SHIFTINGSHADOW

And Theo Lovell stepped outside into the balmy subtropical air, a breeze carrying the brine of the Pacific tugging at his baseball cap and shades.

The view from the station platform was dominated by the open sea, fronted by a wide river that curved off to meet the ocean before running inland, the city sitting astride it.

The midday sun blazed down on everything not under a roof– tingeing the suburban sprawl and its shingled rooftops with a harsh bloom as it sloped gently down onto the riverfront, and playing along the blades of wind turbines dotted on the side of town sitting flush with the glittering coast.

Seabirds flew in lazy circles overhead, their warbling squawks mixed in with the lilting thrum of the sea. 

He cut a conspicuous figure, even dressed in the apparel of a tourist. His cheap shirt and shorts did little to hide the hard, rangy lines of his developing frame, and the ease with which he moved betrayed his athleticism.
But to anyone looking, it was his glassy cobalt eyes that stood out most.

Theo crossed over the platform on a covered footbridge, and paused briefly to observe the train underneath as it slowly built up speed for its return trip. Traincars slid from view one by one, and he continued on to the main station building, passing through the lobby and once again outside–

And emerged to an avenue lined with office blocks and commercial buildings; what probably passed for downtown.

A trickle of pedestrian and road traffic passed through on the way to their various commitments– nothing compared to the fracas of the big city. Even the lone helicopter making its leisurely way across the clear sky was likely not too common a sight.

For all the crowded metropolises of the world, there were still places like this, and it struck him as novel.

Officially, it was classed a city. In reality, it was in that goldilocks halfway: it had a relative peace about it that city-dwellers just a few dozen miles away would crave for, with little of the inconvenience living out in the sticks actually entailed.

Theo lowered the dollar-store shades to his eyes, and the glare from all the glass around winking at the sun dimmed. Producing a neatly folded map from his pant pocket, he soon found his bearings. He checked his person one more time, then started his march, making good speed to his destination.

As he went deeper and deeper the less people there were, and the more the city seemed like the town it really was.
This part of town continued on a gradual, staggered incline, barely perceptible amid the tangle of winding roads, myriad-patterned walls, houses and suburban foliage.

As Theo made his way up an empty street, he spotted a hunched figure down an alley.
It was a diminutive, wizened woman reaching for the small of her back, next to a pair of baskets laid down on the pavement. Back problems, it looked like.

He took one glance at this watch, hesitated for a moment, and resolved to help an old lady out.

There’s plenty of time.

“Let me help you with that ma’am.”, he smiled as he rocked up on the woman, and saw that the baskets were half-full with forked-tail fish with dark stripes running along their blue-silver bodies; fresh, from the way they were still squirming.

The lady peered at him quizzically, suspiciously, through cloudy eyes, and there was a pause before Theo realized his mistake. Absent-mindedly, he had spoken in English.

He repeated his offer with his limited mastery of the local language, and made to grab the baskets to demonstrate his intention– before a wrinkled hand slapped his away with surprising spirit. 

She’s fast.

Theo was stunned by the rejection and her unexpected turn of speed, but was quick to salvage the situation. He improvised an apology before throwing out his hand again, deciding to make one last token effort before he deferred to the woman’s wish to be left alone.

Expecting another reply in the negative, Theo noticed the old lady suddenly perk up, as though she had thought of something, and she just as suddenly shifted gears. 

She gestured her assent and pointed to the previously off-limits haul of fish for Theo to make his move.

Somewhat puzzled, he hefted one in each hand and tested their weight against his confident strength. No sweat, but definitely too much for the average granny.

The thought tripped something in his head–the average granny. 

Theo looked back to the beneficiary of his assistance, but she was already plodding along the street in a manner at odds with the speed she had just displayed. 

A churning feeling started in his gut; the same foreboding he got when something bad was about to go down.

In the short time that he had gone on missions, Theo had quickly learned to trust such inklings.
It almost seemed like the old lady was up to no goo–
“KOOOOOOOOORRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!”

The blood-curdling howl made Theo face back the way they came.

There was a mob at the mouth of the alley, all of them dressed in oil-stained overalls, their sun-baked faces glistening with sweat. 

Fishermen?

Then there was another yell from the biggest man in the group, who practically had steam coming out his ears from the looks of it, vigorously waving a long, long pole that ended in a spike and hook.

Is that a goddamn pike?

Theo felt that the visual intent came across crystal clear, but there was a delay before he could parse the audio side of things. Then Theo understood fully. 

“That’s my fish!” the guy at the head of the crowd had said, in short and minus the profanities.

Instinctively, Theo knew how he looked holding the goods.

He looked guilty, and complicit in their eyes to whatever mischief the old lady was involved in.

Throwing his head back at the woman he thought he was helping, Theo saw that the lady that had been walking at a stately pace was now a blur zipping around the bend with a whoosh.

Granny is REALLY fast!

Theo had been trained to keep his head in the worse possible situations–he had been in some of the worst possible situations, and he was still eighteen.

Now, here, in an unfamiliar place and now stuck with this sudden dilemma, that training inexplicably failed– if nothing else, he’d always been quick on his feet.

After one last look at the assembled throng to confirm the sheer menace they radiated like an aura, Theo turned his back to them with a deliberate, almost theatrical slowness–

And got the hell out of dodge.

Theo was now running hell for leather like his life depended on it, and as far as he knew it in fact did. Cutting the corner, he just managed to catch sight of the old hag ducking into another sidestreet.

For lack of options, Theo made the snap decision to follow Granny through her bobbing and weaving, yet even with his conditioning, she was still ungodly fast, breaking away from him after nary a few minutes and leaving Theo to contend with the wrath of the local Fishers’ Association.

What the hell kind of old lady is she!?

It wasn’t until the second intersection when he realized he still had the baskets in hand, spilling fish with every zig and zag past bewildered pedestrians, and his racing mind finally brought together enough brain cells to ask the obvious question:

Wait, why the hell am I running instead of explaining myself?

Hearing more screaming and what he could only assume to be local obscenities coming from behind, he dared to look back.

What he saw strained even Theo’s mind to comprehend.
To Theo’s eyes, it was a bronzed mass of hollering appendages making wild gesticulations, a veritable fisher frenzy as the men jockeyed for position, and he could swear that he saw veins bulging on foreheads. God knows what they wanted to do with those pikes.

I’d rather not find out.

Drawing on his reserves, Theo put more power into his stride and decided distance was his friend. Distance gave him time to think on what to do next.

The saving grace in this situation was that he could at least outpace middle-aged men hellbent on revenge, but he figured that was only a reprieve. The locals knew the shortcuts, he didn’t.

Even when he tried to cut through yards, gardens and in one instance, a living room with its justifiably startled occupants huddled around a TV, the fishermen made a good showing of themselves, and Theo was beginning to think that he might not hotfoot his way out of this one. 

Every time when it was looking like he’d lost them, a shout drawing the rest in like scum to an anglerfish’s light disabused him of that, and there was even a close call where they nearly managed to hem him in at a dead end. He only barely managed to extricate himself from that with parkour– no mean feat with his hands occupied.

Legs pumping, the headlong chase soon brought him all the way down to the riverside, and that was where he caught sight of his way out.

It was a two-lane cable bridge that connected the two halves of the city. Theo read somewhere that it was a point of pride for the locals, but that wasn’t important.

What was important was the scaffolding he spied hanging over the edge and underneath; lucky him that whatever work was being done was on hold. Whatever the reason, there was nobody there.

Coming up with a plan, Theo got on the bridge’s sidewalk and made his way to about a third of its span.

With fluid movements, he vaulted over the railings and used the scaffolds to maneuver himself under the bridge, sheltering between its massive girders.

The final leap was a hard landing that made the scaffolding wobble and sway, but the planks seemed to hold for now. Most importantly, he was now completely hidden from any murderous fishermen.

Theo finally took a moment to catch his breath, for the first time since the start of the chase it felt, and heaved a sigh of relief–

Only for it to catch on his throat as something thudding on the planks behind him made him snap his head around.

It was the gosh-damned Granny, and she was talking!

Her accent was far too heavy for a novice in the language to understand, but Theo saw from her nodding that she was somehow approving. Not that he cared after all that. In fact, he had half the mind to–

Crack

The first cracks barely registered before the planking snapped and fell out from under him, sending him careening through the lower scaffolds. His foot hit something; something striking his chest; he was spinning; his shades were gone; he took a blow on the hip, another to the head, before the water came up in his vision fast–

Crash

And he crashed into the river with all the elegance of a freight train. Dazed by the impacts, he struggled underneath the current for a few moments before he could bring his head above the water.

Regaining presence of mind, he swam for the river bank, the modest flow carrying him some distance along.

Then he was out of the water, gagging and wheezing, lying flat on the grass just off the embankment, head still swimming, torn between admonishing himself for the serial demonstration of stupidity he displayed today and plain bemusement.

He couldn’t even be bothered to look when he heard a car, a powerful one from the growl of the engine, roll on up to where he lay and slam on the brakes, bestowing a final indignity by pelting his face with screeching asphalt.

Clack

The sound of heels clacking on pavement and a shadow falling on his face, and this newcomer finally caught Theo’s attention.

He turned his head to the side, the flaming sun filling his vision with spots of ink and stray light, wondering what could possibly be next.

The silhouette of a woman resolved itself above him.

Theo hadn’t been as exposed to beautiful women as others his age, but he knew to call it as he saw it– it was a severe kind of beauty, the blinding halo behind her only enhancing that impression.

“You look even younger than in your picture.”, came a voice in accented English.

Feeling more and more of his energy return from wherever the Granny took it, Theo finally mustered an answer.

“Well, I feel a couple years older right now.”

The corners of the stern-faced lady’s mouth turned up ever so slightly at that, and for the first time in the past hour, Theo allowed himself to think that things were looking up.

“Welcome to Japan. Not the welcome you expected coming from America, huh?”