As Sweety moved to land, we approached the jump.
Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit.
“Hold on!” I yelled.
The edge wasn’t a ramp at all. Just a drop-off. I reached over and smacked theRocketbutton just as we approached, and held tightly on to the wheel.
We all pushed back as the rocket engaged. Donut yowled as extra straps appeared around her. The Bubble Buddy’s floating upgrade mixed with the gyro kept us stable, but after just asecond, I could tell the rocket was way too powerful, and we were going to overshoot. I quickly tapped it off as we hurtled through the air, correcting with the wheel as the bubble upgrade, thankfully, allowed me to correct our trajectory. Sort of.
Ahead, Sweety landed gently as we rapidly caught up with the slower-moving tapir.
A group of rockets launched from the tapir and, faster than I thought possible, slammed into the back of the Dominators’ car as it disappeared into the next room.
We thumped heavily onto the track as Grigori cried behind us. I ran right off the side, but the bubble kept us from falling, and I swerved back onto the path, almost running right into the back of Sweety.
Containment Warning!
I eased the brakes as the tapir sped up. With the ground under its feet, the creature galloped faster. A second set of missiles shot out, disappearing into the dark. There was a flash of explosion.
We ascended against the moving treadmill, rising into the air as we progressed into the next room. We crunched and were once again in the dark. All around us, vehicles who’d successfully made similar jumps on their own tracks entered the room and started zooming across the floor, heading toward a group of five exits.
Prepotente: Shield is down. Bianca will move in now.
This room was similar to the first one, but instead of piles of balls, there were piles of the white powder dotted around the room like giant anthills. A few vehicles had already crashed through the powder, causing it to fly everywhere. It didn’t stop the cars, but in seconds, everybody and everything in the room was covered in the thick white dust, and it became impossible tosee. Our shield frothed like a sparkler as the powder misted all around.
I’d been so focused on the task at hand, I’d forgotten the stupid name of the track. And the sign under it. I quickly examined one of the mountains of white powder.
Donut scoffed. “Carl, is that what I think it is? It’s everywhere!”
“Err,” I said, upon reading the extra-long description.
Toddler Cocaine.
Also known as Daddy’s Little Snow Drops, this is a giant pile of low-dose but highly addictive cocaine specifically designed to be sold directly to children, who are much too fragile to enjoy and too poor to afford the higher-grade stuff.
This is the raw product before the patent-pending Wack Flavoring is added.
The Coblyn Corporation has a problem. They’re addicts. All of them.
These small gnomelike creatures were unable to stop the world from encroaching on their caves. Once the larger, stronger, and more powerful creatures of the world discovered the rich minerals buried under their feet, they did what large, strong people do. They took it for themselves, never mind that these caves were the only home the knockers had ever known.
The knockers were too weak to fight back. They had nowhere else to go. So they did the next best thing. They started manufacturing high-grade drugs and selling them to the miners. Miners with an “E.”
Fast-forward a few years, and the knocker community had pulled themselves up by their bootstraps. Yes, the Corporatocracy running the mines made drug use illegal. At least the drugs that weren’tsold by them. They did everything in their power to stop it. They vilified the knockers. They tried to eradicate them. They attempted their own alternatives.
But no matter what corporate did, they couldn’t stop the upward trajectory of these plucky little drug dealers. These corporate suits learned what a thousand organizations and governments throughout history already knew. If you go to war against drugs, drugs will always win. Drugs will win because what you’re really doing is going to war against the biological imperative all living creatures have to find comfort and happiness. And if you’re unwilling or unable to first provide that, artificial alternatives, no matter how destructive, willalwaysprevail.
A funny thing happened after that. The knockers, finding themselves absolutely loaded, tried to do something with that money. They formed the Coblyn Corporation, and they started to buy up legitimate businesses. After all, while they were making a ton of money, they still didn’t have as much as the Corporatocracy running the mines.
So they started buying the ore from their own land. They milled it, turned it into product, sold it. All aboveboard. And then they branched out, selling toys, skateboards, fidget spinners—bullshit like that.
But it wasn’t enough. In selling drugs to the miners, again with an “E,” they fell into their own trap. While the miners got strung out, they themselves became addicted to the money they were earning.
It’s a terrible circle, that. There’s not really a lesson here or a point to any of this, just a sad observation. We’re always seeking comfort, and when we don’t getit, we can be pretty destructive. And by “we,” I mean, those of us with the ability to grasp what’s around us.
Anyway, the knockers, upon realizing how well their dolls were selling and unable to get a piece of that hot, hot legal pharmaceutical market, came up with the next best thing. If they could sell illegal drugs to the miners with an “E,” they could also start selling drugs to the minors with an “O.”
Kids are a lot stupider than adults, after all. You can get them addicted to stuff really easily.