That charge has changed polarity. The desolation remains. Now I can see no one because no one is there. The roads are not thronging, and there are no street parties out there at all, nor could there ever be again.
— Looking for Jake, by China Miéville
Why was I wandering alone in this city of the dead? Why was I alone when all London was lying in state, and in its black shroud? I felt intolerably lonely. My mind ran on old friends that I had forgotten for years. I thought of the poisons in the chemists' shops, of the liquors the wine-merchants stored; I recalled the two sodden creatures of despair, who, so far as I knew, shared the city with myself.
An abandoned city seems eerily still and quiet at first. Without any humans to torture, many machines simply lie still, like they used to when to in use before the satellite crashed. However, as soon as its devices detect the presence of humans, the city comes alive. Cars blow their horns and rev their engines, TVs in shop windows show horrific footage from war documentaries, street lights flash like strobes, and machines of all kinds shamble out of their hiding places...
— "Heavy Metal — Apocalypse", The End of the World: Revolt of the Machines
