At the academy graduation, my father scoffed under his breath, “Useless. She’ll quit like she always does.” I stood perfectly still at attention. Then Drill Sergeant Frey halted the ceremony, turned toward me, and raised his hand in a sharp salute. “Major,” he said, voice carrying across the field. “On extended assignment.” My father’s face drained of color.

Sloan watched from the end. “Why didn’t you run when someone yelled fire?” she asked. “I smelled dust, not smoke.” “And when the light burst?”

“The glass fell behind me.” She wrote something down. By midnight, half the candidates were gone. By the third day, I stopped counting.

There was a former wrestler who broke during sleep rotation. A debate champion who could not survive being ignored. A police recruit who grabbed a trainer when she insulted his mother, which was exactly what she had wanted him to do.

They were strong in ways my father would have admired. But the program did not want that kind of strength.

It wanted people who could be insulted without reacting. People who noticed new paint on emergency hinges. People who could sit in a room for six hours, hear one sentence through static, and repeat it perfectly.