The Bar Code Tattoo (14 page)

To: MFTaylor
globalnet.planet

From: MFTaylorsr
globalnet.planet

To: DrS
globalnet.planet

Kayla shut the computer down quickly. It hadn’t occurred to her at first that she could be tracked through Sarah’s e-mail address. It was possible, though, especially if Mfumbe’s parents went to the Globalofficers.

Where had he gone … and why?

Kayla walked to the living room where Toz and Mava sat watching the news. Nedra’s face filled the screen. She wore a red jumpsuit — the same kind the Tattoo Gen group on the West Coast favored. Below her image, a subtitle read
Nedra Harris representing Tattoo Generation.

With the same strong, determined attitude she’d worn when she was against the bar code, Nedra now spoke about the need for all seventeen-year-olds to get tattooed. “This is the mandate of our new millennium, which will be governed by the best, the brightest, and the most fit. Let each young person of our generation step forward and show their pride by wearing the bar code — a tattoo that marks them as part of the Global-1 team. Sadly, there are still some young people who are mistrustful of Global-1’s plan for world unity. I say to these misdirected dissidents — throw off this
blind mistrust and take your place in the bold new world.”

Toz clicked her off and turned to Kayla. “Now aren’t you glad you didn’t get that damned tattoo? Wouldn’t you hate to be like her?”

“I know her,” Kayla revealed. “She used to be part of our Decode group.”

Toz nodded, leaning back in his easy chair. “You become the monster you fear the most, so the monster won’t overtake you.”

“That doesn’t always happen,” Mava disagreed. “Not everyone is like that. Kayla hasn’t become a monster. Doesn’t she look pretty?”

“Damn cute,” Toz agreed gruffly. “No one will recognize her, which is the point of the redesign, I suppose.”

“Yes, dear,” Mava agreed. “Now rest. Remember your heart.”

“My heart is big and strong and belongs to you, darling,” Toz told her with a playful wink.

Each morning a paper thumped against the front door and Kayla scoured it for news about herself.

The first day her story was on page three. The robot cashier at the Superlink Eatery had been programmed to identify a photographic list of wanted criminals and had automatically contacted Globalofficers saying Kayla Reed had been there. They traced the credit card from John James
back to a man who had died at the Tri-County Hospital during an operation on May 21.

At least he didn’t miss his e-card or his suit
, Kayla thought, glad to be rid of the nagging guilt she felt for taking the man’s things.

By the sixth day, her story was just a paragraph on page twelve. Kayla put the paper down and looked in the mirror. Her scrapes had all healed. Her new haircut made her look very different. Maybe everyone would just forget about her.

By Monday of the next week, Mava and Toz had moved most of Sarah’s belongings into bags and stuffed them into their car trunk. Even though they were reluctant to leave, they knew their safe haven couldn’t last forever. As they ate breakfast that morning, someone knocked on the door.

Kayla hurried to Sarah’s bedroom and hid in the closet. After a few minutes, Mava spoke to her through the door. “It was just the landlord. He wanted to know why Sarah hadn’t paid her rent.” Nearly faint with relief, Kayla came back out.

“We told him she’d be back tonight,” Mava went on. “So we really should leave as soon as possible.”

Kayla sat on the bed to let her heartbeat return to normal. Mava sat beside her and took her hand. “Toz and I have been talking,” she began. “We think you should come to Toronto with us. Although we have no money now, Sarah will help us get set up.”

“Will we be able to get across the border without bar codes?” Kayla asked.

“We’re not sure. If we have trouble, though, we’ll find a way to call Sarah. Her boyfriend has a bar code. He can come across and we’ll drive back in his car.” Mava smiled sadly. “Toz won’t like leaving his hybrid behind, but in the end he might have to.”

“I would
love
to come with you, thank you,” Kayla said, hugging Mava warmly. This was like a miracle, a new start.

Kayla was tempted to check the e-mail one last time, hoping to hear from Amber, but decided against it. It might bring the Globalofficers right to her.

Back on the Superlink, they went for miles before coming to another tollbooth. Toz knew an exit that brought him around to the other side of the toll. “Out of gas,” he reported. “We can switch to electric energy for a while but we’ll have to fuel up eventually.”

They’d gone a number of miles and now a tollbooth lay ahead of them again. “Get ready for another breakthrough,” Toz warned them excitedly. “Battle stations.”

Kayla squeezed down into the backseat and covered her head. Toz threw the car into full speed.

Abruptly, the car weaved wildly out of the lane. Car horns blared and Kayla sat up. Toz had let go of the wheel and clutched his chest.

“Toz!” Mava screamed.

Toz grabbed the wheel and hit the electric speed pedal. Then he slammed forward onto the steering wheel.

A cement wall that bordered the toll lane loomed in front of them. Mava grabbed the steering wheel and pulled it, riding the car along the wall on two wheels for seconds, and then glass shattered as the car smashed onto its side and slid.

Kayla flew forward, hitting the windshield. From somewhere a siren howled.

“Toz,” Mava sobbed, leaning on her husband. “Toz, wake up.”

Toz lay slumped over, not responding. Mava’s head was bleeding and Kayla cringed at the unnatural angle at which the old woman’s arm hung.

Strobing red lights passed over them as Globalofficers cars screeched to the scene of the accident.

“Kayla,” Mava cried. “Are you all right?”

“Yes, I think so,” Kayla replied.

“Then get out of here now. Run. You can get away.”

“I can’t leave you!”

“You can’t
help
us. As soon as they take us to the hospital, we’re dead. Toz is dead now.” Mava’s blue eyes held Kayla in their gaze. “Quickly. Go.”

Two Globalofficers were rapidly approaching the car. Kayla knew she couldn’t do anything for Toz and Mava now. The car door above her had
sprung open when they hit the wall. Pulling herself up, she climbed out.

Jumping down into a crouch, she kept low and ran along the side of the wall.

“Stop!” someone shouted. “You. By the wall. Stop now!”

Kayla ducked into the woods at the end of the wall and began to run. A gunshot blasted just beside her ear.

Dropping to the ground, Kayla scrambled on her belly through the leaves and dirt. Another shot fired. It scalped a chunk of bark from a tree just ahead of her.

She ran for cover.

It seemed to her that she lay still a long time. Her head throbbed and blood ran down her forehead, dripping into her eyes. She blinked hard, afraid to move and wipe it away. Finally, though, the two Globalofficers left.

Getting up, she used her hand to whisk the blood from her aching forehead. Then, running in short sprints, she moved deeper into the woods, stopping occasionally to clutch her pounding head.

Heading up along the Superlink was too dangerous now. She’d have to get as deep into the trees as she could.

The last dying rays of sunset guided Kayla among the trees as she silently thanked Sarah for the hiking boots and the fleecy hooded sweater. She pulled up the hood against a cold wind that chilled her neck. Before, her long hair had always protected it. Now she felt exposed and vulnerable as the cool air ruffled her new cut. Her neck tingled with more than cold. It had snapped back hard when she’d been thrown forward in the accident.

Her stomach growled angrily. There had been nothing to eat since breakfast and she longed for food. Sitting on a flat boulder, she considered her predicament. Here in the middle of the woods, she wasn’t likely to come across any food. What did she know about berries and edible plants? Exactly nothing.

A trickling sound told her that there was water somewhere nearby. Her best bet was to search for it, so she followed the sound to a very narrow stream. Kneeling, she drank, then washed her dirty, bloodstained face. For lack of a better plan, she began to follow the stream. At least she would never be too far from water that way.

The light was almost completely gone, but she continued to follow the sound of the stream a long way into the woods. She cried out as she stumbled in the dark over something hard. Lying there, she made no move to get up. Every part of her ached. The car accident had made her sore all over. The back of her neck now tingled badly.

Somewhere, someone was cooking something that smelled delicious. Sitting up, she peered in all directions. Then she saw a light, very small, about a mile off in the distance.

With the last of her strength, she made her way toward it. The cooking smell kept growing stronger, encouraging her on.

Finally, the source of the smell appeared in the darkness. A cabin with a lit sign in front, some kind
of restaurant or bar. Before long she heard the loud sound of animated voices — people conversing, laughing. A warm, inviting place.

Her spirits lifting, she hurried toward the cabin. She had no way to pay for food, but she’d think of something. She looked through a window at people inside, eating, drinking, and talking to one another. A large flat-screen hung over the bar, and many people gazed up at it, watching a basketball game.

Walking around to the front, she read the sign:
THE OASIS
. A small parking lot held about six cars that had driven in on a narrow road that led away deeper into the forest. There were definitely more than six cars’ worth of people inside the place. How had they gotten there?

She stepped inside, attracting no attention. The people were all focused on their friends or on the screen.

“We interrupt this sporting event for a brief special announcement,” a voice broke into the basketball game. The spectators groaned but kept their eyes on the screen.

A blond woman in a suit appeared in the lower corner of the screen. A picture of the tollbooth where the accident had occurred filled the large screen behind her. “There was a fatal car crash at a Superlink tollbooth just outside of Albany this morning,” the reporter told the audience.

Kayla stood in the doorway, staring at the screen, mesmerized by the picture on it.

“It is believed that eighty-five-year-old Tova Alan, the driver, suffered a lethal heart attack that caused him to lose control of his vehicle and slam into a cement wall,” the reporter continued. “His wife, eighty-one-year-old Mava Alan, was rushed to a nearby hospital in critical condition and is not expected to live.”

Although she knew this already, had faced this reality, a lump formed in Kayla’s throat at the reporter’s words.

“The Alans were wanted by Globalofficers for toll jumping on their trip up the Superlink. A third passenger in the car was identified as seventeen-year-old Kayla Marie Reed. Ms. Reed is currently a fugitive wanted for the homicide of her mother, Mrs. Ashley Reed. Ms. Reed fled the scene of the accident and refused to stop when summoned by Globalofficers. The charges against her now include toll jumping, failure to cooperate with Globalofficers, and suspected homicide.

“Anyone seeing Ms. Reed, who is believed to be somewhere north of Albany, New York, please call this central Globalofficers number.”

Kayla’s junior yearbook photo once again flashed on the screen with the Globalofficers phone number under her face. A man at the bar turned and stared at Kayla. The woman beside him turned to see what her companion was staring at.

Kayla ran her hand through her short hair as an excuse to put her arm over her face, and walked
out the door. It was dark to the left of the doorway and she stepped into the shadow, slowly moving around to the left of the building. Crouching low, she waited to see if anyone rushed out after her. When no one came, she ran out into the darkness again.

She slumped down at the foot of a large pine. They’d described her as a fugitive from the Globalofficers. How had all this happened? The forest around her swirled and then everything was blackness.

Hours later she came to with a throbbing head. Her stomach was now a deep and empty cavern. The distant voices from the cabin had quieted. Maybe it was now closed for the night. Hopefully they had a Dumpster and she’d find something inside it to eat.

It wasn’t easy to find her way back in the complete darkness. As she came nearer, though, she spotted a dull light. It gave her a guide to follow and brought her to the back of the place. Standing behind a tree, she looked in the window and saw that the Oasis was, indeed, closed and she was gazing into the kitchen area. Half a roasted chicken sat, uncovered, on the counter.

A breeze banged the screen door as light poured from the doorway, telling her there was no locked inside door behind the screened one. Someone must be in there. They wouldn’t just go off and leave the place open and unattended.

But maybe if the person was in the front, she might be able to slip in, grab the chicken, and escape with it. Her stomach had made her desperate enough to try.

Cautiously creeping forward, staying in the shadows, she got to the open door and entered the rustic, dully lit kitchen. It was only about five feet to the chicken, but she was afraid to take the first step toward it.

A floorboard groaned under her first, anxious step and made her freeze in place. She waited for a response.

Nothing.

She took another step, then froze again as a trapdoor in the floor just several feet in front of her lifted. Two arms pushed it up. Someone was about to come up from below and they would be face-to-face in a matter of seconds.

Kayla grabbed a carving knife from a side table, clutched it tightly, and waited.