Chapter 2

We talked about it for a few days. Dad was worried about my safety, but we both agreed that it could be an exciting and rewarding job. Mum was more worried about my safety but came around to the idea, once I pointed out that there had been no news reports about members of the unit being killed or injured.

The day I got my exam results, I rang the Chief Inspector, getting through to Tracey. She told me that there would be an application form in the post, and that I should send it in with a copy of my exam results. There would be a couple of weeks at the Academy before I would be signed on at the University.

When my mother took me in that first day, we had been told another entrance to use. This one was very different from the main entrance. There was a door with an intercom next to it. When I told the voice who I was, we were told to unload my bags in the first room, and for my mother to leave me there. As the door unlocked we did as ordered, and I hugged Mum. She left with a few tears in her eyes, telling me to do my best.

When I went back inside, the door was locked and Tracey came through a door, looking very different from the well-dressed young lady I had seen before. She was in uniform, but without any badging and with a sidearm on her hip. She helped me carry my bags to another room, where it was left, and then led me further along to a medical centre.

“Abel. The very first thing today is a full medical. It will take a few hours. If you fail, we call a taxi and send you home with your bags. If you pass, you go to see our shrink to gauge your mind for what you’ll be faced with. Fail that, and it’s taxi time. Pass that and you’ll be taken to the flat to have a restful night. There will be an ID issued then, and your face will be saved to our computer files. The camera at the door will recognise you and let you in when you come back in the morning. Good luck!”

For the next few hours, I was poked and prodded in places I’ve never been poked or prodded before. Drained of blood and pee, I was shunted off to see the shrink, who was quite friendly, even when he was asking me about dreams and sexual preferences. He spent a lot of time talking about the fight, obviously having seen the video. He wanted to know if I felt happy that I was about to give the bullies a lesson. I told him that I hadn’t thought about it in that way, just that whatever happened, it would be an end to the endless taunts.

At the end of that time, I was sent to a place that was eerily similar to the school lunchroom, except there were only vending machines which accepted a tap of my credit card. As I sat and looked around, I saw that there were posters on one wall. Munching on quite a tasty sandwich, I wandered over and had a look. They were historic ‘wanted’ posters. I was amused by one that asked for information about a death. The guy had been machine-gunned and the poster stated that the police suspected ‘foul play’.

There was also a pile of magazines, so I sat and read through a few. Some catered for women, with fashion and make-up tips, which I sped through. Some were about different fighting skills, which I read more thoroughly. Some were typical car and motorcycle magazines. I read the ones on motorcycles with interest.

From what I’ve just said, you would guess that I was there for a while. I had food and drink on hand, there were toilets through a door, and I had a lot of reading matter. My martial arts teacher often said that ‘patience is a virtue, seldom found in men, and never in a woman’, whenever other students were too much of a hurry to engage in a bout, but I’ve always had the ability to take things as they come. If the police wanted me to sit here, then sit here is what I’ll do. It crossed my mind that there may be a hidden camera, and that this may be yet another test.

Either way, I made myself comfortable and nibbled, reading the magazines. It must have been an hour or more before the door opened and Tracey came in.

“How are you going, Abel?”

“All right, Tracey. I have food, drink and something to read.”

She sat at the table and looked at the magazines that I hadn’t put back.

“Quite a wide range of interests. What did you get out of the fashion magazines?”

“They were typical of the ones that my sisters used to read. Except for the names of the celebrities, they could have been written ten years ago, although, there are a few new fads that they didn’t have then.”

“Did you read them when you were younger?”

“Not a lot, just enough to be able to talk to my sisters. The oldest was really keen on the make-up. She’s ten years older than me and left home to work in a salon before I finished primary. About the same time, my other sister was doing martial arts, which I found much more interesting.”

“Did you choose the car you would like?”

“Actually, as I’ve ridden a pushbike for so long, I’m drawn to motorbikes. They’re not something my parents would approve; Mum would ban me from riding one.”

Her phone beeped, and she looked at the text.

“The doctor wants to talk to you again before we take you to the flat.”

“So, I’ve passed the tests?”

She smiled.

“You did, even this one; but there again, you saw through our little trick.”

“I thought it may be, seeing how long I was left alone.”

She had an envelope, out of which she pulled a lanyard with my new ID.

“Put this on, but never leave the building with it showing. I’ll take you back to see the doctor.”

Back in the medical room, I was sat in front of his desk with Tracey standing near the door.

“Mister Anderson. I have the results of your tests, and my examination of your body. I didn’t want to ask you these extra questions until I had those results. Tell me, have you ever shaved?”

“No. I was given a shaver kit for Christmas a couple of years ago, but the only thing I’ve used has been the little electric clippers to tidy up my nose and ear hairs. For some reason, I don’t like them getting too long.”

“But you don’t mind having your normal hair almost to your shoulders?”

“It’s an accepted style, sir. Nobody has ever told me to get it cut.”

“I’m not going to ask you if you masturbate, as I’m pretty sure you haven’t.”

I nodded, wondering where this was going.

“Is there a reason that you’re so sure, sir?”

“Your testicles have never descended. Why hasn’t this been brought up with your GP?”

“I can’t remember the last time I saw one. I don’t get anything, other than a cold, and haven’t had any accidents. I think the only times I was in the surgery have been for vaccine injections. Does that mean something is wrong?”

“Well, with your hormone levels showing very little testosterone, you fit a very interesting niche in the gender spectrum. You have reached an age where you should be thinking about sex, getting a rudimentary beard, and your voice should have broken. You sit there, today, not showing any of those developments. What is interesting, is that the martial arts has given you excellent muscle definition, very close to what you see in professional male ballet dancers.”

“Is there something that you can do that will make it better?”

“That’s up to you, Abel. We can operate to pull the testicles down, but I expect that they would be totally useless by this time. We could kickstart the rest with injections, but that would still leave you in a sexual limbo. I suggest that we leave things as they are for the moment. You’re an ideal candidate for the unit that you’ve signed on for. You can be sent out as a younger lad, without needing much with disguises. If you’re happy with things as they are, we can see you in twelve months to check what’s happened then. It will only change the next stage of your training slightly. If you have any strange pains, come and see me and I’ll schedule some advanced scans to be certain of how you’re made.”

“So, sir, I’m not a proper man, and never will be?”

“Correct. You are at a point where we could take you to being a very credible young lady. Either way, there is no chance for you to create a baby in either gender. I’m sorry to be the one to give you this news, but you can be sure that you have the full support of the Force, now that you’ve been accepted.”

“Thank you, doctor. It certainly answers a few questions I’ve had, and I’ll give the problem some thought. I’ll look it up on the net, to see what others have done before I make any decision.”

We collected my bags, and I hid the ID under my shirt, following Tracey to the carpark. She opened up a decrepit Volkswagen and I put the bags in the back seat. We only went out into the main road, and then around a corner to the block of flats. She led me to one of the doors and opened it. I took my bags in and put them on the floor.

“Right, Abel. This is a two-bedroom flat. You’ll be getting another to share with you. As you can tell from what happened today, our initial screening is very time-consuming. We only gain a few new members each year. As you can understand, the likely candidates are few and far between. When we have everyone, you’ll all start together. The first two are already settled into another flat. Take a look around the area tomorrow. I’ll be bringing the last one here in the afternoon, unless they have a taxi trip home. I’ll see you on the day after, when you get the introductory speech from our C.I. There’s more info in this envelope.”

When she had left me, I looked at the rest of the contents, which really only told me how to walk to the Academy, the clothing rules for the first section of the training, and the one thing that I’d already been told; not to show the lanyard and ID outside the Academy. I unpacked my bags in the bedroom with the best view and then looked into the kitchen to see what was on offer. It was stocked with all the things needed for bachelor living.

I made myself a cup of tea with the bags provided and looked at the map to see where I would be walking to work. I saw that the other side of the block had the old house where Paul McCartney lived, and if I carried on around the block, I would be passing a chippy.

I put my coat on and went out for a walk. Going in the opposite direction of how I got here, I walked past the Academy, as far as Forthin Road, looking at the small house as I passed. With a zig and zag, I went back towards the flat along the Greenhill Road until I reached the chippy. With my hot parcel under my arm, it was a short walk past a convenience store, and across the road to the flat. After my fish dinner, I watched TV for a while, but found that I couldn’t concentrate. I went to bed and laid there, thinking about what the doctor had said.

Before I went to sleep, I decided that it wasn’t something I would talk to my parents about. From my point of view, it had two good advantages if you could call them that. I couldn’t be accused of rape, and I couldn’t get pregnant. In the morning, I woke up with a feeling of having the knowledge at least and had a breakfast in a positive state of mind. After tidying up, I decided to spend the day looking around.

Going out, I walked up to Mather Avenue and looked both ways for a bus stop. I saw one to my left and walked towards it, joining a small group waiting for the bus. Half an hour in the bus and I got off outside the Watson Building, just a short walk to the Uni I was to be sent to. Other than a woman who got off and walked towards the Watson Building, there were two girls who had got on in the same crowd, and the only other ones to get off. They started to walk towards the university, so I hung back but followed them, thinking about the other woman who had been on the bus. I was sure I had seen her before.

We crossed the road and walked up Brownlow Hill until we reached a walkway to our left, a very new part of a development. It went past a modern building which was the University. When they didn’t go in, but carried on to the next road, I caught up with them.

“Excuse me, ladies, but I noticed that you got on the bus at Mather Avenue and came here. Can I suggest that you have just started living in a flat on Booker?”

“Who are you, and what business is it of yours?”

“I believe that we may all be starting on a course tomorrow, which will bring us to the university for a while. If I’m wrong, just tell me to piss off and forget I asked.”

“How many did you beat up to be chosen?”

“Just four, but it was a couple of years ago. The name’s Abel.”

“Hello, Abel. I’m Hortense and the quiet one is Matilda. I only clobbered a couple who wanted to rape me within viewing distance of a CCTV, not that far from here.”

“It’s good to meet the two of you. I’m told that there’ll be one more, who will share my flat if he gets accepted.”

“We’ll just have to wait and see. You look too young to have left school.”

“From what I was told yesterday, that’s a big plus. I’ve done my ‘O’s.”

“How about we all go into the city and chill. Don’t mind Matilda, she just takes a while to warm up her vocal chords.”

Matilda snorted.

“It’s just that I don’t run off at the mouth, Abel. My story is that I put up with being abused by my stepfather and his brother until I put them both in hospital with a booby trap. It seems that I have a very good ability with such things, along with being able to wait for my chance. In that case, I waited a couple of years.”

We walked back towards the city, as far as the Clayton Square shopping centre. There, we wandered around the shops. For me, it was the first time that I had done such a thing with girls, my sisters being off and away before I was old enough for this kind of excursion. I found that I didn’t have a problem with them looking in clothes shops. When that was mentioned, I just said that I had two sisters, one who was now working in a salon.

When it got to lunch, we stopped at the Wildwood Restaurant where I had the first experience in eating Italian, which I found that I really enjoyed. It was as if I was starting a life of new things that made me feel very grown up. The three of us began opening up to each other. My experience was nothing as bad as theirs, but they both had suffered from bullying at school. Matilda due to her quiet and reclusive attitude, and Hortense because her beauty, which she didn’t flaunt, so making the other girls jealous. Like me, they had both taken self-defence lessons, and like me, they had learned to look around to see if anything bad was coming their way.

We didn’t talk about what was in our future, as it wasn’t something to be discussed in public. We spoke about starting at the university, with me having the most qualifications, by just a single result. After lunch, we spent the afternoon at the Museum of Liverpool, another new experience for me having grown up on the Wirral, the other side of the river. Matilda was the leader, directing us from hall to hall, sometimes seeing something that caught her fancy out of the corner of her eye and dragging us in another direction.

By the end of the afternoon, we knew each other well enough to laugh and joke together. I was in a place where I had never been with girls about my age and happy in each other’s company. We caught the bus back to Mather Avenue, and I told them about the chippy. We went there and bought our fish dinner, with me joining them in their flat to eat it. In the safety of the flat, we spoke about the course to come, with them looking forward to being able to learn more unarmed combat.

None of us had any thoughts that it wouldn’t be dangerous, but together we admitted that it was part of what attracted us to the unit. When I went to my flat, both girls gave me a hug before I left, which was something that made me feel good. When I went in, there wasn’t anyone else in the flat, so I guessed that he had been given a taxi ride.

The next morning, the three of us, in casual exercise clothes, walked to the Academy, pressing the button beside the door. The voice told us to press the button, one at a time, and look at the screen. It took a few minutes before we were gathered in the first room again. Tracey was there waiting for us, and led us through another door, straight into a new corridor to the open-plan office.

The Chief Inspector was waiting for us, telling us to sit on the three office chairs set in a line.

“Good Morning, I would like to welcome the three of you to this year of study. We will start with a couple of weeks of you being assessed by our instructors. I believe that the three of you have got to know each other, already.”

I smiled.

“You had us followed yesterday by Tracey. She was on the bus with us. I suppose that she was originally set to follow the girls. Tan coat with long deep orange skirt and black shoes.”

Hortense laughed.

“Black coat, with the skirt pulled up to knee length. You were with us in the shopping centre and behind us to the riverside.”

Matilda chipped in.

“The coat now over the arm, the skirt reversed to show the black side. You followed us around the Museum. I deliberately made sudden shifts in direction, and you were still with us.”

The C.I. had to sit down; he was laughing so much.

“Looks like you’ll need a refresher in shadowing, Tracey. How did you pick her up, Abel?”

“She left the bus and walked away from us, sir. I’d walked behind her often enough, the day before, to have a clear memory of the way she walks. The other thing was that she had a phone up to her face as if she was talking, but I expect that she had the reverse camera turned on so she could see where we went.”

“There you go, Tracey. These recruits have lived a life that had them always watching their backs, in case they were attacked. They are in a constant state of alertness, so you shouldn’t be embarrassed at being spotted. They all did well by not confronting you. I think we’ll see if we can keep them together, they do make a good team.”

For the rest of the day and the two weeks before the University, we became fully able to move around the training area without needing any help. We were put through the wringer with the combat instructors to gauge our abilities. We spent hours on the gunnery range, learning how to pull a pistol apart, putting it back together, and putting holes in targets.

All the time, we were being drawn into the world of policing, something that we welcomed. When we went to the university for the first time, we were welcomed in and enrolled in our courses, given a big folder with our course notes and directions to all the classrooms and laboratories, as well as the codes to let us access the on-line lectures.

For eight months, we learned about forensics, the arcane art of investigating, the history of police work, the modern trends of gangs, and how to find our way around computer files and police databases. We also spent a lot of time studying law, as well as being taught how to maim or even kill with our bare hands or anything else to hand. We did most of the course with Zoom lectures, seeing the other Degree Apprentices on screen, but with our pictures blanked out. We had our combat training separately as well.

Halfway through was Christmas. We didn’t go anywhere, but bought a small turkey and the trimmings, as well as small gifts for each other, and had our own celebration. I got to kiss both girls under the mistletoe. I rang home to wish them a Merry Christmas and told them that I was spending the break studying.

Towards the end of the eight months, we spent two weeks wearing army fatigues at an army camp being taught even more ways to defend ourselves, as well as a short regime of exercise with a run every morning.

On top of that, I was taught how to drive, the girls already having their licences. The three of us were taken to a racetrack and taught how to drive at high speed. Needless to say, I passed the test first time. I asked if I could learn how to ride a motorbike and was taken back to the racetrack where I was given a quick lesson, and then let loose on the track with an instructor riding beside me in radio communication.

I have to say that in that eight months I grew up. I was doing things well out of my comfort zone. On the bike, I was skirting with a serious mishap, and I was loving it. I was fit, I was healthy, and I could hold my own against all but the sneakiest combat instructor. I could hit targets with a range of handguns, long guns, and even crossbows, as well as pull them apart and put them together in the dark. We had a training session where we were shown a quick flash of a slide with a weapon on it, and had to tell the instructor what the weapon was, it’s calibre and capacity, as well as how many times you could be hit without slowing down, as some guns didn’t have a good stopping power.

We weren’t issued with any firearms though, and all of our Academy clothing was taken from us before we left for the unit. The only thing we had to show our positions were the IDs on our lanyards. The last day for me was spent with the doctor and taken to the main hospital where I had an appointment for an MRI scan on my abdominal cavity and groin.

On the day we left for the unit, we were all packed and ready to go when a Transit van pulled up outside the flats. We put our bags in the back and there were four jump seats there as well. The driver was one of the instructors that had been teaching us gunnery, and he was cheery as we got ourselves comfortable.

It wasn’t a very long drive, but out of the city limits and into the countryside. When we stopped, we found ourselves in what looked like a farm, just as the C.I. had described. A man met us and welcomed us to The Ox Unit, so called because it was the only farm on Ox Lane, near Tarbock Green. To me, it could have been on the moon as far as I was concerned.

It was a group of old farm buildings, and we were taken to one with our bags. It was quite modern inside, with four bedrooms, a sitting area and small kitchen.

“This is where you stay when you’re with us. The toilet is out the back and is a chemical one, so no sanitary towels in it, please. Settle in and have a look around. The big house next to the end of the paved road is our office, training and dining building. You are responsible for keeping this place tidy and will be on a roster to help there. We start real-world training tomorrow. Lunch at one, dinner at six, and you all help out with the cooking, so get over there an hour early.”

Marianne Gregory © 2026