Turn 7 of 26

The officer yells at you for taking time up and you march out of there getting back in line with everyone else, now dressed like the officers. Soon the officers come back out with black ties and a tie clip. They hand them to you 20. They yell at you to tie the tie like them and put it on tight. You all say yes ma’am as you 20 move quickly with making a Windsor knot and putting it tight around your

"MOVE, Nineteen! You don't get to admire yourself!" The officer's voice hits you from the side of the bay, and your boots are already moving, carrying you out into the hall and back into the line at your place before the echo of it dies. Twenty women in slate-navy stand in number order, and the hall looks wrong now in a way you can't fix — the recruits are gone. The line is full of officers. The only difference left is hair, twenty ordinary heads of it sitting on twenty identical bodies.

The officers return down the length of the line carrying stacks of black ties and a small tray of silver tie clips, and they hand one of each to every woman in the row.

"TIE THE TIE! WINDSOR KNOT!" the Lead Instructor roars.

"TIGHT AT THE COLLAR! You will tie it like us, exactly like us, until you can do it blind!"

"YES MA'AM," the line answers, one voice, and twenty pairs of hands go to work at once. Yours already know how. The knot builds itself under your fingers — wide end across, up through the loop, around, down — and there is no fumbling, no first attempt, no memory of ever learning it, just a Windsor forming in your hands as though it were always in there waiting. You pull it up against your throat and the collar tightens with it, snug and hard, and you set the clip, and you are done.

You are not the fastest. Three women finish before you. But the line finishes as one, and the officers walk it slowly, checking each knot with two fingers, tugging nothing, because nothing is crooked.

"Good," the Lead Instructor says, and the word lands flat on the white floor. "Now you are dressed. Standards intake will make you correct." Behind her, the cart of small black cases rolls forward down the line.