Instructions during the period of concealment

The undercover conduct instructions are a practical code for carrying out a mission among humans without revealing the narrator’s identity or origin. Their demands are deliberately ordinary—act normally, imitate those around him, obey immediate directions, and do not flee too soon—but they place those ordinary behaviors in direct conflict with his fear, urgency, and desire to go home. The police station becomes the first sustained test of whether he can follow the code rather than simply escape.

Purpose and Priorities

The instructions begin with the need to draw as little attention as possible. The narrator recognizes that he is already failing at this: he has been taken toward a vehicle and does not want to be touched, yet he does not resist. The rule is therefore not an abstract ideal of good conduct. It is a tactical requirement for completing a task while surrounded by people who could notice that he is not one of them.

The mission has specific destinations. The narrator says he must reach the professor’s office and home, and that he will run out of time. The instructions confirm that he is right to pursue those objectives, but insist that he first remain calm and go where he is taken. They also forbid disclosure: the people around him must never know who sent him. Concealment is thus the condition that makes the larger task possible, while patience is presented as a necessary part of getting there.

Normality as Concealment

The code states its central demand plainly: “You must strive to be normal.” It repeats the point in a slightly different form: “You must try and be like them.” These are not instructions to understand human behavior from a distance; they require the narrator to perform enough of it to avoid attracting attention. His own response shows the difficulty. He knows what he has been told, but still admits that he does not want to be where he is and wants to go home.

The police encounter makes the demand concrete through clothing. The narrator is surprised that not wearing clothes has broken the law, and officers tell him to dress and cover himself. He has to work out which limb goes through which opening before he can comply. The episode exposes a gap between knowing the rule and being able to enact it: for the officers, clothing is an unremarkable requirement; for the narrator, putting it on is a learned imitation of human convention. The rule to be normal begins with managing precisely this kind of visible difference.

Restraint, Obedience, and Fear

The instructions also regulate the narrator’s response to danger and confinement. “Do not escape prematurely” is not a prohibition on escape under every circumstance; its wording makes timing part of the judgment. The narrator says he could have escaped from the police station, but chooses to wait. He recalls the command to use his gifts wisely and the repeated requirement to behave normally, and he sees a practical reason to remain: the police and their computers may help him find what he needs.

That choice follows the accompanying directions to stay calm, do what he is told, and go where others want him to go. Yet compliance does not erase fear. When the voice assures him that there will be time, the narrator answers that he is scared; the reply acknowledges that he has every right to be, because he is among humans. The exchange makes the rule demanding rather than reassuring: he is expected to act with control while still experiencing the fear that the situation warrants.

Time and the Cost of Impatience

The code frames patience through a contrast between human time and the narrator’s own. Humans die, the instruction explains, and therefore experience impatience; the narrator’s life is not short in the same way. He is warned not to become like them. This contrast gives the order to wait a strategic rationale: urgency is not necessarily wisdom when the task requires concealment and the opportunity to act may come later.

At the same time, the narrator’s concern about running out of time remains part of the scene. The instructions do not dismiss his objective; they affirm that he must reach the professor’s office and home, while insisting on a sequence—first remain calm and follow directions, then pursue the task. His decision to wait an hour in the cell, despite believing he could leave, is the clearest early application of that sequence. The conduct code makes restraint an active choice: he stays not because he is incapable of escape, but because immediate freedom could be less useful than remaining unnoticed among the people and machines that may help him.