The frustrated teen struggled to unlock his door. "I can't believe this..." Kyle sighed to himself, "...I'm fighting with my front door and I'm losing." He finally managed to get the key to turn in the lock. Just his difficulty in getting the door unlocked gave a clue as to what quality of an apartment it was. The apartments in his building weren't so bad, but they weren't top notch either. Of course, Kyle didn't need top notch. He didn't even think he wanted top notch. Something more middle of the road. Inconspicuous. That suited him much better. Somewhere that let him blend into the 'middle of the road' masses.

He had been intending to stay in the hotel for some time longer, but after Miss Rivers had paid him that suprise visit, he was no longer comfortable there. Something about someone who knew who he was knowing where he was just didn't sit well with him. Kyle had resisted for one whole night, and then had promptly started hunting for somewhere else.

It had taken him a suprisingly short amount of time to find an apartment, and a job. Delete half the other applications from the computer records, and you're automatically looking quite a bit better. Not that there were a lot of people who wanted the job he had now. Very few people would ever even think of being a janitor.

Once he succeeded in getting inside he pushed his door closed behind him and stripped off his shirt on his way to the bathroom. Before he did anything else, he needed a shower. He could almost feel the layer of sweat and dirt on his skin. Spending eight or nine hours cleaning every weekday had made him so much more aware of dirt. Part of him wished he hadn't taken the job and could go on being oblivious to just how much dust could accumulate in certain places no normal human being would ever think to clean. It was tedious work, but as they say... somebody had to do it.

Kyle, who could be in and out of the shower in five minutes, took twice as long getting clean. Half dressed and yawning, Kyle stumbled out of his bathroom and flopped down on one of his only pieces of furniture that didn't come with the apartment; a futon he'd picked up for cheap at a yard sale. Laying on his back and fingering a wet strand of hair, Kyle frowned as he remembered getting the object that served both as a couch, and as his bed. He had had a hell of a time getting it to his apartment. Transportation had been difficult for two reasons; One, because he didn't have a vehicle to transport it in, and Two, because he didn't have any friends to ask to come and help him. He hated to admit it, but that cop-- Detective Rupert Something-- was the closest thing to a friend he had. And not just in New York. At all. Damn, that was pathetic. It wasn't that he particularly felt that he needed, or even wanted friends, it just sounded so lame to have to admit that he didn't have any. In the end he had asked the couple he had purchased it from if they would be so kind as to help him. He'd felt so pitiful that day.

He'd felt a little pitiful the day he had become a janitor as well. After all, it had to be one of the most undignified jobs he was aware of the existence of. But he had his reasons for taking the job, and they went far beyond the simple 'to pay the rent' excuse. And in comparison, it was a far 'better' job than he'd ever had before. At least this job was legal. Of course, he'd be fixing that soon enough. There was so much information he could steal at his job. And being a janitor--or custodian as he'd discovered most of the people he worked with preferred to be called--made it so much easier. When your job is to clean every inch of the building... they give you keys to every inch of the building. That made getting close enough to use his powers very easy. It made getting interesting, and possibly useful information as simple as a flick of his wrist. Even if it wasn't particularly useful, it was the interesting aspect that Kyle cared most about at this point. Until he found someone who wanted this information, stealing it was just for kicks. After all, if there was one thing that Kyle had been doing since he could remember it was gathering information, mostly by illegal means.

Not all of his means were illegal, however. Lately, he'd found he didn't even need to use his power to gather all kinds of interesting tidbits. Janitors knew all kinds of things no one realized they knew, and they tended to like to talk. When he and his coworkers gathered for breaks, the others gossiped their hearts out. Kyle mostly just listened. He learned the most unseemly secrets of the people whose company's building he cleaned. When break was over, he just stuck his headphones back in his ears and pretended like he hadn't heard a thing--like he hadn't even been there. It was becoming more and more easy. Custodians, Kyle had decided, were the ninjas of the real world. They knew exactly how to be invisible. How to disappear. How to go unnoticed. That was it. He had become a Custodian to become a Ninja. A sneaky thieving Ninja.