Sweetpea had been on the job three days, and it was amazing what a routine she'd fallen into. It wasn't as if her patrols were on any sort of schedule—they seemed to happen at random, or whenever there was an early-morning patrol that nobody else wanted. Even when they were foisting off patrols on her, everybody accepted her, even Fittly (albeit a little begrudgingly).

On the third day, she came off of patrol sweaty and panting, high on adrenaline from her first chase. There was a golem post officer with a large package standing in the corner of the watch house.

"What's he here for?" Sweetpea asked Dars, jerking her thumb towards the golem waiting patiently with its eyes dimmed. She moved rapidly out of the way as Corporal Flint went by, carrying their suspect under his arm.

"I think it's got your new armor," said Dars. "And since it's a big package, you have to sign for it. I tried, but it wouldn't let me." She looked up at Flint and the would-be thief under his arm, looked back down at her desk, and scribbled a few notes.

Dars seemed to always be on desk duty. Sweetpea figured she had something worked out with the other constables. Sweetpea was content to stay out of that—barging into any arrangement might throw off the whole orbit of the thing. As she had just learned, chasing down criminals and unlicensed thieves was exhilarating, but patrols at oh dark thirty when every noise had the potential for danger weren't her idea of a good time. A healthy balance of desk work and patrols was just what she needed.

"Armor that actually fits will be nice," Sweetpea commented. She walked up to the golem and tapped him (it?) as far up on the arm as she could reach.

"Excuse me? I'm Sweetpea Hakim, I understand you have a package for me?"

The post officer's eyes suddenly shone with life. In one huge, smooth movement, it deposited its package on the floor and produced a clipboard from gods-knew-where.

"Just Sign Here, Please," it said. "There Is Also A Letter For You From Sergeant Angua of Pseudopolis Yard."

"Oh, she must want me to liaise with the Times about something," said Sweetpea. She took the letter and stuck it into her belt, then signed the document on the clipboard with a flourish. The guild school hadn't been able to beat a modest signature into her. Her note-taking penmanship was up to standard, but she couldn't help but make her signature full of loops. It must have had something to do with learning to write in Klatchian alongside Morporkian.

"Thank you," she said to the golem as it stomped out.

"You're Welcome, Lance-Constable."

Dars stood up, so as to better see over the desk. She nodded to the large package at Sweetpea's feet

"Well? Go ahead and open it, then."

Sweetpea didn't need much more encouragement than that. She sliced open the cardboard and pulled out… several bucketfuls of packing peanuts. Beneath that was a gleaming breastplate, fresh chainmail, and a new helmet, all her very own. Sweetpea tried not to show her excitement too much as she discarded the old stuff and began buckling her custom armor on. She heard Dars clucking with disapproval.

"No, no, that won't do."

"What? Why?" Sweetpea asked with dismay.

"Not enough dents," said Dars, shaking her head. "You need to get kicked by a few trolls, then it'll look like real copper's armor."

A few days ago, this statement would have caused Sweetpea to pause. There was still a part of her that believed that she wasn't a "real copper", but it was drowned out by the rest of her saying Not a real copper? Tell that to our legs, sore from chasing people. Tell that to our knuckles, bruised from punching the dummy Flint set up. Dars was no less of a copper because she was on desk duty all the time, and Sweetpea wasn't going to be any less of a copper when she had her own office. After all, Commander Vimes was in his office most of the day, and he practically invented modern coppering.

Speaking of Commander Vimes, she had received a letter in addition to the swanky new armor, hadn't she? She pulled out the envelope and tore it open. Inside, in writing that she recognized as clerk guild-trained handwriting, it said:

Lance-Constable Hakim—

There was a riot last night after the Dimmers and Dollies football game. The Dimwell Watch house constables were involved, as were seven other officers called in from the Yard. One of them was hurt, and it is believed that a further twelve people were injured. The final score of the game is unknown. The riot lasted twenty minutes, and ended when a soaking rain began to fall.

Please pass this information on to the Times. They always exaggerate the number of injured.

Sergeant Angua

(pp Constable Pessimal)

"Please pass this information" probably didn't mean "write your own report on this and make it sound nice", but Sweetpea was on desk duty and didn't have anything better to do. If she was going to be press liaison, she was going to go above and beyond and liaise with an entire well-written report. They'd hired her for her clerking skills, after all.

When Sweetpea left the watch house later that night, she found Constables Haddock and Dars waiting for her.

"This is a pleasant surprise," she said, coming down the steps with her report in hand. She was lucky to have made friends so early on the job. Fittly was, as Corporal Shoe had pointed out, just a "lad", but Haddock and Dars seemed almost too good to be true. Haddock was a lot like Captain Carrot in that he saw the good in everyone. Dars didn't care what people thought, and she aggressively liked what she liked or hated what she hated. Apparently, one of the things she aggressively liked was Sweetpea. No complaints were forthcoming from Sweetpea about this arrangement, that was for sure.

"We thought we would go for a drink," Haddock said with a hopeful grin.

"Or a take-away," suggested Dars. "Do you know any good Klatchian restaurants?"

Sweetpea sighed. "That's really nice of you, and I wish I could, but I've got to drop this report about the football riot off at the Times office."

Haddock looked undeterred, as Sweetpea found he usually did in times of conflict. "Well, that's all right. Their offices are on Gleam Street. So's our pub."

"Our pub—?"

"He means the Watch pub," explained Dars. "The Bucket. They do a nice cider, at least. No quaffing if you don't want to."

Most female dwarves were averse to quaffing. It didn't sound as if Dars liked drinking much (at least, not at the Bucket), but she was willing to go out with her friends and that was good enough for Sweetpea. She sighed her assent, and they fell into step. Even without armor on, everyone they passed either gave them a wide berth or sniggered at them. It was the policeman's walk. You couldn't disguise it. Even a sleepwalking copper from a mile away on a dark night would be recognized.

After a few minutes of this, and having not gotten very far down the street, Sweetpea said impatiently,

"Could we go a bit faster? It's going to be dark soon."

"Sorry," said Haddock sheepishly. They adopted a more normal gait.

"Shouldn't you have the Commander read that report before you hand it over to the newspaper?" Dars asked as they turned down Cable Street.

"Well, I thought so," said Sweetpea. "But I think he's bad with paperwork, so I should only have him check the really important stuff."

"Who decides what's important?" Haddock asked.

"Uh, me," Sweetpea admitted. "Although I'm supposed to ask the corporal if I'm not sure."

They all thought about this for a bit. Although Corporal Flint was good at giving orders, and quite smarter than he was given credit for, the art of the written word eluded him. The troll didn't even know how to hold a pencil without breaking it.

"Or, the commander said he'd let me know if anything was major enough," Sweetpea said, finally. "Really, I'm just supposed to be learning how to be a copper right now. Once my probation gets signed off I'll move to the Yard and sit at a desk most of the time."

"Oh," said Dars, sounding disappointed.

"You're not becoming fond of me, are you, Constable Ironcrust?" Sweetpea asked, lightly cuffing Dars's helmet.

"We're just going to miss having somebody smart in the Watch House," Haddock teased.

Dars scowled up at him. "Hey, fishface, what's that supposed to mean? I know you haven't got many brains, but that doesn't apply to all of us."

Laughing, they turned the corner onto Gleam Street. Sweetpea had never been on it before she joined the force. Besides the Bucket and the ever-growing offices of the newspaper, the street was full of empty buildings. If they were occupied it was never for long.

The three of them stopped outside the Bucket, where light and the murmur of voices spilled out of the open door. Sweetpea waved the report at her two friends.

"I'll join you in a few minutes."

"We'll save you a seat!" Dars called as she followed the eager Haddock inside.

"Yeah, order me a Lat!"

Sweetpea had quite the stomach for alcohol. It had something to do with imbibing so much knurd-inducing coffee throughout her life. She quite liked Sto Lat iced teas, since they didn't actually taste like alcohol. This could be dangerous, however, as next thing you knew you'd drank four Lats and were, in fact, lateral on the ground.

She continued down the street to the Times office, where the hungry press was always thumping. It shook the ground even outside the building. People were rushing around her with carts stacked high with bundles—presumably the evening edition. The office used to be in the sheds behind the Bucket, but they'd burned down in rather mysterious circumstances back in the cold snap of '90. Sweetpea, still in school at the time, hadn't been paying much attention to the tumultuous affair of the patricianship. Students at the Clerk's Guild were only given so much coal, so she'd moved into Chelsea's room where they pooled their coal and huddled together for warmth. Finally classes had been canceled when all the ink froze solid.

"Lance-Constable Hakim?"

Sweetpea looked down to see Boddony, second-in-command of the printing press. Sweetpea had learned that he was married to Mr. Goodmountain, but she wasn't sure what to call the two of them. "Husbands" didn't seem to be quite the right term, and their relationship was more of a business one than a marital one. Then again, Sweetpea had only known them for a few days. Her parents had owned a business together, and during the day they were constantly yelling at each other in order to keep the stand going. At home, they had a nauseating number of pet names for each other.

"Got anything for us?" the dwarf asked shortly.

"That's why I'm here," said Sweetpea, handing him the report. She thought she saw Boddony smile. "I've got a report here about the riot after the Dimmers and Dollies game. I'll be able to get you more comprehensive information when I'm off my proba—who's that?"

She broke off to stare at a woman who'd come rushing into the building, wild-eyed and breathless. The main floor of the office was so open that there wasn't much in the way of employees' view of the door. Heads of dwarves, humans, and other species alike were turning towards the newcomer.

"That's Jesslyn Obstrepity," said Boddony with a frown. "She's our religious correspondent. I've never seen her like that—she's annoyingly straight-laced."

The woman did indeed look as if she was usually respectable, but right now her hair was coming out of its tight bun and she was panting like a mime artist who was being chased by the Watch.

"Stop the press!" she yelled.

"Why do they always say that?" Boddony muttered. "It's not as if it's going anywhere."

Mr. de Worde and Miss Cripslock, apparently attracted by the noise, joined the excited Jesslyn.

"What's the story, Jesslyn?" Miss Cripslock asked, if only to stop the woman panting theatrically. "Is there a new god? Is one of the gods dead? Did a girl in the Ramtops become the Summer Lady again?"

"No, none of that." Ms. Obstrepity flapped a piece of paper which presumably had the notes for her story on it. "All of the priests are saying that the gods are feeling neglected, and need to build up belief. They're going to start performing miracles, getting people's attention...we might even see some manifestations."

"Do the gods think they're not being believed in?" asked Mr. de Worde, a little incredulously. "But people go to church all the time. Er… don't they?"

Jesslyn shook her head sadly. "Worship and belief are two very different things, Mr. William. Except for the Anoians, all the major religions have seen a steady drop in membership over the last few years."

Sweetpea thought guiltily of her own extremely erratic visits to the temple of Offler on Octedays. Maybe she should stop in for Deacon Jones's sermons a little bit more often. Her soul could use a decent scrubbing, especially since she was a copper now. Once this story got out, other people were probably going to think the same thing. And if gods were going to start performing miracles, well. You never knew, It Could be You. Ankh-Morporkians had an unfailing sense of "what's in it for me?" Maybe the gods had finally realized that.

"People have begun to rely on technology actually making their lives better, rather than just hoping that a god might," said Ms Obstrepity. "As His Excellency Hughnon Ridcully said, they're more concerned with their life than their afterlife."

This was certainly true with Sweetpea, although her mother was the opposite. That was probably why, a dark part of Sweetpea's mind suggested, that Nawar Hakim was in the ground and her daughter was not. Sweetpea slapped the thought away irritably. That sort of thinking could creep up on you if you weren't careful.

"I can see that you have a lot to do," Sweetpea said to Boddony. "I'd better leave you to it."

"Yeah," said the dwarf absently. He was watching Jesslyn dictate a story to Goodmountain, while de Worde suggested more diplomatic ways to structure certain sentences. Dwarfs didn't have any gods that Sweetpea was aware of, although she knew that they were highly superstitious. Sweetpea wasn't surprised that Boddony was interested in this story, though. Gods manifesting in the street, whether they were your gods or not, probably played merry hell with the traffic.

She passed a three-way argument on including swear words in direct quotations and exited the offices. She had a drink waiting for her at the Bucket.

"What kept you?" Dars asked when Sweetpea joined them in a booth. This time of night, the bar was full of coppers both in and out of uniform. At least, she assumed the non-uniformed ones were Watch members, but then again ordinary people didn't drink like they'd seen a double homicide.

"Big story broke while I was there," Sweetpea explained. "Apparently, the gods have decided that people aren't worshiping them enough."

"They're not going to start smiting people, are they?" asked Haddock in alarm.

"I don't think so. Quite the opposite, in fact. They're going to start with the Celestial Carrot rather than the Holy Stick."

"What does that mean, for those of us who don't speak in metaphor?" Dars asked. Her sherry was almost empty. Sweetpea took a drink of her own Sto Lat iced tea; it wasn't bad.

"As I understand it, they're going to start performing miracles and such—start giving people incentives to worship them." She took another long pull of her Lat. "That is good. Don't let me have too many of these."

"I can't imagine that this'll affect us much," said Haddock. "Coppers don't believe in gods—well, most of us don't, anyway—and if people are getting religious then crime rates might actually go down."

"Not among the dwarfs and trolls," Dars pointed out. Her sherry was empty by now, and she was looking hopefully towards the bartender for a refill. "I can't imagine the troll gods getting involved, and Tak just doesn't do visitations."

"Who or what is Tak?" Sweetpea asked.

Constable Haddock put his hands on the table and began to scooch himself out of the booth.

"If we're going to get into that conversation, I should really start heading to work."

"Work?" repeated Sweetpea. "But you've only just come off duty."

"I pull night shifts at the bank sometimes," said Haddock. He took a dollar bill from his pocket and laid it on the table. "I hardly ever get to sleep nowadays, but it pays the bills. You know how rent is."

After Haddock had gone, accompanied by a bar-wide call of "Goodbye, Kipper!", Sweetpea turned to Dars.

"What is Tak and why did it make Haddock so eager to leave?"

Dars barked a humorless laugh. "Tak is the creator of the world, according to the dwarf view. Haddock left because once I start talking theology it eventually turns into feminism."

"I wouldn't mind a crash course in feminism," said Sweetpea. "And we've got time."

Dars grinned, but this time there was genuine humor behind it. "You'll regret you said that. Let me start by saying that gender is a totally made-up social construct…"

When Dars realized that Sweetpea was genuinely interested, she unleashed her full torrent of gender politics. Most of it was from a dwarfish perspective, which was extremely interesting to Sweetpea, and what wasn't about dwarfs Sweetpea by and large already knew. She was an adult woman, after all, and had experienced enough casual sexism over time to casually pummel her into a mold of societal expectations. The way she acted, the way everyone acted, according to Dars, was all to do with societal expectations.

"How do you know all this?" Sweetpea asked when Dars paused for breath somewhere amidst an explanation of the cult of masculinity. "Good grief, there's enough for a school course here. And dwarf women haven't even been openly female for that long."

"Ever since Cheery Littlebottom started wearing a dress," said Dars dreamily. "The first openly female dwarf, and we work at the same place." Her eyes slid back into focus. "I'm smitten, according to Lars Skulldrinker, but I don't even know what gender Sergeant Littlebottom is attracted to. Lars is the one who taught me a lot of this stuff, when I first joined the Watch. The stuff about humans, I got from a book. You won't find it in any bookstores—copies just sort of get passed around. I'll see if I can get you one. Aphilia Parsnip is the author's name."

It might have been the two Sto Lats she'd had by then, but something gave Sweetpea enough courage to ask. "And what about interspecies same-sex relationships? People seem okay with both separately, but what would they say if you combined them?"

"I don't know if there are any of those," said Dars thoughtfully. "Yet. But this is Ankh-Morpork. They'd probably say 'how indecent', but by the end of the first week everyone'd be used to it."

Sweetpea almost said "I hope you're right", but her courage didn't extend quite that far.

She didn't work again until the next night, so Sweetpea spent her day off sleeping and looking over the coffee stand's accounts. It was in trouble, but then again it always was. Rent in Sator Square ate up the most money, but if they moved they'd lose a lot of their customer base. Now that Sweetpea was working and providing income for the family, rather than her tuition draining money from it, they might do okay. Hasan refused to fire his solitary employee Fatiha. He insisted that he couldn't run the stand without her, which was probably true, but he was also a little sweet on her. Sweetpea liked the woman and would be perfectly happy if Hasan married her. It wasn't looking all that likely at this point that Sweetpea was ever going to have kids, and she held a deep-rooted Klatchian belief that somebody needed to carry on the Hakim family name. It wasn't all that heavy of a name, but it would still be a shame if somebody were to drop it.

Sweetpea didn't mention any of this to Hasan, since neither of them enjoyed discussing relationships. They did talk about going to the temple more often, though. The city had been abuzz with sudden religious fervor after the Times headline "Gods Taking Notice". Hasan was no more devout than Sweetpea was, but they both agreed that while Offler had certainly been keeping track of their Octeday visits, he was no doubt doing so even more carefully now.

It was in this thoughtful frame of mind that Sweetpea headed to work. This evening's patrol was to be her first out into the Shades. It was still light out, since even coppers didn't go into the Shades at night unless they absolutely had to. Corporal Flint hadn't hesitated to put her on patrols right away, but that didn't mean that you let a rookie patrol the Shades on her first day out.

"I'll be right wid you der whole time," he'd assured her when she'd first seen the roster. She wasn't going to be allowed a sword, though, on account of not knowing how to use one yet. Apparently one of Commander Vimes' maxims was "a weapon you don't know how to use is your enemy's".

When she got to the Watch house, only Haddock and Fittly were there. Haddock explained that Dars and Corporal Flint were still out dealing with an extreme case of domestic violence, and even had to call in forensics from the Yard.

"The corporal clacksed us and said to go ahead with your patrol, though," said Haddock, trying to sound upbeat. "I'll be taking you out tonight instead."

He had a fully-loaded crossbow all ready, which didn't help Sweetpea's nerves much. Crossbows were not general patrolling equipment, since you only carried a crossbow if you a) intended to use it and b) were going to really, really need to slow somebody down.

"Do I get one of those?" she asked

"Not unless you have hitherto unmentioned ballistics experience," said Haddock. "Sorry. We don't want new recruits shooting themselves in the foot, especially when the triggers on these Mk. 5s are so responsive."

"So it goes." This was a clerk saying that Sweetpea found applied aptly to a lot of coppering situations. It was a rather apathetic saying, however, which is why she refrained from saying it too much.

"You'll be fine, lass," said Haddock when he saw how crestfallen she looked. "I'm going to be right with you the whole time, and the Shades are a lot safer than most people think."

"Let's get it over with, then," said Sweetpea.

"That's the spirit." Haddock slapped her on the back and then was forced to shake some life back into his hand.

The Watch house really was on the edge of the were just a few steps away from the unofficial but still very visible line that marked its border. The line was visible because of the light difference: the erratically built and repaired buildings of the Shades bent together and blocked out what little sunlight managed to filter through the smog. Sweetpea knew that plenty of people lived and worked in the Shades. Unfortunately, the concentration of people that worked as unlicensed thieves was higher than anywhere else in Ankh-Morpork. It was better than it had been, but that wasn't saying much.

Haddock led her down Pewter Street, keeping up an interesting commentary about the revolution that had been fought here thirty years ago (almost thirty-two years to the day, in fact). According to some it had been successful, and according to others it had been a total disaster. All that Haddock knew was that a few coppers had fought in it and survived. Including Reg Shoe, technically.

"Technically?"

"Technically in that he survived, but as a zombie, and I call that surviving," explained Haddock. "Do you hear something?"

They both stopped.

"No," said Sweetpea, and that was when she was grabbed from behind. She cried out in surprise and fear as her unseen attacker pressed a cold blade to her neck. But Haddock was just as quick with his weapon, and in the blink of an eye he had his crossbow aimed to the left of Sweetpea's ear.

"Drop the knife and step away from the lance-constable," Haddock said levelly. Sweetpea couldn't understand how calm he was. His hands weren't even shaking. Sweetpea herself didn't dare quiver, not with a knife at her neck.

"Or, an alternative," suggested the man holding Sweetpea. His voice was soft and awful. "You put down the crossbow and the pretty lady here doesn't get her throat sliced." The man lowered his voice and whispered in Sweetpea's ear, "And you are such a pretty lady, aren't you? An exotic woman is the best kind."

Sweetpea shuddered. "Don't do it, Kipper."

"Well, the way I see it, Mister, the lance-constable is wearing protective clothing and you're not," said Haddock slowly. "If I were to shoot this it wouldn't do nearly as much damage to her as it would to you."

It might have worked, had there not been two other men. Sweetpea saw them creeping up behind Constable Haddock and yelled a warning.

"Watch out, Kip!"

Haddock didn't even look—he thrust his elbow out behind him, catching one man in the middle. Then he whirled around and kicked the other in the groin. With this distraction, Sweetpea tried a little close-up fighting of her own. She twisted her arm behind her in an effort to jab the man holding her in the solar-plexus. That was the theory. In reality, he was holding her too tightly. She got a nasty slice on the collarbone for her trouble. Haddock had taught her a few Bhangbhangduc throws, but it was too hard with her new armor on and the pain coming from her shoulder. There was a scream and she looked up from her own struggles to see that they had got Haddock's crossbow away from him.

And had shot him in the foot.

No matter how good of a copper or solid fighter he was, Haddock was down for the count. He lay with his knee curled to his breastplate, breathing in choking gasps. The man holding Sweetpea suddenly spun her around to face him, and she saw his face for the first time. He had a birthmark on his cheek and red hair, and she thought she recognized him. That's when it clicked for her. She recognized him from his wanted posters.

"The Sto Kerrig Three!" she gasped.

"That's what they call us, miss," said the red-headed man in his soft and awful voice. Then in a swift movement that made Sweetpea flinch, he yanked her truncheon from her belt. "Although since we're in the big city now, hopefully they'll give us a better name."

He swung the truncheon towards Sweetpea's face, and her last thought was I'm going to have another black eye.