Ten: Flagged

In the morning, I lined up to receive a polystyrene foam cup of watery oatmeal and a cold slice of barely buttered bread for breakfast. I shuffled through another queue while I ate in order to sign myself out of the shelter and squelch my way to work. My shoes were still soaked. My clothes were still dripping. They'd barely dried overnight.

"You'll need someone you know on this side of the city - your employer or someone who can vouch for you, to register you with the military," the emergency volunteer worker told me. "Do you have someone who can do that?"

I nodded.

"I'll go to work and look for the boss."

"That would be best," the emergency worker told me and then fixed her attention on the next person in the queue behind me.

It was still bucketing rain. The freezing wind drilled the raindrops into me. My teeth wouldn't stop chattering. I felt like I was running on low battery. There was no energy to do more than splodge one step at a time through the mood appropriate rain. The only moving vehicles on the roads were army and emergency services vehicles. Despite the rain and situation, there were still a few people hurrying around. There weren't many despondent plodders like me seen around.

"Where are you going, Miss?" a soldier slowed his car to a crawl beside me and opened the window to shout out at me.

"To work," I replied in a glum voice and sneezed. "To find my boss and register as one of the recently homeless."

"Don't loiter on the streets then," the soldier warned me. "Get to where you need to go fast."

"Yes sir," I agreed and wiped my dripping nose. The soldier passed me a tissue but it got soggy before it even reached my nose. "Thanks."

Although useless, the gesture was appreciated.

Only Boss and Eleanor had come to the office. They had emailed everyone to stay safe at home until further notice. The only other workers who had come in were stranded, soaked and depressed people like me. The bunch of us exchanged glances and barely visible smiles. Katja, Priscilla and Maurie were among them.

A pair of soldiers sat at a desk entering the names and details that Boss and Eleanor had dug out of our employee files for us. One had wide nostrils and his name tag read X.Wheeler. The other soldier had a monobrow. His name tag read S.Stevens.

"You'll all be allocated a living space together in the Compound. It's only a few minutes drive from here," large nostrilled X.Wheeler said when he had finished entering my information into his laptop. I saw a red exclamation mark light up from the reflection in the window behind him when he processed my information. The soldier continued as if he hadn't noticed. "Walking distance is maybe twenty minutes from here. It's an old residential area that was meant to be pulled down and renovated but with this short notice, it's the best place for a lot of people to be moved to at short notice. The buildings are being checked as we speak to ensure they're still safe. You'll probably all be moved into the same residential building."

Through the reflection in the glass, I noticed that my name with a big red exclamation mark beside it had been allocated to a different block from my other workmates. I wasn't the only one who noticed. My workmates were slowly edging away from me and nudging each other. It created a sinking feeling in my gut. I had been singled out. Why? I hadn't done anything or met anybody.

Then I thought of the Bosky soldier from last night and the way he had saved me and held me in the train station. Had someone seen that? Had the army managed to obtain the surveillance from the train station already and seen everything that happened? Was I under suspicion of colluding with the Boskies because of that? If so, they'd done some pretty fast work.

"The Boskies wouldn't have been able to invade our country and take over half this city last night without local help. They must have already infiltrated us. If it weren't for the flash flooding last night, they might have been able to take the entire city," said X.Wheeler, glancing up at me from his seat and yet looking down at me over his hairy, flaring nostrils. All my colleagues looked at me with suspicion or glares.

It wasn't me. I wasn't a traitor. I hadn't done anything. Why were they all looking at me as if I was the enemy? Just because my name had been flagged as more suspicious didn't make me a spy. Truly.

"Everyone in the city and especially those from the other side of the city will be interviewed in due time. I would advise you all to act prudently. Military law has been passed as of eight o'clock this morning and confirmed traitors can be shot. In the afternoon, we will drive you all there to allocate your rooms. We'll do our best to get you some spare, dry clothes. Please stay here in your workplace until then. You may continue your usual work activities in the meantime," monobrowed S.Stevens said.

The soldiers left.