Summary

As the story opens, Kayla Reed is at school with her guidance counselor. She has just learned she isn't likely to qualify for a scholarship to an art school because her computer grades are too low. Kayla is only half listening but gets the full impact of the information. She slips into a vision in which she's with a crowd of people headed for a large city. Kayla's concern over the scholarship is overridden - to some degree - by the fact that her family life has deteriorated since her parents accepted the bar code tattoo. Kayla asks the counselor if he's felt concern over the tattoo she sees on his wrist and he seems perplexed, saying it's a matter of convenience. Every student is supposed to get the tattoo on their seventeenth birthday.

Kayla attends Winfrey High School. When she leaves the counselor's office...