The registration point was set up in an abandoned gymnasium.
This place might have been a community activity center once, but after what likely involved a shootout, a water leak, budget cuts, and Gotham municipal maintenance, it had ultimately become the architectural equivalent of a corpse that could barely function.
A blue-and-white banner hung over the entrance.
Wayne Foundation East End Temporary Educational Registration Point.
A long queue snaked under the banner, consisting of street urchins, illegal immigrant families, young mothers carrying infants, and a few teenagers who were clearly being escorted there by gang lackeys.
The air was a mix of disinfectant, sweat, cheap cigarettes, and free oatmeal porridge.
Chen Mo stood in line. In front of him was a young girl clutching a plastic bag that held all her worldly possessions: a sweater, half a bar of soap, and a three-legged teddy bear.
Behind him, two boys around twelve or thirteen were whispering, arguing over whether selling drugs in school would be more convenient than on the streets.
Chen Mo listened to three sentences, his expression gradually smoothing out.
Excellent.
He hadn't even set foot inside yet, and the trailer for the campus ecology was already playing.
So Gotham. Why wasn't he surprised at all?
When it was his turn, the staff member behind the desk looked up. She was a tired-looking, middle-aged woman with dark circles under her eyes, and half a box of stomach medicine sat stacked next to her coffee cup.
"Name."
Chen Mo opened his mouth.
Peter Parker, Peter Ma, Chen Mo.
These three names were like three crumpled old bus tickets, lining up in his mind to be thrown into the trash can.
In the end, he said, "Chen Mo."
The worker tapped on her keyboard against a form.
"Birth certificate?"
"None."
"Guardian?"
"Dead, or out of contact. Whichever version you need to make the approval process easier."
The worker paused. Evidently, she had seen far more absurd answers in Gotham, so she simply checked the box for "Guardianship status unconfirmed."
"Fixed address?"
Chen Mo thought very seriously for three seconds.
"Top floor of an old apartment in the East End. The entrance is sealed off with concrete, you enter and exit through the window, the roof leaks, and there's a broken neon sign nearby. No apartment number, because strictly speaking, it might not qualify as a house."
The worker moved her mouse to the "No Fixed Address" option and clicked.
"Your temporary mailing address will be hosted by the Wayne Foundation Educational Mailbox. School notifications, physical exam forms, and lunch cards will all be sent there, and you can pick them up weekly at the community station."
Chen Mo looked at the screen, his pupils dilating slightly.
So that was an option.
If you don't have an address, they create a mailing address out of thin air for you; if you don't have a guardian, they temporarily hook you up with an educational liaison; if you don't have a school enrollment record, they use a temporary ID number to squeeze you into the system.
Was this system absurd?
Absurd.
But it was absurdly effective.
Chen Mo suddenly understood Bruce Wayne a bit better.
This rich guy might really not be putting on a show... though that was a redundant statement.
He didn't sit high above, writing invitations to the poor that would never be delivered. He directly had people move tables right to the edge of the mud pit, and then fished the people out of the mire one by one to take their thumbprints.
Of course, along the way, this naturally nurtured a bunch of street-level education bounty hunters who got paid per head.
But you couldn't blame Wayne entirely for that.
In Gotham, even if he poured a cup of holy water onto the ground, someone would bottle and sell it the next day, with a label reading "Same Blessings as Batman."
The worker handed him a temporary student ID.
The plastic card was very thin, its edges not even smoothed down yet. Printed on it was his name, Chen Mo, East End Seventh Public Middle School, Temporary ID CM-0719.
Alongside it were a lunch card, a school bus route map, a physical exam appointment slip, and a dusty, second-hand backpack.
The backpack's zipper was half-broken, and stuffed inside were two pencils, a math workbook, and a pack of compressed biscuits.
Seeing the compressed biscuits, Chen Mo's feelings instantly became complicated.
"Excuse me," he looked up, his tone sincere, "is this enrollment package edible? I mean, everything except the math workbook."
The worker glanced at him and pushed over a box of oatmeal energy bars from the side.
"One for each registered student."
Chen Mo took the compressed biscuits and looked down at the packaging.
Two days past expiration.
Very Gotham, very comforting, just like coming home.
He tore open the packaging and took a bite. The taste was like cardboard compressed with despair, but there was indeed sugar inside.
The system in his mind was unusually quiet.
Chen Mo waited for a few seconds, but no warning came, nor did any notice of "Not allowed to accept compensation." It seemed the free educational companion food was judged by the system as a basic guarantee for minors.
Good.
The system could still act human once in a while.
Behind the railing on the gym's second floor, a man wearing a red hat was looking down and jotting things down.
He wasn't a volunteer, nor was he a parent. An old gunshot scar peeked out from beneath his sleeve, and his gaze swept through the crowd like someone picking out growing merchandise in a wet market.
Chen Mo felt that gaze.
He didn't look up, only munching on his energy bar sluggishly, disguising himself as an ordinary poor teenager bought off by a free lunch.
The Red Hat wrote down a few lines in his notebook.
Asian, around fifteen years old, no guardian, looks... sorry, written out of habit, this part isn't important for now.
Highly alert, suspected street experience.
He thought about the next line and added another sentence.
Observable, do not touch for now. First day of the Wayne project, the heat is too high.
Using his peripheral vision, Chen Mo caught the movement of the pen tip, and the corner of his mouth twitched slightly.
Wonderful.
The first day of school hadn't even started, and he already had a name simultaneously on a gang's watch list, the Wayne Foundation database, the system's moral supervision, and a temporary school enrollment record.
Is this modern society?
How heartwarming.
At the other end of the gymnasium, the staff began calling the next batch of students to take their photos.
Chen Mo swung the second-hand backpack onto his shoulders. The temporary student ID hung across his chest, the plastic card swaying gently with his movements.
He looked down at the card.
Chen Mo.
East End Seventh Public Middle School.
For a brief moment, he really felt as if he had come home.
The original owner was originally an undocumented person, an unlucky bastard who survived in Gotham's gutters after a failed smuggling attempt, a pre-psychotic who wore pajamas to fight crime at night and sustained his life on expired food during the day.
Now, he was a student.
Not by virtue of mail, or a home address, or a guardian's signature.
He was forcefully dragged off the street and shoved into the system by a school bus with peeling paint, a group of street volunteers paid per head, and a Wayne Enterprises rich enough to provide a safety net for every child in the entire city.
Chen Mo finished the last bite of the compressed biscuit, folded the wrapper neatly, and stuffed it into his pocket.
He looked up at the newly painted slogan on the gymnasium wall.
"Every child deserves a future."
Chen Mo stared at that line of words for a long time.
Then, he let out a soft laugh.
"Alright then. Here's to Bruce Wayne."