Enter: Connor Hawke

[newoutsiders]

Amusement Mile, 91 Sorkin Avenue. Gotham City.

Home.

You knew it was going to be hard, making a clean start for yourself far away from the Arrow Clan. You didn’t think it was going to be this hard. But with most of your boxes unpacked, and tenants displaced by a gentrified Burnside filing into this once abandoned entertainment district- thanks to your generous, rent controlled prices- you’re finally back in the landlording game.

At least this was a cheap get. Even with all the gentrification going on in this neighborhood, for some reason the buildings down this part of Sorkin Avenue were priced to move. You figure it’s just Gotham- people get scared and leave town all the time. Fortunately for your tenants, they’ve got a superhero for a landlord.

There’s still a lot to do. There’s that zen garden you want to put up on the roof, that isn’t even close to finished. The Bailey family on the second floor still isn’t getting water in their kids’ bathroom. Not to mention—

You’re interrupted from meditating in your spartan spare bedroom by the ring of a doorbell.

Comments

[newoutsiders]

"Oh, couple months now. The cops poked around at first- not too much in my place, of course, we have an understanding- but they lost interest pretty quick. Nobody really cares about Amusement Mile, ya know? Not even Batsy. Part of why Mistah J used to come around here, other than the obvious old clowny stuff- which they got rid of last year- DESPITE MY LETTERS. That's the people's government for ya. But, yeah. The cops don't care. I almost think they're happier if all these poor schmoes are gettin' picked off. Lot of this neighborhood is ex-cons, the type what gets recruited for henchman work. They get offed, they ain't the city's problem no more."

Harley picks up the apple again, and tries to take a bite out of it anyway. Her teeth dent the surface, but are met with hard resistance.

"Not. Wax."

[not_easy_being_green]

"Of course." No wonder this place was so cheap - but he supposes it's not like he didn't know Amusement Mile wasn't the best of areas before. "Well, I'm not really sure what I can do, but I'll keep an ear out."

"That's plastic - give it here." Connor gently tugs away the not-wax not-apple. "You know what? There's some fruit in the fridge, if you'd like. And, uh." He glances behind him. "Cheese in the sink, I guess."

[newoutsiders]

Harley smiles sweetly.

"Aw, you're a peach, Hawkeguy. But I just ate. I was doing a bit."

She gets up out of the chair, stretches her arms out, and lets out an exaggerated yawn.

"Well, it's gettin' late. I just wanted to say hi, warn you about the ghosts. You know," she adds devilishly, "If you're scared, I could always stay over."

[not_easy_being_green]

Connor gives her a polite smile. "Thank you, but I'm sure I'll manage."

"Have a good evening, Ms. Quinn. I'm sure I'll see you around."

[newoutsiders]

She glares at Connor, face neutral.

"Oh. All righty. Maybe I'll come by another time, when I have my face on. Make sure you haven't been grabbed by the ghoulies."

She picks a tiny, toothpicked wedge of cheese out of the sink, and pops it in Connor's mouth.

"Later, Neighbor."

The weird clown lady absentmindedly slams the door behind her, leaving Connor alone in his apartment.

[not_easy_being_green]

Connor spits the cheese out into a hand, sighing loudly. He takes a little while to finish cleaning up, tossing the broken wine bottle into the recycling. The cheese basket takes a bit more deliberation - he can't eat it himself, and his inclination would be to leave it out for some tenant or another to eat, but considering that this was given to him by a woman he's pretty sure is a literal supervillain, he decides it's best not to risk it, and trashes that as well.

Then, it's time to start researching. Technologically disinclined as he may be, he can still use Google, and the plumber won't be here until tomorrow, anyway.

Time to get to the bottom of this.

[newoutsiders]

You open up your relatively new Q-Core laptop, and are proud of how quickly you find the "on" button this time. You wait for it to "boot up," find the Internet button on the desktop, and double click on the trackpad by dropping your index finger on it.

You see a weird paragraph of words that don't really make sense to you. Hunting and pecking, you type "google.com" into the top bar. You get the same weird paragraph.

You suddenly remember one of your tenants asking about something called "Wi Fi." It sounded internet related.

Reading the message more closely now, you see there's one 'network' available in the area: "harleyluvs". You deduce that if you can connect to this 'network', you can probably get to Google.

Is it wrong to open your neighbor's internet connection? Would that be stealing? Invading her privacy, even? You're not too familiar with the particulars of internet morality. Something tells you, though, that she probably wouldn't mind too much.

It's password locked.

[not_easy_being_green]

... crap. There is absolutely no way Connor is going over there to ask for the password. Maybe if... no. And he's definitely not going to admit defeat and call Mia...

Wait! His phone! That clunky Q-Core brick that he hated talking on! He'd seen Mia checking her internet on hers. It had to have internet, right?

[newoutsiders]

You search around your apartment for your awful plastic garbage block, until your sputtering memory strikes again. You flash back to mounting an incessantly buzzing qPhone onto the tip of an arrow, and firing it at some D-List bad guy named "Mr. Who." At least it made a pretty good boxing glove. Ollie would have understood.

[not_easy_being_green]

... Connor goes to knock on the door of the tenant who'd been asking about WiFi.

On his way to the door, he glances at his small pile of mail. Several of them are identical large envelopes from some place called Suncast. The word "internet" is emblazoned on several.

Connor has an idea.

[newoutsiders]

Seeing a solution to all your problems, you dial the 24 hour hotline number for Suncast to order up some internet for the building. You're a 21st century landlord, you think. Time to run a 21st century apartment.

You spend 10 minutes navigating their automated menus. You spend 20 minutes on hold. Finally, getting hold of a live representative, you ask for some internet. You spend 15 minutes being pitched a variety of packages you don't understand. You ask another few questions. You've been on hold again for 25 minutes. You now know all the lyrics to Stacey Q's "Two of Hearts."

[not_easy_being_green]

After another few rounds of questions and entirely too much staticky musak, Connor manages to get his apartment signed up for a $720/month plan. A man will be here to install it Monday, between 8:00 AM and 10:00 PM.

Connor sighs. Well, at least that's that taken care of. But it's not going to do him any good here. Looks like he'll be stopping by that tenant's place after all.

[newoutsiders]

You knock on the door muffling some thrashy electric guitar music from Apartment 302. A young dude with greasy black hair, bloodshot eyes, and an open button down shirt over a POISON IDEA tee answers your knock, cracking the door open. It looks kind of smokey in there, and there's a weird smell.

That's Lemmy, all right.

"Oh, hey Mr. Hawke," he says groggily. "You get the WiFi up yet?"

[not_easy_being_green]

"Yeah, I just got off the phone with Suncast. The guy should be here to install it Monday - we're just going to have to make do until then."

"Uh, actually, on that subject - I needed to get online and was wondering if you knew any place nearby with, uh, WiFi that I could use for now?"

[newoutsiders]

He laughs.

"Oh, sure. Yeah, okay. Uh... hold on..."

He mulls over for a bit.

"...I'm sorry. What was the question? ...Oh! Oh. Yeah, WiFi. I dunno, man. Check a Starbucks, maybe? I've been using my phone. Parents still pay for my 4G, so no big."

"Hey, Lem!" another guy calls from inside. "Is that the pizza?"

"We didn't order pizza!"

"Why the fuck not!?"

"Sorry," Lemmy says weakly. "I'm, uh. Entertaining. Know what I mean."

[not_easy_being_green]

"Right. I kind of - lost my cellphone. I'll just... hit a coffeeshop. Thanks for the advice."

"Uh, sure. Just... be careful of the smoke alarm, okay guys?" He gives an awkward wave and turns to leave. Not too long afterwards, he's sitting with a cup of overpriced tea and a granola bar at the table of the nearest Sundollars, laptop in front of him.

[newoutsiders]

"Later." Lemmy waves you off, and shuts the door.

At Sundollars, you do a search for "missing persons amusement mile". You get a series of Gotham Gazette articles, all from the last two months: Kathleen Elba, a psychiatric patient who was released from Arkham to make more room for criminals. Perry Veto, a former small time Central City gangster, time served. Sal Handy, nephew of a once-successful kitchen appliance magnate who went into deep gambling debt, had a horrible divorce, and got cut off from his family. All three reported missing by their landlords, and eventually found slumped over, dead in their apartments a few days later. No apparent forced entry. In all three cases, no family came to claim them. All three bodies were eventually claimed by Gotham County.

You also find a piece written by- get this- one Lemmy Mason, on his white text on black background website "urbanghosts.info". There, he claims he tracked down some previous tenants, who were, landlords included, spooked out by sounds of the deceased milling about the buildings and running water in their old rooms. Some even reported sightings.

The site's most recent entry is an announcement that one of the buildings had just been bought- and that he intends to solve this mystery firsthand, by renting a place himself.

[not_easy_being_green]

Well, at least it's a lead. It leaves Connor with a bit of a quandary, though - namely, how to approach Lemmy about this, if at all? He could always try to make friendly chatter as Connor, or approach him as Green Arrow - before, realistically, being found out as Connor anyway.

Well, he supposes he can at least try to chat with Lemmy once he's done... "entertaining." Connor jots down the names of some of the previous owners to make calls at home, finishes his tea and packs up.

[newoutsiders]

You're about halfway back to the apartment building, attempting to parse your Lemmy strategy, when the relative quiet of Amusement Mile at night is shattered by a screeching young girl, hurtling towards you.

"-ENGEAAAAAAANCE!"

Before you can even process where she came from, she tackles you to the ground.

"...You're not a truck."

[not_easy_being_green]

It's a good thing Connor's training has pushed restraint as much as reaction time. As is, he manages to catch himself before he's done anything more than put a hand on each of the newcomer's shoulders, pushing her away gently as he pushes himself up.

"I am not a truck," he agrees. He takes in her outfit. "And you're not either of the Batgirls I'm used to."

[newoutsiders]

"And you're..."

She gets a good look at you for the first time, still in your arms.

"Oh. My. God. Ohmigod! You're Connor Hawke! Dreamy Green Arrow! I've seen all your videos!"

[not_easy_being_green]

"I - what?" Videos? There are videos? Oh God...

[newoutsiders]

She looks at you, surprised.

"...You mean, you don't know? They're all over the hero fandom! You're a celebrity! You've got, like, twenty times more followers than I do! Or, uh, whoever's running your account I guess. Man, they're verified and everything. This is gonna be a *scandal!* Ooh, wait 'til I tell Steph-"

She stops mid-sentence.

"Steph! Right! DGA! There's an orange tanker coming up from the harbor! It's driving like nuts, and is probably stolen, or has some crazy stuff inside! We gotta team up and stop it!"

You can tell she got a little giddy at that last bit there.

[not_easy_being_green]

"Verified? What? I don't have any accounts on -"

He is, at least, not so easily sidetracked. Once Misfit breaks off, he switches to hero mode immediately. "What? Where is it?" He stands. "Tell me everything you know."

[newoutsiders]

"There's a truck! It's suspicious! Some guy had a bomb, but another Batgirl and me dealt with that! Kind of! Whatever, not important! It's coming up Broome Street, fast! We gotta hustle!"

She pulls you by the arm towards what she assumes is Broome Street, until you watch her realize she has no idea where she is. She gingerly releases your arm.

"Uhh. Lead the way?"