He focused on that specific moment, the transition from the old man to the middle-aged one. He had been too stunned to truly see the details. His mind's eye re-created the scene: the old man walking past a pillar, his form briefly obscured. It was there, in that split second, that the impossible happened.
John realized he had been looking for a static clue, a hidden message. The instructor's transformation was not a special effect; it was a skill. A trick of shadow and movement that John, in his shock, had missed.
John's eyes snapped open, his serene state gone. A spark of pure clarity ignited in his mind. The answer had been right there, hidden in plain sight.
He had focused too much on the big changes, the voice, the face, the clothing and had missed the one, tiny detail that stayed the same. The instructor's shoes. From the moment he first appeared as the frail old man until his final transformation into the middle-aged man, the shoes had been identical. It was a detail so easy to overlook, especially when confronted with such a dramatic shift in appearance.
A surge of energy coursed through John. He stood and walked to the window, his mind already racing with possibilities. The shoes were the key, the one constant in his target's changing identity. If he could find the footage of his instructor leaving the building, he could track him, or at least begin to form a pattern of his movements.
John knew and understood he couldn't simply walk into the building's security office and ask for the footage. The League would have anticipated that, and the security of his own location was undoubtedly compromised or controlled by them. His best bet was to find footage from a neighbouring building, a business, a hotel, an apartment complex that might have a camera pointed in their direction.
But how was he to do that? He was a stranger in a foreign city with no connections, no resources, and no idea of the local customs. He doubted they would just let him in to view their security tapes. He needed a way to bypass their resistance without alerting them to his true purpose.
The second night came and the air thick with the scent of damp stone and a distant, sweet perfume of jasmine, felt different tonight. The city was no longer a vast, intimidating unknown, but a problem to be solved. John's first failure had given him a clear objective, and goal which was now his purpose. He still didn't have a plan, but he had a purpose. He had to learn Italian, and he had to learn it fast.
His first night had been mostly observation, this night would be mmersion. He slipped out from the alleys, no longer a watcher but an active participant in the city's night life.. The old man's rules didn't explicitly forbid him from acquiring what he needed; he was simply to stay inside during the day. The night was his to command.
John sight was now a search for dictionary or a phone, some tangible tool to break down the language barrier. He could risk getting his hands on someone's phone, but he lacked the skills to deal with it if it was locked. Instead, he sought out corners where a different kind of commerce took place. He found a small, late-night street market, filled with both tourists and locals. Among the scattered stalls selling everything from fresh produce to old clothes, he found a small, makeshift bookstand.
The vendor was an old man with a perpetually tired expression, his stall lit by a single bare bulb. John approached him, pulling a few small, tarnished coins from his pocket. They were from the room, a small currency he understood was a part of his resources. He pointed to a small, worn-out Italian-English dictionary. The vendor simply nodded, his eyes half-closed. John gave him the coins, and the vendor handed him the book. The transaction was silent and quick.
John tucked the dictionary under his arm and retreated into a nearby doorway. He spent the rest of the night walking and studying. He would stop under a streetlight, flipping through pages, memorizing words and phrases. It was progress, but it was slow, tedious, and ultimately insufficient. He was in a modern age and hence needed modern tools. A dictionary was a blunt instrument when he needed a device. He needed something electronic, something that could translate in real-time, something to accelerate his learning.
He returned to his room just as the first hint of dawn began to paint the sky. His night had been a success, but he knew he couldn't afford to be so inefficient again. He had eight months. He needed to be more resourceful.
The third night, John left the dictionary behind. He slipped out into the city, his goal a phone and he plans on taking someone's. He needed a target of opportunity, one that wouldn't cause a scene or draw unwanted attention.
He found it in a small, quiet café, its outdoor tables still occupied by a few late-night patrons. A young man sat alone, engrossed in a book, his phone lying face up on the table next to an espresso cup. Suddenly the light on the phone came on as the young man picked it up, his hands moving across it before putting it down still unlocked and was back in his book. John moved with grace. He walked past the table, his hand darting out with practiced speed. The phone was in his palm before the man even registered a sudden gust of wind. John was gone, before the man's eyes could even lift from the page.
Back in the safety of a dark alley, John held the device. It wasn't locked. He immediately navigated to the settings, disabled the auto-lock feature, then change the language setting to English which took quite a time, he then began to search for a translation app. Once he found one, he downloaded it and began to reset the phone, wiping it clean of its previous owner's data.
He spent the rest of the night walking, listening to the city's chatter, and using the phone to translate words and phrases in real-time. He used the camera to scan street signs, and the microphone to translate snippets of conversation. The dictionary had given him a small foundation; the phone was giving him fluency.
He returned to his room just as the first hint of dawn began to paint the sky. He had no new clues about his instructor, no footage, no leads. But he had accomplished his goal.
After his third night, the phone he'd acquired now his most valuable tool. He knew the battery wouldn't last forever, so the fourth night, his objective was simple: get a charger. He slipped out, found a small electronics shop that stayed open late, and with a few well-placed gestures and a handful of local currency, he made the purchase.
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