One
She would never admit it, but she loved working for the Church. Not because of any real sense of religious zeal, "higher-calling" or a great deal of faith. It was because of assignments like the one she'd just been given.
She sat at her desk in the small, bare rectory and studied the dossier of her latest subject. This one was unusual. The subject was male. Sister Dawn's eyebrows rose as she studied the information before her. The subject wasn't a military man, nor a member of some police department or intelligence agency. He was simply a man who was in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Corporate espionage took place on a daily basis, but the general public didn't know that. One corporation was always going after another's secrets. Everything had been privatized: medicine, the military, jurisprudence, even the police. Governments didn't really exist anymore. They'd all been bought out, and eventually replaced by the Corporations. As the value of corporate entities increased, the value of human life diminished just as quickly.
Eventually, the only organization of any kind that had the financial and political power to stand against the Corporations, was the Catholic Church. They became the unofficial liaison between the Corporations and the regular people of the world. The Holy See, the political structure of the Church became the "world government" and this took over such things as city maintenance, health, education, welfare and even the police. Precincts were replaced with diocese. Officers were replaced by priests. Instead of a badge, people began to respect the Collar, and rosary beads were replaced with sidearms.
Outside the Corporations and the Church, the most lucrative professions were computer design, street crime and corporate spying. So a raid on the Research and Development Section of Hokkaido Global Industries was nothing new. As one of the leading medical research companies in the world, Hokkaido was often a target for smaller companies who wanted to get ahead of the game. As she read in the Incident Report, the subject, a musician named Irwin James was cutting through an alley behind one of the Hokkaido's research labs, on his way to a street corner where he'd been able to make moderate amounts of tips as a street musician.
According to his statement, James was walking through the alley, when several men broke out of the building through a metal door, and knocked him to the ground accidentally. These men all managed to escape from Hokkaido's security personnel. When the investigators arrived, all that was left of the security guards were a few piles of ash. No one is sure exactly what happened. So far, James had refused to say anything else. That's when Sister Dawn was called in.
In this day and age, where Priests walked a beat in the urban sprawl, it was rare for ordained nuns to hold jobs outside of Church Administration. For one thing, their attire would have to be altered. Except for those who worked in the Vatican, priests hadn't worn cassocks for generations. To expect a nun to wear a habit on patrol was ludicrous. Still, that very point was argued vigorously amongst the College of Cardinals in Rome. Also, it was simply seen as too dangerous for a nun to walk a beat. However, it was a slight majority who eventually won out, and nuns began to patrol beside the priests.
Sister Dawn had patrolled sections of Chicago through most of her twenties, and had made Detective at 29. After three years of that, she was made Lead Investigator on a case where a Priest was murdered by what looked to be Security Troops from Illinois Metalworks, who had built most of the skyscrapers downtown. She was able to prove conclusively that it was actually street punks who were responsible.
Sister Dawn-Margaret Martinez was summoned to New York to meet with His Eminence, Cardinal Lucas San Marcos, Head of the Opus Dei, the Church's Investigative Service, though in fact they were more like Secret Police. She was offered a position as an investigator, and after another year, was promoted to Lead Interrogator for America's entire Eastern Seaboard. She was trained in the latest techniques of information gathering, as well as information extraction. During that time, they had also investigated her. On the first day of her final week of training, she overheard two Bishops talking, and she gleaned information that no one outside the Opus Dei was permitted to know: the identity of the Cardinal's wife. Though priests and nuns were permitted to marry, thanks to a Papal Bull issued by His Holiness nearly a decade before, Cardinals were required to remain celibate. Not only had she received confirmation that His Eminence had a wife, but her location as well. She suspected why that information had been "leaked" to her, which was confirmed that night, when several men broke into her quarters, then beat and abducted her.
That last week was spent in a small room, lit by a single bulb which never went off. She was deprived of sleep, food and water, given various drugs, and abused physically and mentally, though never sexually. It was merely an exercise, and she knew it. She also knew the reason why. It was important that she be subjected to everything that she would be using against others. On Day Eight, she finally broke. She told them everything, including the fact that during the majority of her incarceration and torture, her panties were wet. Normally, that fact would have been cause for her immediate dismissal, if it weren't for her final confession. It wasn't the torture that aroused her, it was the thought that if she endured it, eventually she would become the one who administered the torture.
That night, she was called before the Cardinal again, and was given her new position: Grand Inquisitor of the Opus Dei. In the six years since that time, she had grown to adore her position. Her authority was second only to the Cardinal himself, and above him, His Holiness, the Pope. Except for a directive from either of those men, she could be denied nothing. Her orders could never be questioned. She quickly grew to adore the influence she had, the authority, and most of all, the power.
Now, she was being given a new diversion. A new subject, with information she needed, and he would talk. Oh, yes, he would talk. He would sing. He would scream, and beg. He would cry... for more. At the mere thought of it, her left hand slipped slowly into her lap, and pressed against the soft heat between her legs.
"No," she thought with a secret smile, "Time enough for that later."
*****
He awoke in darkness. As he regained consciousness, he began to gather as much information as he could. He was seated. His arms were tied or chained behind his back. His ankles were also bound, but not together. He was naked. He was cold. He could hear nothing, but he did smell something, like old cardboard or rotting wood.
He tried to speak, but he lapsed into a fit of coughing because his throat was dry. He could tell by the echo of his coughing that he was in a large room, most likely a warehouse of some sort. He wasn't gagged, so he assumed that whoever it was who had brought him here wanted him to talk.
He heard a door open, then close behind him. He heard footsteps, and then light burst into the room like an angry priest, looking to round up a group of rowdy drunks. He was able to make out the shadow of the person who had entered. Female. And nicely-built. The footsteps approached closer, then around to his right. She stopped in front of him. Suddenly, a light appeared over his head. He grimaced for a moment, then his eyes began to adjust. It was a spotlight, directly overhead, giving off only a cone of intense light which shone directly on him.
He could see only a slight movement in the darkness outside his circle, but the woman had started to walk around him again, this time to his left. She said nothing. She simply walked. She had made three complete orbits around him, never approaching the light, never saying a word.
"Who are you?" he asked, his voice rasping and uncomfortable. "Why are you keeping me here?"
She continued to walk, still staying outside the cone of light, and otherwise silent.
"Look," he said, impatiently, "If you're with those men who knocked me down, I've told everything to the Church." The footsteps continued. "I don't know anything else." Another full circle by the woman.
He forced himself to remain calm, but he was getting irritated. If only this woman would tell him what she wanted, or at least who she was. He was nervous and cold. His arms were starting to cramp. She had continued circling him and she was right behind the chair again. She had to untie him.
"Damn you, let me go!"
Suddenly, he heard the soles of her boots scrape against the floor. She had turned, and was now walking directly toward him. He thought she might be about to untie him, when suddenly he felt a hand cover his mouth with a rag. The fumes were powerful and he got dizzy immediately. He was losing consciousness again. As his eyes lost focus, he saw her step around him. He saw the woman walk around to stand in front of him. He couldn't see details, but he noticed that she seemed to be wearing all black. He smelled leather mixed in with the fumes which were slowly knocking him out. She dropped a white cloth to the floor next to her, and then she leaned down to look directly at him.
Her black hair was long and glimmered in the harsh light. Her face was beautiful. Her lips were full, and sensual, her red lipstick gleaming. She said nothing. She only smiled, as everything went black.
*****
"He will be regaining consciousness within the hour, Your Grace," Sister Elizabeth reported.
Sister Dawn looked at the medical chart that Elizabeth had handed to her. She noticed that the subject was fit, though somewhat lacking in nutrition. No doubt this habit of playing music on street corners for change wasn't very lucrative. Still, she had ordered that he be given vitamin supplements along with the sedative that he'd been given the previous night, and that was being done.
At this point, she had declared that Phase One of his interrogation would be administered in The Theatre, a large laboratory where subjects were strapped to a table, needles inserted into the major veins of their arms and legs, and drugs administered as required. The control room was in the rear of the theatre, and a bank of computers monitored the subject's vital signs, EKG readings and Encephalograms. There were also a series of large video screens which were attached to the ceiling on maneuvering arms, specially designed to move smoothly and silently with the manipulation of switches in the Control Room. The ceiling, walls and floor were all blacked out completely, and the screens were the latest state-of-the-art video technology. If one were looking at a person on the screen, it appeared exactly as if the person were physically there.
Sister Dawn made notes on the chart, specifying which psychotropic drugs would be administered, in what dosage, and when. She handed the chart back to Elizabeth, and looked into the Theatre again. It was a marvel of technology, with its' video screens, and huge, programmable audio speakers, also state-of-the-art. Dawn turned and looked around the Control Room, and grinned as she saw the sisters who were on her research staff. All of them were her exact height and build. All seven of them could have been Dawn's actual siblings for their close resemblance. Rumors circulated wildly at first as to why Sister Dawn had chosen these women specifically. The last she'd heard, it was decided by the majority of rumormongers that Dawn was such an egomaniac, she wanted to be able to look at herself in a mirror, even if none were available. She was satisfied with that explanation, even if it was wrong... almost.