In the morning he meets the "downer" and learns how he secured his release through a ruse - he reported Sneer's Key as found on the street. Sneer goes to the central police station and retrieves his Key, but the experience makes him uncomfortable, and he starts to look at his world in a different way. He visits his parents and an old friend, a doctor, revealing to the reader the history of this world and some further facts about it. He also tries to listen to the song Alice told him about and discovers that theoretical freedom of press is in fact a fiction as some songs etc. can be prohibited.