The Bar Code Rebellion (16 page)

Back at Allyson’s apartment that night, Kayla lay flat on the futon couch, her eyes shut, thinking, remembering Kass’s words. The phoenix — the bird that is burned to ashes but rises to live again.

KM-5, Kendra, had called herself the phoenix, but KM-6 was really the one. She was not dead, only hiding. Hiding someplace where they could never find her.

Allyson came in the front door and crossed the room to Kayla. She sat on the edge of the cushion. “Jack is still at Caltech seeing what he can learn about the Drakians your friend, Artie, said are in the area. I hope he doesn’t sneak into the computer room to try to find those algorithms. Helen of Troy can’t get them. The codes are too packed with security — but Jack seems hell-bent on trying, anyway.”

“It means a lot to him,” Kayla remarked. “It means a lot to us all, really.”

“Well, it seems hopeless to me,” Allyson said. “Anyway, I came back to check on you. Are you okay?”

Kayla turned around to her side, swinging her
legs onto the floor. “Yeah. It was a little upsetting when Kass started screaming at me to go put out the fire.” At the end of their talk, Kass had become hysterical, as though the horror of what she saw beyond her blindness was more than she could stand. She stood and demanded that Kayla leave and go do what she had to do. Kayla had backed out of the room, stumbling in the dark, relieved to find Jack and Allyson waiting for her outside.

“I was remembering your other clone, the one pretending to be you,” Allyson said. “Did you see the way she kept rubbing her eyes?”

“I figured she was just trying not to cry,” Kayla recalled.

“I don’t think that was it.” Allyson turned on the TV and used the remote to put on the press conference scene that she’d recorded. Zekeal and the fake Kayla stood in front of the crowd. The Kayla clone kept rubbing her eyes. Allyson slowed the action and zoomed in on it. Her eyes were red and irritated but completely dry. “One of the side effects of Propeace12 released by the nanobots is keratoconjunctivitis sicca.”

“I remember reading that, but what is it?”

“I looked it up. It’s dry eye.”

“Dry eye?” Kayla echoed as Allyson’s meaning washed over her. “You’re saying that she’s tranqued up on nanobot-released Propeace12?”

“I’d bet you anything,” Alyson said. “The poor
girl probably isn’t sure
who
she is, she’s so spun around on the stuff.”

“Yet we’re all so different. Why is Kass the only one who is blind? Why is Kendra so violent?”

“Nature versus nurture,” Allyson suggested. “Our genes aren’t the only thing that makes us who we are. Our environments and our parents affect us. You were all raised by different people, under different circumstances, in different homes. Maybe there was something in Kass’s nutrition or in her home or neighborhood that caused her blindness. Or she could have been in an accident.”

“True,” Kayla said. “We also have different degrees of transgenic avian genes.”

“Not only that,” Allyson added. “Genes have multiple tasks. When they began trying to genetically cure sickle cell anemia they discovered that the same gene made people resistant to malaria. By knocking out the disease-causing gene, they could have caused a worse problem. Barbara McClintock proved that genes can even jump around. She won the Nobel Prize for her work with jumping genes. When you start playing around with genes you never really know what will come up.”

“It’s strange,” Kayla said slowly. “The only two of us who are bar-coded — at least that I know of — are Kendra and now Karinda. They were both tattooed against their will. I would have been the
third. They were going to tattoo me that night in the hospital after my house burned, but I ran away.”

“It’s as though you all have a gene for hating the bar code. It’s not that strange, I suppose. Studies have shown there’s a gene for almost everything,” Allyson said. “And besides, you all share a bird’s gene. You know the expression ‘free as a bird.’ A fierce longing to be free might be something GlobalHelix never expected you all to inherit from your little brown sparrow.”

“When I was moving your pack, this fell out of it,” Allyson said at breakfast the next morning. She handed Kayla the sketch she’d done of Mfumbe the day they walked along the Hudson River. Emotion clutched at Kayla’s throat as she looked at it, thinking of his voice reading to her from his slim volume of poetry,
“Come live with me and be my love.”

They’d beaten him up. Were they now going to kill him with nanobots? Would they kill everyone who was at the march … or at least everyone they’d managed to catch and bar-code? If it appeared too obvious, perhaps they’d release the BC12 virus instead.

Someone knocked on the door. Kayla assumed it would be Jack, who had once again gone out early to see if he could locate the Drakians. Instead, Allyson opened the door to a clean-cut Asian man Kayla didn’t know.

He handed her an underground newspaper. “Your message has been sent with special priority,” he said quietly. “The Arts section of the paper is very interesting today. You should check it out.”

“Thanks,” Allyson said, shutting the door as he left. She went directly to the kitchen table where she opened the paper, shuffling through the pages until she came to the Arts section. There, as she apparently expected, was a letter with the words
ALLYSON MINOR, SOMEWHERE IN THE CALTECH AREA, PASADENA,
typed on it.

Kayla came to join her at the table. Before she got there, she bent to pick up the splayed National News section that had fallen to the floor. The color photo in the lower righthand corner of the third page immediately grabbed her attention.

Unable to take her eyes from it, she laid it on the table for Allyson to see. The picture showed Kayla — someone looking very much like Kayla — dressed in a long cotton nightgown.

She was on the ledge of a flat-roofed building about to go over the edge.

One bare foot was kicked out in front, and the photo caught the moment when the second delicately arched foot left the ledge. The blond hair and billowy nightgown floated, weightless.

The caption below the photo read: “Kayla Marie Reed leaped yesterday from the top of the Global-1 headquarters in Atlanta, Georgia, in what has been
deemed a suicide. This photo was taken with a telephoto ledge from an adjacent building.”

Karinda Carrington, KM-3, was dead.

Kayla and Allyson both stared at the incredible photo. “She’s trying to fly,” Kayla whispered, too moved by this truth to speak any louder.

October 21, 2025

Allyson, hi.

I hope this finds you. I figure the chances are good since a Caltech address is more than Postmen usually have to go on. I hope you’re well. I got the news about August through someone from the mountains. I know you two were tight friends. I loved the guy like he was my brother. I feel certain that he didn’t do this of his own will. He was too hopeful for that.

I also know because in the last month I have had suicidal thoughts that would never have entered my mind before. Yes, I’m down about a lot of things: I miss Kayla; I’m banged out about what’s happening with Dave Young; I feel weak from the beating I took; and having this bar code on my wrist drives me into a murderous rage sometimes.

But despite it all, I love this life too much to ever want to leave it willingly. And yet, lately, I find I can’t sleep. My thoughts scatter, and I’m unable to focus. Things that once gave me pleasure, like my cartooning, or poetry, or even peppermint gum, now seem empty, devoid of any ability to satisfy me. It’s only through my determination to hang tough and make it through one day at a time that I don’t succumb to the darkness that seems bent on engulfing me.

These days this problem does not seem uncommon. Every day the obituary pages of the paper are filled with
death notices of more and more people who have committed suicide. Bridges like the Bear Mountain, the Tappan Zee, and all the Manhattan crossings have guards posted now because there has been such a sudden rash of jumpers. No less a figure than David Young remains on suicide watch, so depressed he’s unable to utter a word.

But there’s hope to be found in the newspapers, too. A lawyer at American Civil Liberties, Nancy Feldman, has noticed that the suicides are predominantly among people who attended the march on Washington in October. She’s demanding an explanation. A doctor named Sarah Alan has returned from Canada and is organizing doctors against the bar code tattoo. Her group is called DOC. Coincidentally, she’s the daughter of the couple who died in the crash while giving Kayla a ride on the Superlink earlier this year.

Speaking of Kayla, she’s my second reason for writing you. I don’t know where she is, and I figure she might have headed to you. If you see her, please tell her that I have left my parents’ home. If I’d stayed, I really would have killed myself. The medicine they were putting in my food was making me muddleheaded. At least my injuries don’t seem too bad anymore.

I got a ride with a friend up the Superlink to the community of bar code resisters in the woods where Kayla and I stayed a while. It was a good move because I have friends there and they’ve been very kind to me. Also the people here, once content to live in seclusion simply avoiding the bar code, have found it increasingly
intrusive in their lives since they all have extended family members and friends who have been affected by it. Consequently, they have an increased willingness to fight back. I believe these pockets exist all over the country and that they are all experiencing the same thing. (I’ve heard that such a community exists not far from you in the Santa Monica area.)

Tell Kayla, if you see her, not to give in. A lot of information comes and goes out of these woods nowadays. People suspect that something in the bar code has the potential to turn deadly on you. There is no proof, but the rumble of suspicion is out there. And you, Allyson, since you have the bar code, you should lie low. It seems that your bar code hasn’t caused you any trouble so far. As long as you don’t cause trouble, you’ll be okay. But if anyone sees you with Kayla — or a Drakian named Dusa, if she’s still with Kayla — well, just be careful.

I won’t be easy to find for a while. A group of us are going to Washington to rally around the jail where Dave Young is in the hospital wing. The webcam in his room is active all the time and we’re always going to have someone stationed there making sure he doesn’t harm himself.

I say I’m going but I’m not sure I can make it. Every day this depression really makes everything difficult. I imagine Kayla has abandoned me. I think all this is really hopeless and — never mind.

Tell Kayla I love her and that I always remember the way she saved that bird the day we left the Adirondacks. She’s stronger — and kinder and braver — than she
realizes. If you can, please give her the piece of gum I’ve taped to this page. She’ll know what it means. Thanks.

Your true friend always,

Mfumbe

Kayla stood in the shower, letting the water drum down on her back. Outside, in the yard below the bathroom window, Jack was showing Allyson the swing-lo’s controls. In her mind, she kept going over the words of Mfumbe’s letter. It infuriated her to think that Global-1 was wreaking havoc with his emotions and his health with their filthy little nanobots. The miniature technology could do so much good. Leave it to Global-1 to harness its destructive power.

Turning, she positioned her body so that the warm spray could massage her shoulders. A shard of brilliant sunlight found its way past the shade and shower curtain to plant a square of yellow on the white tile wall. Water dripping from the shower gleamed with prismatic beauty in the square, capturing Kayla’s attention. It was so magical, each rivulet of water containing a rainbow. She stared at the dripping ribbon of color and let its hypnotic effect carry her off….

She sees herself standing on a high, twisted ladder mounted on the walled perimeter of a large rectangular rooftop. The person she sees is herself, only very different. Waist-length hair is hopelessly knotted, snarled as though it has never known the stroke of a brush. Some sort of shapeless smock flaps on a scrawny frame. She seems to scan the vivid blue sky with strangely bright eyes.

All the while, she whistles.

The heartbreakingly poignant whistled aria is rich with variety, melodic notes both high and low, some sharp and others sustained for a dramatic, impossible length. And as she whistles into the sky, the face of the whistler is suffused with an inner light emanating from some deep, boundless joy.

The sky darkens ominously as though clouds are amassing at an unnaturally swift pace. A wind begins to beat furiously on the whistling figure, and still she whistles ever louder, as if calling the darkening clouds to her.

Kayla’s eyes opened abruptly and she stumbled back against the tile wall. KM-6! Who else could it be? What Kass had told her was true — KM-6 really
was
alive!

“What could you see from the rooftop?” Jack pressed her later that afternoon when she told her friends about the vision.

Kayla wasn’t sure. She’d been watching KM-6.

“Think,” Allyson urged gently. “It might help us find KM-6.”

Kayla closed her eyes and concentrated, rebuilding the scene in her mind. “There were mountains,” she recalled. “In fact, the building was at the base of a mountain. In the distance, I could see … I think I could see Pasadena.”

“Okay, so it was close,” Allyson surmised. “Anything else?”

“Yes!” Kayla realized. “She was standing on a big metal ladder on the roof. It was huge. And twisted.”

“A double helix!” Jack shouted. “The form of DNA. Allyson, where is GlobalHelix located?”

“Everywhere! They have their psychiatric center in downtown Los Angeles, but their main research and corporate headquarters is right here in the San Gabriel Mountains. And they
do
have a giant metal double helix on the roof of their building. I know exactly where they’re located.”

“Could KM-6 be living right in the GlobalHelix building?” Kayla questioned incredulously. “Kass said she was hiding.”

“It’s a huge complex,” Allyson told her. “I took a
tour of the whole facility with my genetics class in September. She could be right under their noses and they might never know it.”

“I guess we’re on our way to visit GlobalHelix,” Jack said.

The swing-lo was the most efficient way they could think of to get to the GlobalHelix facility. With it, they could shortcut the freeway and the winding, mountainous roads. Since it only held two comfortably, Allyson agreed to stay behind. She handed Jack and Kayla cell phones with clips on the back that they could attach to their clothing. “I’ll be here if you need anything,” she said. “If I call you, the phone will vibrate silently.”

The swing-lo caused a mild stir among people they passed on their way out of Pasadena. Jack kept it just above the ground so that only when someone glanced down did he or she realize it had no tires and wasn’t just some new, high-tech, alternate-fuel-burning vehicle.

The freeway was jammed with traffic, and Kayla suggested flying above it. “I don’t want to attract that kind of attention,” Jack argued. Instead, he buzzed around the sides of the cars or just below the freeway, managing to bypass hundreds of vehicles.

When they left the freeway, Kayla expected him to fly high and braced for the adventure. But he
stayed low.
He’s afraid to try it,
she realized as they buzzed along country roads.

Before long, they could see the giant black double helix on top of the GlobalHelix building. It was exactly what she’d seen in her vision, assuring her that they’d come to the right place. When they arrived outside the eight-foot wall surrounding the sprawling facility, Jack’s face grew pale. “Here goes,” he said in a choked voice.

The swing-lo made a whirring noise as he flipped a switch that sent it straight to the top of the wall.

Kayla laughed with delight. “Final level,” she said as they hovered there. Tight-lipped with anxiety, Jack flew it over the wall and landed next to a building. Gleefully, she patted his back. “You did it!”

He nodded, breathing heavily as color returned to his face. “At least we know now she really can gain altitude, even though we didn’t go very high.” He turned to face her. “Did I ever tell you I’m terrified of heights?”

“Yes, you did,” she replied.

“Well, I just discovered that fact hasn’t changed.”

“Are you okay?”

He sat still for a moment, breathing deeply. “I thought I was going to be sick, but I’m okay.”

From behind the seats, they took the white lab coats Allyson had given them and put them on.
Jack had gone online and hacked into their personnel files for a copy of the GlobalHelix ID badge, to which they’d added their own scanned-in photos. “If we hit an eye scan we’re toast, but this will get us in the door,” he said.

It took the two of them to lean the swing-lo up against the building and behind a bush. From there, they walked around front and in through the glass doors. They made no eye contact with the security guards at the long marble front desk but concentrated on appearing like they belonged there, walking purposefully toward the bank of elevators in the center of the sunny lobby.

Oustide the elevator, they scanned the list of floors and departments. Jack poked her and flared his fingers. Glancing up at the list she saw that the tenth floor, at the top of the building, was where they’d find the department of nanobiotechnology. When the crowded elevator arrived, she knew which button to press.

When they got there, they hurried down the quiet hall until Kayla suddenly stopped short, listening intently to a sound that had come into her head.

I can see you. You can see me if you keep coming closer. I’m waiting for you, sister.

“What’s wrong?” Jack asked.

“KM-6 just contacted me telepathically.”

“Are you sure it’s her?”

“No. But she called me sister. She says she can see me.”

“Contact her back,” he suggested.

Kayla closed her eyes, concentrating.
Tell me how to find you. I am on the top floor. I just got off the elevator. Where are you?

“Any reception?” Jack inquired softly.

Kayla didn’t want to lose focus and held up her hand for him to wait.

A girlish giggle filled Kayla’s mind, followed by a whistled note.
Turnthecornerturnthecornerturnthe corner
. The telepathic words came in a nursery-rhyme singsong.

“She’s around the corner.” They hurried to the end of the long hall and skidded to a stop as they raced around the doorway to another long corridor.

It was empty. That’s what they thought at first, but then they spied a lone figure at the far end, mopping the floor.

Hurrying toward her at first, Kayla slowed as she got closer. The young woman didn’t stop mopping or seem to register their presence in any way. A mass of tangled brown hair was held back loosely with a rubber band. She wore an ill-fitting shift with a smock over it. She was skinny, almost painfully so. Kayla couldn’t help but think that she probably ate like a … bird.

This was KM-6, the clone she’d seen. There was no doubt. But she wasn’t what she’d expected.

I’m hiding. You can’t see me.
It was a child’s voice that came into Kayla’s mind.

Don’t be scared. It’s me, your sister,
Kayla spoke
telepathically. Her message was received. KM-6 swung her head around to stare straight at Kayla with the wide-open black pupils of a dark-eyed bird.

“She’s got some form of autism,” Jack realized after repeated attempts to talk to KM-6 failed.

You don’t have to talk out loud. We talked mind to mind before. Let’s do it again,
Kayla tried, contacting KM-6 once more.

KM-6 dropped the mop she’d been clinging to and turned her face to the wall, wrapping her hands over her head.

Kayla’s mind was immediately flooded not with words but with pictures. They came to her with rapid-fire, dizzying speed:
A baby living in staff housing facilities, right here in the GlobalHelix complex. Nurses sneak in to feed her, care for her, a succession of different caretakers come and go. The cleaning staff adopts her, caring for her at night. As she grows, they make her a bed in a utility closet. She works with them. This is her home, the only one she’s ever known.

“Why would the nurses and cleaning staff do something like that?” Jack asked when Kayla told him what she’d seen.

“I can’t be sure, but I bet I know,” Kayla said. Along with the pictures, she’d received emotions from KM-6. She loved the nurses and cleaning staff. She was safe with them. It was the GlobalHelix
scientists and doctors she feared. “It seems like she was born right here, maybe in a synthetic womb. She’s KM-6 which means she has the most avian DNA in her. They weren’t happy with the way she came out — and so they called her stillborn and planned to kill her.”

“And some nurses whisked her away, reported her dead, and the staff here secretly raised her,” Jack supplied.

A consenting hum in Kayla’s mind told her they had gotten it right.