"Good afternoon, gentlemen. Welcome to the crucible. I am Sergeant Iskandorj, and I will be your alchemist."

At the moment, they were toy soldiers - a few dozen boys, carefully recruited from the city, to be the next generation of the Watch. Anastas's job was simple - he was going to turn them into real men. And be their new papa while he was at it.

"You will address me at all times as Sergeant, or Sir. I call this a crucible because that's what it is. You have all volunteered, of your own free will, to be made into soldiers and serve in our little gendarmie. That's admirable; I praise you for it. But it is there that the praise ends. You have not volunteered to DO something, gentlemen, so much as to BECOME someone - someone new, better, stronger. Over the course of the next six weeks, you will be broken down into your constituent parts. That which is good and useful to us will be re-casted; that which is unworthy will be tossed aside. Pencils and paper are being passed out; I want you to write your names on them."

They complied, albeit nervously. It wasn't exactly what they were expecting. They were all identical, their hair already cut and all of them clad in an identical stripped-down Watch uniform. The Sergeant was dressed the same way, with the exception of a decorated little shako that marked his rank. When they were written down, he collected them and deposited them in an iron lockbox.

"You will get your names back when I'm done with you. I have no use for them. Your names are a remnant of your old lives, gentlemen, a piece of baggage that you have to discard. You will have no name until I choose to give you one. Until then, you will have no identity apart from the unit, and will share in its rewards and punishments. Now, I will begin our training proper with a little philosophy. Do we have any Latin speakers in the audience today?"

One recruit raised his hand. As soon as Anastas's gaze fell upon him, he shrunk a little bit.

"And what is your name, young man?"

"Tolenz, sir." The whole regiment went silent.

"You appear to be a poor listener. Perhaps 25 pushups will clear your ears?" Hesitation. "NOW!" The young man drops to the ground and starts doing them. The rest of the platoon waits silently while he completes them, not wanting to provoke the Sergeant's ire. It's the most exercise he's ever gotten in his life - he has to stop halfway through. It takes him a whole two minutes to complete. At long last, he stands up, breathing heavily.

"Let us try this again. What is your name, young man?" He straightened up and gave the right answer.

"Sir! I have no name, sir!" Anastas got a devious smile.

"Good, very good! But you're very educated, aren't you? After all, you know Latin. Do you consider yourself an intellectual?" The young man hesitated. After all, what could possibly be the right answer to that question?

"Sir! No sir!" Well, it was a guess.

"But you speak Latin! Like Cicero. You know Cicero, don't you?"

"Sir, yes sir!"

"хороши! In that case, I dub thee Cicero from now on. So, Cicero, translate the following phrase for us - Dulce et decorum est pro patrium mori."

"Sir! It is sweet and fitting to die for your country." He turned and yelled at the crowd, gesticulating the while.

"This, my boys, is the kind of romantic nonsense that has dogged our profession for literally 2500 years! It is not, in fact, sweet to die, for your country or otherwise. And what exactly is a country? The soil doesn't care who lives on it. Flags are just pieces of cloth. Monuments remain dead and silent. There is no such thing as a country beyond the people who live in it; it is not the country but the community that is relevant. Whenever people start talking about flags or the motherland, stop listening. Second phrase - Legio Patria Nostra."

"Sir! The Legion is our country!"

"Even worse. Even worse. I enjoy a good esprit d'corps as much as anyone, but the development of a military culture that prevents its participants from joining in with the culture of the people they are protecting is the worst thing to happen to an army or a community. It destroyed my country, that's for damn sure. The military cut itself away from everyone else, in its own values, customs, and even language! We as soldiers have one and only one function - to maintain a monopoly on force, within our community, so that men may solve their problems without it. Am I understood?"

Silence implies consent. He goes on.

"Before we can learn how to fight, we must learn how to learn. Thus, we shall begin with marching. Before you boys were twinkles in your fathers' eyes, I was a member of the Soviet Workers' and Peasants' Red Army, which shall henceforth be referred to as the RKKA. Just as I did, you will learn all the intricacies of a perfect parade drill - the length, height, and force of each step, in perfect unison, along with the correct arm motions with and without a rifle, including its various postures at attention - before you even see a sword or a loaded gun."

He beckons to the parade ground. Atop it is a wire fence, the wires at the perfect height for these sorts of things. "We will begin by marching. We will march until we do it perfectly. We will march day in and day out, morning and evening, until we can but march in our sleep and our dreams are simply night marches. Up to the fence, my boys! There's a line on the ground. One! Two! One! Two!"

And thus began the drill.

Dawn saw Karen in her office again... or still. The first rays of sunlight illuminating a figure by the door. She looked up only briefly, then back to her papers. "Been waitin' long, lad?"

"Long enough to know that you have not slept, Commander." The boy replied.

Karen smirked humorlessly. "Work 'won' get done by itself." she said, tapping the papers. "What news?"

Lucien walked up to the desk and added a few more papers to the pile. "All the names and addresses check out. Whoever gave you this list was very careful. None of them appear to know they've been 'made'."

Karen moved some papers to the side and unrolled a map of the city. "A'right then... 'ow likely kin we hit all o' 'em at th' same time?" She began placing small stones and other markers at the various places mentioned in the list.

"Completely impossible. Your Templars still lack the numbers they once had, and co-ordinating with The Watch on this scale would be impossible. They're not trained for it."

"Then we do this on our own." Karen shifted a number of the pieces about until she was satisfied she'd picked a good selection of sites that could be hit simultaneously.

"Wouldn't it be better to wait until after the election? Show an immediate action against the criminal element?" Lucien already knew the answer, but he felt obligated to ask.

"Th' quicker we act, th' more we catch" she replied, not looking up from the map. "B'sides... I don' work thet way. I said th' Templars'd do their job whether 'er nae I become Governor... this'll 'elp prove it."

"I shall arrange a few strikes of my own then, with your permission?" He gave a bow, already knowing the answer.

"O'course. I'll take these plans tae th' Cardinal. We move afor sunset." She finished decisively, rolling up the map and looking up... but the French boy was already gone.

It was five in the morning, and Company K - the name for the new company of Watchmen - was marching towards a firing range. Sgt. Iskandorj led the trek, and even on the uneven grass the Company was in perfect lockstep. He insisted on perfect lockstep.

"Gentlemen, a dull knife is more dangerous than a sharp knife, isn't that right? With a dull knife, you have to push and push, and you might break it, or cut off a finger by accident. Much better to have a sharp knife! A knife that performs its function perfectly."

"Za za!" Sounds like gibberish, but that's what you say when your commander tells you something, if you happen to be in an army that speaks Khalkha Mongolian. Having a special language for military terms served two purposes - it created complete unambiguity (anything not in Khalkha is of no martial value and thus can be skipped over), and it fostered a certain esprit de corps.

"And much better to be a sharp knife. Gentlemen, you are carrying guns! And if you hesitate in firing them, it's as good as handing them to your assailants. I will not have people around me carrying weapons who are unprepared to use them. Today, gentlemen, we will be shooting at live targets."

There was . . . a murmur of hesitation.

"It's only grouse, boys! Don't you eat meat? This is exactly the same! We must learn to hit moving targets with our muskets. Once you can hit a flying pheasant, you'll have no trouble with any human being" The Sergeant gave a great humph.

"And once you've bagged a bird, you'll learn how to clean and cook it. Can't waste a thing, you know." The march continued, now under a bit of hesitation.

"In my day, we had to slash open dogs to get our killer instinct."

One week after he shot two people and vanished into the night, Sgt. Iskandorj walked back into town. His eyepatch was gone; a new prosthetic was in its place. And he stunk. But he was back.

"Never mind where I've been, boys. Taking a little holiday, that's all. No exercise today, we've exercised enough. We will study ethics."