 What did Joe find strange when he first awoke at the hospital after his treatment?
"Hank said you wanted to see me," she said when she stopped beside Joe's table. If I get drunk, I can join the AAA and get free room and board for a month while they give me a treatment." Joe had tried dozens of times in dozens of bars to outsmart them, but had always failed. And in all of New York's millions, there had been only a hundred cases of intoxication during the previous year. He'd done that once and gone through a mountain of red tape to get another—everyone was required by law to carry a CPA ID card and show it upon request. When you try to get a job, they ask to see your ID before they even tell you if there's an opening or not. I've been a garbage man, street-cleaner, ditch-digger—" On the other side of the room, the jukebox came to life with a roar and a group of teen-agers scrambled to the dance floor. A civilization weary of murder, robbery, kidnapping, counterfeiting, blackmail, rape, arson, and drunkenness had originated the CPA—Crime Prevention Association. There were no longer any prisons—CPA officials had declared loudly and emphatically that their job was to prevent crime, not punish it. They had made crime almost impossible, and during the previous year, only a few hundred men in the whole country had been convicted of criminal acts. Instead, he was sent to a hospital where all criminal tendencies were removed from his mind by psychologists, shock treatments, encephalographic devices, a form of prefrontal lobotomy and a dozen other methods. The CPA system was, actually, cheaper than previous methods because it did away with the damage caused by countless crimes; did away with prisons and their guards, large police forces, squad cars and weapons. He was a hero to the millions of men and women who had suppressed impulses to kill someone, beat their mates, get drunk, or kick a dog. Not only a hero, but because of the CPA Treatment, he was—when he left one of the CPA hospitals—a thoroughly honest and hard-working individual ... a man who could be trusted with any responsibility, any amount of money. And therefore, an EX (a convicted criminal who received the treatment was commonly called an Ex because he was in the strictest sense of the word an Ex-criminal) ... The girl followed him across the room, around tables, through a door, down a hall, through a back door and into the alley.
 He felt no different.
 He had a pounding headache.  He felt unable to lie.  He felt no different.  He felt like a hero.