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.
We want to help you, Kayla sent a mind message to KM-6. Abruptly, KM-6 ran down the hall away from Kayla and Jack. “We have to go after her,” Kayla said.
Jack shook his head. “I think we’d better find the nanobiotech department first.” They continued down a hall until they came to it. Inside, Jack hacked into a file and loaded the information onto a chip he’d brought in.
The round cell phone clipped to Kayla’s shirt vibrated and she pressed the center button to answer. “What’s happening?” Allyson asked.
Before Kayla could reply, two men in lab coats came into the room, angrily demanding to know why Jack and Kayla were there. “We work here,” Kayla bluffed.
“No, you don’t. I know everyone who works in this department,” one of them barked.
The other pulled a phone from his lab coat pocket. “Security emergency on tenth floor, nanobiotech,” he instructed.
“Give me that,” the first man demanded, noticing the chip Jack was trying to sneak into his pocket.
Jack’s eyes darted around the room, searching for a way out. When nothing occurred to him, he put the chip in his mouth and swallowed.
“Too bad you did that,” the second man said. “We were just going to have security escort you and your friend out. Now we can’t let you leave.”
A dauntingly muscular guard appeared in the doorway. “Keep them here while we go get the department heads,” the first man commanded him as they left. Kayla and Jack were alone with the guard, who stood facing them, stone-faced.
What would happen to them now? GlobalHelix wouldn’t know how much they had seen, but they’d suspect it was too much. It would be so easy for them to make Jack and Kayla disappear. They’d inject them with nanobots, activate the BC12 virus, and they’d be gone and no one would know they’d been murdered.
Allyson would know. But she had a tattoo, which meant nanobots were in her bloodstream, making her easy to eliminate as well.
Kayla heard a thud and gasped as the security guard staggered forward, blood pouring down the back of his neck.
It took Kayla a second to realize what she was looking at. KM-6 stood in the doorway brandishing a five-foot, iron-bladed, blood-smeared garden shovel.
“Run!” Jack shouted, grabbing Kayla’s arm.
The guard was down but he wasn’t out. There wasn’t much time before someone else would be alerted.
Kayla beckoned for KM-6 to follow as they raced to the elevator bank. She was with them when they saw two guards coming in their direction. A quick reversal revealed two more guards blocking the hall behind them.
KM-6 lunged for a door in the middle of the hall, and they followed her up a stairway leading to the roof. They heard the guards close at their heels, but KM-6 slammed the door, locking the dead bolt.
“Now we’re trapped up here,” Jack pointed out.
At almost the same instant a lightweight helicopter loomed up from behind the building. G-1 SECURITY was printed boldly on its side. “Stay where you are,” a voice from the helicopter boomed over an address system. “We will be landing. Be advised that we are authorized to carry and use weaponry.”
Jack swore. Kayla searched in every direction for an escape as the wind from the descending helicopter whipped up her hair.
KM-6 raced for the huge double helix at the center of the building and began to climb it. Her tangled hair had come free from the rubber band and danced around her face, blown by the helicopter.
She started to whistle.
Kayla was close enough to hear her despite the noise of the helicopter. It was the same hauntingly plaintive song Kayla had heard in her vision of KM-6.
The sky began to darken. Gazing up, Kayla saw that it was not clouds that were gathering in the sky above her.
It was birds.
A blanket of birds.
KM-6 was calling birds to create a barrier protecting them, making it impossible for the helicopter to land.
They remained on the roof, safe for the moment but not knowing what to do next. On the other side of the door someone began banging. How long would it take before they broke through?
The swing-lo suddenly rose and hovered next to the roof ledge, with Allyson at the controls. “Come on. Let’s fly,” she shouted.
KM-6 climbed down from the double helix when she saw the craft and joined them at the ledge wall. “Climb in,” Kayla urged her. She turned to Jack, who’d climbed in beside Allyson. “Will it hold all of us?”
“Let’s hope so,” he replied, extending a hand to KM-6 and then to Kayla. The swing-lo dipped precariously under their weight but stabilized.
Allyson sent the swing-lo forward. As they went, the craft slowly lost altitude. “We’re not going to make it over the wall,” she worried as it loomed into sight.
“It has to,” Kayla said. “Look!” Below them, Globalofficers were stationed by the wall. Three cars were parked and various guards were in position.
Allyson pounded at the buttons of the control panel, but the swing-lo continued to descend. The button on the cell phone clipped to her collar vibrated and she answered. “Bad!” she spoke to someone on the other end. “We’re about to crash into the inside of the wall by the front gate.”
But, amazingly, something prevented that from happening. Security guards were suddenly running for safety as debris and dust flew around them.
A tractor trailer had rammed right through the front wall!
Gunshots were fired as Allyson steered the swing-lo into the open trailer of the truck, sliding in for a landing and avoiding a collision with the cab end by inches.
“Aha!” Kayla exulted, hugging KM-6. “We’re birds. We always fly away!” KM-6 hunched her shoulders nervously but didn’t pull away from her.
Jack was pale and shocked. He barely noticed as Nate and Francis helped lift him from the swing-lo.
“Final level on the timing!” Kayla praised them. “Where did you guys come from?”
“That’s what I called to tell you,” Allyson said, climbing out of the swing-lo as the truck sped on. “Those days when Jack went out looking for the Drakians he left messages with Postmen — and you know the Postmen always come through. Nate, Francis, Dusa, and your friend Amber showed up right after you left. I was calling to tell you we were on our way to GlobalHelix in case you needed backup. When those G-1 guys surprised you, you left the line on your phone open and we could hear everything that was going on.”
“You know Dusa; when she puts the pedal to the metal, she gets there fast,” Nate said, with a laugh.
??
?When we arrived, Dusa drove the truck around the facility to the service entrance as if making a delivery. I figured you’d stashed the swing-lo somewhere nearby,” Allyson continued. Kayla could figure out the rest. Amber, Dusa, Nate, and Francis had driven back out beyond the wall to wait while Allyson flew the swing-lo to the roof to rescue them.
“How did you know how to fly it?” she asked Allyson.
“Jack showed me the other day in the yard,” she replied, smiling proudly.
Jack was slumped against the side of the truck, still ashen. “I hate heights,” he muttered.
Kayla went to his side and rubbed his arm affectionately. “You did it, though. You faced your worst fear.”
“Yeah, I guess so,” he agreed, looking a little happier. “Hey, pal — we did do it, didn’t we!”
“It’s too bad we won’t have access to that chip you swallowed,” she said. “At least not for a while.”
With a grin, he stuck out his tongue — and peeled off the chip.
After they left Dusa’s truck at a parking lot at Caltech, they walked back to Allyson’s apartment. Dusa explained that they’d volunteered to come to Santa Monica to drop the tattoo fakes and the GD marbles because they’d also wanted to check on Jack and Kayla. “We knew you were around Caltech but we didn’t know exactly where to find you until a Postman gave us Jack’s message. We came over as soon as we got it.”
KM-6 walked along with them, listening alertly but saying nothing. She seemed to have lost her fear of them.
As they climbed the steps to the apartment, Dusa explained that before coming to California, she and Amber had driven to Washington, DC, to join the rally around David Young’s hospital jail cell. He was no longer on suicide watch but seemed to be dying of some strange virus.
“We know what’s really wrong with him,” Allyson said, and revealed all they’d learned about the nanobots.
Dusa, Nate, Francis, and Amber were as amazed as Kayla, Jack, and Allyson had first been. “See? Gene knew,” Francis remarked sagely.
“The BC12 virus … that must be what’s wrong with David Young,” Amber guessed. “And Mfumbe, too.”
Kayla stopped in front of the apartment door. “Mfumbe?”
“We met him at the rally and brought him with us,” Dusa said. “He suddenly stopped being depressed, but he’s real sick, Kayla.”
Kayla was in the living room the moment Allyson unlocked the door. Mfumbe was asleep on the futon and she hurried to his side. His face glistened with sweat. He was much thinner than the last time she’d seen him. “We have to get him to a hospital,” she said.
“That wouldn’t do any good,” Dusa said. “They’re all G-1 run, and he’s on their list. If G-1 is trying to kill him, they’re not going to help him get better.”
Jack sat at the kitchen table staring at Allyson’s handheld computer screen. He was running the information he’d downloaded from the GlobalHelix computers and tapping his fingers on the table, deep in thought. “Those nanobots are the size of molecules, but they’re still robots, which means they’re computerized,” he said, his eyes still riveted to the screen.
Allyson came and sat beside him. “What are you getting at?”
“If I could find the algorithms that control the nanobots I could shut them down, maybe even make them short-circuit.”
“In everyone?” Allyson asked him.
“Well, they’re sent to individual bar code identities, but they emanate from a single computer program. If I could shut down that program it should make the nanobots in every identity shut down. But by the time I can figure out the algorithm codes, GlobalHelix will have blocks in place.”
A nursery song filled Kayla’s head, and she looked sharply to KM-6. Her eyes were closed as she rocked back and forth on a kitchen chair. Closing her own eyes, Kayla listened to the words of the song.
But they weren’t words.
KM-6 was singing her a nursery rhyme made up of numbers and letters, brackets, spaces, colons, and backslashes.
Kayla began to shout out what she was hearing, her eyes still closed, still concentrating.
“Algorithms!” she heard Allyson cry.
Jack jumped up as though he’d been shot from his chair, knocking it to the floor. “I don’t believe it!” he shouted. “It’s the algorithms. She’s got the secret algorithms! KM-6 is sending them to her!”
“Somebody get a pad!” Jack shouted, wildly searching for something to write on.
“I don’t have a pad!” Allyson said in a panicked voice.
“I’m writing already,” Amber shouted as she scribbled on a paper napkin with eyeliner. “I’ve got it all so far!”
Kayla continued to announce each piece of the algorithm as she received it from KM-6. Her heart pounded but she fought it down, needing to hear clearly what was coming into her head.
She remembered reading about certain types of people with autism who had a special ability to remember nearly unbelievable chains of numbers, dates, addresses, and the like.
KM-6 had grown up in a biotech facility. These were her nursery rhymes.
Finally, KM-6 stopped sending the codes and slumped in her chair. Kayla, too, felt drained of energy.
Jack ran to the computer on the kitchen table, typing in the characters Amber had written on napkins, paper, towels, old envelopes, and even her arm. “I think it’s working!” he shouted.
They all stared at him, breathless with anticipation.
“It looks like it’s shutting down,” he said again, his voice more confident as his certainty grew. “It’s working!”
They screamed with joy, hugging one another. Jack grabbed KM-6, swinging her in a circle. The girl didn’t seem to mind.
They had done it! They’d used the secret G-1 algorithms to shut down the entire behavior control program! Jack quickly sprang into action and put his own lock on the system so Global-1 couldn’t reactivate it.
Kayla glanced at Mfumbe on the futon.
He opened his eyes at the same moment and slowly smiled at her.
DAVID YOUNG LEAVES JAIL A WELL MAN AS LAST PROTESTER IS RELEASED
Washington, DC. November 8, 2025 — In a stunning recovery, David Young left his hospital room early this morning. Upon learning that the last protester arrested during the October 13 protest had been released, he got dressed and walked outside where he was met by the press and a throng of ever-growing supporters. He thanked the crowd for their faith in him and their many letters and cards. He also thanked whoever started the movement to send him fortune cookies with encouraging messages. “They helped me hang on in my darkest moments,” he said. “I read every one of them.”
He was joined by his father, Ambrose Young. “This is far from over,” Ambrose Young told the press.
AMBROSE YOUNG DROPS GLOBAL-1 BOMBSHELL
Washington, DC. November 12, 2025 — Today, Ambrose Young presented evidence to the United States Senate of a shocking plot by the multinational company Global-1 to control the citizens of the United States as well as other nations by the use of embedded nanotechnology. Citing proof from an undisclosed source, former Senator Young turned documents over to the Speaker of the House that detail the company’s program. The Global-1 plan has been in the works since the inception of the bar code tattoo. President Loudon Waters is mentioned as the vehicle by which Global-1 intended to implement universal compliance with the bar code. By day’s end, sixteen senators had called for impeachment proceedings to begin.
DR. SARAH ALAN HEADS MOVEMENT OF DOCTORS OFFERING FREE LASER TATTOO REMOVAL
New York, NY. November 30, 2025 — Dr. Sarah Alan is happy to be back in her office. She is even happier with the new tattoo-removing laser she’s purchased. In conjunction with a nationwide network of doctors working with and coordinated by Dr. Alan — Doctors of Compassion (DOC) — bar code tattoos are being removed from morning until late into the night. “Some people still think they’re cool and want to keep them,” Dr. Alan said. “That’s their right, but there’
s no more information stored in them other than the person’s name. As for the embedded nanorobotics, our panel of physicians has studied the issue and released a paper stating that we believe the nanos will disintegrate over a six-month period if they are not utilized. The representative from Global-1 confirmed our findings during last month’s Senate investigation.”
DAVID YOUNG ANNOUNCES PLANS FOR A PRESIDENTIAL RUN AS AN INDEPENDENT CANDIDATE
Washington, DC. December 31, 2025 — David Young announced today that he is throwing his hat in the ring and making a bid for the presidency in the upcoming special election scheduled for this March. Though he has many supporters from both parties, Young says he can be most effective as an Independent. “The many people in this country who have supported me have had enough of self-serving special interest groups,” he told the press today. Among his campaign promises, Young has vowed to work with other nations affected by the nanobiotech threat of the bar code tattoo. He also promises a special commission dedicated to addressing and righting wrongs perpetrated on citizens hurt by the bar code tattoos. In addition, he has promised a spate of new legislation aimed at protecting rights of individual privacy. “New technologies will always offer the greedy and power hungry new opportunities to oppress its citizenry. Advances in science must be made with due consideration. They can advance the health and well-being of all people, or they can enslave them. In a free society we must work together to make this a world where human dignity is the yardstick by which we measure progress.”
It gives me great pleasure
indeed to see the stubbornness of an
incorrigible nonconformist warmly acclaimed.
Albert Einstein
The world, which had been shut down, lost to them, was back. And yet it would never be the same to Kayla.