5 Chapter 4

-[Evan]-

After getting his fill of his beloved tacos and a few more to go in a takeout container, he made his way back to his apartment unit to continue working.

Accessing the drone in Artemis' unit, he saw her and her mother, Paula Crock, having dinner. He had of course known that she was released from prison but saw no reason to call out Artemis' lie.

Even he had his own secrets.

He had gotten some intel on a few things like the fire at Cadmus, which Luthor was the founder, the explosion of Bane's factory on Santa Prisca as well as the attack in happy harbor by a wind manipulating robot.

Local cameras and satellite footage showed the presence of some kids fighting it. He barely needed facial recognition to tell him who they were.

Robin(Dick Grayson), Kid Flash(Wallace West), Aqualad, Superboy and Miss Martian.

Though, Miss Martian and Superboy weren't on earth's database but that wasn't important since he recognized them. He added their faces as well as Aqualad's to his own private database for future reference.

He didn't have a satellite but he could always borrow/hack into the present ones. It wasn't illegal as long as he wasn't caught.

Another rumor that was spreading around was that Sportsmaster had taken a long term contract with an unknown person. The details were unknown as well but Evan could guess that the unknown 'person' was actually an association called The Light.

He was aware of their two public figures, Lex Luthor and Queen Bee of Bialya and so kept an eye on anything relating to them.

No mention of their name or sighting of their faces escaped his notice. As he looked through some files, a beep alerted him to his facial recognition software picking up Lawrence Crock entering the building.

Putting the camera feed on a different monitor along with the feed from the other cameras, he continued his work. Though the thought of creating an AI like J.A.R.V.I.S or F.R.I.D.A.Y to lower his workload had crossed his mind, the threat of a possible Ultron situation also crossed his mind.

He wasn't the type to brag but if an evil AI got access to his systems and database, there would be chaos…a lot of it. It was why there were numerous layers of security he set in place to make sure it didn't fall into the wrong hands.

Ignoring an anonymous job request to hack into Bruce Wayne's account to steal all his money, he moved to his tinkering table.

Pulling out a small container, he opened it to reveal a pair of contact lenses. He wasted no time putting them on, a HUD appearing in his view.

They were one of his casual inventions, Augmented Reality Lenses. It was the kind that the league used much later in the future. As for why he built it, he was bored at the time.

Another reason he created it was to eliminate the need of using his phone and with his technopathy, he didn't need to use gestures to interact with it.

It also had other features such as night vision, x-ray vision, telescopic view, facial recognition and many more.

As he grabbed the velocity belt to continue working on it, he transferred the camera feed to the lens, a minimized tab opening in the corner of his vision so as not to obstruct his normal view.

The audio to text translator allowed him to pick up the conversations, watching as Lawrence Crock was sent out by Paula while Artemis snuck out her window to begin her crime fighting career.

Idly having one of his mini beetle drones fly out the window, he controlled it to follow and monitor her as he worked.

•••

A few days passed as he continued calibrating the velocity belt as well as continued his other projects. The belt was just one of his latest projects, he still had others that were incomplete.

The most important project was the one he'd been working on for about a year so far; nanites.

While his powers enhanced his brain quite a bit, the nanites he intended to make would greatly enhance his body.

He'd been working on it soon after he started taking job requests and it was where a good chunk of his money went towards. Nanotechnology was no joke, even for him.

The fog that the shadows would eventually coerce Dr Roquette to make were highly advanced but was only possible due to their nearly endless resources.

For someone like him who had limited resources and had to rely on self made equipment, it would take him much longer to make his nanites a possibility.

He was only about 90% done but he believed that he knew how to speed up his progress. If he could get a sample of the nanotech fog, he could complete his nanite prototypes within days.

Unfortunately, that meant that he would have to wait for Roquette to actually make it first and then swoop in to steal a portion of it.

As much as he disliked it, he wasn't incapable of working physically in the field. Once in a while, his job required that kind of approach.

He paused as a video feed popped up in his HUD showing the live security camera view of Gotham Academy.

The video showed Robin, Superboy and Kid Flash facing off an android that he recognized to be the Amazo android, another machine he wished to study, on the basketball court in the school.

Ivo's presence in the seating area didn't go unnoticed either.

Pulling up a separate camera feed, it showed Artemis fighting Ivo's monkey robots on one of the trees outside the school.

On that note, the girl had been more despondent than usual and with her mother back, the time they spent together was shortened a bit. His attempts to cheer her only worked for a while before she would return to her down disposition.

Despite his stalker-like actions, he was merely concerned for her. He didn't know what kind of effects his mere presence would have on the timeline but he knew that it was only a matter of time before the ripples began to show themselves.

He split his attention between working on the velocity belt and watching the feed as Artemis saved Kid Flash from being crushed in a bear hug from the android mimicking Superman's strength.

Apparently, he didn't have to worry as it happened like it was supposed to. They beat the android and the rest of the team showed up while Artemis slipped away.

Ivo tried to slip away but was being discreetly followed by a mini beetle drone. Not long after that, two trucks arrived at the school building to pick up the android parts and transport them to be analyzed in different cities.

With that, he knew his next job; to sneak into the Star Labs facility in New York where one part of the android was being analyzed and get the android's data.

If he was lucky, he'd find what he needed there and wouldn't have to go to the other Star Lab facility in Boston.

He chose the one in New York first seeing as how it was closer to Gotham and the fact that Star Labs servers were on a different network entirely, which necessitated him to sneak into the facility to physically gain access.

'This is going to be tricky but the rewards are very worth it.' He thought in slight excitement.