章 2: A New Name.
(A/N: I'm changing to past tense because it's easier to reflect on MC's opinion. While the Present tense has a more interesting way of telling the story, it's too hard. I need to write and capture the character's emotions when it happens. Tell me if you're not ok with it. First-time writing, inconsistent updates, and good criticism are encouraged.)
______
As dawn approached, a man was hunching between piles of junk digging for something. Surrounding him are mountains of broken parts atop each other. Batteries, electrical circuits, wires and metals.
Stark Industry Recycling Centre, where all failed products are disposed here, the non-hazardous ones of course, the risk of people using it to make a weapon is none, except for geniuses that can build it out of scraps, it is usually safe.
'Hmm…That's all about it, I have the motherboard, CPU, and Rams, it has the same rule of technology from my universe, just need to tweak it a little bit. It should be able to handle the hacking software and operating system. I should get out of here, workers will be coming in around 30 minutes.' Krace thought while putting all the parts in a bundle of cloth that he pulled out of one of the dumpsters from the streets.
'I have 100 Dollars, a result of confiscating a few side burglars hiding in suspicious alley. With the money, it's enough for me to eat for weeks, if I eat only buy basic foods.'
______
5 hours later.
In a dilapidated 4-storey building.
'An abandoned building I found for me to stay in temporarily, I don't need a bed and it saves money. For the first time in my past and this life, I care about saving money, it's quite a novel experience. Kratos, my other self is a warrior in ancient times, he has no need or desire for money. While Vincent Stoneschild, the kid inherited a lot of wealth like I was.' He thought to himself.'
He used to crash jets and cars to fight criminals, spend billions of dollars, and for him, money was as abundant as air, but now he's barely scraping by living in a ruined building.
After a few hours of tinkering with the junk that he brought from the junkyard, he finished setting up a high-performance computer. Even though his brain power is slightly hindered, he is still a genius, for a mere computer is just as easy as legos. A normal genius is not even on the same level as him, he used to wipe the floor with gods and aliens of an advanced civilisation with the brain of a human.
"The hardware's ready. Now, the software and OS come next. Two hours, give or take. I'll need something more advanced—if I'm going to breach government systems. Cybersecurity back in the early 2000s wasn't as developed, but I can't afford to underestimate their defences. Genius-level intellect makes advanced tech easier to produce, even back then. There's always someone out there ahead of the curve. I've seen it before."
These extraordinary geniuses usually bring humanity's knowledge forth a few decades or some even centuries, but limited by their time and technology, they cannot express their potential completely. Such as Einstein, Tesla, Newton and others. Some even found ways to time travel even with the lack of technological advancement.
As Krace was remembering the codes for the software and OS, a whisper arose, urging him to remember something else. It was subtle at first, a quiet urge. But the whisper grew louder, he thought it was a mind attack and shifted his sitting posture slowly, his senses were on high alert, guards raised, no opening was shown, looking around warily, waiting for the enemy to pounce, ready to fight, but after a minute of waiting he realised the urging came from within him and it came from his mental palace.
He relaxed his posture and focused on his mental palace, following the whisper as it guided him, it beckoned, guiding him through a labyrinth of memories, a tangled web of experiences from different lifetimes, different selves, all intertwined. And then, he found it—a single memory, floating in the expanse of his mind like a bubble waiting to be touched. He reached out, carefully, and the whisper stilled.
The memory showed a blonde kid, resting on a couch in front of a 115-inch TV, playing a game called Watchdog. The scene displayed the protagonist of the game showing a wide array of skills in hacking the devices around him. The flexibility of the hacker in completing his mission with only a mobile phone gained a nod from Krace. It also amazed him a little that the character was capable of hacking the entire city and accessing private databases instantaneously. After a few moments, the scene ended and he exited the palace.
This incident surprised him in a good way. The memory belongs to Vincent and It seems when he was thinking of building the software, Vincent wanted to show him the memory and told him " Hey, make it like Watchdog, the game."
Krace thought to himself 'Infiltrating the system wasn't difficult. Not the impressive part. But the approach... there's something there. A different angle. A shift in perspective, like a child seeing the world for the first time. Vincent's memory... it might give me an edge when I hit a dead end. We'll see if it proves useful.'
After a few hours, he finished building a functioning high-spec computer with its software in an abandoned structure using parts from a junkyard and as for the Internet, he connected the cable to the nearest building's port, extending the cable longer.
'Now, it's time to start' he readied himself as he cracked his fingers.
Sitting in front of a patch-up machine, he typed rigorously without stopping. Inputting codes, vulnerability scanning, bypassing the firewall. What he was aiming for was an identity and legal background for himself. He planned to use the identity of a missing person that resembles his face. To do that, he needs to make a facial recognition machine, which is already built on top of the small monitor.
*Scanning Face*
*Searching for similar biometrics*
After 3 minutes, the screen displayed a list of similar faces along with their history from birth to the latest information.
*Filtering 'Missing' OR 'Deceased'*
'There it is, similar 90%, Johnny France, missing in the Florida Everglades for a year, Florida, lives at Queen, New York, No relative, Debt…' While reading the case of the missing man, suddenly a warning popped out in front of his screen. His software warned him of somebody trying to trace him.
This alarmed him because the warning sign wouldn't pop out except that the other side breached through his third wall. Well, he built six for any setback, but it still proves that the other party was not some random hacker.
He hacked the person's fingerprint, deleted the record from the FBI's fingerprint database and uploaded his own. The probability of this man being found after missing a year is quite low, either way, he will investigate the man's case later in the future. After 2 minutes of deleting every data fingerprint and replacing it with his, the assailant broke through another wall. Krace downloaded the data quickly and scrambled the signal, losing the tracker.
'Now let's go to Queens and assume the identity.' Krace said to himself as he packed up his things and detached the monitor into a tablet. How? He built it himself as a backup if he needed to make a run or escape.
_____
On the other side of the computer,
The assailant.
On a long hallway.
"Sir, there's a report from the sub-cyber security team, a hacker was searching through the government records on civilians." said a woman with an eagle emblem on her shirt.
"Why do you need to report trivial things? Follow the protocols." Replied a white man with an eyepatch.
"Our expert lost him, sir."
"Hmm, record his pattern and observe if there are other attacks. Do not engage first and alert me. Might as well hire him if he's clean." He continued.
"Sir, Genosha wants a meeting." A man came to his side and reported.
"These mutants are getting bolder and braver. Let's go." The eyepatch man nodded and walked along with the man.
_________
11.00 AM
On the side of the road.
Heading towards New York.
A tall stature man was walking on the side of the road. Cars sped past him bringing with it chilling wind. Like a tree on the side of the road, all the cars ignored the man walking amidst the cold weather.
Although the temperature was low, slightly above the freezing point, the man's pace didn't slow down as if the temperature didn't affect him. He kept on walking unhinderedly like he was walking during summer.
Without any urgent task disturbing him, Krace was organising his thoughts and objectives for the future while walking.
'As there is no mention of Justice League or Wayne Industries from the information I gather along the way, there are some possible inferences that can be made. First, I'm in an alternate universe, a universe without me or other heroes. Second, the worst one, somebody tampers with the history of the world. Either killing or stopping the emergence of heroes, which is unlikely, but I'm sure they're still alive.
My next goal should be making a stable foothold in New York and amassing enough resources to make an alternate-universe teleportation device if it's confirmed this is not my universe.
The walk will take 12 hours and in this weather maybe more. I need to make a stop somewhere along the way or I'll risk getting hypothermia.'
While he was preoccupied with his own thoughts, a car honked at him and stopped a few meters in front of him. Krace walked by the side of the car and saw a handsome middle-aged man smiling kindly at him.
"Hey, where are you headed? I' can give you a lift." The man said.
"Queens," his tone steady but measure. " Are you heading there?" Krace replied.
"Oh really, I'm heading there too.! Hop in," the man said, enthusiastically.
Krace hoped on the cream-coloured Oldsmobile Delta 88, warming himself up. Sitting beside him, the man started the conversation as he drove.
"Isn't it freezing outside, how did you walk in that temperature?"
Krace offered a slight smile as he got comfortable in the seat. "You get used to it," Krace answered.
"Well, It's been 40 years but I haven't gotten used to it. Name's Ben."
"Krace," he nodded "and… thanks."
"Don't sweat about it. Feels good to help people."
"Yeah, it does," Krace said, though his smile faded slightly. He couldn't help but think of all the times "helping" had come at a far greater cost.
"You're from around here?" Ben asked.
Krace recalled the background of the alias he wanted to impersonate.
"No, originally from Sokovia. Moved here a long time ago."
"Sokovia huh? Heard it's a rough place, hope I didn't stir any bad memories."
Krace gave a slight shake of his head. "That's ok, no bad memories. Left when I was young. How about you?"
"Born and raised in Brooklyn, but been staying in Queens for a while. Got a little family over there. That's all I need. Ben's face lit up at the mention of his loved one. You're visiting here or work?"
"Neither," Bruce answered, keeping his tone casual. "I got a house around Kew Gardens, planning to move there," Krace said.
"No kidding? I'm just over at Forest Hill. We should get together sometimes, when my ear bleeds from the nagging. No matter how tired she is, she still nags a lot. Women, right? They never stop. Haha!"
As they make small talk along the way, Krace and Ben arrive at the Forest Hill neighbourhood. Single-family homes passed by them, some houses had snow piled on their porches and some were shovelled.
Krace told Ben. "You can just drop me off here. Thanks."
"Come on, drop by my house, let's have dinner together. It's not like you have someone waiting right?"
"No, but that's ok, it's plenty enough for the ride." Said Krace. After a few minutes of forth and back between both of them, Krace agreed to have dinner together with Ben's family on his insistence.
The cream car parked in front of a modest house porch. By the time they reached Ben's house, the sun was setting, casting an orange glow over the quiet street. The car engine cut off, and a small child darted out of the house, excitement written all over his face.
"Uncle Ben, You're back! Did you buy the limited edition Captain America figure?" The boy's voice bubbled with anticipation.
A soft, calm voice followed from the doorway. "Peter, be patient," said the woman, her tone gentle. "You should ask first if Uncle Ben is fine and help him with his things."
Ben smiled from ear to ear, laughed and replied. "It's ok May. Let the kid be. Well, for Peter, I got a surprise for you but first, let me introduce someone." Ben turned to his side showing a tall brow-coated man. "This here is Krace. He lives nearby here. He'll stay with us for dinner. Come say hello, Peter."
Hearing Ben's instruction, the small child with spectacle walked slowly and greeted. "Woah.. you're tall, my name's Peter."
Krace looked down at the boy, a faint smile softening his usually stern expression. "Hello, Peter," he said, his voice gentler than usual. The warmth of the scene, the simple joy of family life, tugged at something deep within him. For the briefest moment, it reminded him of his own family back when before all the tragedy happens. With a quiet nod to himself, he felt a quiet resolve settle in.
'I'll find my way back to them…someday.'
_______
The next day.
Queens Police Station.
New York.
"So Johnny France. You're saying you've been missing this whole year because you've been hiding from the apocalypse? Where it will happen this year? But then after 3 months, you realised that it just a fake conspiracy theory huh?"
"That's right, officer. I mean we humans have been living so long and I thought the year 2000 would be the end of humanity. So, I stocked up and hid myself," Krace said.
"Well ok, if you say so. Here, scan you fingerprints here and after the paperwork is done, you can go," the police officer said as he handed out a thumb scanner.
"Thank you, sir."
After spending a night in Ben's house, he went straight to Johnny's house, the missing man he would disguise himself as, took all the important documents as proof of identity and went to the nearest police station.
The excuse he prepared was quite believable because there have been ongoing rumours about the apocalypse, the end of the world will happen in the year 2000, marking the second millennium and maybe in 2012, there will also be another rumour emerge.
That's how humans are, they are a superstitious lot, fearing the unknown more than what they know.
After finishing with the paperwork, Krace then headed towards the New York Supreme Court, to file a petition and change his name. He decided to change his name legally for few reasons. First, to gain money legally and second, if there are people who recognise him, they can seek him out. Heroes or villains, undoubtedly have some information.
Holding Johnny's document by his side, he walked on the sideway observing the buildings around him, people interacting with one another. The sunlight lit his surroundings, displaying the city's vibrant colours.
'Compared to Gotham, this city looks vibrant, more colourful, more lively. Normal.'
Gotham in comparison fell far from New York, with its polluted cloudy sky, rain would fall occasionally, it's like the city is always weeping for her residents. The people there always wore gloomy expressions, but there was something special about them. Even with the tragedies surrounding them, they still kept on living there, like a victim of Stockholm syndrome.
Stockholm syndrome is the feeling of trust or affection felt in many cases of kidnapping or hostage-taking by a victim towards a captor.
The lists of the victims are many and that includes the Wayne family. His grandfather, father and mother all devoted their lives to improving Gotham. Even though she, Gotham, kept on getting worse somehow, they stayed there. That also includes him. The Stockholm syndrome. He also missed Gotham.
'Mother, father, I hope, through the people I've saved, I can find redemption.'
He arrived there after a short period because government buildings were close to each other.
In front of the counter, Krace stood against the receptionist after waiting in a queue.
"Sir, please fill out this form and submit it to the next counter," a black lady handed out a paper to Krace.
After he filled out the form, he went to the next counter.
Another lady took the paper and processed it. "So you want to change your name? What's the new name? Better pick nicely, it's expensive you know. Those 400$ cost a few months of rent."
"Krace.
"Krace...Vis Wayne."
週次パワーステータス
-- 推薦
ランキング 
-- 推薦
チケット