After spotting Catwoman he made his way back to the apartments, and by ten was seated behind the desk reviewing the information in the binder. A few minutes later he heard the elevator coming down and with a ding it opened. Seconds later he heard a set of click-clacking heels coming down the hallway towards him. When she rounded the corner into the lobby proper, she nearly stopped dead in her tracks when she spotted him.

She gave a long look and a tight smile and walked over to him. “So you must be a new manager. Ol-Stan has been having a hard time getting a new one. I’m glad he found you, cause I was getting tired of his bitching and moaning about having to be here every night.”

Looking he gave the woman a smile and replied “Yep, I’m the new apartment manager. Is there something I can help you with, Miss?”

While he was speaking, he took in her appearance. She was probably about 5’5 but with those stiletto shoes on, she was about 5’9. She had on a short jacket, and a minidress that emphasized her assets, her blond hair was cut in a nice style. While she was wearing heavy makeup, she should be in her early twenties.

“Oh you are polite.” She gave him a smile and continued,“You can call me Rebecca, or Becky like my friends do. I’m heading out to work. I prefer to work on site, so I might not get back before two.” 

Saying that she reached into her dress from the top and pulled out some cash and counted it and gave it to James. Taking it he did a quick count of it and checked the log book to make sure it was the correct amount. He made a note that she had paid her due and put the cash into the safe.

Watching him work, Rebecca asked “Seems to me that you are a bit too clean cut for this place. Most folks I see this way are either on the way out, thugs working for one of the gangs or johns looking for a piece of ass. You don’t seem to fit.” She finished by leaning on his desk giving him a generous view of her tits.

“Well, I guess you could say I am a bit too clean cut. But life isn’t always fair you know. Sometimes it gives you lemons, and sometimes it gives you a whole lot worse. Right now I’m just trying to make the best out of a bad situation. Besides, it’s not all bad. After all I get to meet a pretty gal like you.”

She laughed and said “Well, you are a bold one aren’t you. Maybe I’ll invite you sometime up to my room. I’m sure we can find some new things for life to give you.” She gave him a wink and headed out into the night.

After she had left, more people came and went through the lobby. A few people that James could see were addicts of some kind of drug came and went, probably to meet up with some sort of dealer upstairs. Most of the prostitutes seemed to pay for their rooms before they headed out, while a few paid when they came in with their johns. The men never stayed more than an hour or two before heading back out, followed shortly by the woman. While they did flirt with him when they were alone, none were as blatant about it as Rebecca.

It was pretty easy, as such he had plenty of time to plan his future for the moment. What he needed first was to gain more knowledge, both on himself and of how he was transported here. Back home he had been in college for a degree in business, which given the lack of hard sciences gave him a disadvantage in understanding fully what had occurred to him. However, he discovered that whatever had changed him had apparently increased his intelligence. Although he had no way to judge just by how much, he found he could easily accomplish complex equations in his head.

Given the nature of this world, the best place to learn about supernatural events in the city would likely be Gotham University. Even if they didn’t have access to the knowledge, he needed, he could figure out who does through them. But given his lack of ID and money, this option was barred from him. Perhaps he might be able to circumvent this in the future by hacking them, but given that so many expert hackers exist in this world that might be a bad idea. 

The Gotham Public Library could help him shore up some of his lacking knowledge, though he doubted he could gain access to the research he really needed. With so much weird tech out there in the DC universe, there must be something he could use to get home. Some of that tech is likely at Star Labs, though if he remembered right, the Star Labs in Gotham was focused mainly on weapons research. Which given what goes on in Gotham sounds insane.

What he also needed to figure out was the full extent of his powers. If an inconvenient one was to emerge at the wrong time, it could very well expose him. To do that he really needed a space of his own, which right now he had two options. According to the binder this place had a large basement. There was also the roof he could use, though that was risky as well given how many seemed to travel on the rooftops. So the basement would be a better fit, so he would check it out after his shift today.

At two he stood and found that the trash next to the desk was starting to smell. Sighing he noticed it was full of wrappers and junk that Stan must have thrown out before. Taking the bag of trash out he went out back to the alley where the dumpster was located. Going out he heard some muffled cries and what sounded like a struggle nearby. Alarmed he went over and found to his disgust a man that appeared to be attempting to force himself onto a woman.

Furious James dropped the bag of trash and shouted “Hey asshole let her go!”

This thug spun around with the woman and James recognized the woman as Rebecca. Despite the situation occurring, she seemed oddly calm. The man grunted and said “Get the fuck out of here, this don’t fucking concern you.”

It was at this moment when the man was distracted, that Rebecca jabbed him in the gut causing him to grunt and let go of her. She then dashed past James out of reach of the man. The man stood and attempted to follow her, but stopped when James got in his way. Snarling the man pulled out a knife and said “I’m going to fucking cut you and that bitch up.”

The man charged towards him swinging the knife. Dodging them James contemplated what to do. The man was clearly just a punk with a knife, so he tried giving him the stare that scared that punk in the diner. But after several attempts, it didn't seem to be working, so he had to figue something else out. While he was trying this the man was clearly getting frustrated at being unable to hit James and became far more violent in his swings.

Even if James had survived landing on the earth, he didn’t particularly want to find out that his weakness was in fact knives. Nor did he really want to hit the man given his new body clearly meant he was stronger. How much he didn’t know and he didn’t want to test it out on this thug. Still since he was faster then this man who was clearly inexperienced with the knife he simply waited until he saw his chance.

He took too big of a swing making him off balanced. Being careful James tripped the man while at the same time snatching the knife out of the man’s hands. The man fell head first crashing into the side of the dumpster with a loud thump. The man crumpled to the ground and James quickly moved over to him. Thankfully he didn’t appear to be injured, rather he looked to have been knocked out. While he was inspecting the man Rebecca came over and dug through the man’s jeans and pulled out a wallet.

“Jackpot.” She said as she pulled out a wad of cash. She split it and gave half to James, who took it hesitantly. “This asshole promised to pay me double for anal, but when it came time for him to fucking pay he tried to rape my ass. Thanks for helping me out.”

“No problem. But you didn’t seem very worried.” He said.

She laughed and said “Oh that’s because I heard you coming, plus to be honest my father is far more scary then this asshole.”

He nodded and said “So what should we do with him? I take it that giving him over to the police is not the best move for you.”

She frowned and said “No, that would just come back to bite us in the ass. Go throw him out onto the sidewalk on that side. That’s where he parked his car. Now that I have his ID, he won’t be welcome in this part of the city anymore. Now I would offer you a drink in my room but damn I’m tired. I’ll have to thank you properly another time.” 

She gave him a wink and then strolled through the back door of the apartment that he had left open. Strange he felt he had been fairly quiet, how exactly did she hear him? Shaking his head, he glanced down and picked up the unconscious man. As he did so he noted that the clothes were way too well made. This was obviously some rich brat that got off on assaulting women. Picking him up was almost like picking up a piece of paper, and he knew had he struck him, the kid would have likely died. Going to the street, he laid the punk under a street light.

The asshole would probably wake up with a headache, but he will be alive. He headed back to the apartment while taking stock over the bills that Rebecca had given him. It totaled seven hundred bucks. While he wasn’t particularly happy about stealing it, that piece of shit should be in jail for what he did. But with how corrupt Gotham law is, that was probably a nonstarter especially if the kid was rich.

He made his way to the stairs and elected to take the stairs down to the basement. That elevator had seen better days, and he had fallen far enough in his lifetime thank you very much. The door led to a hallway that was barely lit, though that didn’t matter to his enhanced vision. On one side of the hallway was the elevator and the other was a door that led into the storage space of the apartment building. Going to the door, he pulled out the keys and began to try them out until he unlocked the door.

Opening the door released a cloud of dust into the air. Looking in he saw a room filled with a random assortment of junk, some furniture though most of it looked broken. From the layer of dust on everything in the room, it looked as if it had been sometime before someone had stepped foot in here. Unfortunately, he would have to clean out this room if he wanted to use it, and he couldn’t take all of this out and put it next to the dumpsters without raising suspicion.

In the back he noticed the door to the Utility closet so decided to check it out. Perhaps he could hack into the internet or cable line. After struggling to find a path to the door, he finally reached and opened it. Inside was a room filled with electrical equipment and various pipes, etc. Stepping in he spotted another door on the far wall labeled Steam Tunnels. Curious, he tried all the keys on the key ring but none of them seemed to unlock the door.

Annoyed, he was about to turn his attention back to the equipment in the room when he heard a soft click come from the door. Confused, he tried the door again and now found it unlocked. Thinking that someone might be playing tricks on him, he examined the door and the lock and found no evidence of anything electrical. Taking a moment he considered if he had somehow opened it and resolved to test it. 

Focusing on the lock for several moments, until something seemed to click in the back of his mind and the door lock engaged. Yet it took longer for him to unlock it again. While it was an apparently useful ability, it was unreliable at the moment. Behind the door was a set of stairs that went down. They led to a tunnel that was about six feet high, but only three feet wide. Long pipes ran the length of the entire tunnel. However, about ten feet down the tunnel, a set of bars was installed.

Going to them, James inspected them and found they had been put into concrete and without breaking them he had no way to get past them. He didn’t exactly want to spend several minutes just wandering the tunnels without knowing where they lead either. Not seeing anything else of note, he turned back around when he spotted a flash of iridescent green paint on one of the walls. Examining the wall in detail, he found an old painted question mark that was nearly gone.

Tracing it with his finger, he noted the point of the question mark felt a bit odd and pressed on it. There was a soft click as he pushed in and a section of the wall slid back revealing a computer screen with a keyboard. Taking a look on the screen, he saw the display was blinking a message that appeared to be some sort of riddle.

“I find people and doors to be alike. All locked doors are Men for instance, and the lock is in their minds. How do you open a locked door?” he read aloud.

After contemplating this riddle for several moments, James typed in an answer.