Thank Tank Cell

The Thank Tank Cell was a repurposed police-station isolation cell, approximately four paces by four, located in a former police station that had been taken over by the Eyes. It was here that Aunt Lydia was confined after her arrest and subjected to systematic deprivation and brutality. The cell had a bed shelf but no mattress, a bucket for human waste that still contained remnants of previous occupants, and a light socket that was not live. Any light came from the corridor outside through a slot by which sandwiches would arrive. Aunt Lydia described the experience as being reduced to an animal, penned up and rubbed in her own animal nature. She was kept in the dark for an unknown length of time, during which she lost track of time and her own resolve. She was visited by three men who administered precise kickings and Tasers on three separate occasions, a number she noted as magic. She was not raped, she speculated, because she was too old and tough for the purpose, or because her captors prided themselves on high moral standards, though she doubted this. The experience was designed to break her will and force her to cooperate with Commander Judd. After an indefinite period, she was hauled out of the cell and taken to a hotel for three days of rest and recuperation, where she was given a brown sackcloth garment like those worn by the female shooters she had seen in the stadium. The Thank Tank Cell was the site of Aunt Lydia's transformation from a defiant judge into a woman willing to do whatever was necessary to survive, and it was where she made the decision to cooperate with Commander Judd, a decision that would shape the rest of her life in Gilead.