The Bar Code Tattoo

Zekeal gives Kayla his condolences for her dad’s death and states that he understands the pain the bar code can inflict on families. When his parents got the tattoos, his father kept getting fired, and his mother continued to get promotions. As a result, they began fighting about money, and she questioned his work ethic. Eventually, they split. Zekeal states that because both his parents have become unbearable, he now lives on his own. He and Kayla both wonder if the bar code contains something dangerous. Zekeal now admits that he wasn’t really headed to Lobo2Me but to a KnotU2 meeting. He brings Kayla along to an abandoned warehouse, where they meet with Mfumbe, Nedra, Allyson, and August to discuss article ideas for the next issue.

Allyson presents a virtual reality headset that she stole from her father; the group takes turns entering various resistance websites around the world. When it’s Kayla’s turn, she appears on an outcropping in the Adirondack Mountains, where a woman named Eutonah sits beside a fire. Eutonah tells Kayla that they’re “all part of the same dream” and urges Kayla to imprint this place “in [her] mind’s eye so that [her] internal guidance will enable [her] to find it again when [she] need[s] to” (93). Eutonah also urges her to “[r]emember the white face” (93). When Kayla emerges from the virtual reality experience, the group reveals that they have never been taken to that particular region before, but they confirm that there are many resistance groups in the Adirondacks. Kayla remembers her father researching the area before his death; her mother believed that he was planning a vacation there. Allyson recognizes Eutonah as a Cherokee shaman and a rebel who writes articles describing ways to combat the tattoo by unlocking one’s telepathic and telekinetic powers. Zekeal escorts Nedra home, but after Kayla returns home, he later appears at her house, and they kiss.

An article about a new medical phenomenon is released. The condition is labeled Tattoo Manic Psychosis and is defined as a state of mind “in which a person becomes convinced that the bar code tattoo will somehow do him or her harm” (102). The article states that the stages of this newly defined psychological condition are purported to begin with alcohol or substance misuse; this behavior is followed by desperate attempts at bar code removal.

Amber arrives in Nevada and emails Kayla from a café computer. Amber explains that her bar code is now causing problems as well; Kayla informs Amber that Winfrey High dismissed quite a few teachers, many of whom do not have the bar code. She also reports that the guidance counselor, Mr. Kerr, has been promoted to principal and that she and Zekeal have begun secretly dating despite his complicated relationship with Nedra.

Kayla continues meeting at the secret warehouse with the KnotU2 crew. Meanwhile, the longer she goes without getting a bar code tattoo, the more unpopular she becomes. For the first time, August offers Kayla an opportunity to write for the magazine, and she accepts.

A new law is passed requiring everyone over the age of 17 to get a bar code tattoo. Senator Young protested and is requesting a revote, but the article dismisses the Decode organization that the senator spearheads as “nothing more than young people searching for something to rebel against and the criminal element looking to hide their ‘unsavory past’” (115).

Kayla’s mother receives an email signed by “A Friend.” It contains a link and a password to the FBI file of her husband, Joseph. The file shows two bar codes instead of one. The second bar code depicts a gene sequence, followed by a list of advantages, disadvantages, and questionable tendencies that are tied to Joseph’s genes. His advantages include high IQ, logic, and visual acuity, while his empathy and mental psychic tendency are both listed as questionable. His disadvantages include genetic predispositions for alcohol use disorder, iconoclastic tendencies, and delusional, hallucinatory schizophrenia. The lists do not make sense to Kayla, who knows that her father never drank alcohol and did not have schizophrenia. Her mother seems to know something more, but she only urges Kayla not to get the tattoo, even though it is now required by law.

Kayla is no longer able to work at Artie’s Art because Artie and his family have gone missing. When Kayla visits Zekeal at his apartment, he is reading a book titled Tattoo Generation: A Manual of Pride, which details the covert organizations seeking to convert resisters into getting the tattoo. He claims to be reading the book to research what KnotU2 is up against. At the next KnotU2 meeting, Nedra shows up with the bar code tattoo, and Zekeal ends his relationship with her.

The KnotU2 group decides to meet at Lake Placid in the Adirondacks if Global-1 begins hunting down bar code resisters. Allyson learns that she cannot receive her college scholarships without the tattoo, and when the group attempts to reach resistance websites with the virtual reality headset, they are all empty. Kayla manages to contact Eutonah, who tells her, “Stay focused on your truth. Move toward love and you will be safe” (131). Eutonah once again urges her to remember the “white face” and to come to her when in need.

Senator David Young resigns in a show of protest against the bar code tattoo. When Kayla stays the night at Zekeal’s apartment, she finds his computer open and discovers his emails with TattooGen, a militant group of young people who support the implementation of the bar code tattoo system. She realizes that Zekeal is an undercover agent who is recruiting members for TattooGen; he successfully recruited Nedra, and Kayla is his next target.

Kayla flees from Zekeal’s place and returns home, where she finds her front door wide open and her mother drunk. Her mother has just come home from the hospital, where she discovered that newborn babies are now being implanted with computer chips containing their genetic code. The babies with weak genes are being left to die. Ashley reveals that Kayla might have schizophrenia like her father’s mother, Cathy. She also admits that the FBI considered Joseph’s genetic profile to be a liability; they were no longer willing to cover his insurance, so they “made his life so miserable that they hoped he’d quit” (142). When Kayla’s mother attempts to burn off her tattoo, she accidentally catches the house on fire.

Kayla wakes up in the hospital and discovers that her mom is dead. The nurses want to keep her sedated and either forcefully administer the tattoo or turn her in to the Global-1 authorities. Kayla fears that she will be unable to fight against the doctor who is licensed to administer her bar code.