The Bar Code Tattoo (9 page)

“Sorry I’m late,” Kayla said, slipping into the empty chair they’d left for her. She didn’t feel like explaining how getting her drunken mother settled on the living room couch had made her late for the meeting.

Mfumbe smiled at her with his eyes, then leaned forward into the circle. “Someone should do something in the next ’zine on that article that just came out about TMP,” Mfumbe suggested.

“Tattoo Mania Psychosis?” Allyson recalled.

Mfumbe laughed scornfully. “Yeah, can you believe they made up a disease to explain why people are so banged out by their bar codes that they try to burn them off? They don’t mention that these poor people didn’t start out completely detonated — the bar code has driven them crazy.”

“I’ll write that article,” Allyson volunteered. “Okay, so everyone has an assignment for the next issue. We’re done.”

Kayla caught Zekeal’s eye and, for a second, they were together. Then he broke the connection by turning to Allyson. “Kayla needs to use the helmet,” he reminded her.

“I just put it away,” she complained. “I mean, if you want to, Kayla, I’ll —”

“That’s okay,” Kayla told her. “I’ll get it next time.” She and Allyson were becoming friends, in a way. They were very different, but she admired the girl’s brilliant mind and calm manner. “It’s my fault for being late.”

“You didn’t miss too much,” Mfumbe said. “We did ’zine assignments and then we tried the virtual reality, but there were mostly just warnings about Tattoo Gen from resistance groups.”

“They claim the group is growing fast in the Northeast,” Allyson added. “I’ll take their word for it, but I haven’t run into them.”

“Me, neither,” Nedra said. “I don’t believe it.”

“Why would they make it up? Be careful who you talk to,” Mfumbe advised. “Whatever you do, don’t tell anyone about this warehouse.”

“As if anyone
would
talk to us anymore,” Allyson said with a bitter laugh.

Kayla knew what she meant. She had become increasingly unpopular at school for being against the tattoo. Just yesterday a girl’s foot had shot out and hooked itself around her ankle while she was descending the stairs. Kayla had saved herself by grabbing on to the side railing. The girl hadn’t even stopped or apologized.

“I guess we’re done,” Zekeal said to the group after a moment of dead air among them. At that cue they headed for the door.

“Hey, Allyson, I heard about the scholarship,” Mfumbe said as he locked the warehouse door.
“That’s really final level. It was the genetics article you wrote that aced it, wasn’t it?”

Allyson nodded. “Genetics has changed the world,” she said. “Everything is genetics.”

Kayla knew what genes did, although she still wasn’t totally clear on what they were. She knew they made you what you are, no matter if you were a person or a plant. She knew that cloning occurred when genes reproduced without sex, creating an exact copy of themselves. In school, there was endless debate over whether people were completely controlled by their genes or if their environment affected human development more than genes did. It was an intensified version of the nature versus nurture debate.

They began walking toward their cars, past the clubs. “Did you know that we have almost the same genes as flies?” Allyson said. “Yet even though our genes are nearly the same, we’re people, not flies. Why? Why does that happen? It’s so mysterious and, even after all these years, no one knows why this is. I want to work in biogenetics at Harvard and get my Ph.D. in it.”

“Why did you say genetics has changed the world?” Kayla asked her.

“Geneticists can already predict who will get certain sicknesses and who won’t,” Allyson replied. “They know this information even before birth. Insurance companies could save millions of dol
lars by refusing to insure those people whose genetic code is less than final level. People at high risk for cancer and heart disease could be identified and rejected right away.”

“They could also be identified and cured,” Mfumbe said.

“You’re always an unrealistic idealist,” Nedra said to him.

“He’s got a point,” Allyson said. “It all depends on how the science is used. That’s why the field is so vast. I mean, what happens with genetics and cloning is all up to the people who are doing the work.”

“And guys like Dave Young who are passing the legislation,” Zekeal added.

“They affect what happens in
America
,” Nedra said pointedly. “They can pass all the laws they want in America, but everything is worldwide now. They can just go to another country and do whatever they want. Remember their name —
Global.
”

“Dave Young knows all that,” Zekeal said. “He’s working on all kinds of international trade bills to protect Americans.”

“You and your Dave Young,” Nedra snapped at him. “I’m sick of hearing about him like he’s some kind of god.”

“He’s not a god,” Zekeal came back at her angrily. “But right now he’s the best hope any of us has of not becoming slaves of Global-1.”

“They already own us,” Nedra shot back.

“If you think that, why don’t you get the bar code?” Allyson asked.

“I don’t know,” Nedra admitted. “Maybe I know they own us all and I’m just mad as hell about it. Maybe I just like banging my head against a wall, for the fun of it.”

For a moment they all looked at her. Was she right? Kayla experienced a profound feeling that she was. It flooded her with sadness, the sense that all freedom and true human dignity were things of the past, that the future held nothing but restriction and conformity. Art that came from computer-generated images, as well as life that came from computer-generated acceptance. What if all they were doing was acting out their anger at inheriting a world that held nothing truly good, really nourishing for any of them?

“They don’t own us,” Kayla said softly. “Not yet, not if we fight them.” She hadn’t planned to say that, wasn’t even aware that she truly believed it. But the words had come from somewhere inside her and they were hers.

“Kayla, do you have anything you want to write about in the next ’zine?” August asked.

The offer startled her because they’d never invited her to do anything for the ’zine before. She’d accepted this because they were older, and also because they were all so brilliant in their own
way. Without admitting it to herself, she’d assumed she wasn’t equal to any of them — not in brains, courage, or even in the ability to express herself. Her first impulse was to claim she had nothing to say, but there
was
an idea that had been forming in her mind.

“I think so,” she answered cautiously. “I want to do an article pointing out how everything around us is changing, all our lives. Why is the bar code turning our lives around?”

Kayla stood in the doorway studying her mother, who sat in front of the computer in the den. She’d gotten so much older looking in such a short time. The open file on the monitor in front of her read:
Joseph Reed, Department of Human Resources, FBI.
Silently, Kayla stepped into the room behind her and began to read. The file contained statistics on her father:
Five foot eleven, brown hair, size eleven shoe.

“This is Dad’s FBI file. How did you get into it?” she asked.

Mrs. Reed jumped. She hadn’t heard Kayla come in. “Someone e-mailed me the password to open this. The person just signed it ‘A Friend.’ I tried to reply, but the message came back saying the sender was not a known address.”

“So? What’s in there?” Not waiting for an answer, Kayla kept reading. The file named her father’s blood type, his cholesterol level, his standing heart rate, his bone density.

Then came another bar code. It was different from the first bar code at the top of the screen. Which was the bar code that had appeared on his wrist? And why were there two of them?

A series of coded letters and numbers appeared
beneath the second bar code. Slowly Kayla realized — based on graphs she’d seen in her science textbook — that the second code was a gene sequence; a series of genes appearing next to one another, represented as a bar code.

In science this fall they’d studied how geneticists used a bar code to show a sequence of genes. The number-alphabet codes beneath listed individual genes.

Kayla continued reading.

Advantages:

IQ 115

genes found for: heightened powers of logic; visual acuity; above-average spatial relations; color sensitivity; creativity; fit musculature; longevity.

Questionable/Possessing both positive and negative aspects:

genes found for: empathy; mental psychic tendency; low levels of extrasensory perception.

Liabilities:

genes found for: alcoholism; iconoclastic tendencies; delusional, hallucinatory schizophrenia.

Kayla looked at her mother. “Dad didn’t drink and he wasn’t schizophrenic,” she said.

A bitter smile spread across her mother’s face. “Knowing what I already know — it should have been plain.”

“What?” Kayla shouted. “What do you know?”

Mrs. Reed grabbed Kayla’s wrist. “Good. You haven’t gotten that damned tattoo. No matter what you do, don’t let them make you get it.”

“It’s the law, Mom. Haven’t you heard? I could be arrested now for not having a bar code!”

“I don’t care,” her mother replied passionately.

“Why? Mom, please tell me what you know,” Kayla pleaded.

Her mother got up from her desk chair and walked to the window. “No. I can’t. It’s better if you don’t know.”

Kayla grabbed her mother’s arm. “How can it be better?”

“I can’t talk about this!” Mrs. Reed said angrily. Hurrying to the front door, she went out, barefoot, into the rainy evening.

The computer screen blacked out. White letters appeared on the screen:
ACCESS DENIED.

Kayla sprang to the door. “Mom!” she called. “Come back!” She ran down the front walkway after her, but her mother had gone out the front gate and was walking quickly down the street.

Tears came to Kayla’s eyes … but what was the use of crying? Her mother was no help to her anymore — she might as well just accept that. Ashley Reed was in a world all her own, haunted by private demons Kayla might never know about.

“Anything I can do?” A familiar voice made her turn. Zekeal was beside her. Obviously, he’d come
from the other side of the street and had seen some of this humiliating scene.

“Hi. Why are you here?” she said, quickly wiping her eyes.

“I don’t have your number. I came to tell you we’re having an emergency meeting. You heard the news today, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Want to hang out at my place until the meeting at six?”

“Can’t. I have to work.”

“I’ll walk you there.”

“What about Nedra? Someone might see us together.”

“We’re just
walking
together,” he said with a shrug. “I’m getting sick of this.”

“Tell her about us, then.”

He looked past her, thinking. “It’s less than a month now. It will be easier to just let her fade away.”

“Easier for you,” Kayla said. “Not easier for me.”

“I’m sure she knows something’s up. You’re right. I’ll tell her tonight.”

“Really?”

“Yes. After the meeting.”

“Come inside with me,” she said. “I want you to see something.” Taking his hand, she led him into the house and brought him to the computer.

ACCESS DENIED
still floated on the screen’s black
background. “Do you have any idea how to get back into that file?”

“What is it?” he asked.

“My father’s FBI file.”

He looked at her wide-eyed. “Decode thinks that may be the database used by the bar code. You actually saw it?”

She nodded. “Everything about him was in there.”

He sat down and began punching the keyboard. “I’m a pretty fair hacker,” he said. “Let me have a crack at this.”

Kayla had the file on her mind as she walked across the parking lot to Artie’s Art Supply an hour later. Zekeal had gotten in, but for only a minute. It was long enough, though, for him to see the file. “That’s it,” he had said. “This is the big secret, the thing they don’t want us to know.”

“The genetic code?” she guessed.

“Absolutely,” he agreed. “Your whole genetic code is in there. They know everything about you. Everything.”

She rattled the glass door to Artie’s. The sign on the front door read
CLOSED
. The store was dark although she always worked on Thursdays at four. “Artie!” she shouted, banging on the glass. “It’s me! Open up!”

Artie, his wife, and their two kids lived on the second floor. Walking around back and up the
steps to the porch on the second floor, she peered in the window. The furniture was still there, but the apartment was dark.

In the distance a siren screamed and Kayla tucked her fingers around the end of her jacket sleeve, hiding her wrist. Where was Artie? Why hadn’t he opened the store?

Kayla walked back to the street and got on a bulletbus headed for Zekeal’s apartment down in Peekskill. Zekeal lived in a run-down apartment near the GlobalTrac station. Now boarded shut, Victor’s Tattoo Parlor had once operated on the bottom floor.

Kayla climbed the wooden back stairs and banged on the door. “It’s open,” he shouted.

She stepped inside and found him sitting in the one main room at a table in front of his large, old-style computer. Instead of looking at the screen, he was reading a thick book, a manual. He looked up at her and grinned. “Hey! I thought you were working,” he said.

“Artie’s was closed. I don’t know why,” she explained.

“That’s weird,” he replied, turning toward her in his seat.

“What are you reading?” she asked. Without waiting for his reply, she flipped the open book to its cover.

TATTOO GENERATION:
A MANUAL OF PRIDE

She questioned him with her eyes.

“A friend got this to me so I could see what we’re up against,” he explained. “It’s banged-out stuff. These people are totally convinced that the bar code is the way to an exciting new future.”

Kayla opened to the middle of the manual and scanned the page.

Kayla looked up at Zekeal. “This is scary. Why do they care if everyone is tattooed? Can’t we all just do what we want?”

Zekeal sighed. “This thing is huge now,” he said. “It might be more than we can fight.”

Kayla had never heard him speak like this. He was usually so confident. His doubt worried her. Was he giving in? Had this new ruling about a required bar code shaken him that deeply?

“What about Senator Young?” she asked. “You still believe in Decode, don’t you?”

Getting up, he slapped the Tattoo Gen manual shut. “Dave Young tried, but look what just happened. It’s depressing. And after today, seeing what I saw in your father’s file … I don’t know.” Zekeal gently drew her up from her chair. “Let’s talk about it over here,” he said, leading her to his faded futon couch.

They sat and he pressed his weight against her until she was lying back, beneath him on the futon. She wrapped her arms around his neck and, closing her eyes, let his warm lips press down on hers.

They rolled together there, straining against each other. Outside, the rain came down with a steady beat. A steady beat … beat … beat …

She is outside the white wall. People around her have fallen to the ground, knocked back by the blast. The man with her is very near. She still can’t see him clearly. There is smoke in the air. Fighter jets are above them. But no more explosives drop.

“Send it away,” the man says to her telepathically. She sees that the people around her are looking up at the jet. Their eyes stare at it, unwavering.

She stares at the jet, too. “Go away. Go away. Go away,” she tells its pilot, thinking hard on her message.

The jet turns and disappears behind some clouds.

The people stream toward an opening in the wall. No one speaks, but she hears their cries clearly in her head. “This way. This way into the city. Hurry.” She is running, following the others toward the opening in the wall.

He’d stopped moving on top of her. “Kayla. Where are you?” he asked, sounding offended. “You’re not here with me.”

Opening her eyes, she drank in his beautiful face. “I am here. I am. Really. I’m with you.” She pulled him to her and held him close, hoping he would never leave her.

“Don’t worry,” she said. “I love you.”

They had all arrived at the warehouse meeting, except Nedra. For once Kayla was anxious for her to come. Tonight Zekeal would tell Nedra that his relationship with her was over. After the afternoon she had spent with him, Kayla didn’t think she could go another minute sharing him with anyone else.

“We’ll have to start without her,” August said after a ten-minute wait. “We have to completely rethink the next issue of the ’zine. It’s got to be
much more forceful. And we need to think about what we’ll do if things get worse. We’re in an emergency now and —”

The warehouse door banged open. Nedra strode across the warehouse. The unfamiliar clack of her footsteps told Kayla that Nedra wore high heels with the straight skirt she had on. Nedra didn’t usually dress like this.

As she came into their circle of light, Kayla saw that Nedra’s arms and legs were covered up and down with colorful, swirling tattoos. It was impossible to tell if they were permanent or not.