After Pepper left with Aisha from the Stark Industries San Francisco Park, she drove the young girl to her luxury apartment not far from the center of San Francisco City. She instructed her butler to take good care of her.
This was quite different from Stark leaving Aisha alone in his office. The grand flat had a butler, two maids, a chef, and two security guards - more than enough to care for a child.
After Pepper left, Aisha expressed her desire to play a video game. The butler readily agreed. In his view, it was normal for children her age to enjoy video games, so he had someone turn on the game console.
Children from these affluent families didn't play games in the living room. They had bespoke game rooms equipped with a full set of audio-visual equipment and game consoles. Aisha was well aware of this, so she made the request.
Once in the game room, Aisha carelessly picked a game that children her age usually enjoyed. She played a few rounds, intentionally not playing well, losing quickly due to all sorts of childish mistakes.
Then, pretending to be shy, she asked the butler, "Can I stay here alone? I'm nervous."
The butler immediately nodded and smiled, closing the door. The power supply for all electrical appliances was encased within the structure, posing no danger to children. The game room lacked any sharp objects, and a smart motion-detecting alarm system was in place, so there was no need to have someone watching over her.
The butlers employed here had the discerning eyes of an eagle. In the brief contact he had with Aisha, the butler saw that she was a sophisticated little girl, raised in a wealthy household, yet somewhat timid due to excessive protection. These kinds of children rarely caused trouble, so the butler walked away without worry.
Once the butler was gone, Aisha tiptoed over, carefully shut the door, and began noting the locations of all the cameras while pretending to explore her new surroundings. Sitting back down with her back to the cameras, she began to fiddle with the game controller.
The surveillance camera only saw Aisha holding the game controller in her lap, seemingly studying its structure. For a child her age, this was normal behavior. Who hasn't fantasized about a tiny person living inside a game controller or a TV remote?
Aisha disassembled the controller's casing with a quick, smooth motion and removed all the unneeded parts. Two thin wires connected to the lower part of the controller's vibration motor. She pulled these out.
Don't ask how she unscrewed the screws and pulled out the wires. Her sharp, innate fangs were like all-purpose tools. Paired with her astonishing biting power, there was nothing she couldn't dismantle, from video game controllers to spaceships.
After ripping out the two wires, Aisha quickly reassembled the controller. She then stripped the rubber coating from the wires, leaving only the metal on the inside. She twisted the two thin wires together to make a perfect lock-picking tool.
Her swift, natural actions didn't catch the attention of the security guard monitoring the cameras. Pretending to be bored with the controller, Aisha picked up a different game console controller to play for a while.
Seeing that it was getting late, Aisha left the room. The good news was that the butler had prepared a lavish meal. The bad news was that Pepper seemed to be a stickler for scientifically balanced meals. Theoretically, a child Aisha's age wasn't supposed to eat many foods, and the ones she could enjoy needed to be bland.
After a few bites, Aisha realized that the meal did not compare to Alfred's cooking. She managed to finish the food on her plate and then pretended to be drowsy.
The butler probably thought the young girl was worn out from a long day and should be sleepy by now, so he had someone take Aisha to bed.
She wasn't tired at all, and after wandering around in her room for a while, she realized that her excursion to the game room for equipment was indeed warranted. The child's room was too safe and lacked anything useful.
At night, the maids returned to rest, and after instructing to lock the doors and turn off the lights, the butler also left. Only one security guard stayed behind on duty.
Seeing her chance had arrived, Aisha jumped out of bed to check the door lock. She realized that these types of homes typically didn't use any high-tech electronic locks, just the primitive type with a lock cylinder, albeit more complicated than usual.
Aisha's eyes gleamed golden as she peered into the lock mechanism. She quickly grasped its structure and began picking the lock with the thin wire.
Before long, she had cracked the lock open. Aisha silently slipped out and tiptoed to the security room. As expected, the security guard was already asleep.
Previously, Aisha had watched news about Stark Industries on the TV in Bruce's apartment. Clearly, the main headquarters of Stark Industries were in New York. While there were many factories and parks on the West Coast, the New York management rarely visited here, including Miss Potts.
However, they certainly owned properties on this side. It wasn't the sort of situation where they called for management when they arrived, neither did they bring their New York staff with them. Rather, they constantly spent money to maintain a group of employees in these properties.
But for employees working in an environment with little supervision and less work, coupled with a good salary, who wouldn't slack off? This kind of slacking off, in its later stages, would simply turn into an attitude of not working unless someone was watching.
This security guard wasn't just dozing off on his desk; he had set up a makeshift bed in the security room, complete with bedsheets and quilts, and was sound asleep.
Aisha peeked through the door crack, gingerly turned the knob and found the door wasn't even locked. She slipped in quietly.
Her only aim was to use the computer. Earlier, Aisha had noticed that in this universe, portable devices had astoundingly large storage capacities. What about the computers then?
Aisha adeptly turned on the computer, adjusted to the operating system, and opened the device management interface. She was astonished by the familiar yet colossal storage unit.
The computers from her era had storage capacities measured in kilobytes, but here they were already at terabytes.
Aisha's eyes sparkled with excitement, and the first thing she did was to search for programming tutorials online.
Aisha indeed knew programming, but she also understood that the software and methods of this era were likely to be radically updated. So, she rapidly absorbed knowledge from the Internet, downloaded the software, and began to experiment.
It didn't take long for the screen to be filled with coding boxes. Aisha would occasionally glance at the sleeping security guard and realized she could continue for a while longer. After about four hours, she had filled ten terabytes of storage, originally meant for the surveillance footage.
After saving her work, she unplugged the external hard drive and put it in her pocket.
This wasn't theft. Given the data now stored on this hard drive, her taking it could even be considered protecting the nation.
Aisha quickly went down to the first floor and was able to leave the residential complex unhindered. She didn't choose to drive as she knew that she wouldn't be able to reach the brakes. Therefore, she decided to walk back to the park.
Although she could fly, she didn't plan to do so. It used up a lot of energy, and it was clear that the Batman accompanying her couldn't help her replenish her fear energy.
She wasn't like normal humans who grumbled and complained after walking a few kilometers. There were still five or six hours till dawn and walking there would take a mere three hours.
Aisha remembered the entire route while sitting in Pepper's car. She mostly walked straight, scaling any buildings obstructing her path and soon found herself back in the park after a little more than two hours.
She knew that Stark wasn't around, because Pepper had rushed off after receiving a message from him that he would be leaving San Francisco for a while.
Although the security system of the Stark Industries San Francisco Park is not as tight as the New York Stark Building, it still posed a significant deterrent to common people. However, this was not an issue for Aisha, as her lastname was Wayne, even more Wayne than Wayne himself.
All around Stark Industries Park were factories. Aisha found a computer in an office inside a random factory, plugged in her hard drive, and tapped the keyboard a few times.
Then, she boldly walked into the center of Stark Industries Park. No alarm sounded from any security cameras, indicating that she had somehow been added to the whitelist.
Aisha swiftly arrived at the office where Stark used to work. She remembered that Stark's Battle Armor was in this place.
As soon as she entered, she saw a daunting Battle Armor with a black, gold finish near the door. Aisha quickly moved to the computer, plugged in the hard drive again, and started operating.
It wasn't long before the eyes of the Battle Armor lit up causing Aisha to scratch her head, a gleam of interest in her eyes.
She typed away at the computer. The Mech raised its arm and soon, all its limbs were moving freely.
Aisha sighed lightly, seemingly perplexed by the many things she didn't understand. After pondering for a while, she decided to get more information.
She returned to the computer, looking at the hard drive on the desk. After hesitating, she took a bold action.
Aisha decided to hack into Stark Industries Headquarters directly.
This was not an easy task and couldn't be solved by crafting a brute-force invasion program. Aisha thought about it, and decided on an unconventional method.
Since she was currently a child and couldn't travel far, and flying was too energy-consuming, she decided to control this Mech to infiltrate physically after flying to New York.
In simple terms – she planned to have this Mech, which originally belonged to Stark, mix with other Mecha. Then, when the time was right, it would physically abscond with some data-filled computer.
No sooner said than done, Aisha directly controlled the Mech that Stark had left in his hurry, and it flew towards New York.
When Bruce woke up, he found himself lying in a clean and neat apartment, with the brightly gleaming Stars and Stripes Shield next to him.
"How do you feel?" a gentle voice asked.
Bruce took a deep breath, turned his head and saw a hulk of a man standing by the window, looking at him with a smile. Bruce croaked out, "Captain America."
The man nodded and said, "Call me Steve."