It took Matthew a surprisingly long time to find the man he knew as James. Once he picked him up, however, he realized that it was because the man had obtained a new arm somewhere, and this one did not smell the same as the old one. James had a light step, spoke but little, and moved like a shadow, so finding his distinctively strong heartbeat in a crowd of countless other men and women living out their lives was practically impossible, even for someone like Matthew. What's more, Matthew found that he increasingly disliked moving out of his chosen sphere, his "side" of the City, where he had determined he could do the most good as quietly as possible. Manhattan was rich, and to blend in, Matthew needed a suit, a tie, and a slightly hollow metal pole about the width of a nickel he had picked up at a construction site. From his understanding, it was typically used to string electric cable.
There were a lot of damned stairs, and he moved up both inside and outside of the buildings to gain the height he needed to find the echoing space that sheltered the metal soldier. Matthew came from an age where absolutely incredible skill and calculation was needed to take a shot like the one the man was lining up, but it was still done, and Matthew knew what James was doing long before he entered the room and smelled the gun oil. He paused there a moment to tamp down on his automatic dislike of soldiers with rifles, which brought back bleak visions of old tortures at their hands. The first time it had been a barn. He had been... thirteen? Fourteen.
Matthew's mouth shifted, and the foreign feel of the wire frames on his nose flexed over his ears. Fine things, better than a cloth. He didn't sweat so much. They appeared to make people more easy.
By this time, James should know he was here. He progressed a little farther into the room, and the sound of the pole on the concrete dampened by a twist of plastic.