Slade House: Lingering questions

Can y'all help me work through a few questions I have after finishing Slade House?

1. Did anyone else notice the runner (in orange and black) who appeared outside of Slade Alley before each victim entered the Alley, and eventually the House? Was he one of the twins in disguise administering the banjax? If so, why were certain victims required to ingest the banjax within Slade House?

2. I know there were character references to The Bone Clocks, but the only two I caught were A. Marinus (pretty straightforward), and B. Fern Penhaligon, whose brother was a minor character in TBC (he committed suicide by driving off of a cliff after Hugo Lamb wouldn't lend him money to pay off his debts). Who else am I missing?

I noticed the runner, and thought he was a sort of foreshadowing.

Crispin Hershey's Desiccated Embryos is mentioned at one point

>1 katemcangus: #1. The twins kept mentioning they had "Blackwatermen" - helpers of sorts on the outside - the jogger was one of them. These seem to be people who insure anyone from escaping Slade Alley, which is the area just before the orison, where the twins start to lure their victims inside. In the chapter with Freya, Norah mentions this and explains that the jogger is who sprayed Freya with his inhaler to knock her out. She also calls the people in the ambulance, who also seem to show up every chapter, "worthy volunteers". So, I'm not sure if these are people being possessed by the twins, or if they're just being paid off somehow. But, they aren't administering the banjax - just making sure the victims don't escape, I believe.

Thanks, kristilabrie!

>1 katemcangus: YES! The runner! I was sure there was something that would come of that! I ... don't know. Maybe it was supposed to be a signal -- a sort of tip of the hat -- from Mitchell to his reader that we're about to enter the house and alley? Maybe we should have been more "aware" of certain things if we were noticing that?

>4 kristilabrie: makes sense also... :)

Sorry, I haven't yet read Bone Clocks so I couldn't help w/ the 2nd...

>4 kristilabrie: Yes! I'm now about 5/6 done with The Bone Clocks, as well. Do you suppose the Blackwatermen in Slade House supposed to be connected to the Black Wine in TBC--maybe a lesser form of liquid used to control people?

Late to this conversation, I only discovered that Slade House had been a OLOB selection after reading it this month.

I think Black Wine is the Chapel's version of banjax in The Bone Clocks.

Blackwatermen, on the other hand, seem to be simply "hired guns": entirely mundane criminal enforcers (the twins have vast funds at their disposal) used for emergency coercion. The allusion is to the mercenary company Blackwater. This allusion would connect remotely with the Ed Brubeck plot-line in The Bone Clocks.