Prologue 

The Universe Demonstrates Its Questionable Sense of Humor 

(and Generally Poor Decision-Making Skills)

The universe, like that friend who thinks putting salt in the sugar bowl is the height of comedy, spent about 13.8 billion years setting up what it saw as the ultimate practical joke. This joke involved the evolution of consciousness, the rise of bureaucracy, the invention of both social media and sriracha sauce (unrelated but equally significant), and finally, the birth of Timothy Otterworth Splashinski in Millfield, Ohio—a place so blandly mediocre that even its Wikipedia page seems bored with itself.

The universe has tried other jokes before this one. The platypus, for example—evolution’s way of saying “hold my beer and watch this.” Reality television—proof that entropy applies to culture as well as thermodynamics. The fact that humans park in driveways and drive on parkways. The electoral college. Cryptocurrency. The ending of Lost. All practice runs for this moment, this magnificent crescendo of cosmic comedy.

If God exists, He was definitely drunk when He approved this particular timeline. Not just a little tipsy, but properly, thoroughly, “wake up in a dumpster wearing someone else’s pants” drunk. The kind of drunk where you arise, check your phone, and discover you’ve apparently agreed to enhance the intelligence of sea mammals for unclear purposes that seemed really important at 3 AM but now just seem like evidence that omnipotence and alcohol don’t mix.

The cosmic joke would involve evolution, consciousness, bureaucracy, a Polish-American janitor with an unfortunate middle name and even more unfortunate genetics, two otters about to become more famous than they ever wanted to be, and a shopping cart that would play a more important role in American democracy than most elected officials.

It would also include pierogi, which somehow made everything worse. 

Chapter 1 

The Custodian 

(Who Really Should Have Seen This Coming)

Timothy Otterworth Splashinski—and yes, that was his actual, legal, government-recognized, DMV-verified, court-documented, IRS-confirmed, social-security-card-bearing name that he’d paid three hundred and forty-seven dollars in processing fees to change from the perfectly reasonable “Eugene” in what his therapist, Dr. Kowalski, had called “aquatic identity dysphoria with narcissistic overtones and possible dissociative features requiring further evaluation and definitely more sessions at $200 per hour”—was thirty-four years, seven months, thirteen days, approximately nine hours, and forty-three minutes old when he decided that liberating two river otters from Millfield Mega Marine World and Fishtopia was possibly the most crucial mission of his generation.

This was, objectively speaking, scientifically verifiable, quantifiably measurable, empirically demonstrable, complete and utter horseshit of such enormous proportions that even the horseshit was too embarrassed to be associated with it. It was the kind of idea that made other bad ideas look reasonable by comparison, like setting yourself on fire makes stubbing your toe seem pleasant. It was the intellectual equivalent of bringing a kazoo to perform brain surgery—technically, you’re part of the procedure, but you’re not helping, and everyone wishes you’d stop, especially the patient, who’s probably rethinking their life choices even while unconscious.

Deciding your cosmic destiny by freeing aquatic mammals is like choosing your life’s purpose as becoming a professional yodeler—technically possible but probably leading to explaining yourself to badge-wearing officials. The name change was legally finalized three months earlier.

“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 moment of Timothy’s spiritual awakening—or psychological breakdown, depending on your tolerance for protagonist reliability, your faith in the American mental healthcare system, and whether you’ve ever met anyone from the Splashinski family and thus understood that madness was less a possibility and more a genetic certainty—happened precisely at 11:47 PM on Tuesday, October 15, 2024. The universe specifically chose Tuesday because Monday would be too obvious (everyone expects bad things then), Wednesday has that hopeful “hump day” vibe that would soften the cosmic joke, Thursday is almost Friday in the minds of optimists, and Friday through Sunday are the weekend when people expect either relaxation or disaster depending on their life circumstances. But Tuesday? Tuesday is the universe’s favorite day to pull the rug out from under people who thought they’d already survived Monday and had the rest of the week figured out.

Timothy was mopping the floor near Habitat 7-B, a task he’d performed exactly one thousand, two hundred, and forty-seven times according to his meticulously kept records.

Timothy paused in his mopping, not because he’d finished—Timothy never finishes anything without documenting it in triplicate, filing it in his custom organizational system, and creating a backup stored in a waterproof container— but because Olive and Otis were doing something that triggered every conspiracy-detection neuron in his heavily inherited, thoroughly cultivated, and comprehensively developed paranoid brain.

They were swimming in a pattern.

Not just any pattern, nor the random movements of animals merely trying to move from Point A to Point B in their desperately confined space, but a synchronized, coordinated, deliberately executed pattern that looked like—if you squinted, tilted your head exactly 23 degrees to the left, had spent three generations breeding paranoia into your genetic code like it was a prize-winning orchid, and maybe had consumed just a little bit too much of Babcia’s special pierogi—a figure-eight. Or an infinity symbol. Or possibly the number 88, which Timothy’s extensive research had told him was significant in various conspiracy theories, though he could never quite remember which ones because there were so many conspiracy theories and only so much space in his brain, even after he’d deleted most normal human concerns to make room for more paranoia.

“Holy shit,” Timothy whispered to his mop, which was his closest confidant, most trusted ally, and the only thing that listened to his theories without judgment, restraining orders, or therapeutic intervention. “They’re communicating.”

The mop, being just a mop and therefore lacking any consciousness, opinions, or ability to respond, said nothing, which Timothy interpreted as agreement. In his experience, silence equaled consent, which was why he had been banned from three different coffee shops and a Barnes & Noble.

The Splashinski men were destined to battle imaginary conspiracies. This hereditary problem, skipping the women and manifesting in the men as an unstoppable urge to document things that probably didn’t need documenting, was deeply ingrained in their family history.

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 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 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 shifted 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.

Eugene Sr.’s conviction that the forty-seven-second green lights were part of an international conspiracy to manipulate human movement patterns was both absurd and entertaining.

When asked to explain who “they” were, Eugene would employ 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 acts as a warning for dating apps.

Jennifer, the postal worker unlucky enough to be assigned to Timothy’s route, lasted exactly six weeks and three days before she discovered his filing cabinet, which documented postal delivery patterns and their “suspicious” correlation with election cycles, phases of the moon, and local crime statistics. The file on her specifically was forty-seven pages long and included observations such as “Subject arrives at inconsistent times (variance of 7-12 minutes daily): possible indication of secondary activities” and “Subject’s uniform sometimes has mysterious stains: DNA evidence of government experiments?”

She left a note that simply said, “Get help” written on the back of a pre-prepared cease and desist order, which she apparently had ready. Timothy interpreted this as evidence that the postal service was training its employees in legal ways to suppress whistleblowers. He still kept the note, filed under “Evidence of Institutional Suppression, Subsection J: Personal Attacks.”

Rebecca, the elementary school teacher with a master’s degree in education and a minor in poor judgment, had spent four months before Timothy gave her a forty-seven-page analysis of her lesson plans that he had somehow linked to federal education funding, Common Core standards, UNESCO protocols, the Bilderberg Group, and what he called “pedagogical mind control through standardized testing and suspicious emphasis on ‘sharing’ and ‘cooperation’ rather than ‘individual liberty’ and ‘questioning authority.'”

The document, which Timothy had bound and laminated, included charts showing correlations between her use of certain words (“collaborate,” “community,” “together”) and spikes in local government spending, a detailed analysis of her seating arrangements as “social engineering,” and a seventeen-page appendix on how her habit of using gold stars as rewards was connected to both communist symbolism and ancient Illuminati rituals.

“Timothy,” Rebecca said calmly, in a way that hints at either enlightenment or homicide, “sometimes kids just need to learn that two plus two equals four without it being part of a government conspiracy to limit mathematical thinking to base-ten systems that make populations easier to control.”

“But that’s exactly what someone would say if they were part of the conspiracy.”

Rebecca excused herself to use the restaurant bathroom and never returned, leaving through the window like a sitcom character. But this was real life, and the window was on the second floor. Timothy still waits for her to come back, seventeen months later, sometimes texting her things like “I’ve found new evidence about Common Core” and “Did you know the Pythagorean theorem might be suppressing alternative geometric systems?”

Michelle, the nurse practitioner with a doctorate in nursing and a black belt in conflict avoidance, had ended their relationship via text message from the parking lot after Timothy spent their entire first (and last) date explaining how hospital admission patterns correlated with moon phases, television ratings, and something he called “the medical-industrial profit optimization algorithm” that he’d mapped out on seventeen napkins using a complex system of arrows, circles, and what appeared to be astrological symbols.

Look, he said, spreading the napkins across the table like tarot cards revealing the future of American healthcare, “emergency room admissions spike 23% during full moons—that’s documented fact. But they also spike during season finales of popular TV shows, major sporting events, and exactly forty-seven minutes after Mercury goes into retrograde. That’s not coincidence, that’s coordination!”

Michelle’s message read: “Lose my number. Seek help. I’m blocking you. P.S. – The breadsticks were good though.” Timothy filed it under “Evidence, Subsection M: Medical Professional Intimidation Tactics,” along with a detailed analysis suggesting her use of “P.S.” was probably a code to her handlers indicating the subject had been terminated.

There had been others, brief encounters that flamed out faster than a match in a hurricane.

Sandra, the veterinary assistant who’d fled when Timothy suggested her clinic was implanting surveillance chips in pets under the guise of “vaccination.”

Louise, the bartender who’d banned him from her establishment after he’d spent three hours explaining how drink prices were coded messages about stock market manipulation.

Beth, the Uber driver who’d given him five stars but added a comment that just said “Please never ride with me again” after he’d spent the entire trip documenting what he called “suspicious route variations” that were “clearly designed to pass specific surveillance points.”

And most recently, Karen from the dating app, who’d unmatched him mid-conversation when he’d asked if her profile photos had been taken at specific locations to establish a geographic pattern that would reveal the location of government safe houses.

These romantic failures served as essential lessons, much like natural disasters teach us about emergency preparedness. Each relationship provided Timothy with valuable insights into human psychology, most of which he viewed as evidence of institutional mind control rather than personal flaws.

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

Timothy was thoroughly prepared for the night shift at Millfield Mega Marine World and Fishtopia. His responsibilities included “routine cleaning” and “general observation,” which Timothy viewed as “covert intelligence gathering” and “animal liberation reconnaissance.”

Most of his time was spent observing Olive and Otis, who appeared to be covertly conducting intelligence activities while disguising themselves as ordinary educational exhibits. His “Aquatic Intelligence Journal” contained 847 entries documenting everything from this new swimming pattern (seventeen other 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 they had shown interest in conspiracy theories involving municipal aquariums and advanced animal intelligence.

Tonight’s swimming pattern finally motivated Timothy to take action instead of just documenting. His investigation may have uncovered one of the most significant government cover-ups since Watergate—assuming Watergate involved marine mammals and a 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 worsened 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 to 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.

Timothy Otterworth Splashinski could either become a hero for animal welfare and government accountability or provide compelling evidence that a genetic tendency toward conspiracy thinking can last for three generations and stay completely detached from objective reality.