Ahora May enters the radio room with Sgt Sgt Dunn and Cpl Bawer. The morgue technician remains behind at the collapsed bridge, while the pump station groans around them.
The rear door opens onto the flood-control yard. Emergency lamps glaze service vehicles and stacked barriers, while a gate overlooks channels swollen with brown, churning water.
Sgt Dunn limps to a wall board and studies a grease-marked maintenance roster. One recent notation names a route through the east valve sector, followed by his wife's surname.
Sgt Dunn
This is her route. She was assigned to the east sector after the first pump failure.
His hand tightens on the roster. Beyond the yard gate, warning lamps flicker across the swollen channels, and something heavy strikes metal beneath the service platform.
Cpl Bawer
Sergeant, we keep the patrol together. We check the radio, then move as one. No one crosses that yard alone.
The radio console crackles without forming words. Dunn looks from the notation to the gate, Bawer steadies herself against the console, and the next decision waits with Ahora May.
Find Dunn's wife