Dalan met Yan and Wei at the records annex before dawn. The archivist brought out the red-sealed schedule and set it beside two empty ledgers.
“There are three assignments without completion notes,” he said. “I can search the payroll index, but it is kept separately.”
Wei pointed to the first line. “Western furnace.”
“That crew was sent to replace a regulator. The second went to a relay tower outside the capital. The third has no destination in the schedule.”
“Do the names survive?” Yan asked.
Dalan checked the index and found the western crew leader and two assistants. The relay tower roster listed four more. The third assignment contained only a dispatch date and a blank where the destination should have been.
Ning’s message arrived from the lower clinic. Wei read it aloud: families of two missing crews had come in with transfer orders placing them inside registered zones. Ning asked whether their workers had been reported dead, relocated, or still missing.
Yan wrote back at once. “Tell them they can choose a shelter and receive medicine whether or not they speak with us. Preserve the names privately. We don’t have enough to answer their question yet.”
