The registration point was set up inside an abandoned gymnasium.
The place might once have been a community center. Later, it had probably endured gunfights, leaks, budget cuts, and Gotham City municipal maintenance, finally becoming a building's corpse that was still barely usable.
A blue-and-white banner hung over the entrance.
Wayne Foundation East End Temporary Education Registration Point.
A long line stretched beneath the banner, filled with street children, undocumented immigrant families, young mothers carrying babies, and several teenagers who had clearly been escorted there by gang underlings.
The air smelled of disinfectant, sweat, cheap cigarettes, and free oatmeal.
Chen Mo stood in line. Ahead of him, a little girl clutched a plastic bag containing everything she owned: a sweater, half a bar of soap, and a teddy bear missing a leg.
Behind him, two boys of twelve or thirteen were quietly arguing over whether selling drugs at school would be easier than selling them on the street.
After listening to three sentences, Chen Mo's expression gradually settled.
Good.
He hadn't even entered the school yet, and the preview of its ecosystem was already playing.
So very Gotham. Why wasn't he surprised in the slightest?
When his turn came, the staff member behind the table looked up. She was a tired-looking middle-aged woman with dark circles beneath her eyes and half a box of stomach medicine piled beside her coffee cup.
"Name."
Chen Mo opened his mouth.
Peter Parker, Ma Peter, Chen Mo.
The three names lined up in his mind like three crumpled old tickets waiting to be thrown in the trash.
Finally, he said, "Chen Mo."
The staff member typed into the form.
"Birth certificate?"
"Don't have one."
"Guardian?"
"Dead, or missing. Depends on which version you need to get this approved more easily."
The staff member paused. Evidently, she had heard more outrageous answers in Gotham, so she merely checked "Guardianship status unconfirmed."
"Permanent address?"
Chen Mo gave it three seconds of very serious thought.
"Top floor of an old apartment building in the East End. The entrance is sealed with concrete, I get in and out through the window, the roof leaks, and there's a broken neon sign nearby. No street number, because strictly speaking, it might not count as a home."
The staff member moved her cursor to "No fixed address" and clicked.
"Your temporary mailing address will be handled through the Wayne Foundation's education mailbox. School notices, medical examination forms, and lunch cards will all be sent here. Come to the community station every week to collect them."
Chen Mo looked at the screen, his pupils widening slightly.
So that was an option.
No address, and they made you a mailing address on the spot; no guardian, and they assigned you a temporary education liaison first; no school records, and they used a temporary number to shove you into the system.
Was this whole setup absurd?
Absurd.
But it was absurdly effective.
Suddenly, Chen Mo understood Bruce Wayne a little better.
Maybe this rich guy really wasn't putting on a show... that went without saying.
He hadn't sat on high writing the poor an invitation that would never reach them. He had simply sent people to set up tables beside the mire, then fish the people out one by one and have them leave their fingerprints.
Of course, along the way, he had also supported a crop of street-level education catchers paid by the head.
But that couldn't all be blamed on Wayne.
In Gotham, even if he poured a cup of holy water onto the ground, someone would be bottling and selling it the next day with labels reading "The same blessing Batman uses."
The staff member handed him a temporary student ID.
The plastic card was thin, its edges not yet pressed flat. Printed on it were his name, Chen Mo, East End No. 7 Public Middle School, and the temporary number CM-0719.
Beside it were a lunch card, a school bus route map, a medical examination appointment slip, and a dingy gray secondhand backpack.
The backpack's zipper was half broken. Inside were two pencils, a math workbook, and a packet of compressed biscuits.
At the sight of the compressed biscuits, Chen Mo's feelings instantly grew complicated.
"Excuse me." He looked up, his tone sincere. "Is this enrollment kit edible? I mean, apart from the math workbook."
The staff member glanced at him and pushed over a box of oat energy bars from beside her.
"One per registered student."
Chen Mo took the compressed biscuits and lowered his head to inspect the packaging.
Two days past their expiration date.
Very Gotham. Very familiar. Just like coming home.
He tore open the wrapper and took a bite. It tasted like cardboard compressed with despair, but it did contain sugar.
The system in his head was unusually quiet.
Chen Mo waited a few seconds, but neither a warning nor a "You must not accept compensation" came. Apparently, the system classified food provided with free education as basic support for minors.
Good.
The system could act like a person once in a while.
Behind the second-floor railing at the registration point, a man in a red cap was looking down and making notes.
He was neither a volunteer nor a parent. An old gunshot scar showed beneath his cuff, and his gaze swept back and forth across the crowd, as though selecting merchandise at a market that would grow bigger.
Chen Mo sensed that gaze.
He didn't look up. He merely nibbled slowly on his energy bar, disguising himself as an ordinary poor teenager bought off with a free lunch.
Red Cap wrote a few lines in his notebook.
Asian, around fifteen, no guardian, looks... sorry, force of habit. That part isn't important right now.
Highly alert. Suspected street experience.
He considered the next line, then added another sentence.
Worth observing. Leave alone for now. First day of the Wayne project. Too much scrutiny.
Chen Mo caught a glimpse of his pen tip out of the corner of his eye, and the corner of his mouth twitched.
Wonderful.
His first day of school hadn't even begun, and he already had his name on a gang watch list, in the Wayne Foundation database, under the system's moral supervision, and in the school's temporary enrollment records, all at once.
Was this modern society?
So heartwarming.
At the other end of the gymnasium, staff began calling the next batch of students over to have their pictures taken.
Chen Mo shouldered the secondhand backpack, his temporary student ID hanging against his chest, the plastic card swaying gently with his movements.
He looked down at the card.
Chen Mo.
East End No. 7 Public Middle School.
For an instant, he truly felt as though he had come home.
The body's original owner had been an undocumented nobody, an unlucky soul who had survived in Gotham's gutters after a failed attempt at being smuggled into the country, a mental patient in the making who fought crime in pajamas every night and stayed alive on expired food by day.
Now, he was a student.
Not through an email, not through a home address, not through a guardian's signature.
A school bus with peeling paint, a bunch of street volunteers receiving subsidies by the head, and Wayne Enterprises, rich enough to provide a safety net for an entire city's children, had forcibly fished him off the street and shoved him into the system.
Chen Mo finished the last bite of his compressed biscuit, folded the wrapper, and tucked it into his pocket.
He looked up at the freshly painted slogan on the gymnasium wall.
Every child deserves a future.
Chen Mo stared at those words for a long time.
Then he gave a quiet chuckle.
"All right, then. Here's to Bruce Wayne."
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