The Bar Code Tattoo

Kayla gets sick, and Mfumbe is forced to steal medicine for her. When the store employee calls the local police, Mfumbe stays behind to buy time for Kayla to flee. Meanwhile, Nedra is acting as the spokesperson for Tattoo Generation; she writes an article reporting that the promising future Yale student, Mfumbe Taylor, is now sitting in jail, charged with petty thievery. She blames Decode for Mfumbe’s downfall, crediting the organization with “corrupt[ing] the minds of impressionable youth like Mfumbe, inculcating them with [Senator David Young’s] paranoid belief that some sinister plot lurks behind the bar code tattoo” (212). She also blames Kayla, who is now widely believed to have murdered her mother, Toz, and Mava.

Kayla spends two days fighting fever and delirium. She sees Eutonah five times, and the woman is always beckoning to Kayla. On the third day, Kayla’s fever breaks. While she washes up in a nearby stream, she is found by a woman who grins when she sees that Kayla doesn’t have the bar code. The woman brings Kayla back to her camp. There, Kayla finds August, who has a scar on his wrist where his bar code used to be. He admits to getting the tattoo along with Zekeal and Allyson after Kayla and Mfumbe went missing, but he quickly realized his mistake and escaped to the Adirondacks after burning the tattoo off with acid. August reveals that Kayla’s friend, Eutonah, lives up at Whiteface Mountain.

Kayla hikes to Whiteface Mountain and is reenergized by the natural world, which is utterly unlike the “environment of steel and glass” to which she is accustomed (221). High up on the trail, Kayla crosses paths with Zekeal, who has been looking for her all this time. Zekeal chases Kayla down the trail and attempts to change her mind about the bar code tattoo, stressing the futility of resistance. When Kayla learns that Nedra is working with Zekeal to turn Kayla in to TattooGen, Kayla runs away and hides in a cave, eventually falling asleep.

Kayla wakes when a man drags her out of the cave by her feet. The man is with Eutonah, who pulls Kayla into a friendly embrace and escorts Kayla to the Whiteface ski resort, a community for Eutonah’s resisters.

Two weeks pass, and Kayla details the highlights in an email to Amber. She spends her time practicing her psychic abilities with Eutonah and learns that she has “a natural ability for telepathy and sensing the future” (230). Kayla also explains Eutonah’s theory. Global-1 is using the bar code tattoo to decide who to clone and to ensure that those deemed to be unhealthy do not pass their genes on to a new generation. Thus, they are halting the process of evolution. Eutonah believes that as a result, the bar code resisters are being forced to adapt, as evidenced by their sudden psychic abilities. Some people in Eutonah’s camp have learned how to heal injuries with their minds or to teleport objects across distances.

Kayla’s use of the computer to email Amber compromises the camp’s location, and everyone is instructed to remain on high alert. Nothing comes of it, and everything goes back to normal. One day, while napping in the forest to replenish her psychic energy stores, Kayla is awakened by six approaching figures, Nedra and Zekeal amongst them. Nedra shoots Kayla in the shoulder, then travels further up the mountain with her group to ambush Eutonah’s camp.

Even as the TattooGen has been closing in on the camp’s location, Mfumbe has escaped from his parents, with whom he has been forced to stay since his recent release from jail. He has come to Eutonah’s camp to reunite with Kayla. Now, he finds her face-down in the dirt just as Zekeal returns and holds them both at gunpoint. Mfumbe attacks quickly, knocking the gun from Zekeal’s grip. As they fight, Kayla uses her psychic abilities to dislodge a branch from a nearby pine tree and launch it at Zekeal.

A month later, Kayla sends a physical letter to Amber. Ever since the Tattoo Gen raid, the resistance groups have scattered but are slowly reconnecting. Kayla and Mfumbe now live in an abandoned hunting cabin, but Eutonah is being held in a Global-1 prison. Eutonah makes psychic contact with Kayla and urges the resistance groups to join Senator David Young as he rallies other resisters in Washington, D.C. Kayla also experiences another vision—which she now understands to be a glimpse of the future—and she finally understands what the vision means. The vision shows Kayla and Mfumbe alongside thousands of resisters, including Senator David Young, convening in Washington, D.C. and fighting against the bar code tattoo system to protect their freedom.

When Kayla meets with Mfumbe and August, they’re divided on what to do. Mfumbe believes that whether they stay in the mountains or flee to Canada, they’re still just hiding. He believes that joining the other resisters in Washington, D.C. is the only way to enact change. Kayla envisions the resisters winning and agrees to travel with Mfumbe to the capital.