watching surreptitiously with their backs lined against the wall along dark , narrow alleyways , which were themselves long , curving and intersecting passageways to deep , forgotten quarters of the city , now overrun by militant resistance groups who rarely emerged upon the main avenues for fear that their interaction with everyday people may prove to befoul the sanctity of their core beliefswhich is to say that they preferred to remain insulated in their collective anger , by the numerous walls , the labyrinth of alleyways and dead end roads that separated them from the surrounding reality .