Day 268: A Silly Idea

My ideas folder has some really silly entries. The latest addition from this morning is one I'm particularly proud of that came to me in a dream (always a good sign, and never pretentious). It's an idea for a villain that I think would fit really well into any Bond movie. Bond villains are some of the best because they always have the strangest quirks. Oddjob has his razorblade hat, Xenia Onatopp is a walking sex joke and general weirdo, Jaws has his, well, jaws ... But I think I've got them all beat.

The idea is to have rich megalomaniac (obviously) bent on world conquest who employs a particularly effective and untraceable assassin: Genetically modified cone snails. Like many Bond villains, he's fond of his venomous pets and keeps dozens of them on display in the aquariums scattered around his mansion. Naturally Bond has to take a tour during a fundraiser for research into the medical applications of the snails, which is really a cover for a terrorist organization to launder money, or something. The villain always explains to guests that the snails are deadly, but as long as you don't touch them they can't really hurt you. This is a lie. Whenever he wants someone dead, he invites them over for dinner but leaves the top of one of the snails' tanks open. The genetically modified snails then reveal their superpowers. Most cone snails have a proboscis that lets them stab prey with a barb and inject the venom, but these snails launch the barb as a projectile. He's got them trained to always attack someone marked with a particular pheromone. If anybody were to ever investigate the crime, they'd come to the conclusion that some hapless guest must have been handling the cone snails, whose venom has no antidote. It's the perfect crime and I see no possible downfall in this plan.

Of course sometime after the setup, Bond has to run through the aquarium room with all the snails firing at him from every angle. The villain will also have to meet his end after becoming covered in the pheromones, defeated by his own most dangerous weapon, as is tradition. Now all I need is a punny name. He's got to be a doctor. Dr. Snaider? Dr. Conita? Dr. Sheldon? Hmm ...

Thank you for reading,

Benjamin Hawley