Dear Kayla,
I hope you are well and that this letter finds you. Sorry for not keeping in touch. It’s been difficult to reach you for reasons you know better than anyone.
I am writing you now with sad news. August is dead.
It seems unbelievable that someone so full of life would kill himself, but I’m afraid that’s exactly what he did. I’m writing because I was sure that you and Mfumbe would want to know. He told me he had become very close to you during the time the three of you spent together.
He and I often wrote, and he kept me up to date on what you were doing. My last letter from him was not like him at all. It was right after he had come back from the march in Washington. It was full of intense sadness. He was down on himself for having given in and gotten the bar code. If I’d been there I’d have reminded him that he had the courage to burn it off, but I’m so far away here in California. Kayla, was there something wrong that he didn’t tell me? I know that whole business about trying to contact aliens through telepathy was kind of nuts, but it was hopeful. Augie was always hopeful. That was one of the things I loved about him. I guess there’s not much else to say. If you’re ever in Pasadena, come by. Just ask anyone how to get to Caltech. Look up Dr. Gold’s office in the science department and you’ll find me in the research area. I’m almost always there.
I hope you and Mfumbe are well. I admire your courage in continuing to fight this insidious threat to our freedom and dignity as people. It can’t be easy. In my research I’m discovering that things are going on that you wouldn’t believe. Nanotechnology has had many biological applications since the beginning of the century, but the stuff going on now has the potential to be even more threatening to our freedoms than the bar code tattoo. Better not say any more than that, even in a letter. Come if you can. I’d love to talk to you in person.
Allyson
PS: There are billboards on the freeways out here that show a girl who looks just like you loving the bar code tattoo. I have faith that it’s just a digital mock designed to be a mind freak for all the people who’ve read about you. I’d give money that Nedra is behind it. Those of us who know you don’t believe it.
DECODE LEADER ON SUICIDE WATCH IN DC PRISON
Washington D.C. October 19, 2025 — In a shocking new development, former U.S. Senator David Young has been placed on suicide watch, according to prison authorities. Senator Young remains in his DC Global-1 prison cell, refusing to leave despite the fact that his bail of one million dollars has been raised. Senator Young’s many supporters in the organization known as Decode, which he founded last year to work for reverses in bar code tattoo legislation, have donated nearly the required amount. Senator Young’s father, retired Senator Ambrose Young, former head of the Domestic Affairs Committee, had promised to provide any remaining funds required for his son to make bail.
Senator David Young has vowed to stay in jail until every protester taken into custody during the mass protest of the bar code tattoo in Washington earlier this month is released. These quickly constructed prisons (which have come to be called Waters Sheds after President Loudon Waters) currently hold 300 remaining protesters whose bar code tattoos reveal information thought to make them a threat to national security.
Late last night, prison doctors said Senator Young became despondent, refusing to eat or drink anything. Guards intercepted a letter he was penning to his Decode followers urging them to give up the fight against the bar code tattoo since it was hopeless.
“He may simply have begun facing reality,” says Global-1 warden Garth Webb Rush. “Global-1 provides the bar code as a service to American citizens to facilitate and help organize their daily lives. To contend that there’s anything sinister about the bar code tattoo is pure paranoia. I say Senator Young has finally come to his senses.”
A source inside the prison told this reporter that Senator Young’s despondent state came on him suddenly: “One minute he was energized for the struggle, the next, he was ready to give up. It was like someone threw a switch inside his head and all the fight went out of him. He quickly fell into a slump.”
Ambrose Young, who has been staying at an undisclosed hotel near the prison, feels that the fact that his son was forcibly bar-coded against his will the night of the arrests is at the heart of this depression: “Seven hundred people were bar-coded by force on the night of the arrests. That is a violation that would depress anyone.”
Medical staff members treated Senator Young for a persistent hoarseness in his throat before deciding that the condition was an imagined one. “He was very agitated, claiming that his voice was not working correctly,” reported a Global-1 doctor. “It was clear to me that he had become delusional when he implied that receiving the bar code tattoo had somehow impaired his ability to speak. Of course, I suppose he could have been speaking metaphorically, but I didn’t get that impression. He seemed to feel he was suffering from an actual medical condition brought on by the bar code tattoo.”
Global-1, working in close conjunction with the administration of its former chief of operations, President Loudon Waters, defended its actions, arguing that the bar code is law. “If a person doesn’t pay his or her taxes, you make that person comply,” said President Waters. “If a person does not get the bar code tattoo as dictated by the law of the land, that person must be made to comply with the law.” President Waters said this at the airport as he embarked in his private jet for his vacation home on Grand Cayman Island.
Kayla sat beside Jack the next day as they blasted across the desert. “We’re heading back in the direction the old crackpot pointed to,” he told her. “I’ve spotted some tire tracks. I don’t know — it’s something to follow, anyway.”
“Okay.” Kayla’s mind was far away, trying to sort out all she’d learned.
August, dead? Like Allyson, she couldn’t believe it.
Guilt gnawed at her like a hungry animal. He had been such a close friend to them in the mountains. She should have searched for him after the Global-1 attack in Washington. She’d simply assumed that because he’d been seen leaving the city he was all right. But he might not have been. And where did he have to go to? The trip back to the Adirondacks would have been difficult, especially if he’d been injured.
“Dusa told me about your friend,” Jack said as he drove. “I was sorry to hear it.”
“Thanks. This bar code tattoo has brought so much suicide and death with it.”
He nodded. “And now David Young is in the pits. Drakians consider his methods a little passive, but we admire him. He’s a stand-up guy. I’d hate to see him cave.”
“Or worse,” Kayla added.
“Yeah, or worse,” he agreed somberly.
She’d cried after she received Allyson’s letter. Dusa had been comforting, staying with her until she fell asleep from exhaustion and grief.
She’d dreamed of her parents who had died because of the bar code. Amber’s mother, who was now near death in a hospital because of it, was also in the dream. Gene Drake joined them, his bullet wounds still oozing blood. He was walking with August. It wasn’t a clear dream but hazy, full of ghostly figures who all murmured unintelligibly at the same time, making a maddening babble in her ear.
She’d awakened full of anxiety, remembering what Dusa had told her about the birth of KM-1-6. Had her mother not actually been her real mother?
Was her father really an older brother?
Had her original name been a code that sounded more like a designation of some kind — KM-1-6?
Fear had threatened to paralyze her until she recalled her fire walk. If she could conquer that terror, she could walk through anything. Steeled by the memory, she had gotten up, determined to find Amber. She wasn’t going to let another tragedy occur because she hadn’t taken the time to search.
A large blue tent appeared in the distance. She suddenly sat forward, diverted from her ruminations, alert with interest. Jack steered the ship in the direction of the tent. As they closed in
on it, it appeared to be big enough to hold six or seven people. It seemed so bizarre for it to be there, with nothing else around it.
The craft whirred to a stop in front of the tent. Jack and Kayla looked at each other, wondering what to do next. “If she really did just start walking, maybe someone here would have seen her,” Kayla speculated.
“We should be careful,” Jack cautioned as he climbed out. “We don’t know who we’ll find in there.”
At that moment, the flap of the tent parted and a young woman about seventeen years old emerged. It took Kayla a few seconds to recognize her old friend, she was so changed. Amber’s hair, once bleached silver and always worn in meticulously sculpted curls, was now wild and brown, and she had become excessively thin. But her distinctive huge blue eyes blinked into the sunlight, and her familiar smile spread across her face.
“Amber!” Kayla shouted, nearly tumbling out of the craft.
“Kayla? Oh, my God! It’s you!”
Kayla grabbed her childhood friend in a tight hug. Tears of joy brimmed in her eyes.
When Amber pulled out of the hug, her face was also wet with happy tears. “How did you find me?” she asked. “And leave it to you to show up in a spaceship. What’s the deal with this?”
“It’s an individual airborne transport,” Kayla said, repeating Jack’s words. “It’s the next big thing.” Kayla explained how they’d met with Aunt Emily, who’d pointed them in the right direction. She then told Amber how she’d driven out west with Dusa and how she was staying with the Drakians.
“Drakians!” Amber cried incredulously. “Do you actually know Drakians? I’ve heard of them. They sound so crazy. They worship that nutty neighbor of yours or something like that.”
“We don’t worship him, but we try to follow his example,” Jack explained.
“What? You stink of Chinese cigarettes and scream at dogs?” Amber asked skeptically.
Kayla had missed the way Amber’s outspokenness sometimes belied her warm heart. Even when they didn’t agree, which was often, she always knew Amber was on her side.
“Drakians are active against the bar code tattoo,” Kayla explained, “the way Gene Drake was active. He was strange, I know, but he took a stand.”
“Whatever you say,” Amber gave in, rolling her eyes. “You’ve always had a soft spot for oddballs and activists.” Amber had never wanted her to get involved with Decode or the rebellion. Kayla thought it was ironic, considering how the bar code tattoo had ruined the Thorn family. The genetic imperfections revealed in their tattoos had sent them spiraling quickly to the bottom of society.
Amber threw her arms around Kayla again. “I’m just so happy to see you.”
If Amber had been depressed, Kayla didn’t see any sign of it now, though her expression grew serious. “Speaking of oddballs — you have to meet the lunatic who owns this tent. And there’s something else. You’re not going to believe it. I couldn’t. But you’ve been on my mind all the time lately, and you’ll know why the minute you go inside.”
“What?” Kayla asked.
“See for yourself.” Amber gestured for them to follow her into the tent. Food and water were laid out on a blanket by a sleeping bag, on which a teenaged girl in camouflage-print shorts and a black sleeveless T-shirt lay sleeping on her back. Elaborate, colorful, swirling tattoos were wrapped around her legs, arms, and chest. Her T-shirt had risen, exposing her midriff, which was also completely covered with colorful ink designs. Even the sides of her neck and face boasted tattooed adornments. There were designs of every kind: exotic birds, dragons, chains, barbed wire, waves, flowers dripping from heavy vines, angels, devils, daggers dripping blood, the moon and sun, skeletons, fire. And it all led to the black lines of her bar code tattoo, emblazoned on her forehead.
Kayla stared at the sleeping figure, fascination mingled with confusion, even as some inner voice screamed at her to run.
It was not the macabre tattoo designs that held her so rapt. Another person might have missed the resemblance in the dazzle of vivid art surrounding the facial features. The dyed neon blue hair and heavily lined eyes could easily distract someone less intimately acquainted with the face than Kayla was. But she knew her own face well, and she saw it again facing her.
“It’s you, isn’t it?” Jack whispered, his voice filled with the same stunned amazement she felt.
Kayla nodded.
“He’s final level,” Amber whispered, once she and Kayla were again outside the tent.
“I know,” Kayla agreed. Jack was handsome — spectacularly so — a fact that wouldn’t be lost on Amber. But Kayla had other concerns at the moment.
“Listen,” she said. “I need you to tell me how you got here and who this person is.”
“I don’t really know who she is. After Mom tried to burn off her tattoo and landed in the hospital, they held her there, saying she had TMP. So it was just Tarantula Woman and me — together and hating it. You can imagine — I was totally banged out. All I could do was take off or I would have totally lost it and become as freaky as she was.”
Kayla nodded; her own harrowing meeting with Aunt Emily had made Amber’s point easy to understand. “How did you wind up here?” she asked.
“There was no one I could call to come get me,” Amber explained. “So I just grabbed as much water as I could and headed into the desert. I walked until I conked out. When I woke up I was in this tent with Kendra. She found me and dragged me in. She lives out here alone. I’ve been with her ever since, about two weeks now.”
“Haven’t you noticed something about her?”
Amber’s blue eyes widened as she nodded. “Of course I have! I’m not blind. That’s why I said you’ve been on my mind lately. Remember? When I woke up in her tent at first I even thought it was you — that you’d gone completely wacko and covered yourself with all those tattoos. If you erased all that tattoo stuff, she could be your sister.”
“Only I don’t have a sister!” Kayla told Amber about meeting Kara and about Kara’s vision of the palm reader who looked just like both of them. Then she recalled the frightening vision of the raving person in the desert. “I think that could have been Kendra,” she said.
“It sure sounds like it was her,” Amber agreed. “She’s one sick ticket, but she has a reason to be.”
“What’s her deal?”
Before Amber could answer, Jack appeared at the tent flap. “Both of you should get out of the heat,” he advised.
They followed him inside, where Kendra still slept. “Kendra is writing a book about her life,” Amber told them in a whisper. “It’s some story, though I’m not sure if it’s true or if she’s making it all up. I think she wants me here so she can tell me what’s happened to her.”
“That’s insane. Why are you staying here?” Kayla asked.
Amber’s eyes widened, as if to say that the answer to that question should be obvious. “There are miles of endless nothing out there. I have no money and no family that’s still functioning. Where else am I going to go? It’s not like I have a single friend.” She paused, tilting her head thoughtfully. “It’s kind of ironic — don’t you think? — that the only person resembling a friend I wind up with out here is a twisted version of you, my best friend. Life is weird.”
“I can’t argue with that,” Jack put in with a sardonic laugh.
“Well, now I’m here. You’re coming with us,” Kayla told Amber firmly.
Amber smiled at her and nodded. “I’ve never tried to leave, so I don’t know how Kendra would feel about it. I’m not her prisoner or anything.” A puzzled expression came over her. “At least I don’t think I am. It’s possible, though. I guess I should wait for Kendra to wake up to say good-bye. It would be only decent since she did save my life — crazy or not.” She picked up a computer notebook that lay on the ground near Kendra and handed it to Kayla. “This is her story. I don’t think she’d care if you read it, since she lets me see it. She works on it all night sometimes. That’s
why she’s sleeping now.”
Kayla switched on the notebook. The rectangular screen glowed to life as she sat on the blanket beside Jack where, together, they began reading it.
The Bizarre Story of Kendra Blake, the Avenging Spirit of the Desert
From the time of my birth on April 16, 2008, in Salt Lake City, Utah, I was aware that I was a freaked off-shoot of the human strain. Unlike those around me. What else would explain the howling I’ve been told I incessantly inflicted on my devout Mormon parents? I suppose it was this assault on their ears that set them against me from the start. Other children stayed away as well, sensing I was not one of them.
Nobody likes me. Everybody hates me. I think I’ll eat some worms. Big ones! Small ones! All kinds of different ones! Ones that squiggle and squirm!
As a young child I was excruciatingly aware of their eyes boring into my mind day and night, attempting to gaze into the depths of my thoughts in a futile attempt to know me. As if anyone could know me. I felt them, though, like fingers attempting to probe my psychic depths. Eventually I could bear their maddening stares no longer. Early one Sunday morning, I spread gasoline on the living room floor and tossed a lit match into it as I walked out the front door.
Fire! I bid you to burn!
I stood outside and watched. So pretty!
Shine, little glowworm, glimmer, glimmer.
My goal had been freedom, absolute autonomy. Instead, I was tossed into the Global-1 Center for Pediatric Rehabilitation.
I was seven.
The team of G-1 doctors and research scientists tried to conceal their glee at my arrival, covering it with murmurs of concern couched in pseudoscientific jargon, not realizing that I was wildly perceptive and heard the cackling of manic victory just beneath their facade of therapeutic crap. I had stumbled into their clutches and they were ecstatic.