V. “…WHERE THE LION SLEEPS”

John is transported to the former United Nations Building, which has been converted to serve as PREST Headquarters.  He meets with his supervisor, Frank Colby, who expresses concern over John’s background in the sciences.

As part of his orientation, John learns the PRESTman trade of administering government welfare programs in exchange for pocketing a portion of the benefit payments due to the poor and disadvantaged.

Leaving the Headquarters to make his initial rounds, John is fitted with a wrist-worn tracking device.  He walks the streets of New York, contemplates how he might affect an escape, and drops secreted letters to Anna and Japhet into a postbox.

An old bureaucrat reviews his bodyguard, of which Anna is a member, before entering an armored limousine. Riding along with her employer, Anna thinks about relaying his location to the Martians.

John meets with one of his clients, Charley, a drug addict living in a derelict apartment.  Paul, a neighbor, intervenes as the junkie stabs himself in the chest with a blunt knife.  John wrestles the weapon away and examines the superficial wound.