Chapter 1

-[Gotham]-

At the roof of an apartment building in the crime ridden city, a dark haired boy sat on the ledge, looking down at the city below.

The citizens went about their scared, but frankly normal, lives.

Gotham wasn't a place to flaunt wealth unless you were begging to be gutted in an alleyway with nobody to save you. The people of the city knew that very well as well as the unspoken rules that came with living in Gotham.

It was one of the reasons why the dark haired teen didn't wear anything fancy, a plain black shirt and grey sweats.

Looking at the street below, his eyes landed on the traffic light below that was on red. With a simple thought, the red light went out, switching to green.

*Beep!* *Beep!* *Beep!*

The cars honked at each other as two vehicles nearly scratched each other upon their reaction to the changes signal.

Letting out a sigh, the boy's amber eyes darted to the door leading to the roof as it opened, a blonde haired girl walking out.

In her hand was a cupcake with a single lit candle sticking out of it as she joined him by the ledge.

"Hey, what are you doing here?" He asked as she set the cupcake down.

She showed a small smile. "I should be asking you the same question. You're not usually one for moping."

It was his turn to chuckle as he ran his hand through his hair that fell to his shoulders, the back tied in a loose ponytail.

"I'm not moping. I just wanted some fresh air. What about you? Your dad's not home?" He asked casually, ignoring the slight wince she gave at the question.

"He's out of town for another business meeting. Won't be back for a few days." She answered, a bit evasively, which he also didn't call out.

They sat there for a while, looking at the city in a comfortable silence.

The blonde girl turned to him, picking up the cupcake. "Evan?" She called, getting his attention as she handed it to him with a smile. "Happy 16th birthday."

An appreciative smile played on his lips. "Thanks Artemis."

He looked out to the city but his mind was anywhere but there.

It had been 16 years since he started a new life in this reality. He was a simple 14 year old who had been fighting cancer all his life.

Fighting an unsuccessful fight.

A good deal of his life was spent at the hospital staring at screens, his only gateway to communicate with the outside world.

Doctors and friends of the family pitied his parents, calling it an unfair trade. While his physical body mostly wasted away, his mind was certainly gifted, being much smarter than the average child.

With his time consumed with learning and acquiring knowledge he knew he wouldn't get the chance to use, his time came to an abrupt end only to wake up as an infant once again in another world.

A familiar but scary world.

His first memories in this life were of him waking up at the entrance of a rundown orphanage. With how fast news moved around in Gotham, it didn't take long for him to hear about the dark knight, immediately figuring out where he was.

He lived in the orphanage in fear, knowing of the dangerous world out there and his powerlessness as a simple human to defend himself.

Booksmarts certainly weren't going to help him if he was getting jumped.

It wasn't until he turned eight that he realized his 'gift'. It started with the buzzing feeling at the back of his mind whenever he was near machines or electronics.

Not long after, his powers manifested, revealing to him that he was a meta human and giving him a sliver of hope that he could survive.

He was a technopath, and while that wasn't as cool or powerful as being able to break buildings with a single punch or flying through the sky, he couldn't think of an ability that suited him better.

He practiced his abilities as much as he could, tapping into things like phones and street lights, figuring out the limits of his powers and pushing them.

His brain was like a supercomputer, he could download information directly into it from other devices, allowing him to learn even faster than he ever could in his previous life.

By the time he was twelve, he was more than proficient enough to have an ATM spit out enough money for him to escape the orphanage.

He easily deactivated the alarms and anything else that would alert anyone to his actions. By the time anyone could respond to it, he was already gone with enough money to temporarily settle down at the time.

Gotham was as dangerous as it got so it wasn't odd seeing a twelve year old paying for a room in a motel. The people knew to keep their mouths shut in the event that the kid was affiliated with one of the big names in the city.

It was at that moment his life truly started.

With his acquired skills along with his technopathy, it wasn't hard to find some freelance jobs on the internet.

He was a hacker/information broker for hire, a job he'd kept at even till this day. By the time he turned fourteen, he stopped his nights at motels, having more than enough money to rent an apartment.

Once again, the fortune/misfortune of being in Gotham played out as nobody questioned it.

As for why he didn't go for something more luxurious, he wasn't that dumb. That was simply asking for trouble.

Imagine his surprise when the apartment building he was staying in was also the home to the villain Sportsmaster and his family. The situation was too ironic to be funny.

His job barely required him to step outside so he wasn't too bothered about it. Though, he might be toeing the line by interacting with his daughter, Artemis.

•••

He and Artemis had stayed up late on the roof until they went their separate ways, her to her apartment room and him to his.

His unit wasn't anything special, the main area having a small kitchenette and living room. His room was a bit more complex, having a multi monitor computer setup on the desk in the corner of the room.

A 3d printer sat at the edge of the desk and another slightly smaller desk with contraptions and gadgets on it.

It was only natural that he was a wonderful inventor, it came with being able to communicate and control technology.

Most of his money went into funding his inventions and finding materials to use. He had a few plans drawn out but they were on hold until he could get much better equipment.

He felt rather than heard a notification pop in on the computer, moving to his chair as he pulled up his messages.

+++++++

[Unknown]:[I want everything you can find about the guy in the photo.]

(Image.png)

+++++++

Putting the photo through a facial recognition algorithm, it didn't take him more than a few seconds to find out who 'unknown' was.

A somewhat wealthy businessman whose daughter died in a shootout between some of Penguin's thugs and the police.

The man in the picture is the policeman who accidentally killed his daughter. Barely a minute passed as he got everything about the policeman from places he frequented to even his favorite food, sending it to his customer.

An alert popped in moments later, notifying him of his four digit payment.

His work was thorough and efficient as always. It was what earned him his reputation as Zero, the mystery man who could get into anything.

People were smart enough to know that someone who could break into what you paid them to do could also break into your own systems and thus, didn't attempt to evade payment.

He'd dealt with a few like that and anonymously getting their less than legal deeds to the ears of the police wasn't hard.

He was Evan Taylor, known to the underworld as the mighty hacker Zero.