…Minus 046 and COUNTING… It had been full daylight for two ho

After struggling through the woods in daylight, Ben Richards reaches a highway near a small cluster of houses and a store with air pumps. Injured, soaked, and scratched from the brush, Richards studies the area and sees a mailbox beside the store, realizing he might have mailed his tapes safely if he had arrived before dawn.

Richards retreats far enough to avoid being seen and records his required tapes. Richards uses the recording to mock the broadcast audience, then tries again to spread Bradley’s warning that the Network is poisoning the air and suppressing cheap protection, though Richards expects the Network to censor most of the message.

Richards decides the only practical plan is to approach the mailbox with his gun drawn, mail the tapes, and possibly steal a car afterward. Before Richards can move, a large friendly dog named Rolf bursts from the brush and knocks Richards down, followed by an eleven-year-old boy who apologizes and assumes Richards is merely lost.

Richards invents a story about hitchhiking toward Voigt Field in Derry and being beaten and robbed by tough men near a deserted shopping center. Richards asks the boy to mail the tape-clips, pretending they are chargeplate cash vouchers, but the boy clearly suspects the story is false.

To keep control of the situation, Richards calls the boy back, shows the gun, and claims to be working for the government against dangerous men. The boy, impressed and frightened, agrees to mail the tapes and tell no one for twenty-four hours. After watching the boy drop the tapes into the mailbox, Richards thinks bitterly of Cathy’s deprived life, turns his rage toward the Games Federation and the Network, and heads back into the brush toward the road and the jetport.