Chapter 30Softly spoken words, impending doom, the radio could be heard in bars that had never closed, the owners sprawled out upon their backs in upstairs rooms. Stout and unaccustomed to being hastened, Bear #020 struggled to keep up with his partner’s longer legs as she hurried through the streets, the only sound being automated voices, the occasional conversation of the living, and the chime of traffic lights.
Now and again, a car would pass them, or an empty bus; sometimes, they would see faces pushed up against the glass of windows in shops and houses, eyes staring at them in wild panic as if the outside was no longer a safe place to be, as if inside they could hide from the gradual change taking place in the world.
The radio continued its low, understated warnings, a single word r
