by Suzanne Weyn
Was she in trouble? Not really. She didn’t think so. All she’d done was sneak out of a hospital. Was that a crime? “I’m on my own. That’s all,” she answered.
“I see,” Katie said. “Planning on getting coded next month?”
Kayla glanced into the rearview mirror and watched Katie’s eyes, reflected there. Was this a trap of some kind? Could she be honest with this woman? She hadn’t made up her mind yet. “I noticed you don’t have a tattoo,” Kayla mentioned.
“Nope. But that doesn’t answer my question.”
“I just want to know. Why don’t you?”
“Cancer. It runs in my family. So I decided it would be best not to walk around with that fact tattooed on my arm.”
Kayla looked at her sharply. She knew about her genes being in there. How?
Katie smiled, seeming to read her unspoken question. “I used to work for GlobalInsurance. You hear things. Your complete genetic history is in that bar code. Did you know that?”
“Yeah. I just found out. It explains a lot of what I see going on around me,” she replied.
“Most people aren’t aware of that,” Katie said. “The insurance company wants to keep it a big secret. How did you find out?”
“My dad worked for the FBI. My mother was a nurse. They figured it out.”
“When did they die?”
“Dad killed himself in March. My mom just died last night.” As she spoke, a tear slid down her cheek.
“God, I’m sorry,” Katie sympathized. “You’ve sure been through it, haven’t you?”
Kayla nodded. “I guess so.”
Back in March she’d thought her world was collapsing because she had no scholarship to art school. How ridiculous it seemed now, two months later. Since then she’d sustained so many losses. Before her father’s death, she would never have believed that life as she’d known it could change so fast.
“Funny what happens to you once you break free of the regular world,” Katie said.
“What do you mean?”
“I have a feeling you’re going to find out.”
After another hour of driving, Katie treated Kayla to pie and milk at the Roscoe Diner. “Have you told anyone about the genetic code being in the bar code?” Kayla asked as she broke into her pie.
“Tried to,” Katie answered. “I sent a letter to a newspaper. It never got printed.”
“I wonder why,” Kayla said.
“Global-1 has a lot of influence with the papers. Information like that would scare people. They might not get tattooed,” Katie said, wiping a milk mustache from her lips. “They probably want everyone tattooed before they give them the news. Our world is changing, big-time.”
“It isn’t right. It’s so harsh,” Kayla said. “No one can control their genes.”
“Not yet they can’t,” Katie said. “But scientists are working on designer genes and they’re getting closer by the day. Soon, if you’re rich enough, you’ll be able to have your unborn baby’s genes altered. Not only can you make their genes perfect, you’ll be able to make them better than humanly perfect. They’ll be able to see in the dark and run like the wind. The gene rich will get even richer.”
“But what about now?” Kayla questioned. “If you fall to the bottom of society now, you’ll never be able to climb back up.”
Katie nodded. “It’s a brave new world, kiddo. And a scary one.” She slipped her e-card from her wallet. “Might as well use this while I can. These won’t be around much longer, and once they’re gone we’ll all be screwed.” She then took a paper from her wallet. Placing it on the table, she kept her hand over it.
Kayla looked at her with questioning eyes. Katie checked quickly over her shoulder before speaking. “I’m going to give you something that will be useful,” she said. She raised her hand just enough for Kayla to see the fake, rub-on tattoo beneath. It was a rub-on bar code tattoo.
“Go to the bathroom and put this on,” she instructed in a low voice. “I know you’re seventeen, so don’t argue. And don’t mess it up. It’s my last one and they’re hard to come by.”
Kayla put her hand on the table and Katie slid the fake tattoo to her. She hurried to the bathroom and carefully pressed it on with a wet paper towel. The sight of it on her arm was chilling to her. It looked absolutely real.
When she returned, Katie had ordered some sandwiches and bottled water. She handed them to Kayla and nodded approval at the sight of the fake on Kayla’s outstretched arm. “Listen, I’ll take you to Binghamton with me, if you want,” she said. “But my advice to you is to go straight up the Superlink and get as far away from here as fast you can. Be careful who you get in with, though. Even though you’re seventeen — and, as I said, I know you are — it’s still a dangerous world out there.”
“How did you know my age?” Kayla asked.
Katie pulled a newspaper from her jacket pocket — the late edition of The North Country News. She opened it, revealing the front-page picture.
“Oh, God!” Kayla gasped.
GLOBALOFFICERS SEEK TEEN FOR QUESTIONING
Yorktown, NY. May 22, 2025 — Globalofficers are seeking 17-year-old Kayla Marie Reed for questioning in the death of her mother, 43-year-old Ashley Reed, a Yorktown resident. The Globalofficers wish to interrogate Ms. Reed regarding the cause of the fire that destroyed the home she shared with her mother at 48 Spears Way. Two other homes on either side of the attached row house were damaged in the blaze.
Globalofficers and Emergency Medical Workers responded to the fire at 4:00 A.M. this morning, after a neighbor called in the alarm. By then the mother and daughter were unconscious, lying on a rain-soaked carpet by the front door. Mrs. Reed was badly burned and was pronounced dead immediately. “What saved the girl was the fact that she had been out in the rain and was soaked. The wet carpet she fell upon was a plus as well,” said Fire Chief Don Mathers.
Dr. Maynard Andrews of Tri-County Hospital revealed that Ashley Reed suffered from smoke inhalation and lacerations. “I was about to administer the bar code to Kayla Reed when she disappeared from the hospital. She was heavily sedated and I can’t imagine how she walked out. In her condition, she can’t have gotten very far.”
Teachers at Winfrey High describe Ms. Reed as an average student with an aptitude for art. Principal Alex Kerr said Ms. Reed’s schoolwork had fallen in the last few months since becoming involved with a group connected to Decode, the bar code protest group spearheaded by Senator David Young of Massachusetts.
“We are not charging Ms. Reed with a crime at this time,” said Officer Thomas Meehan of the Yorktown Globalofficers. “But neighbors say they heard the girl and her mother quarreling in the early morning, shortly before the fire. We would like to find out exactly what happened. Since Ms. Reed is untattooed — which is now a criminal offense — we have every legal right to bring her in.”
The Globalofficers request that anyone seeing Kayla Reed (pictured above) please call the Yorktown Globalofficers immediately.
The Superlink would take her to the Adirondack Park, where she knew resistance groups were hiding. If she found no one there to help her, she might continue on to Canada. Hopefully, she’d be able to cross the border without trouble.
The Superlink blazed like daylight but she’d never hitched a ride before, and the tractor-trailers sped by so fast she couldn’t imagine them ever being able to stop for her. They kicked up a hot wind that blew pebbles and debris into her face and knocked her back.
By sunrise, the stolen shoes had blistered her feet beyond walking, so she tossed them into the woods behind her. Making herself a nest of old leaves among the trees, she lay down to a dreamless sleep. Hunger and daylight awoke her several hours later. Standing, she saw a Globalofficers car pass and she stepped behind a tree.
Maybe she should just go back. What was the sense of running? She hadn’t killed her mother. Her only crime was not having the bar code.
They’d tattoo her, of course. It would cast its shadow on ev
erything she tried to do with her life.
Still, she might be okay for a while. Like Amber, she’d still be able to buy things like food and gas. With the tattoo, she might even patch things up with Zekeal. If that happened, she could possibly even move in with him.
It shocked her that she would even think like that. After what she knew about him, how could she? But she pictured his handsome face, his large brown eyes and — despite what had happened — she longed to feel his arms around her. It was hard to fall out of love with him when everything had happened so suddenly.
But why couldn’t he have told her the truth — that he was a member of Tattoo Gen? Had he ever loved her at all, or was it all some manipulative seduction, a trap?
In the distance, truck brakes squealed and Kayla looked toward the sound. Peering through the trees, she saw the orange roof of a Super Eatery, the road stops that appeared about every twenty or so miles along the Superlink.
Stones cut her bare feet as she made her way through the woods to the Super Eatery. They wouldn’t let her in barefoot, so she went and found the painful shoes. Putting them on brought tears to her eyes.
Although each step was torture, in ten long minutes she was nearly to the Eatery. It was turning into a warm day and she slipped the jacket off. She stepped into the restaurant and the warm smell of bacon cooking and the friendly chatter of people made her long for normal life.
At the slick, bright orange counter, she ordered a cup of tea. The waitress looked at her skeptically, which reminded Kayla how bad she looked with her knotted, tangled hair, scraped face, and dirty, rumpled man’s outfit.
On the wall above the counter, a large flat-screen played the news station. A blond woman in a bright pink suit stood in the corner of the screen, recounting recent newsworthy events.
President Loudon Waters’s face appeared behind the woman. He was receiving honors from a scientific society for lifting all bans on human cloning, saying it was long overdue and that fear of cloning was a remnant of the past. Kayla wasn’t sure how she felt about this, but at that moment she had other things on her mind.
The tea arrived and felt like hot silk going down. Her plan was to finish it and then make her phone call to the Globalofficers to turn herself in.
Another story came on about the latest space shuttle. It was now making regular stops to the new station on the moon. This shuttle was carrying a team of scientists experimenting with the impact of weightlessness on cell division.
Kayla stopped listening. She needed to plan what to say to the Globalofficers. Where would she claim to be living now? Technically, she was still a minor until she turned eighteen. There was no relative she could go to. Would the Globalofficers want to put her in some kind of institution? Juvenile hall?
The thought made her shudder. How would she survive in a place like that? She couldn’t go, there wasn’t a chance. Stop, if that’s what you have to do, you have to do it, she forced herself to think. She had to call them. It was the only sensible thing.
The woman on the flat-screen kept talking and Kayla half listened as she finished her tea. Due to another terrorist threat, the mayor of Washington, D.C., was proposing that a protective wall be built around the city to help defend it in case of an emergency. “I’ve conferenced with President Waters on this and he fully endorses the measure,” the mayor explained to a reporter.
The news cut away to a commercial for a new holographic screen that would present programs as though you were watching a play in your own home. The characters would be about half the size of real people. Kayla had to admit it was pretty impressive.
The programs will probably all be sponsored by Global-1, though, she reasoned. She imagined her own version of their ad. Global-1, bringing you all the bar code has to offer — total invasion of privacy reaching down into the very intimate spiral of your DNA.
Looking away, she scanned the group for someone who looked approachable enough to ask to borrow their phone. Her mother once told her that, when she was young, you could find a public phone, insert a metal coin, and make a call. It had never existed in Kayla’s lifetime, but she wished it did. A public phone would have solved her problem now.
An elderly couple in a booth caught her attention. The woman was heavy with a halo of white fluff for hair. The man, though very old, was still strong-looking, with a shiny bald head. They spoke to each other pleasantly as they ate their pancakes. Kayla considered approaching them, but as she got up from her seat, a familiar voice made Kayla freeze, then slowly turn toward the flat-screen.
Nedra was on the screen.
“Yes, she told me she planned to set the fire,” the girl told a reporter. “I didn’t believe she’d really do it, though. If I had, I’d have called the Globalofficers immediately. But she’s sort of a crazy type, always thinking and saying weird things, you know. She often talked about how much she hated her mother. But I never thought she’d try to kill her!”
Kayla covered her mouth with her hand as shock and disbelief swept though her.
Her picture filled the screen. It was her school picture, the way she’d looked last September. Her brown hair glistened with its neat blue streaks brushed to a sheen. Her expression was open and carefree. Kayla barely recognized herself.
Hopefully, no one else would, either.
“Globalofficers have been searching for Kayla Marie Reed since May twenty-second” the blond announcer said. “She is wanted for arson and in connection to Ashley Reed’s death in that fire.”
Kayla got off her stool and backed up. She had to get out of there! She whirled around and crashed into a waitress with a tray of hot coffee. The coffee splashed on her, burning her arm and hand. “Sorry!” the waitresses cried.
A waitress hurried out from behind the counter with ice wrapped in a towel. She guided Kayla to a stool and pressed the iced towel on her arm. The cold towel covered the fake tattoo and Kayla was grateful that she had it. “Thank you,” she told the waitress.
Another waitress arrived with a first aid kit. “I have something that’s great for burns,” she said. “It’s the latest thing, just came out.” In a flash, she smeared the cool cream onto Kayla’s arm.
Kayla watched in horror as the cream smeared and blurred the black lines of the fake bar code. She clamped her opposite hand over the ruined fake. “I have to go,” she said, getting off the stool.
“You should sit a while,” one of the waitresses urged her, not seeming to have noticed the damage to the tattoo.
“No, thanks. I can’t,” Kayla insisted, hurrying away from the waitresses.
Kayla kept her head down, barely daring to breathe. She rushed to the front lobby, then checked to see if anyone was looking at her.
Life seemed to be going on as usual. She noticed no one approaching, no one staring.
She was interested to see a robotic cashier in the lobby. She’d read that the Super Eateries would be using them. Robots had been used to do construction and factory work for years now, but they had recently become sophisticated enough for more high-level jobs. This seemed like a lucky break. A robot wouldn’t remember seeing her.
Kayla paid with the e-card and walked out into the parking lot, blinking against the morning sun. Her stolen shoes bit into her heels and her burned arm throbbed.
A Globalofficers car came off the Superlink and slowly cruised the lot. Kayla turned her back toward it. Her every instinct was to run, but she knew that would only catch their attention.
A green hybrid electric-gas car stood beside her. Kayla noticed a scrap of red plaid sticking out of its door. The car couldn’t be locked with that material wedged in it. Moving closer, she opened the door and slipped into the backseat. The red plaid belonged to a blanket. Kayla squeezed down into the space behind the front seat, curling up into the tightest ball she could manage. Then, reaching up, she pulled the blanket over her.
She could hide this way and maybe even — if no one noticed her — catch a ride farther north.
“Stop!�
� Outside the car a voice yelled angrily. “Stop this minute!”
Someone opened the car door and jumped in, quickly starting the engine. “Come on,” he shouted and another person rushed into the passenger side of the car.
Kayla didn’t dare look to see who was driving as the car shot out of the parking lot at top speed. At almost the same time the car started, a Globalofficers siren shrieked.
“Toz, dear, we have a stowaway.” Kayla looked up into the grandmotherly face she’d seen in the restaurant.
“What?” Toz snapped without slowing.
The woman shot Kayla a quick smile, then shifted her attention to the back windshield. “They’re not even chasing us, dear.”
The car slowed to a less breathtaking speed. “Thank goodness,” the woman said. “We’d never have outrun them in this old hybrid.” Kayla lifted herself up onto the backseat.
“Now who the hell is this, Mava?” Toz demanded.
“Who are you, dear?” Mava asked Kayla.
Kayla felt delighted and a little amused that the woman didn’t seem particularly alarmed or angry to find her in their car. “My name is …” she began and then remembered that they’d been in the Eatery and might have seen the news report. “… Amber Thorn.”
“Nice to meet you.”
“Are the Globalofficers after you?” Kayla asked. “I heard the sirens and all.”
“Yes, Amber dear. Yes, I’m afraid they are,” Mava replied. “Are they after you, too?”
Suddenly, Kayla felt like laughing. This was so bizarre. “Yes,” she said. “They’re after me.”
“And why is that?” Mava asked.
“They think I set my house on fire,” she answered, unable to lie to this open, direct woman. “They think I did it to kill my mother. But I didn’t. I swear I didn’t. She set the house on fire when she tried to burn her tattoo off her wrist.”
“Oh, my goodness,” Mava sympathized, her bright blue eyes growing dark. “That’s terrible. You poor thing.” She reached out and her eyes fixed on Kayla’s red, burned hand and wrist with its smear of black lines. She said nothing but just squeezed Kayla’s hand.