Juno brought the failed drill’s patient card back with a strip of colored cloth tied to it.
The cloth did not mean the simulated patient was safer. It represented a message small enough to survive when the exercise network failed: stop sending people to this entrance until a keeper confirmed a place. The card still carried the need for power and the accompanying relative. Tessa checked both before agreeing to another attempt.
They had spent the interval walking the sightlines rather than polishing the proposal. From the junction, a signal on the shelter roof disappeared behind a chimney. A signal at the outer approach could be seen, but only if someone was assigned to keep the view clear. The medic’s first sketch had changed twice before a crew could read it from where the decision would be made.
Printed maps now showed controlled waiting points and the staffed desks authorized to confirm a diversion. Each copy carried a revision time. The fallback carried fewer kinds of information than the radio plan. It could close an entrance, direct a crew to hold and request a runner. It could not list every patient’s needs on a piece of cloth.
Rook read the signal key at the observer rail.
