend and you let her get killed. The only reason I'm not disemboweling you right now is that Gibbs will want to assign you somewhere you deserve and I don't want to dull my knife in your stinking carcass!"

She stands, yanking hard at Todd's hair. The woman screams a ragged, moistureless cry as she's dragged upward to her feet. She staggers as Sciuto drags her, bent at the waist, the seventy feet to the door which opens at their approach. She flings the screaming woman out of the lab, past the surprised guards, paying no attention as Kait slams heavily to the floor, crying out in added pain. The door closes automatically and Sciuto turns to the appalled Operative.

"Well?"

Shepherd stalks up to Sciuto, incensed at the abuse of the helpless woman, feeling she should stand up for a fellow Inquisitor, no matter what she'd done or failed to do. "You have-"

Abigail waves her hand sharply between them to clear the air, her hand a fraction short of slapping Shepherd. "'Get out' I said!" she waves her hand dangerously close, "I've got to get a crew in here now to try to clear out this stench!"

"What can you expect her to smell like after five days in that thing?"

"I wasn't talking about Todd!"