I look at her incredulously. She gives me a brief smile; her face seems to light up in a warm glow, maybe a hint of affection. I'm relieved, it reminds me that we are or had been more than just colleagues. "Isn't that what the Emoto guy said?" she says. I guess she's right.

I put on my sunglasses. The world takes on a darker hue: grey and brown. Other colours seem to wash out like dyes bleeding from a bad laundry load. It had happened a few days ago when I accidentally washed Shizuka's blouse with the rest of the clothes. It was one she always washed by hand. But I had forgotten. She seemed to heave a sigh then, throwing out her blouse without saying anything else. I fix my sunglasses. It's not bright enough to truly need them. But this is worth a gamble.

So we straighten our suits, step out from behind the alcove and into the open. We don't attract much attention at first, until we start approaching the crowd that had been gathering. There's the line of suits, and then there are bystanders who had either received word or were passing by, stopping for curiosity's sake. There's eerily no sound whatsoever. No one is speaking, no one is trying to bypass the blockade. It's as if they are all listening intently to something we can't.

My heart is pounding in my ribcage and my hands are sweating. I swallow twice. I focus my attention on the confident sway of Shizuka's skirt.

Once we get close, she pushes through the observers into the line. That's when we begin to get long looks: I can see their gazes traveling up and down our bodies, in scrutiny. They might be wondering who we are or if they had seen us before. Or if our suits are clean and fresh enough, counting wrinkles in the fabric. After all, we had walked for kilometers and climbed a brick wall. But no one says anything.

They are all watching as we make our way along the line, towards the end, where there is a small gap of a car's width before reaching the other side of the road. At the head of this line is a rather tall, pleasant looking young lady, resembling a flight attendant rather than a demonstrator. She has high cheekbones and a small nose. Her posture is upright, all around perfect, albeit a little stiff. She's wearing glasses. Maybe she had been a flight attendant after all.

We keep our pace robotic and slow, shoulders level, without any extra gestures. She barely glances at us as we fall into line in beside her, shoulder to shoulder. With our addition, the curb is just a bit more than a foot to my left. We are just short of making it across the road.

I feel their attention dwindle and fade away from us, like heat from a fire as it withers into embers. I realize I had been holding my breath and exhale. I inhale once. The air is still cold, but not as cold as before. The sun is high in the sky, though partially invisible. It must be nine by now.

I'm not sure how we could leave the line once we've joined it, but Shizuka gives no answer. She looks as well-groomed as before, as if she never sweats or her hair never tangles in disarray. Even when we had sex, she hadn't perspired, her hair was in order.

There is a man walking towards us now, from the direction of the crowd milling about at the beginning of the line.

I stiffen and Shizuka turns her head placidly.

"What are your names?" He has a clear Kansai accent. He stops just shy of us.

"Hamada," she says without batting an eye.

"And you?" He looks to me. He is heavyset, quite burly and has a thick brow, creases forming on his forehead.

"Takagi," I say the first surname that comes to mind.

"I haven't heard of you two before."

I begin to wonder if they have an organized membership in actuality, communicating in secrecy behind the safety of private forums. I hope Shizuka can read his mind.

"Names are trivial to Obedience," she says.

The man stares at her for a long time, his eyes narrowed. He's a large man, a bit taller than me, so he has to tilt his head downwards to look at her eye to eye. If he decides to seize Shizuka, I would likely not be able to resist him.

At such a thought, an urgent pang of anxiety, or what may have been anger, shoots through my spine, almost sending my limbs moving on their own. I'm taken by surprise. It's something violent I've never felt before. I struggle to control my impulses like throwing a wet cloth over a kitchen stove fire. If I let it kindle, it would grow and take over. Slowly at first but eating up the walls and the floor, scaling the ceiling. It would be foolish to act now.

His jaw twitches and I tense up and she does nothing. Then the man finally breaks his concentration and spins on his heel and walks away. I can't tell if he had approved of her response or is seeking someone else to manage the situation in his stead. The woman next to us turns to consider us for a moment.

On both sides of the street are buildings leaning in to watch the spectacle. Vertical signs clamber up the sides of the walls, four storeys high, in a fantastic myriad of colours, like Lego blocks stacked to form towers. There are a few billboards here and there with idols and celebrities exalting products and flashing smiles. They dictate humanity's most essential needs: cell phones, alcohol, hair products, glasses, electronic dance albums and anime, perhaps life insurance.

There are cars lined in front of us, making U-turns now, trying to find another route, not even honking any more. It's just another one of those days. No cops, no riot squads, no traffic officers; they don't have that kind of time. I wonder if passersby can tell us apart: us and the others, if our eyes and our faces look any different, if we stand differently or breathe differently. For a long while, we stand there in the line. There aren't any new additions to the formation and no one leaves. We stand still, wallowing in the wind like everyone else. Our pristine, well-ironed suits, align straight and true, a soccer team at a penalty kick. I can see Shizuka tremble head to toe in the cold. The air tries to push up her skirt and something tells me this is wrong, very wrong. We're standing on display, bare, even more exposed than before and my vision seems to grow dim.

It's cold. I try not to cough but an itch lodges at the bottom of my throat and won't get out. I try to swallow and force it down and keep the cork in place, but I cough and they turn to look. On cue, the man from before comes back into view through the crowd. At his side is a woman, in a dark grey trench coat - the woman from before. She isn't alone. There are more poker-faced figures coming forward, more than two, many more than two. Their empty eyes rest on ours and I stagger. It carries such sunken emptiness, an emptiness so deep, it's like a physical blow. How can such nothingness exist?

Move, Shizuka mumbles.

We first take a few slow steps, like we're shifting our position in the line to cover more ground. The woman to our right looks over. In her eyes is the same kind of emptiness. Her hand creeps out towards Shizuka's wrist, in a hesitant ambling manner, but it fails to reach her. We manage a few more steps and up over the curb, setting off down the sidewalk.

The heavyset man picks up his pace and then she's telling me to move; move, move, she's saying, and I'm nodding; she doesn't have to tell me twice. We're running and our feet become pounding beats, boom boom boom; it might have been my heart or my feet, I don't know, but I run and I look back for a moment and see them coming at us. Their bodies are launched forward, sprinting, but their faces remain emotionless, no open mouths or shouts or heaving breaths. We shove our way past pedestrians, sending them scattering and startled like pigeons. Running is rarely seen or heard, not running at night, running in the morning, not running on a Thursday morning during work hours; especially not anyone in black suits. I wonder how Shizuka is managing to run with pumps on, but she's doing it anyway. Behind her, her hair bounces and blows like a flag.

The signs on buildings are streaming by. Eventually we make it past a gas station and a kaiten-zushi restaurant and a hobby shop crammed full of toys before we turn a corner down another side street; at this point, I'm no longer sure which direction we're travelling. I find it difficult to breathe; I'm sweating profusely even in the cold air. And my muscles are burning, and my calf seems to tighten up into a thin rod, pulling taut in all directions. With every pace, my muscles jiggle like little pebbles tied to my skeleton. My feet hurt. I haven't sprinted or had a real work out in a long time. I make a mental note to exercise more. Shizuka is a few paces ahead of me, she's in better shape, but I can tell even she's getting tired.

Our pursuers are still hot on our tail when I glance over my shoulder. There are perhaps a good six of them. Except for the woman, the others are well-built, tall, athletic looking men. They don't seem identical, like the Images had been. But at the same time, I get the impression they are becoming more and more alike. Their faces are distorting and wiped away, a new slate.

They're catching up, snapping at our heels, but we turn a corner, and for some reason, we lose sight of them. We take off down this side street and stumble, panting, into a small French cafe, tucked in one corner, across from a pastry and mochi specialty store and all comes to a halt. I expect them at the door but nothing happens.

"Welcome," a stout well-aged woman greets us. She has greying bangs tied into a bun at the back of her head. Her voice seems thin and rough. "How can I help you today?"