Benito Juárez International Airport. Mexico City, Mexico.

It had been over an hour since the staff arrived.

Thomas sat with his tablet and checked things he had already confirmed.

Dr. Park had moved one of the chairs provided by the airport to face the lounge entrance and had not moved it back. She told herself it was so she could see the corridor clearly. Brenner was on his cot watching a movie on its holographic screen, though Thomas noticed he kept pausing it.

Marco was the one who actually talked. He had opened a channel to the base staff on his tablet and was passing the time asking what they were doing.

The base staff reported that the monitoring room was occupied. With the medical data analysts, the general physician on base, and the nurses all at their stations, waiting for the first volunteer data to arrive.

Then one of the base staff mentioned the closing of the bay area.

"After you left, it closed," she said.

Thomas looked up from his tablet.

"The ceiling panels sealed. The whole bay. Took about thirty seconds. Then it repressurised and gravity came back."

The on-site staff absorbed this in silence. Thomas glanced at the others, understanding that none of them had known and none of them had thought to ask whether it could.

He turned it over in his mind, then understood.

The volunteers would arrive through that bay. Some of them would arrive in the worst condition of their lives — post-transit, frightened, disoriented, having traveled further than their bodies had traveled in years. The first thing they encountered in a facility on the moon could not be vacuum requiring vac suits. It could not be cold and clinical and alien.

It had to be warm. It had to be breathable. It had to feel, as much as anything on the lunar surface could feel, like somewhere a person could simply arrive.

They also understood that it would be difficult for them to monitor a volunteers’ condition if they were in a vac suit. This was especially so for those in critical condition. It will go against everything Nova Technologies has stated about volunteer comfort in their announcements.

The staff understood this and lauded Nova Technologies action. They felt that the company was going above and beyond for humans, something that companies on Earth don’t care about.

Thomas nodded slowly. "Makes sense," he said.

"Does it also mean," Marco said quietly, "that they planned for that from the beginning? Not just the bay — all of it? That every detail we’ve been discovering was already decided before we got there?"

Nobody answered him, because the answer was obvious and saying it out loud felt like it would take longer to process than they had time for right now.

The staff continued waiting for the volunteers, doing whatever they could to distract themselves while they waited. They wanted to test the MedScan on themselves but considering that the medical data gotten by the device will be sent to the Base monitoring room in real time, so they decided against it.

They didn’t have to wait long as the first of the volunteer arrived shortly, being wheeled into lounge by a woman.

In the chair, a man sat with a blanket across his lap and his hands folded on top of it. He was looking at the room, paying careful attention to his surroundings the careful attention of someone taking inventory of a place they had been told about but had not yet seen.

Beside them, a younger man walked with both bags on his shoulders and his eyes moving the same way.

Thomas, Dr. Park, and Marco were on their feet before the wheelchair cleared the doorway.

From the cot, Brenner said, quietly but within range: "Volunteer eleven. I believe that’s mine."

Thomas turned his head and he saw on Brenner’s face, the expression of a man performing extreme restraint in the face of imminent victory.

"The title," he said. "I’m thinking of something tasteful. I’m The Greatest Zero Gravity Dunker in the world!."

Dr. Park kept walking toward the volunteer without breaking stride. "We haven’t confirmed his number yet."

"I have a feeling," Brenner said.

"Your feelings are historically unreliable," Marco said over his shoulder.

"My feelings landed me on the moon."

"36 people feelings landed them on the moon. That’s not the bar you think it is."

Thomas reached the wheelchair first and crouched slightly so he was at eye level with the volunteer.

"Good afternoon," he said. "My name is Thomas. I’m your nurse for the duration of the trial. You’ve arrived exactly on time."

He looked at the man, then at the woman beside him, then at the young man standing behind her with both bags.

Marco stepped up beside him and translated without being asked, the Spanish flowing from Thomas’s English in the same breath.

The man in the chair listened. He was looking at Thomas, not at Marco.

When Marco finished, the man spoke.

Marco listened, then turned to Thomas. "He says thank you. He says they were told this would be worth it."

Thomas held the man’s gaze. "Yes," he said. "It will be."

Marco translated. The man nodded and something in his posture changed.

His mother looked at Thomas, then at Marco. She spoke quickly, in a low voice.

"She says they’ve been ready since yesterday," Marco said. "She wants to know if they can get him comfortable."

"Of course," Thomas said, already moving toward the nearest cot. "Tell them we have everything they need."

Marco did as told.

Dr. Park ran the MedScan slowly from the crown of the volunteer’s head downward, the device reading in real time, the emitter walls around the cot pulling the data as it arrived.

The holographic display populated in clean sections.

{NOVA MEDICAL NANITES — VOLUNTEER INTAKE SCAN

Facility: Benito Juárez International Airport — Pre-Transit

VOLUNTEER IDENTIFICATION

Volunteer Number: 11

Name: Diego Alejandro Triminio

Age: 22

Sex: Male

Nationality: Honduran

Primary Language: Spanish

Translator Assigned: Marco Villanueva

PRIMARY CONDITION

Bilateral Transfemoral Amputation — Traumatic

Both lower limbs amputated above the knee

Cause: Gunshot wounds sustained during gang-related violence, San Pedro Sula, Honduras

Age at injury: 19

Time since injury: 3 years, 2 months

SECONDARY CONDITIONS

Chronic phantom limb pain — moderate to severe

Documented PTSD — trauma-related, violence exposure

Mild malnutrition — chronic, consistent with limited healthcare access

Iron deficiency anemia — untreated

CURRENT PHYSICAL STATUS

Cardiovascular: Functional. Resting heart rate elevated at 94 BPM, consistent with anxiety and chronic pain baseline.

Respiratory: Clear. No abnormality detected.

Neurological: Sciatic nerve termination at bilateral amputation sites — significant nerve damage at both residual limbs. Phantom pain signals active at time of scan.

Musculoskeletal: Upper body intact. Residual limb tissue at both sites shows scarring consistent with traumatic amputation and limited post-surgical rehabilitation. No prosthetic use — none available.

Wound status: Both residual limbs healed. No active infection. Tissue quality below optimal due to prolonged inadequate nutrition and no rehabilitative support.

Weight: 54 kg — below healthy range for height and age.

PAIN STATUS

Chronic pain score at intake: 7/10

Primary source: Phantom limb pain, bilateral

Secondary source: Residual limb pressure sensitivity

PSYCHOLOGICAL STATUS

PTSD diagnosis confirmed — documented by referring clinician

Current anxiety markers: Elevated

Trauma history: Witnessed violence, sustained life-altering injury, three-year period of inadequate care and limited economic mobility post-injury

DOCUMENTATION STATUS

Medical records: Complete and verified

Identity documentation: Yet to be assessed.

Consent documentation: Yet to be signed

Emergency contact: Rosa Elena Triminio — Mother — Present on-site

Guardian/Caretaker traveling: Rosa Elena Triminio — Mother

NANITE DEPLOYMENT ELIGIBILITY

Cleared for transport: Yet to be assessed.

Physical stability for transit: Yet to be assessed.

Deployment authorization: Yet to be accessed.

INTAKE NOTES

Volunteer presents alert and oriented. Cooperative. Limited eye contact consistent with documented PTSD profile. No acute medical concern at time of intake. Chronic pain active. Emotional state: contained, with visible effort.

Recommend: Translator present for all interactions throughout transit and initial orientation period. Psychological support flagged as priority track upon arrival.

Scan completed. Data transmitted to Lunar Base Sanctuary Monitoring Room in real time.

Monitoring active.}

Thomas looked at the display, then at Diego.

Diego was watching the holographic wall from the cot. He could not read the English text, but he could see his own name at the top of it, and the image of himself that the MedScan had rendered.

It was a clean skeletal and tissue map showing his body exactly as it was.

***

The volunteer medical information was forwarded to the monitoring room on the Base, and it populated the massive holographic screen.

The staff in the room got to work immediately.