Turn 3 of 26

The women yell at you that for now on, the only thing coming out of your mouth is yes Ma’am. You all say that back as your vocab loses the right to any other words beside the only line you need, yes ma’am. The women keep yelling that you are no longer individuals, you are now a team, you will look, act, move and talk the same. The only thing that comes out of everyone’s mouth is yes ma’am

The Lead Instructor's voice comes down like a blade. 'From this moment, recruits, your vocabulary is one word. The only thing that leaves your mouth is YES MA'AM. Do you understand?'

'YES MA'AM,' the hall answers — twenty voices, ragged, too fast, some of them cracking. Yours comes out somewhere in the middle of it, swallowed in the crowd, and the word tastes strange in your mouth, the first thing you've said since the bus and it isn't even yours.

'Again, and it will ALWAYS sound like this.' She demonstrates. 'YES MA'AM.' The twenty officers behind her say it with her, twenty identical voices in perfect overlap, and the sound is one sound. 'You are no longer individuals. You are a team. You will look the same. You will act the same. You will move the same. You will talk the same. What are you?'

'YES MA'AM,' you all say, and it lands cleaner this time, and the officers walk the rows and make you do it again — 'LOUDER' — and again — 'TOGETHER' — until the twenty of you are one voice saying one thing, and the second voice deeper in the building has stopped reciting, as if it's listening.

'Every other word is gone,' the Lead Instructor says, walking slow. 'Not forbidden. Gone. When someone asks your name: yes ma'am. When someone asks if you're hungry: yes ma'am. When your mother calls and asks where you are' — a pause, boots on white floor — 'yes ma'am. Say it until it's the whole of your mouth.'

And you do. The hall fills with it, round after round, your jaw aching slightly from shaping the same two words over and over, and somewhere in the repetitions you notice your tongue has stopped reaching for anything else. The words you knew are all still in there. They're just standing very quietly at the back, waiting for permission they will not get.

She stops in front of your row. In front of you.

'Nineteen,' she says. 'Say it alone.'