Barcodes in Red Side Story: Symbols of Surveillance and Control

What Barcodes Are in the World of the Novel {#what-barcodes-are-in-the-world-of-the-novel} Barcodes in Red Side Story take two distinct forms, and both are woven into the everyday texture of Chromatacian life long before their true purpose surfaces. The first is the human barcode: a unique set of fine lines growing out of the nail-bed of each person's index finger. Eddie Russett observes that these lines are double the quantity of a standard code, and that he once tried to decipher his own, arriving at a thirty-six-digit number that defied decoding. The novel's terminology links these markings to the concept of Taxa — the same category applied to animal barcodes — and the name