Tessa did not ask the wards who could be evacuated. She asked what each person would need in order to move without making the danger worse.
The difference changed the answers. A patient who could not walk might travel well with a supported cart. Someone who could stand might deteriorate during a jolting drive. A receiving bed without the right equipment was not a destination. By the end of the first round, the director’s board had three groups and more conditions than empty spaces.
Eli carried supplies between them. He had no inherited role on the roster. The clinician who had arranged his independent reassessment asked him to keep the appointment despite the activity. It would take place during the depot preparations, away from any collapsing structure. He said he would come. The promise felt almost indecent while other people’s bodies were being discussed in urgent intervals, but an emergency was exactly where another casual exception would become hardest to see.
Tessa described the depot threat as credible and unconfirmed. She used the same words in the wards, with relatives, and when an Aegis medic asked whether the hospital was announcing an attack. Equipment and a schedule created a foreseeable hazard. The source of that hazard and the intention behind it remained under inquiry.
