Kayla Reed

She is sixteen as the story opens and has just learned that she's going to be denied a scholarship to an art school she'd hoped to attend. When Kayla turns seventeen, the age everyone is to submit to a bar code tattoo that will provide extensive identification, she dreads giving in to the tattoo even before her birthday. Kayla has seen others experience difficulty after having the tattoo and comes to realize there's something ominous about the tattoo and the information it contains. Kayla is intrigued when she discovers a group of students objecting to the tattoos and finds herself caught up in the fears permeating this group. Kayla's mother soon reveals that babies born to parents with undesirable traits or having unstable medical histories are quietly killed in the hospital where she works. Babies that are chosen to survive are given drugs to enhance their vision...