The waiting room of the Dirección de Personal de la PNP in Lima smelled of industrial disinfectant and cold sweat. For Alejandro Vargas, a 22-year-old from the dusty highlands of Huancavelica, the smell was the scent of a life-or-death gamble. He had traveled for seventeen hours in the belly of a bus to be here. His family had pooled their savings—his mother sold two of her three pigs, his father pawned his grandfather’s old watch. All for this: the Examen Psicometrico PNP .

Alejandro looked at a young kid from Ayacucho, so poor his shoes were taped together, marking “Never told a lie” with a steady, desperate hand. Alejandro stamped “APTO” and thought: Welcome to the story. Try to make it a true one.