After the Breaking Moon, dusk became a universal warning for all living things without claws to seek shelter before the monsters emerged from their holes. There was no shame in running anymore. No pride to be lost at jumping when an unexpected noise rang out. People still conducted their lives, trying not to think about the horrors that had engulfed their former lives. A trickle of humanity went out to eat or worked at jobs they could ill afford to quit. Some children went to school where drills were conducted to teach them where to run if Half Breeds charged toward the playground. The rest sat behind bolted doors, praying. Rico had given up on anything as comforting as prayer. He sat inside the sloped building on the corner of Spring and Payne, hunched over the keyboard of one of many Vigilant computers, angling his head so the other nearby Skinners couldn’t easily hear him as he spoke into a hands-free phone receiver. Since the windows were all blacked out and barred, he watched the outside world through a small bank of monitors displaying feeds from cameras set up on posts, rooftops, and windowsills within three square blocks of his location.
