After about half a minute, a similarly attired person opens the door. They give his orange poncho a pointed look, roll their eyes, and say (along with several other voices in the room) "We're busy. Go downstairs for new citizen paperwork."

There is a distinctly prickly and cold feeling that he should walk away from the door, as it slams closed again.

He stumbles back a little, stopping and shaking his head when he's a few feet away.

… Okay, downstairs for new citizen paperwork, sure.

The feeling dissipates as Click follows him back down the stairs.

The New Citizen help-desk is still abandoned, but there might be something in the pamphlets and brochures, or behind the desk?

He looks around, not caring if he's not supposed to do this.

He is going to do as he's told and if it doesn't achieve desired results he is going to go back and tell them he's not happy with their handling of new citizens and they should fix themselves. He is without the rock he had earlier, he realizes – must have left it at the hospital – but he still has the water if he needs a weapon.

The pamphlets on the desk seem to be mostly recommendations of restaurants to eat at, neighborhoods to consider moving into, and places to go for fun. Behind the desk, there is a locked desktop, and a set of desk-drawers labeled "Welcome Packets", "Milk", "Forms", and "Misc.".

… Milk?

The drawer seems to be full of almost-simmering fluid, presumably milk.

Uh-huh.

He shuts it. What's in Misc?

There is an instruction manual for a printer, instructions for assembling the desk and drawers, printouts of some emails about someone coming to clean the velvet, a bag containing a plastic necklace coated with blue slime (labeled with a sticky-note saying "someone left this - bring to lost and found if extant?", a few glow-sticks, and several sheets of tiny alphabet stickers.

He thinks he'd like to shut that drawer, now, and look in Welcome Packets.

It is full of many clear and outwardly-identical plastic folders, each of which is labeled "New Citizen Welcome Packet". They look to contain many pages of white paper, and a few of colorful card-stock.

He takes one and then checks that there's nothing important in Forms.

Tax guides, new citizen statement of agreement to follow laws and customs, temporary and secret citizen statement of agreement to follow laws and customs, forms for divorce upon discovering that current spouse is a citizen, forms for divorce upon discovering that current spouse is not a citizen, license-obtaining instructions for various home-construction equipment and behavior, a packet for if someone prefers not to be taken to the hospital if they are found injured and/or dying, and a form for requesting refunds for airplane tickets purchased in error out of confusion about how airplanes work.

… Secret citizen? And – does it specify why one might divorce a spouse when finding they're a citizen? … Also the airplanes thing, is that particularly common, are there a lot of these forms.

The temporary/secret citizen forms seem to have very similar boxes, bubbles, and signature lines to the new citizen ones, but often have boxes asking for explanations or credentials below the same questions, and ask for additional forms to be attached. The sub-reasons for divorce seem to be things like living in a rival city, wanting to live elsewhere and not wanting to deal with commute, religious reasons, philosophical reasons, inability to live by local law, believing themselves to be married to a person of the same description but with a different hometown and life-history, and "Other (please specify): _____".  Apparently a great many people at some point purchased airplane tickets while under the mistaken impression that airplanes would take them to a different place than they departed from. There is a substantial stack of the forms clipped together, but by their texture and ink sharpness, they seem older than some of the other paperwork here.

… Mistaken impression…?

He does not think he's going to get many answers in response to his complete and utter bewilderment here. He puts the forms back in the drawers, except for the welcome packet he took, and then starts to make his way out of the building with Click.

Does the welcome packet help clarify anything?

Well, there's a stylized map, a coupon for 25% off his first pizza order, an incomplete list of local laws, a few sheets of small alphabet stickers, a desert safety reminder sheet, a neon-pink brochure for upcoming events, a small origami bird, a list of locations for getting various licenses obtained in other places renewed or transferred, a list of residential areas with phone numbers and addresses, and a blank name tag sticker, reading "HI, I'M ______, AND I LIVE HERE NOW!".

He would like to read the desert safety sheet in case there are non-obvious dangers in the desert. (Giant scorpions, sun that is horrifyingly radioactive, desert-dwelling superzombies…? He is guessing no to all of these but does not have high expectations for the desert.)

The sheet does not warn about any of those. Instead, it seems to mostly contain advice for outdoor activities like "wear sunscreen of at least SPF 50, reapplying every few hours!", "be sure to check your shoes for venomous insects, rather than poisonous ones!", "avoid arroyos and ditches, especially if it seems likely to rain!", "bring flares or signalling devices if you are going into the scrublands and the sand wastes and might get stuck in a loop!", and "watch your step! cacti are a beautiful and important part of the desert ecosystem, and can be hurt by careless feet!"

… Stuck in a loop?

What about the list of local laws?

The safety sheet doesn't have anything more specific about loops.

According to the list of laws, some things are dangerous here that may not be dangerous in other places! It is very important to follow the laws, because otherwise you might be endangering yourself and everyone around you! Here is a list of banned objects (pocket calculators, martini glasses, writing utensils, bar code scanners, thesauruses, ...), and activities (publicly describing the moon, falsely acknowledging the theoretical existence and/or hierarchical structure of angels, failing to follow directions from a city official, dreaming about horses, attempting to transmit dangerous information, ...), along with reminders to be sure to fulfill normal civic duties like taxes, voting, participating in announced citywide events, keeping a dream journal, and getting a license and training before doing large-scale things that might be annoying or dangerous to people nearby. There's a typewritten piece of paper taped to the bottom of the list, adding "wheat and wheat byproducts" to the list of banned objects and "murder" to the list of banned activities.

… He does not know if a mobile phone counts to violate the various banned objects and he doesn't know enough to safely avoid some of the activities, and he would like to know what country he is in and what the relevant laws are in case they differ drastically enough to warrant the addition of 'murder' to the local laws.

Why is everybody so unhelpful and mysterious. He does not like this state of affairs. Is there anybody less unhelpful and mysterious on his way back out of the building or outside the building. He would like to talk to someone hopefully with less in the way of those attributes.

Click follows him, but at least has a consistent amount of those attributes.

There's a tall woman wearing a tunic over what looks like a wetsuit and leather gloves, walking down the street. She seems to be talking to someone through a flip-phone pinched between her ear and shoulder.

… He waves at her to try to get her attention.

She waves back amiably and keeps walking.

"-just keep trying and I'm sure you'll get it. What? No, of course not, they were new too, once. Well, probably anyway," she tells her phone.