Two searches, the same drones and crew, opposite conditions. In one the network dies and the work falls onto the drone and the truck. In the other it holds and the work climbs to a shared edge between three agencies. You run both, you watch what moving the work costs you, and you watch the one part of the system that never shows up on a dashboard.
You are running the search from the command truck. A hiker is overdue, the light is going, and the temperature is falling toward the range where an injured person stops being able to keep warm.
A wildfire took the valley's cell tower this afternoon. There is no signal out, so there is no cloud: no large models, no shared maps, no second opinion from anywhere upstream. The only computers left in this search are the ones parked at the trailhead, a few drones and one truck.
So the work goes to them. Reading heat, watching each aircraft's own health, holding a position, ranking what is worth a second look. All of it now runs on the drones and the truck, because there is nowhere else to run it.