Free Flowertown by S. G. Redling

of the containment fence around the east end of Flowertown and stopped, hoping for a news bulletin, but it was only another cop show using the threat of contamination for some artificial thrills.
    She thought of trying to reach Bing on the power station’s landline. Maybe her friend’s paranoia was getting to her, maybe she just didn’t want to get Guy in trouble for leaving a civilian in a secure area, but she couldn’t bring herself to pick up the receiver, much less dial her friend’s number. Police sirens started up outside the window, and the red and blue flashing lights illuminated the room enough for her to pull her pants on and make sure she was leaving nothing behind. Guy would no doubt be pissed that she had disobeyed his order to stay put, but locked in a power station twenty feet from an explosion didn’t strike Ellie as an evening well spent. Plus she wanted to find Bing. If anyone knew what was going on tonight, he would.
    Rumors flew as people shouted to each other on the smoke-filled street. Ellie ducked her head and pushed through the crowds. From what she could gather, it sounded like nobody had been hurt in the depot blast. No ambulances had arrived, although one angry cluster on the cornerof Sixth Street insisted that the ambulances had all been called to a different blast, that the people on “the low end” of Flowertown were somehow less important than those injured on “the high end.” Ellie didn’t bother to correct them. There were only three ambulances in Flowertown. With three blasts in the zone, odds were all three trucks were busy. She knew that the rescue workers and military personnel were all trained EMTs. It was the sort of multi-tasking required for work in the quarantine zone.
    A military blockade stopped Ellie at the corner of her block. Two army soldiers with gas masks and guns stopped her and everyone around her, while a bullhorn ordered everyone within earshot to stay where they were with their hands in plain sight. Yellow emergency lights flashing from a Feno security truck were the only illumination; the streetlights and all the windows on the surrounding blocks were dark. The smell of smoke and burning rubber put a bitter taste in her mouth, and Ellie had to blink back tears from the noxious fumes. All around her people shouted up to the darkened windows above, ignoring the orders from the soldiers to remain quiet. Three times Ellie got jostled hard enough to make her stumble, and it wasn’t until she felt her shoulder being jerked hard enough to bring her to her knees did she realize a soldier was screaming at her.
    “What is your business here?” It was hard to make out his words behind the gas mask, and the flashing yellow lights created a surreal strobe effect in the reflection of his goggles. “Tell me your business here!”
    Ellie pulled her arm free of his grasp and tried to tell him that she lived on the block he had barricaded, but as she spoke, the bullhorn voice announced an immediatecurfew for all residents. Every time she tried to speak over the sirens and the shouting, the bullhorn would cut her off, repeating the command for all residents to return to their apartments. People surged around her, trying to push past her, past the soldiers, past the barricades in both directions. There seemed to be no consensus of direction. People were just moving. The soldier grabbed Ellie’s elbow once more, squeezing it hard enough to hurt, as if she were the ringleader of the chaos. It seemed he believed if he could control her, he could control the madness around him. Finally Ellie leaned in close enough to shout in his ear.
    “My apartment!” She pointed past him to East Fifth Towers and then back to herself.
    He shouted something back at her, his grip on her elbow making her fingers ache, but all she could make out was “identification.” It was absurd. The only proof of her address was on her medical tags, and those would have to be scanned electronically. If