In the near future, Kayla finds herself running for her life when she refuses to get the mandatory bar code tattoo on her seventeenth birthday--a decision that renders her a social outcast and places her family in grave danger. The bar code tattoo. Everybody's getting it. It will make your life easier, they say. It will hook you in. It will become your identity. But what if you say no? What if you don't want to become a code? For Kayla, this one choice changes everything. She becomes an outcast in her high school. Dangerous things happen to her family. There's no option but to run for her life. Individuality vs. conformity. Identity vs. access. Freedom vs. control. The bar code tattoo.