The young Oracle

"Heroes will only make them increase the budget for more expensive locks."

Those words still hung in the air, alongside Bruce Wayne's standard charitable smile on the cafeteria wall.

Chen Mo turned to Barbara and asked very politely, "Who taught you that? Doesn't sound like something someone like you would say... um... someone who nearly slammed the desk and jumped up to curse someone out in class this morning."

Girl, you don't look anything like the cautious type of superhero.

Barbara tucked her hands behind her back, without the slightest embarrassment at being called out.

She raised her chin, her tone firm. "I wasn't going to slam the desk. I was merely preparing to exercise necessary preventive control before the desk got out of control."

Chen Mo fell silent for a moment, feeling that the Gordon family's upbringing might resemble a police report more than he'd imagined.

So he nodded. "Got it. Attempted assault on an officer by a desk. Gotham's furniture really has always had criminal potential."

Barbara glared at him.

Chen Mo didn't keep teasing her. His gaze returned to the space behind the cafeteria serving window. The box of hot meals sat on a metal cart, its lid tightly fastened. A sheet of white paper stuck beside it read, "Reserved for visiting delegation. Do not touch without authorization."

The words were neat and cold.

Compared with feeding a bunch of poor bastards at the bottom, displaying food in front of cameras to showcase the benevolence of the big shots was clearly more valuable.

Half the line had already dispersed.

The students who had after-school activities, rides home, or could at least hold out until dinner left one after another.

Some cursed as they left, some rolled their eyes, and some threw their lunch cards into the trash, but they had the strength to leave.

Not many remained, forty or so. Chen Mo swept his gaze over them. They were mostly the sort who looked like they were conserving battery power even when they walked, shoulders slumped, eyes vacant, fingers constantly squeezing their lunch cards as though clutching pardons that stubbornly refused to take effect.

Someone sat on the floor, pressing an empty water bottle against his stomach.

There was still a little water in the bottle, drawn from a restroom faucet. The water sloshed, and his Adam's apple bobbed with it, but in the end he didn't drink, as though saving that little bit of liquid for a worse moment.

A small boy picked up a scrap of lettuce from the cold meal box earlier, wiped it with a piece of paper, and stuffed it into his mouth.

The lettuce was as limp as a green citation crumpled by life. He chewed very slowly, as though chewing faster would squander its dignity as food.

There was also a girl who kept staring at the hot meal box.

She said nothing. In her hand was half a pencil from the enrollment welcome pack handed out when they'd been rounded up and brought here earlier. The end of the pencil was covered in tooth marks.

Chen Mo saw that she was chewing the wood, not the eraser. Apparently, Gotham's children even knew how to develop stationery's potential as supplementary food.

Hunger here wasn't as simple as a "growling stomach." It made people short-tempered, sharpened their eyes, and made them instinctively count how many people in the room were weaker than them when they smelled meat.

Chen Mo recalled news stories he'd seen in his previous life: children having their trays publicly taken away over unpaid lunch bills, parents unable to afford the fees and having to let their children eat the cheapest substitute meals.

Back then, he'd still curse about it a little. Now that he'd landed in Gotham, even those news stories seemed far too civilized.

So why the fuck were there still children going without food in such a prosperous city, in such a powerful country?!

Gotham didn't take away your tray.

Gotham made you stand in line holding an empty plate, watching others eat, watching the system's red light come on, watching adults say, "Not my problem," until you finally learned to lower your head and find something edible yourself.

Barbara followed his gaze and frowned. She lowered her voice. "Stop looking at that box again. You're very obvious when you look at things, like a cat assessing the thickness of a glass display case."

Chen Mo turned to her, deeply wounded. "Are you always this rude when judging a new classmate? I was simply admiring the school's food inventory management, while paying my respects to my dearly departed stomach."

Barbara wasn't fooled. "If you really want to do something, at least don't get them in trouble because of you."

Chen Mo blinked, putting on an expression so sunny it practically begged for a punch. "How could a law-abiding person like me get anyone else in trouble? Even when I picked a backpack out of the trash, I did it with great environmental awareness."

Barbara glanced at the old backpack on his shoulder. Half its zipper was missing, and on the side, some previous owner had written "Get out of my house" in white correction fluid.

She fell silent for two seconds, then said honestly, "That makes it sound even more suspicious."

"Enough about me. Why haven't you left yet?" Chen Mo narrowed his eyes at Barbara, who was still just a kid putting on airs in front of him.

Barbara folded her arms and raised her chin a little higher, her eyes as bright as a declaration of war:

"My dad's a hero, so I want to give it a try too."

"You just told me not to be reckless, that playing hero would only make things worse."

"This world needs reckless heroes, doesn't it?"

"Heroes will only make them increase the budget for more expensive locks."

"Even if you know there's a hole in the road ahead, you've still got to go see how deep it is, right? How else can you fill it in?"

Over by the cafeteria serving window, the hot meal box was still on the cart, giving off a lonely wisp of steam, its aroma running rampant like evidence of a crime.

The security guard stood beside it, his face still stern. The teacher who had intervened for the boy who smashed his tray had already been called away to fill out forms, leaving a vacuum of "Touch this box of food, and I'll deal with you."

Chen Mo lowered his head and shifted the toe of his shoe back half an inch.

The movement was so slight that he looked like an ordinary student adjusting his stance after getting tired of standing.

His gaze swept over the cleaning cart, the tray return rack, and the position of the cart's brake latch, then across the "Staff only" sign at the kitchen entrance.

Above the sign was a fly zapper. Its tubes buzzed, just loud enough to cover some voices.

Chen Mo suddenly turned to Barbara, his tone as light as if he were discussing the day's cafeteria menu. "Barbara, when your dad arrests people, what kind of criminal does he hate most?"

Barbara froze for a moment.

The question came out of nowhere, but their exchange about heroes and locks still hung between them like a screw that hadn't been tightened, so she decided not to press him yet and answered along with him instead. "The kind who struts around in front of him and still thinks he's smart."

Chen Mo nodded. "Good. I'm about to do something not very smart, and I need you to do something else that's not very smart."

Barbara narrowed her eyes. "Go on."

Chen Mo lowered his voice and quickly said a few things.

After listening, Barbara's expression shifted from "You're kidding me" to "You really are sick in the head," before finally settling into a dangerous look somewhere between defiance and curiosity.

Barbara took a deep breath and tossed her red hair. "If this doesn't work, I'm never speaking to you again."

Chen Mo was deeply touched. "It's only our second day knowing each other, and you're already ready to cut ties with me."