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3 bytes removed ,  12:42, 27 June 2018
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[[File:Hard Times Distillery.png|thumb|right|''DOOLITTLE: The Echo River is fed from [[Lake Lethe]], but you wouldn't recognize a drop of it. Lethe is cold, dark, and so very deep. And still!'']]
While waiting for the ferry, Conway reveals what happened while he was talking with the strangers: he and Shannon had gone via a hidden elevator to an underground [[Hard Times Distillery|whiskey distillery]] staffed by indistinct glowing skeletons, identical in appearance to Conway's new leg. At the distillery, Conway and Shannon meet [[Lem Doolittle|Doolittle]] who mistakes Conway for a new hire as a shipping truck driver. Doolittle gives them a tour, speaking only via a tape recorder around his neck. He hells them about The Formula, a revolutionary equation introduced to them by a [[Weaver|brilliant mathematician]] that allows them to simply plug daily numbers in and run it through an adding machine instead of compounding interest by hand. Doolitrle introduces Conway and Shannon to many of the distillery workers, all of whom who fell into debt and were forced to work to pay it off. He tells Conway he hopes he is a better drive than [[Miguel]] a truck driver who got into an accident that evening involving bourbon and glass strewn across the interstate. In inspecting Inspecting the truck Conway he is expected to drive, he Conway recalls stories of his past with [[Lysette]] and his former boss [[Ira]] in small vignettes. In one story, he recounts the accident that killed Lysette's son [[Charlie]]: too hungover to perform a roofing job, Charlie took Conway's place and, in performing the work in the hot sun, slipped and fell to his death.
[[File:Adding machine.png|thumb|left|''He removed his hands from the steering wheel for a moment and felt the car drift into a decision. Years later, he'd think of this as the moment he himself started drifting.'']]