Little Bird was somewhere on that floor. Slick kept thinking of the tangle of thongs and bones that had hung on Bird's chest, feathers and rusty spring-wind watches with the hands all stopped, each one a different time... Stupid stringtown shit. But Bird wouldn't be around anymore. Guess I won 't be around anymore myself, he thought, leading Cherry down the shaking stairs. Not like before. There wasn't time to move the machines, not without a flatbed and some help, and he figured once he was gone, he'd stay gone. Factory wasn't ever going to feel the same again.