Doug and Hope: Getting lost in the crowd

[x-trance.livejournal.com]

Hope continues learning...

For this particular bit of skills development, Doug had driven with Hope into New York City, and walked with her to Times Square, where they stood, a small eddy of stillness amid the chaos of motion around them.  "Fading into a crowd and being unobtrusive comes in handy in all sorts of situations," Doug told his quasi-protégé.  "Whether you're following someone, or notice that someone is following you, you'll want to be able to disappear quickly."

"That sounds like something that is very useful to know, especially in this world." Hope commented as she watched the masses on the Square shift and move like a living thing. "Though I am starting to wonder how one could even keep up in this mix of people, especially if you along with the flow of it." With a gesture she indicated the whole mass.

"Being able to tail someone is also an important skill.  Once you've spotted someone, it's not as difficult as you might think to keep following them.  Even in a crowd like this."  Doug nodded his head at one particular person passing about ten feet away from them. "Red ball cap.  See how far you can keep track of him just from here."

She quickly caught sight of the man Doug had pointed out to her and yes, she could easily follow his path through the masses for a few minutes till he ducked in a side street.. After all, it was fairly simple to spot a red blob against a sea of black, grey and mostly other neutrals. "Contrasting colors are easy to see though." She commented. "But what about if I had to track this gentleman?" Her nod indicated a man dressed in a non-descript business suit, hurrying along while talking in his cell.  

Doug watched the man moving with the flow of people, pointing directly toward him at regular intervals until he finally disappeared from sight behind a building as he left the square.  "The human brain is designed to perceive patterns in things.  So since he is staying with the pattern, and moving among the same little group of people in the flow, it's much easier to maintain your focus."

"So looking for the patterns is key here?" Hope inquired thoughtfully. "Which means being able to observe, draw conclusions and form a pattern very quickly, right?"

Doug nodded.  "And would you like to guess what the best way to escape someone trying to follow you is?"

Hope had to grin. "That is an easy one. Namely to change up the pattern you are presenting to someone, so to speak. If they are looking for one thing, they are far less likely to notice other things if you change them."

"Precisely."  Doug grinned in reply.  Hope was a quick study, to be sure.  "Use the man with the red cap as an example.  If you know that someone is following you, the first and easiest thing to do is change your appearance.  In his case, take off the cap and drop it into a trashcan."  He indicated the casual button-down he was wearing, and the T-shirt that could be seen under the unbuttoned collar.  "Clothing and accessories are the things that people often track, so those are the first things you should change.  Add a layer, take off a layer.  Shed a bag you're carrying.  Things like that."

Hope considered thoughtfully. "I remember my mother once telling me to gain an advantage on people it's quite helpful to be capable of two things. One is to be a chameleon and blend in, so people don't see you coming, so to speak. The second was rather the opposite... figure out what people expect from you and turn it upside down. It seems to me that both apply here as well."  

Doug noted for hardly the first time that in some ways, while Hope's mother often was correct in the little gems of analysis that she had passed on to Hope, she still sounded like a real piece of work.  "They're flip sides of the same coin, really," he said after a moment's thought.  "You combine them both in some ways - the best way to blend in is to figure out what a person who's following you expects, and then do something very different."

He chuckled.  "Part of that, though, is being able to know when you're being followed."

"That would be a good place to start." Hope had to chuckle as well. "So what do I look for? I assume you have to start with being aware of your surroundings?"

"Always.  Everything stems from that."  It was the only reason Doug was alive to instruct her, was his awareness of things around him.  And even that hadn't always been enough to evade detection and capture, like in Genosha.  "Look for things that don't fit - someone who is always looking at window displays of stores but never goes in, a person holding a magazine that they aren't reading."

"What if you are simply walking down the street?" Hope inquired curiously, just taking in the information. "Sometime in movies you see tricks like people speeding up or walking more slowly to check if they are being followed."

Doug nodded.  "Same type of thing - you're looking for the person who doesn't fit.  Someone who hangs back no matter whether you speed up or slow down.  A person who you see several times when you check the crowd, but always makes a point to be looking away from you."  He shrugged.  "Patterns and awareness.  That's what it all is.  And learning from experience."

Hope nodded thoughtfully. "I am kinda curious to try, to be honest. After all... it is the best way to learn."

An amused chuckle was Doug's reply.  "I'm glad you think so.  I thought we'd do a little practical exercise - did you ever play the game Assassin growing up?"

"Assassin?" Hope thought about it for moment. "I don't think I have ever heard of it. But I am guessing the idea is finding and 'eliminating' people?"
"Exactly."  Doug warmed to his subject, rubbing his hands together.  "Some people get really into it, like create a whole guild of people who play regularly."  It lost something when you knew people who worked for an actual Assassin's Guild, though.  But it made for a good piece of training.  "The goal is to 'kill' your target without them seeing you - some people use Nerf pistols, or other simulated weapons."  He produced a telescoping pointer, the sort that looked like a pen when collapsed.  "So we don't have to worry about uncomfortable explanations to a passing NYPD officer, this is going to be your weapon.  You have to touch me with it before I notice you and send a text to you."
-

A five-minute head start was all the time Doug had needed to duck into one of the souvenir shops, shed the light long-sleeved Henley he was wearing, and hide his hair under a plain dark blue ball cap.  He left the shop through a second entrance and merged with a knot of people headed for the half-price ticket booth in the center of the square.  After five minutes, his phone vibrated in his pocket to indicate the chase was on.

So he was gonna stay in the Square itself and the shops around it. Still a pretty big enough area. But first, she could give the disguise a go and quickly ducked in a store. Picking out a touristy head, she quickly paid for it and slipped it on. A thin large scarf also caught her eye and that one was quickly slipped around her shoulders. Stepping outside, she had to consider for a moment. If she started walking around without a plan, she would never find him.

One of the training session they had had with Red X before everything happened popped in her mind. They had been discussing search patterns. Grid patterns, spiral patterns and some more. Perhaps she could follow one of those while looking for one of the things Doug had mentioned.  

If Doug had been nearby and actually heard her ideas, he would have been very approving - methodical searching rather than going off half-cocked.  But as it was he had temporarily installed himself on a bench with a pretzel from a street vendor, bending over to eat it so most of his face was obscured by the ball cap, and scanning crowds out of the sides of his eyes while he took small nibbles of food.

A tour guide walked by, followed by a small group of tourists and Hope quickly slipped among them. It would probably be easiest to use a kind of grid idea to search. But what exactly was she looking for. They had discussed disguises, so he had very little doubt he would have used that... What color was the shirt he had worn under his outer shirt again... Body language could be another how she could recognize him, maybe? And he would be looking for her as much as she was looking for him...

Doug spent several minutes looking, but after not spotting Hope, he got up, dropped the remains of his pretzel in a trash can, and kept moving.  A stationary target was an easy target, after all.  He stopped at another vendor to purchase a cheap pair of sunglasses with plastic frames, the better to break up the shape of his face.  He strolled along, glancing at the neon chaos of the 'city that never sleeps', doing his best to look like another tourist among hundreds.

After scanning about a dozen clumps of people Hope slipped away from the tourist group she had been trailing and stepped over to a cart to buy herself a bottle of something cold. She needed to be more specific. Taking a moment, she reviewed what she was probably looking for. The undershirt had been green, so she was probably looking for that, along with khaki's and sneakers. Slipping the bottle in her tote, she continued the pattern she had been following.

Hope had clearly taken Doug's advice about changing appearance to heart, as he hadn't spotted her yet.  The cat-and-mouse nature of their search was a welcome, lighter take on skills he'd had to learn for his job.  He fished his phone out of his pocket and glanced at it - going on twenty minutes since they'd started.

There!!! A green shirt and khakis... and he kind of matched Doug his length. The man was wearing a baseball cap pulled over his face, along with sun glasses. Biting her lip for a second, she pulled a map she had grabbed somewhere from her bag and looked it over, stealing glances at the man in the meantime.

As she observed him, she noticed something... namely he seemed to be scratching behind his ear. Something she had seen Doug do multiple times. She pulled the pointer from her tote and slowly started circling towards him.

Doug spotted the pointer from the corner of his eye, but even as he was reaching into his pocket, Hope dashed the last few feet and tapped him with it.  "Not bad," Doug said, taking the sunglasses off and grinning at her.

Hope pulled of her hat and returned the grin. "That was a fun challenge. Though I will be honest, it's pretty hard to sort through such a crowd when you are looking for one person who is moving around as well!."

"That's the point," Doug told her, shaking his head.  "You got a little too eager at the end, if you hadn't hurried and taken the pointer out early, I might not have spotted you."  But that was a good place to be - having done well, but with room to improve on things.

"I thought you were going to see me at any moment. Plus, you still had to send the text." Hope volleyed back slightly cheeky, her eyes twinkling.  

"You did a good job."  Teaching Hope was fairly easy in that she was quick to learn from any mistake once Doug pointed things out and made suggestions.  She rarely made the same mistake twice, he'd found.  The true test would be if and when she had to put the skills he was teaching her to real use, but until then they would keep working on things.

"Thanks." Hope nodded smiling. Peeking a kid eyeing her hat, she pulled it off and handed it over. "I already have way to many things like that."  

Doug grinned and dropped his cheap plastic sunglasses on the kid as well. "Perfect."