Timothy Otterworth Splashinski—yes, that was his real legal name, and yes, he had changed his middle name from the perfectly reasonable “Eugene” in what his therapist later called “aquatic identity dysphoria”—was thirty-four years old when he decided that freeing two river otters from Mike’s Mega Marine World and Fishtopia was possibly the most crucial mission of his generation.

This was, objectively speaking, complete horseshit.

Deciding your cosmic destiny by freeing aquatic mammals was like choosing your life’s purpose as becoming a professional yodeler—technically possible but likely to leave you explaining yourself to badge-wearing officials. The name change was legally finalized three months earlier, following what his therapist, Dr. Kowalski, called “an aquatic identity crisis that makes mermaids look psychologically stable.”

“Mr. Splashinski,” Dr. Kowalski had said during their last session, “most people going through midlife crises buy convertibles or date inappropriately young people. They don’t legally change their middle names to aquatic-themed words and develop elaborate theories about government otter programs.”

That’s exactly what someone would say if they were part of the conspiracy,” Timothy had replied, which was both logically sound and the kind of statement that made therapists reach for their prescription pads.

The Splashinski men had been fighting imaginary conspiracies for three generations, like a hereditary condition that skipped the women and manifested in the men as an irresistible urge to document things that probably didn’t need documenting. His grandfather, Stanisław, had spent forty years convinced that the Soviets were poisoning Millfield’s water supply, even though Millfield’s most strategic asset was a McDonald’s with a broken ice cream machine.

Stanisław’s “evidence” included seventeen filing cabinets filled with water quality reports, photographs of tap water (which looked exactly like tap water), and a conspiracy wall that resembled a spider web spun by a spider having a nervous breakdown. “If they can make the water look normal,” Stanisław would explain to anyone who’d listen, mainly the postal carrier who drew the short straw, “then they’re using technology beyond our detection capabilities. This shows how advanced their operation really is.”

This was the kind of logic that only made sense if you had already decided what the evidence should prove, like a philosophical system built by someone who started with their conclusion and worked backward until reality gave up and went home.

Timothy’s father, Eugene Sr., inherited his paranoia but redirected his focus to traffic control systems. He died of a heart attack while timing traffic lights with Olympic-level precision, convinced that the forty-seven-second green lights were part of an international conspiracy to manipulate human movement patterns.

“The timing is too precise to be a coincidence!” Eugene would declare with the passion of someone who’d either discovered fire or lost his grip on reality. “That’s algorithmic population control! And the pattern changes every Tuesday!”

When asked to explain who “they” were, Eugene would use the conspiracy theorist’s most effective tactic: the rhetorical non-answer. “That’s exactly what they want you to think,” he’d say, tapping his nose as if he’d just uncovered the secret of cold fusion.

Timothy inherited this worldview along with some tangible family assets: his grandmother’s pierogi recipe (which contained an ingredient probably illegal in all fifty states), his father’s stopwatch collection (twenty-three timing devices of varying accuracy), and a genetic tendency to see patterns in random events that could have made him either a great detective or a cautionary tale about home-schooling.

His romantic history reads like a warning label for dating websites. Jennifer, the postal worker, ended things when she discovered his filing cabinet, which documented postal delivery patterns and their “suspicious” connection to election cycles. Rebecca, the elementary school teacher, fled after Timothy handed her a forty-three-page analysis of her lesson plans that he’d somehow connected to federal education funding and mind control.

“Timothy,” Rebecca said with the kind of calm that comes before either enlightenment or homicide, “sometimes people just plan lessons because children need to learn things. Not everything is a conspiracy.”

“But that’s exactly what someone would say if they were part of a conspiracy,” Timothy had replied, which was becoming his standard response to reasonable objections.

Michelle, the nurse practitioner, ended their relationship by climbing out of a restaurant bathroom window, which Timothy later saw as evidence of psychological conditioning against questioning authority. He had completely overlooked the possibility that his forty-minute lecture about reservation systems and demographic data collection might have been somewhat off-putting.

These romantic failures served as valuable lessons, much like natural disasters teach us about emergency preparedness. Each relationship offered Timothy valuable insights into human psychology, most of which he saw as evidence of institutional mind control rather than his own personality flaws.

The family motto, if they had bothered to commission one, would have been “Question Everything, Especially the Answers,” though alternative options included “Paranoia: It’s Not Just for Breakfast Anymore” and “If You’re Not Completely Confused, You’re Not Paying Attention.”

But his unique mix of analytical obsession and hereditary paranoia had prepared him perfectly for the night shift at Mike’s Mega Marine World and Fishtopia. His job included “routine cleaning” and “general observation,” which Timothy saw as “covert intelligence gathering” and “animal liberation reconnaissance.”

Most of his time was spent observing Olive and Otis, who seemed to be conducting systematic intelligence activities while masquerading as ordinary educational exhibits. His “Aquatic Intelligence Journal” contained 847 entries documenting everything from swimming patterns (seventeen distinct formations suggesting patrol activities) to problem-solving methods (completion times indicating advanced cognitive skills) to communication patterns (frequency analysis revealing potential semantic content).

The quality of his documentation would have impressed professional researchers if professional researchers had been interested in conspiracy theories involving municipal aquariums and enhanced animal intelligence.

Tonight, Timothy finally decided to move beyond just documenting and take direct action. His investigation uncovered what he believed to be one of the most significant government cover-ups since Watergate, assuming Watergate involved enhanced marine mammals and municipal conspiracy rather than straightforward political corruption.

Either his theories were correct and he was about to reveal classified research programs that violated both animal welfare and democratic accountability, or his psychological issues had escalated into a systematic disorder that could land him in jail or a psychiatric hospital.

The time had come to free Olive and Otis from institutional captivity and reveal the truth about government otter enhancement programs, whether those programs actually existed or were just the result of his family’s hereditary paranoia reaching new levels of systematic complexity.

Tonight, Timothy Otterworth Splashinski could either become a hero of animal welfare and government accountability or provide convincing evidence that a genetic tendency toward conspiracy thinking can last for three generations and remain completely disconnected from objective reality.

Either way, it was going to be more interesting than his usual Tuesday night routine.