The Bar Code Tattoo (12 page)

The patient beside Kayla had begun to convulse so violently that she crashed onto the floor.

“Hurry! We need to get her downstairs right away!” a nurse said. The two nurses labored to lift the woman onto a gurney. They hurried her out of the room.

Kayla waited until they were gone, then hauled her legs over the side of the bed. Her knees buckled as she tried to stand and she had to grasp the bed rails to keep from landing on the floor.
Stay up, don’t fall
, she urged herself.

With this unexpected opportunity, all her resolve returned. It didn’t matter if she couldn’t fight this, if it was hopeless. Right now she had to get out of the hospital, get somewhere away from this doctor with his code license. She moved now on simple survival instinct.

Steadying herself on one object and then the next — from bed rail to table to trash bin to chair — she made her way out of the room and headed down the hall.
Walk. Walk. Walk,
she chanted silently.
Don’t think, just keep moving.

Passing a bank of mirrors by an elevator, she
saw herself. Lines of dried scrapes were raked across her cheeks and chin. Her long brown hair was singed and matted with soot. It hung in blackened clumps around her face.

A man in green scrubs turned to look at her as she hurried past the mirrors and down the hall. She avoided eye contact and moved along.

She slowed at the open door to a patient’s room. A dirty black suit and white shirt hung just inside the room, which appeared to be empty. She stepped inside and shut the door as a wave of drugged fatigue knocked her onto the bed.

If she lay down, she knew she’d sleep. That couldn’t happen, she couldn’t let it. Quickly, she peeled off her hospital gown and dressed in the old suit. It nearly fit, though she had to roll up the pant legs and tighten the belt past its last hole.

She slipped into the man’s shoes, which were several sizes too big, and tucked her hair into the jacket collar.

Appearing casual was the key to getting out undetected, she decided as she left the room. With the sedatives still coursing through her bloodstream she couldn’t go fast, anyway. That was probably a good thing because otherwise she might bolt for the door and attract attention.

The glass door whooshed open, letting her pass. It was a cool evening, almost dark.

Nausea swirled in the pit of her stomach. Foul
fluid filled her mouth, rising up from her insides. Determination carried her across the parking lot, out to the busy road.

A car horn blared as she staggered across the road. With her head down against the blinding halogen headlights, she headed for a stand of pines on the other side. Once she was deeply enclosed within the trees, her stomach lunged and she threw up. Dropping to her knees, she passed out.

In the dream, Kayla was eight again. Her mother had just dished them out each a bowl of ice cream and they sat at the table, side by side. Kayla’s crayons were spread on the table as she worked on the picture in front of her. She finished the brown hair surrounding the face she was drawing and held it up. “It’s you, Mommy.”

“Me?” Her mother was delighted. “It’s really good, Kayla. You’re so talented.”

“I’m going to be an artist when I grow up,” Kayla said as she climbed on her mother’s lap.

Her mother smoothed her hair and kissed her forehead. “You can be whatever you want to be, Kayla. You’ll be a wonderful artist if that’s what you’d like to do.”

She wrapped her small arms around her mother’s neck. “I love you, Mommy.”

“I love you, too. I’ll always love my Kayla.”

The cold awakened her, but her mother’s voice was still in her head. There were headlights and car noises nearby. She lay among the pines blanketed in deep blackness.

I’ll always love my Kayla
. She was grateful for this dream memory. It was a gift to live this moment again, a moment when her mother had still been herself.

Kayla’s face contorted into a twisted mask of sorrow. Even though her mother hadn’t been well, somehow Kayla had always believed there would be better times ahead and that her mother would be able to struggle out of her pain and back to her former self. That possibility was over now. She’d never see her mother again. The pain, the loss of that chance, was more than she could stand.

A wrenching, pain-filled sob shook her. Another, then another wracked her body. These gave way to a rush of tears that seemed to come from some limitless source of misery deep inside her. She cried, facedown in the cold and darkness, until she again fell to sleep.

When she awoke, she realized that the drugged feeling had mostly passed. Her hand could now curl into a fist and it wasn’t as hard to move her legs. Her stomach rumbled. The last time she’d eaten was at Zekeal’s place.

There was something in the pocket of her suit jacket and she fished it out, an e-card belonging to
John James. Would he mind if she bought herself something to eat? Probably. But she had to eat.

It was a two-mile walk to the all-night diner down by the river. When she got there, she suddenly felt self-conscious about her appearance, but hunger drove her inside. “Do you take e-cards?” she asked the woman at the front register. “My dad gave me his to use.”

The blond woman in her twenties eyed her suspiciously. “No tattoo?”

“I turn seventeen next month,” Kayla replied. She showed the card, and the woman nodded. “Sit down over there.”

She ordered a hamburger, fries, and a Coke. Food had never tasted so delicious before. In the booth behind her, a woman spoke on her small phone.

“Hi, it’s Katie. Listen, I’m on my way. I just stopped for some supper. I’m taking the Superlink as far as Roscoe, then I’ll jump on the Thruway,” she said. “I’ll be there before midnight. Okay. See you then.”

Katie stood and took her e-card from her wallet. There was no tattoo on her wrist.

Kayla summoned her nerve. This woman had an honest, kind face. “Excuse me,” Kayla said to her. “I need a ride. Could I possibly get one from you?”

“Where you going?” Katie had long brown hair tied back in a ponytail. She was attractive, but her
skin was weathered and creased with fine lines. She was probably in her early thirties.

“Um … just past Roscoe, to my aunt’s house.”

Katie stared at Kayla, taking in Kayla’s dirty man’s suit, her bruised face. “How old are you?”

“Seventeen next month.” It seemed like a good way to avoid the bar code issue.

“You running away from home?”

“No.”

“You sure about that?”

“My parents are dead.” Saying the words caused her voice to catch. She couldn’t think about her parents’ deaths anymore, though. If she dissolved into mourning now, she wouldn’t be able to think, to survive. All that had to be pushed down under the level of consciousness.

If Katie had noticed the shake in her voice, she gave no indication. “Okay. Pay your bill and come on,” she said. “I have to get going.”

Kayla sat in Katie’s tractor-trailer, squinting at the oncoming headlights. “Ever take the Superlink before?” Katie asked.

“Once, a few years ago. My parents and I went camping on Lake George.”

“It’s pretty up there. The Thruway used to be the fastest way to go north, but now the Superlink is so much faster. You can drive so fast that it cuts your time in half.” The speedometer revealed that they were traveling at 140 miles per hour.

“Where does it end?” Kayla asked.

“The Canadian border. Why do you want to know?”

“Just curious.”

“Are you in some kind of trouble?” Katie asked her. “Running away from something?”

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.