#6 Benny Angles

Dr. Henrik Sonnenberg, while quite wealthy, was what you might call… eccentric. Founder of the no way ominous sounding Sonnenberg Group, he was always a big idea guy. Like when he first started floating around the idea of sticking a maximum security prison at the bottom of the ocean. Everyone questioned the practicality. But they built it. Benthomax, the largest private prison on Earth. When they couldn’t fully staff the facility, it was Dr. Sonnenberg who brought up the idea of genetically engineering the rest of the staff. With more issues of practicality & now morality being brought up, the company kept it on the down low that these creations were in fact spliced with deep sea DNA. It was a twofer. A security workforce that also functioned as an experiment in hybridization.

That was five years ago, & this is Benny Angles. He works the commissary. He got his name not through being part Anglerfish (though it didn’t hurt), but by always working the angles. As a vat grown creature, he may look like an adult but he’s still developing mentally, & at a very formidable age. Spending all his time around dangerous felons has had its effect & he’s developed quite the colorful persona. He enjoys his work at the commissary. For a price, he’ll get you whatever it is you need. He has his ways.

Word has it around the prison that his fellow hybrids are starting to get fed up with taking orders from genetically inferior humans on the surface. There’s talk about a revolution. At his core, Benny writes it all off as self-righteous horseshit. He likes the status quo, he likes his gig. A revolt could ruin that. That said, he’ll of course do his thing & work the angles, so long as it all works out for him.

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Another character I didn’t really have a plan for when I started. Over time he became this angler fish/guy/thing. I made him big & tall because I figured the deep sea part of his genes would be anticipating a lot of pressure, only to grow like a beanstalk without it. Stupid me though, the thing around his neck is supposed to be a mist spraying thing so he gets some water vapor in his lungs. And what do I do? Stick a giant cigar in his mouth. Yeah, way to go. That makes a whole lot of sense.

He or something like him may show up in the story my first character this year was designed for. But that wouldn’t be for a bit yet.

Category: 2012, Scifi, WTF