evilbeej | Old log from Zero Hour.

New York: Bachelor Flat

The front room isn't particularly tidy, but it's also not a hellhole. As soon as you walk in the door, you're there - immediately to your left is a coatrack nailed to the wall, and immediately to your right is a fairly dirty window. There's a ratty armchair in the corner next to the window, and next to it is a long, tall bookshelf with two dingy windows above. The shelves are filled with texts: history, chemistry, biology, psychology, linguistics. Across from the shelves and the windows is a long, equally ratty-looking couch; in front of this is a wooden coffee table held up by crates (thanks, Jack) and covered with beverage-ringed papers. There's an end table next to the couch which holds an ancient tube radio and an equally old lamp, held together in the middle with electrical tape. Beneath the lamp is a faded black and white snapshot in a frame. Hanging on the walls, also framed, are several yellowed newspaper articles and some more photographs, interspersed with Weird Art and memorabilia.

To the back of the front room are two doorways - one with a door, one without. The one without is on the right and leads to the kitchen; the other opens on a short hallway, where two tiny bedrooms, a bathroom, and a linen closet can be found. Between the two doors are a black-and-white television and a shiny new VCR (there's no cable. You had to ask?), sitting on a beaten-looking cabinet with the doors shut. The ceiling is a dingy yellow color.

------

Suddenly, you are in a long, blue hallway, about twenty feet high, and ten feet wide. The walls and the long line of doors leading down the hall glow a bright flourescent blue. The door ahead of you, at the far end of the hall, is glowing a bright, neon red. Behind you, the hallway trails off into darkness, seeming to go forever.

"What the fuck...?" blinks Sanderson Hawkins, immediately on his guard, and rather at a loss as to what to do with the shot glass in his hand. To blur perception slightly, or have an angry fighting edge? He straightens once more, looking back into the darkness, then at the red door. All right - put off the whiskey decision until after the obvious door is opened. He walks toward the red door.

The red door cracks open, sliding away from you with a long, slow, deep creaking. Inside is an old, Gothic cathedral. Suddenly, you're standing at the back end of the long, red carpet running through the center of the old church, up the aisle, through the pews, and leading to a coffin. Behind the coffin, an old priest with a giant, green bishop's hat is muttering the Latin mass. The pews are filled with people in black, weeping and crying in mourning.

Well, it's now clear exactly what to do with the shot - Sandy throws it back expertly, then sets it on top of a wooden alms box nearby. He walks silently across the back of the cathedral until there's good, solid stone wall behind him, then waits.

The old priest continues to drone on for long minutes, and then, something strange begins to occur, as the mourners closest to you turn to you and say in long, hollow voices, "Susan Morgan Thompson...." repeating it over and over. It travels down each pew like a wave, and then foreward through the church, until soon, all of the mourners, and the priest, are all droning the name at you, over and over again.

"...all right, I get the picture. Susan Morgan Thompson," repeats Sandy, starting to get a little irritated. "Okay. Any location? Any ideas? Anything even remotely helpful...?" It appears he's gone lucid. Happens every once in awhile. Annoying bastard Morpheus positively -delights- in being obscure.

In the front of the old church, a woman's corpse sits rigidly upright in the coffin as the others in the cathedral continue to chant. She raises her right wrist, pointing to a digital watch. The bright red digits grow, and seem to fly directly at you, reading 1:15 A.M. Just as they seem to strike you, turning everything red, you wake up, with your head on a bar. A clock on the wall directly in your field of vision reads 10:30 P.M.

Sandy Hawkins eyes the clock blearily, then mutters something incredibly foul in Hindi under his breath. He holds up a hand to the bartender, "Sorry, Jim, guess I got less sleep than I thought...no, I'm fine. Just tired." Interrupting. Yeah. He shakes his head and just hands the guy a couple bucks. "I'm not -that- much of a lightweight, you know that." One-fifteen. God.../damn/. Once he's outside, he stops by the public phone and starts flipping through the directory chained to the booth.

Having a keen mastery of the English alphabet, you quickly find the phone number of Susan M. Thompson. There is no address listed, but the phone number prefix looks to be somewhere on the Lower East Side (near the bar).

Oooh, it's all local. How incredibly sweet. Sandy fishes a pen out of his pocket and scribbles the phone number on his hand, then heads back to his apartment. No sense in tracking her down totally unprepared. It's a hop, skip, and a jump away; he's home in no time flat. Ahaha, pun. Flat. As he's mixing up a batch of truly noxious chemicals, he calls the number.

A woman's voice answers the phone on the other end, "Hello...?"

"Hello, Ms. Thompson?" The adventurer's voice is calm and nonthreatening. "This is Inspector Hawkins of the NYPD." He pauses. "I am speaking to Ms. Susan Morgan Thompson, correct?"

The woman's voice now shows a hint of worry, "Yes, I'm Sue Thompson. Did...did something happen, officer?"

"Nothing to worry about, ma'am," assures Sandy. "We recieved an anonymous tip that you might be in danger of harassment tonight; it could be nothing, but it could also be a legitimate claim. Is there anyone you feel wishes you harm? Anyone you know that might give you problems?"

The woman says, "A threat...? So...nothing happened to Jimmy? I don't..." You can hear her pull the phone away from her head and talk to someone, a male voice, with whom she has a brief argument, from the sound, before shushing him and returning to the phone, "Officer...I have a friend over...I think that I'll be all right. I don't know who would want to threaten me. I'm just a waitress."

Finishing up the mixture, Sand begins loading up his gasgun with the substance. He then sets it down, and goes over to his closet - pulls out his shoulder rig and puts it on. Over this, he puts on his suit jacket. As he continues to talk to Sue, he looks over his ties. Have to look professional. "I understand. However, crime prevention is, naturally, a paramount concern of ours. Would you mind if we sent an undercover officer over? You don't need to let him in, but if it turns out an assailant does show up and is armed, it wouldn't do to let either of you come to harm."

"Undercover officer?" You hear her pull the phone away and talk to the male voice again, "Don't you normally send...uniformed officers? Is this really the NYPD?" She now sounds growingly nervous, and definitely suspicious. You can hear the male voice talking to her in the background.

"Yes, ma'am, this really is the NYPD. And no, we usually send undercover officers when we get anonymous tips; if the hypothetical assailant were to see a uniformed policeman at the scene, they would leave and return when the officer was no longer present." Sandy straightens his tie, and snags his carnival replica NYPD badge from the Drawer of Useful Junk. "We can only send someone if we have your permission, ma'am, and time is of the essence."

"Al..." There is some more haggling off of the phone line with the male voice, "Alr..." There's some more haggling still, "Alright...but we'll want to see his badge when he gets here. If you think its absolutely necessary..." You can hear the male voice continuing to complain.

"Certainly, ma'am. You can expect either myself or another officer at approximately eleven o'clock," finishes Sandy, inspecting the badge critically. Heavy metal, nice workmanship, typewritten identification on the card. Should work. Should. He glances at the clock, dropping the badge in his pocket and going back over to the telephone cradle.

The woman says, "Alright...we'll wait for you..." As she hangs up the phone on her end, you can hear the argument that was being had quietly now break into full volume shouting, just before the click.

Sounds like it's gonna be domestic violence instead of an unknown attacker. Great. This'll be fun to sort out. Sandy sighs and replaces the phone, then tightens his rig a bit and puts his gasgun in one holster, and a handgun in the other. Then he remembers - fuck. He didn't get the address. Picking up the phone again, he calls up Titans' Tower. "Hey...hey, Donna! It's Sandy. No, he's not. I haven't heard from him in weeks, either. N-...no. Do me a favor...? I know I don't deserve it! Can you get an address for me? Yeah, Susan Thompson...her number is..."

You get the address. Its a few blocks away on the fourth floor of a fairly large government subsidized housing apartment building, one of the nicer, newer ones, intended for working families. Apartment 408, Emory Fields Community Homes.

"Right..." mumbles Sandy, committing it to memory. "Thanks! I owe you. ...heh. Yeah. See you tomorrow." He hangs up, then pockets a couple of nose filters. No gas masks tonight. He notes as he heads out the door that this sucks a bit, and he ought to work on building a reputation so he doesn't have to rely on subterfuge. Due to severe lack of working automobile, he walks.

By the time you get to the building and take the elevator up to the fourth floor, and find the apartment door, its almost midnight. There isn't any sound coming from the apartment, at least not through the cheap metal door. The walls on either side, running down the hall, are white painted cinderblock.

A couple of short knocks on the door, and Sandy waits outside, the picture of professionalism. Hair combed, navy blue suit and tie, telltale bulk of a concealed rig beneath his jacket.

The door jerks open about three inches, still held by a chain at the top. A dark-haired guy with scraggly whiskers peeks through the crack at you, waving his face back and forth to get a look at you, "Where's your I.D., pal?" He's wearing nothing but a well-worn white tank-top and boxer shorts, but he looks like he's in decent shape.

Calmly and slowly pulling out the badge, Sandy holds it up. "Inspector Hawkins, NYPD. Is everything all right in there?"

"Yeah, everything's fine. Hang around as long as you want." That said, the door shuts again, a bit hard, and you can hear a few deadbolts being thrown on the other side.

Everything's fine. Right. Well - the walls don't look *too* thick, and if something nasty starts happening in there...Well. There's always the ear to the door. And hopefully Sue would be smart enough to scream. Sandy prepares to go for the long haul.

You wait another good half-hour, until about 12:30, then you can hear someone get off the elevator, and come down the hallway. There's a jangling, and finally a teenage kid in a leather jacket covered with buttons, with his dye-black hair spiked and about eighteen visible piercings, wearing a Slayer t-shirt comes around the corner, heading for you and the door. When he sees you, he stops dead in his tracks.

Sandy Hawkins waves cheerfully from his spot on the floor. "Got a cigarette? I'm out," he says quietly.

The kid says, "You a p...cop?" He's eyeing your suit, more than you. His hand starts to move up toward the inside pocket of his jacket.

Sandy Hawkins shakes his head. "Nah." He inclines his head toward the door across the hall. "Got kicked out. Waiting for him to calm down a little." He looks sheepish, but changes the subject. "You a musician?"

The kid gets a weird look on his face at your response, and pulls a pack of Camels out of his pocket, the softpack is wadded around the last two cigs. "Keep 'em. Yeah, I play bass." He then pauses a minute and looks at the door you indicated, "You a fag, man?"

The Golden Ager clears his throat, taking a cigarette out of the pack and lighting it. He looks a little disapproving, but not terribly. "Not a great word. Would you have problem with it if I were?" He pauses. "And thanks for the smokes."

"Whatever floats your boat, man." He walks over and hammers on the door into Sue's apartment. Pauses for half a second, and then hammers on it again. You can hear footsteps move inside the apartment as they reach the door. There's another pause, and then the clatter of the locks being opened inside. Finally the door is jerked open, and the kid starts to walk inside.

Leaning over a little to get a look inside the apartment before the door's shut again, Sandy squints. He's not making any assumptions, but because of the time and the general aura of violence that hangs around a kid that desperate to look like a deviant, he's gonna be even more on his guard. He takes a drag of the cigarette.

Within five minutes of the kid entering the apartment, which looked lower middle-class enough on the face of it, yelling and screaming suddenly bursts out through the door. Mostly two male voices, one sounding alot like the kid. You occasionally here something from a woman's voice, but it mainly sounds like she's crying.

Great. Sandy stands up, cigarette in his mouth. Had he heard the deadbolts close again? Hand on his gasgun, he listens for a moment, then checks his watch.

No sound of locks being relocked, and its about quarter to one. The yelling continues, and then you hear a loud smack, and then another one, and then a crash and a thud. You can hear the woman scream and then begin crying more loudly, and the adult man cursing a blue streak.

Decision time - wait until the last second like a good little prophet of doom, or make like a concerned, butting-in neighbor, or like a professional cop-type-guy and enter now. It only takes a second to make up Sandy's mind: he opens the door and calls inside, "Ms. Thompson? It's Hawkins...can I come in?"

The guy in there with her yells, "Get the fuck out of her, you little son of a bitch!" You hear footsteps approaching, and the kid, with a nice big black eye, yanks the door out of your hand to move past you out into the hall. When he does, you can see that Sue has a nice bruise on her face, too. The guy is fuming, and its hard to tell whether he yelled at you or the kid. Sue is wearing a pair of jeans and a ratty old sweater, and though she's still crying, she walks to the couch and starts to throw things into her purse. In front of the guy is a smashed coffee table.

Whether or not it was directed at him, Sandy decides not to heed it. He waits at the door, arms crossed loosely, leaning on the jamb. He waits, again.

The kid, having passed you, stomps off down the hall toward the elevator. Sue finishes loading her purse with cigarettes, a lighter, etc., and turns to walk toward you as well. As she does, her man grabs her arm, yanking her back toward him, "The little fucker had it coming. Look what he did to you!?" She spits back, "Fuck you, Richie!" She rips her arm away from him, and starts stomping toward where you are at the door.

"Sir...please don't detain her if she wants to leave," comes Sandy's voice clearly and authoritatively. Not overwhelmingly so, just - just enough to imply that he might be forced, however regretfully, to back up his words if left unheeded. "It would be best if you all had some time to calm down."

Sue storms past you, not saying anything, and heads for the elevator as well. Richie kick part of the table across the room and screams, "Fuck!" running his hands through his hair. He sits down on the couch, grabs a cigarette out of the remains of the table and a lighter and lights it up, turning to you, "What the hell am I supposed to do with that kid? He stays out all night, then smacks his mom around...I can't win for losin', man."

"That's his mother, huh?" asks Sandy rhetorically. "And he hit her...I'd suggest, even though it sounds stupid, going to see a family counsellor." He straightens up, raising his eyebrows. "But since I'm supposed to be watching her, and the window of opportunity isn't closed yet, I've got to go." He nods his head, holding up his hand to touch the brim of a nonexistant hat. "Best of luck." He heads down the hall, following in the wake of the angry woman.

Behind you, you can hear Richie yell, "Fuck, man! I'm askin' you for some help here!" You get to the elevator door just as it closes with Sue in it. The clock says 12:48.

Sprinting down the hallway, not paying a lot of attention to Ritchie's yelling, Sandy gets to the stairs at the end and begins bolting down them, skipping whole flights at a time. . o O (Gotta ask Nightwing for extra training - this shouldn't be a problem. Ow.) He's hoping to get there before Sue does, just in case the kid's still down there. Waiting.

As you near the bottom of the stairs, you actually run up on the kid, who's sitting in the first floor stairwell, on the concrete, feet sticking out in front of him, lighting up a joint. He pulls his lighter away as you come into view, "Where the fuck you going in such a hurry, dick?"

Stopping short, panting, Sandy puts on his best look of panic. "He...he...*hh* said he was gonna...*hh*...have my car...*hh* impounded! I swear I dunno what I...what...*hh* what I did to piss him off so bad!" He's backing toward the door as he talks to the kid, and pushing it open..

The kid shakes his head, "Queers..." and goes back to lighting up his joint. As you get out into the lobby of the building, you can see Sue, at the other end of the lobby, storming out onto the street through the glass doors. The time is 12:53.

More sprinting - across the lobby, full-tilt - don't want to let her out of his sight. There's still over twenty minutes left until the time given him. At this point, he doesn't necessarily want her to see him, though; she's suspicious enough as it is.

As you burst out the door on the other side, you can see Sue crossing the street, and walking up the other side. She reaches into her purse and pulls out a cigarette, pausing as she does so, and then a cheap disposal lighter that she uses to light it. She takes a long drag, then lets her hand with the cigarette drop. She gets out a pair of sunglasses in her opposite hand, and puts them on her face to hide some of the bruising. That done, she starts walking again.

Now's the time to utilize the skills in shadowing folks he learned from his mentor. You know the drill - keep in the shadows and don't wake the sleepers. He follows Sue, putting the filters in as he goes.

Sue cuts around some corners, and makes her way through a good portion of the city as you follow her. She doesn't seem to be going anywhere in particular tonight. Just walking. By the time she's on her third cigarette, its 1:10, and nothing particular has happened. Then, a grizzled, grimy derelict steps out of the shadows of an alley in front of her. She stops short, and he appears to be asking her for change.

Stopping as well - in the shadow of someone's door - Sandy draws the gasgun. He edges closer, keeping to the shadows, trying to catch their words.

The bum seems pretty determined to get some money, and Sue is protesting that she doesn't have any. The back and forth is starting to escalate, and both are starting to yell. Sue finally starts to rummage in her purse. 1:11.

Oh, Sue, never a good idea to pull out your purse. Any minute now - it could have been she was killed instantly, or it could have been that's when she finally died - goddamn Morpheus. Goddamn unclear dreams. Gasgun still in hand, Sandy pulls out a handful of ones and steps up. The gun's at his side, and he holds the money up in his hand. "Here, pally, leave the lady alone, willya?"

The man greedily snatches the money out of your hand, eyeing the wad and realizing quickly that its all ones, but not really caring. He shoves it deep into his folds of layered clothing, then says, "Bitch..." to Sue and heads back down his alley home. Sue turns to you, her makeup smeared all over the place under her sunglasses from crying, and says, "Thank you...aren't..." She pulls off her glasses, the big bruise once again becoming apparent, "Aren't you...the cop they sent over...?" Now that you can see her up close, she's in her early thirties, but weathered like her late-forties. Still a fairly pretty blonde, all things considered. But she's been through alot.

Sandy Hawkins nods, a look of concern and regret on his face. "Ma'am...you really shouldn't be walking alone in the city at night. Will you let me get you a taxi, or take you to a women's shelter? No one has to know your name there." He prays that the bum was the actual threat. "You're not out of danger yet." It's almost time.

Sue shakes her head, looking up at you, and actually starting to smile, "No..its alright. I made a decision tonight. I've been...seeing someone else...at the restaurant where I work. He's been trying to get me out of all this. He wants me to move with him, to Chicago...he's completely different than Richie..." She smiles, and starts to walk away, "Its all going to be alright now."

'It's going to be alright now' - call Sandy a paranoid old bastard, but those are Murphy's favorite words, and he says as much, "Oh boy...all right, I believe you, ma'am...but I'm a superstitious old cop, and those words just invite trouble. Please, let me walk you to the subway."

Sue shakes her head, walking away from you, out into the street, "Really, you're sweet, Officer...what was it again?" She's looking at you, with her eyes the brightest they've ever been. In the corner of your eye, you catch a glimpse of the city bus, making its last route, and flying straight at her. The clock flips over to 1:15.

Acting instantly, not even answering her question and to hell with propriety, Sandy tenses and springs, going for a bodily impact heavy enough to push Sue out of the way of the bus as quickly as possible --

There's a huge bang, and screech, and a flash of white as you roll end over end, Sue's body in your arms. The bus slams on its brakes, and slides right past the two of you as you roll end over end across the street with her. When you finally land, she reaches up and brushes her hair away from her face, looking at you, and in more than a little shock. She looks like she's trying to come up with something to say.

"Hawkins," the man finally answers, a slight smile on his face. "Sandy Hawkins. I'm sorry if I hurt you." He delicately extricates himself, then holds a hand out to help her up. "You should be fine now."

She takes your hand, and climbs to her feet, brushing herself off and collecting her purse. She smiles at you, "Thank you...Sandy...that bus could've killed me." She looks back at the bus, and then over at you, and then stands up on her toes to give you a kiss on the cheek, "I'm going to call the precinct and make sure you get a commendation."

The clock rolls over to 1:16.

Sandy Hawkins grins lopsidedly. "No problem, Ms. Thompson - it's all in a day's work." Ah, christ, what a cheese line. But what else is he supposed to do? And let her call the precinct - heck, there might even be a Hawkins in the NYPD. With another touch to the invisible brim of his invisible hat, Sandy turns and walks off...*after* he checks his watch.