Benny Gallagher

**Benjamin "Benny" Gallagher** is an investigator working for Reuters who's currently looking into Richard Kindred.

## History

### Investigating Richard

At some point in his career, Benny started to look into Richard Kindred and Augur Industries. He wrote a little article that got him funding to allow further investigation but he discovered no one involved would go on the record or grant him access. He did find out that Augur Industries had started investing in expensive medical research with Kindred having set up a secret division with human test subjects. When he found out that a plane possibly belonging to Kindred had crashed in Southold, he travelled there in hopes of finding a way in for his investigative piece.

### Working with Jo

Benny met Jo while he was investigating the crash site, which had been cleaned up entirely by NTSB. He showed her his ID and business card. She claimed he had to had to leave the restricted area but he pointed out it was no longer restricted since NTSB's so-called investigation had been completed. He suspected that their report would claim it was an unmanned drone to map forests or some other rubbish. He then suggested they help each other out by sharing information, stating he had sources she didn't. To prove it, he told her that he had found out that the plane had taken off from Plum Island, which houses a Homeland Security research facility. He had yet to obtain proof of that but he was confident it would be the start of a perfect working relationship. Unbeknownst to him, Jo had him tailed by Frankie. She sat down with Benny as she had decided to trust him given all the mystery surrounding the plane crash. Meanwhile, he had discovered that the phony NTSB agents had recovered and removed the black box and human remains from the crash site. Jo wondered why he hadn't reported anything yet, to which he replied he wanted to get the full story first. She then handed him a mysterious metal card and asked him to find out what it was.

Separately, they found out that Yousef had cleaned up the plane wreck. Benny got to Yousef first and his questions made Yousef threaten him. Jo then showed up and after she vouched for Benny, Yousef shared that he was called in the middle of the night to clean up the wreckage and dump it in the ocean, which he did. Jo then got him to admit he had kept the air band radio for himself. It was still carrying charge and Benny noticed it was set to a phantom frequency, a secret frequency used by drug cartels to communicate right under the DA's nose. As they left, he offered to help her find out who was on the other side of the radio channel. She then reminded him she had asked him to look into the card. He had had it imaged but nothing came up. He returned it to her. He also told her his editor would be pulling him out if he didn't find a story soon. Later, Benny found his hotel room ransacked. He figured people had broken in to look for the card, so he informed Jo. They met up the next morning and Jo showed him that the card had been opened, revealing a glowing disk inside. He offered to look into it but Jo needed him to write a story. She revealed a 10-year-old girl survived the plane crash but she wanted him to write about how the girl survived a car crash and was now staying with her. Benny suspected Piper was a special girl but Jo needed the piece to be about how ordinary Piper was instead. Jo told him that Piper didn't remember anything and until she could figure that out, she wanted people to stay away from them. Benny asked why she wanted to go public then. She said she had had it with other people controlling the situation. He wrote and published the article like she asked, allowing him to stay in Southold.

Soon after, Benny showed up with doughnuts at Jo's house to charm her into letting him speak with Piper. She refused as she didn't want Piper to get hurt even more. He concluded she still didn't trust him and wondered what it would take. Later in the day, she showed up at his room and confronted him with his article about Kindred, having learned that Ken Lerner was working for him. Benny admitted him coming to Southold wasn't a coincidence and shared the little information he had learned about Augur Industries' research division. He then said he figured Piper could do unnatural things, which he suspected was the reason Jo wanted to keep him away from her, as the result of being one of the test subjects, which would explain her miraculously surviving the plane crash. Benny said he was still looking for proof that would tie the plane to Richard and explained he had kept everything from Jo because Kindred was a dangerous man. Jo then came up with the idea to use Richard's metal card and storage disk inside as proof. Benny said only Richard could access it. Jo developed a plan and had Benny get her Richard's schedule.

After her meeting with Kindred, Jo called Benny to tell him that someone from within the company was trying to help her out trying to cure Piper's illness. She suspected it was a woman named Emily and asked him to look into her. He managed to ID her through his contacts. Together, they drove out to NYC and managed to track her down. She denied having been involved and showed them her phone, which informed them that "they" were watching. Through anonymous and untraceable texts, she had them meet her at a desolate building that she revealed was an off-the-books research facility of Augur Industries. She initiated a software update that would allow Benny and Jo to retrieve the cure from a locker inside during the five minutes that all machinery would be down. They did find the briefcase containing the cure but Benny getting stuck made them get out too late so an alarm was triggered, putting robot guard dogs on their trail. They managed to escape with Emily's help and drove back to Southold, where Emily revealed that Piper was a robot. She downloaded code from the laptop in the briefcase onto an exabyte disk that Jo could use to upload the code to Piper's system through a docket in her arm. Jo was shocked and refused to believe it. Benny did believe it and told Jo it wouldn't hurt to try since they were out of options.

## Personality

Benny has a curious mind and he's not afraid of danger when chasing a story. He is not shy of using his charms to get what he wants.

## Career

Benny is an investigative reporter for Reuters. He has been looking into Richard Kindred for a year now. While he had always failed to get people to go on the record or get access, the recent happenings in Southold have provided him with a way in.

## Notes and Trivia

* His being from Wales is a nod to actor Owain Yeoman being from Wales.

## References

1. ↑ Pilot, 1x01
2. ↑ Camera Wheelbarrow Tiger Pillow, 1x02
3. ↑ 2 MG CU BID, 1x03