Water in Shaft 37

Every face looked exhausted and hollow, as though they were only copying the shape of order onto disaster. A woman in a white vest stepped forward. “You’re from the stadium? Register here.” “Register what?” Erin asked. “Names, count, symptoms, priority,” the woman said as if reading a script. “North District lost-zone intake. Transfer in forty minutes.” “Lost zone?” Lin caught the phrase. She froze, as if she had said too much, then corrected herself quickly. “Internal classification. Nothing else.” “It’s always something else,” Lena muttered. Lin flipped through the forms on the table and found the state emergency logo on the header. But there were no real medical contacts listed. Only a string of routing numbers.