“Good afternoon, Samantha,” Mrs Wu greeted me, a friendly smile on her face. It was fascinating, intellectually, I was aware that she was incredibly dangerous, both as a direct combatant but, much more important, due to her other skills. With her hands, she could kill a person in front of her, with the lessons on demolition and homemade explosions she had taught me in the past, she’d be able to level a building- such as this shopping centre.

And yet, standing there in her brightly-coloured jacket, with a knit cap on her head, she looked very much like a kindly old grandmother, who couldn’t hurt a fly.

“Good afternoon, Mrs Wu.” I returned the greeting, almost instinctively giving her the polite bow of a student to her teacher, but we weren’t in the gym and it wasn’t quite appropriate for the setting we were in. Situational awareness and adaptation were two topics she had lectured me on, and given our surroundings, I had a feeling it would be a practical lesson now.

“Walk with me, student.” Mrs Wu told me, slowly starting into the shopping centre. It was quite full, with Christmas decorations already set up, despite it being over a month away. Walking alongside her, I realised that she effortlessly slipped through the crowd, easily finding gaps and openings, where I had to struggle, sometimes stopping to let someone pass, other times having to step faster to avoid other pedestrians.

After we walked through half the centre, she stepped into a side passage, with me following after her.

“Now, lesson time,” she gave me a grin, once I had caught up. “One aspect of your training is moving within crowds. They can be your best shield, giving you excellent obfuscation and letting you slip away, with none the wiser. The best escape is one, where the opposition walks right by you, never even knowing whom they were looking for. Blending into a crowd allows you to become virtually invisible. Just one, of countless people.” she explained, her voice quiet but intense.

“Even electronic eyes,” her own eyes flickered upwards, to a surveillance camera. I hadn’t noticed it, due to the unobtrusive and concealed nature of its placement, but she obviously had. Looking around, I was able to see a few more but I was reasonably certain we were in a blind spot. “Incredibly useful but oh, so very limited if you know how to work with them. For now, we should keep moving. It is unlikely that the cameras are monitored live, but you never know. Coincidences happen all the time.” she warned me, before continuing on our way.

“Now, electronic eyes and their limitations. The biggest is that they lack intuition and unless your opposition has a ridiculous amount of manpower, they’ll never commit enough manpower to carefully check every moment of the footage. They’ll set themselves a start-point and attempt to trace their target through different cameras. That can be used to your advantage, by turning into someone else.” she explained, as we walked into another part of the centre.

“Be cognizant of what people notice and have something in place to alter it. Stealth doesn’t always need to be about being hidden, it is about not getting detected. A subtle but significant difference. If you look like that guy over there,” she covertly gestured to one of the janitors cleaning up some spill, “nobody will give you a second glance. You fade into the scenery.”

“Similarly, if you are what people expect to see, they will simply ignore you. No matter how loud you yell, jump and scream, you’ll be ignored if you are at a concert or in a stadium. Know your situation, adapt to it, blend into your environment and you will become invisible.” she continued her lecture, turning another corner. Just as I continued after her, I could only briefly see the movement of fabric before being shown a distinct example of her words.

In front of me was what appeared to be a woman much younger than Mrs Wu, wearing a distinctly different coat, instead of her earlier jacket. Without her height and our relative positions, I wouldn’t have realised that it was the same person, especially when I noticed a white mask around her arm, ready to be deployed on her face. When she did, the mask and wig she had donned instead of her hat gave me pause. Without knowing it was her, I would have walked right past her.

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“A turncoat,” she told me, gently tugging at her jacket. I couldn’t see her face, but hear the grin in her voice. “Turn it over, let down a few cloth flaps hidden on the inside and the jacket becomes a coat. With a little more time, you can prepare heels or inlay soles, giving you a few precious inches of height, as that will be the biggest distinguishing factor, especially for distinct people like us. We are just too small.” she continued walking again, now with a deliberately different style and pace, her whole body language different.

“A lot of tradecraft happens down here.” she gestured with her hand, hanging down at hip height.

“Far below eye-level, where nobody will see by coincidence, especially in a crowd. Other bodies will block you from all but the most skilled observers. A skilled pair can make exchanges without getting spotted, even if the observers know when to look. Nothing but a brief fluttering of newspaper, to the point, that even a high-speed camera is unable to record the drop.” she paused briefly and I thought I could hear her sigh.

“Well, newspapers used to be great tools of the trade. They gave an excuse to sit somewhere and wait without being obvious about it. Nobody would question if a business person is reading their newspaper intently and suddenly looks at their watch, stands up and quickly walks somewhere. At most, they’d think that the person failed to watch the time and is late for a meeting. Even just leaving the newspaper would be seen as nothing more but a little rude and if someone else comes by shortly after, sits down at the same table and reads the paper left behind, nobody would think twice about it.” she explained and I understood that the newspaper could easily be prepared to hide something.

“In addition, the fluttering pages will distract the eye, even a trained observer can fall victim to that. You can conceal small amounts of material between the pages and make an exchange on the go, or you can even drop it off somewhere, to be picked up by another courier. Sadly, they have all but vanished to the point that you might become more noticeable due to their presence.” she sighed again, “As I said, know your situation, adapt to it, blend into your environment and you will become invisible.” she repeated her earlier point.

“Now, another necessary skill, pickpocketing. It’s an outgrowth of the ability to make a quick and hidden exchange. If you think about it, stealing is a sort of hidden exchange, well-enough hidden to even escape the one whose wallet you just exchanged with empty air.” At this point, I interrupted her lecture, after intently listening the entire time.

“Teacher, I’m not certain that is a skill I want to learn,” I told her, hoping that she’d understand.

“Mhm, acceptable.” she nodded. “Normally, I’d now give you a set of cards, to plant on people without them noticing. That way, they won’t be able to complain overmuch, even if they catch you.” she grinned, showing me a set of small business cards. When I looked closely, I realised that they were from a local church, with a small prayer on them.

“If you get caught, you can simply act embarrassed and shy away. Few people would give you too much trouble about that, at least in this country. Know your situation, adapt to it, blend into your environment and you will become invisible.” she stopped herself, after repeating that phrase for the third time.

“But I guess, if you aren’t interested, we can go over some tricks to track someone, within a crowd. How to remain unnoticed while doing so. It’s similar to what I’ve told you earlier, just from the other side. What to watch out for, what is suspiciously boring, how to be professionally paranoid - And recognise when you are no longer professional, but just paranoid.” she suggested, getting a nod in response. That sounded just as interesting as being socially concealed but without the troubling implications of stealing.

“Excellent. Let us continue to walk and I’ll give you some examples. We might even try the whole thing live, I’ll place those cards and you’ve got to spot me doing so, while maintaining some distance.” she decided and once more, we were off into the crowd. If anything, I wanted to learn her tricks to swim through a crowd, like a fish through water. Hopefully, that would be part of her lesson.