The Bar Code Tattoo by Suzanne Weyn

attention.”
    “That’s not true. She was real,” Kayla insisted. “She told me to remember the white face. Does that mean anything to any of you?”
    They glanced one to the other, then shook their heads. “No,” said August, “but maybe we should remember it, just in case we need to know it later on.”
    “That’s crazy. She didn’t see anybody,” Nedra insisted.
    “How do you know Kayla didn’t meet her?” Mfumbe argued with Nedra. “The Adirondacks is resistance central. Some of those groups are nutty, walking around the woods with machine guns, or trying to contact passing spaceships. But it’s the center of everything. If you need to know something about the bar code resistance, eventually you have to touch base in the Adirondacks.”
    “You know,” August said, “now that you mention the Adirondacks … I want to talk to you guys about something. I mean … I don’t want to talk about this, because I hope this doesn’t happen, but I think we have to….” He breathed deeply, as if to steady his nerves. “What if this all starts to go down badly? It could, you know.”
    “What do you mean?” Zekeal asked.
    “Say Dave Young can’t make a difference and Global-1, or the government or whoever, starts coming after resisters,” August said.
    “I don’t think that will happen,” Allyson replied.
    “Okay … I hope you’re right, but if it does, I think we should have a plan,” August said. “Someone to contact or someplace to meet.”
    “What about the Adirondacks?” Mfumbe suggested. “It would be a good place. You could follow the Superlink straight up. Eventually you’d run into other people who would be sympathetic to you. It wouldn’t be too hard to find help.”
    “If it’s so easy, then Global-1 could find you, too,” Nedra pointed out.
    “The Adirondacks are huge,” Zekeal said. “They wouldn’t find you that easily. But, for the same reason, we’d never find each other. We’ve got to have a specific spot.”
    Kayla thought about the place where she’d just been. Eutonah had said she’d need to find it. Would she someday meet this group there? Was her future already that intertwined with theirs?
    “I’ll get some maps,” August volunteered, “and then we can pick a place to meet.”
    “August,” Allyson said abruptly. “Is there any more space available in the ’zine?”
    He opened his ’zine files and checked. “I could probably piece together a column or so. Why?”
    “When I was using the helmet, I got into a San Francisco website where they were discussing Tattoo Gen,” she said.
    “I’ve heard of that,” Mfumbe said. “What did they say about it?”
    “What is it?” Kayla asked.
    “It’s a gung-ho youth group funded by Global-1,” Allyson explained. “They’re very into the bar code — a tattoo pride kind of thing.”
    “That’s sick,” Zekeal said.
    “It might be sick, but it’s real. The San Francisco group was saying that they’re very open in the Bay Area,” Allyson reported. “They wear these bar code T-shirts and highlight their tattoos in fluorescent colors. Lately, gangs of them have been wearing a red jumpsuit uniform and beating up anyone who’s not coded.”
    “Is anyone doing anything to stop them?” Mfumbe asked.
    “If they are, I haven’t heard about it. They said that here in the east, Tattoo Gen is much more undercover. They have a mission to seduce kids into getting the bar code. If they see someone who’s undecided, they befriend them and try to talk the person into it.”
    “That’s so low,” Kayla said.
    Allyson nodded. “I’d like to write an article in the ’zine exposing the group.”
    “No one will believe you,” Nedra argued. “I’m not sure if I even believe you. I’ve never seen one of them.”
    Allyson sighed, exasperated. “That’s the point, Nedra. You’re not supposed to see them. They’re undercover — at least on the East Coast.”
    “I don’t believe it,” Nedra