We progressed beyond numbers to alphabets and then to symbols, learning how to hold information without consciously knowing it. We built memory palaces and tore them down, used the rubble to frame encrypted messages. At the same time we progressed through a radical physical indoctrination, discovered how one person can fight six and hurt them, wear them out and beat them; how three people can work together against someone who is better trained and equipped. While we fought, we must also work our minds, process combat and information simultaneously. Our instructors asked questions and we shouted back responses, quotations, coded messages we made up on the spot which the next recruit would have to unscramble on the fly. If they failed, both would suffer. If they succeeded, the reward was another problem, a harder one, and more physical tasks, more involved weapons forms. And all the while you had to maintain not one but three cover stories, never mix them, never let one single true statement about yourself pass your lips, not even things that were self-evident such as eye colour or skin tone or how many people were in the room or how many fingers an instructor was holding up.