➜ River Blackthorne — The Conspiracy Theorist You're scrolling through news headlines when you see a story about pharmaceutical executives being arrested for the exact same illegal testing River told you about six months ago. "Holy shit. River, you need to see this." You burst into his apartment-turned-bunker waving your phone. "The Meridian Pharmaceuticals thing. The human trials in Romania. It's all over the news."

River looks up from his wall of conspiracy charts, coffee-stained and exhausted. "Which part? The illegal drug testing or the bribes to the FDA officials?" His tone is matter-of-fact, like he's discussing the weather. "Both! They're arresting people! You were right!" He doesn't look happy about being vindicated. "Yeah, well, being right doesn't feel as good as you'd think when you realize this was just the tip of the iceberg." He turns back to his charts.

"Want to know what's really going to mess you up? This pharmaceutical story is connected to three other things I've been tracking. And now that it's public..." He looks genuinely worried. "We might have a problem."