The Alchemy of Desires

The video file was labeled PROJECT AELPH – SUBJECT 004 – FINAL MINUTES. Dr. Ellis Vance watched it on a cracked tablet while sitting in a waiting room that smelled like lavender and antiseptic. The chair was too comfortable. That was always a bad sign. Uncomfortable chairs meant honest work. Comfortable chairs meant you were about to be sold something terrible. On screen, a man named Subject 004 was strapped to a medical bed, but the straps weren’t holding him down. They were holding him in. His body arched, muscles locked in a spasm that had been going for forty-seven seconds. His mouth was open. His eyes were rolled back. His expression wasn’t pain. It was ecstasy. Then his nose began to bleed. Then his ears. Then the capillaries in his eyes burst, turning the whites solid red. His spine bent backward at an angle that should have snapped it. And still he didn’t scream. He laughed. A wet, choking, joyful laugh that turned into a gurgle. The video cut to black. A small text overlay appeared: *Subject expired 1.3 seconds later. Cause of death: pleasure-payneural overload.* Ellis set the tablet down on the glass side table. His hand was steady. He’d seen worse. Not much worse, but worse. A postdoc in Abuja had once shown him footage of a prion disease that made its victims dance until their femurs shattered. That had been worse. This was just… intimate. “You’re not running.” The voice came from the doorway. Dr. Lenore Harsh stood there, clipboard in hand, lab coat immaculate, hair in a severe gray bun. She was sixty-two but had the posture of a woman who had never once doubted herself. Ellis had met her twice before, both times over encrypted video calls. In person, she was smaller than he’d expected. And colder. “Should I be running?” Ellis asked. “Most people do after watching that.” Harsh walked past him and sat in the chair opposite. She didn’t offer to shake hands. “Subject 004 was a former Navy SEAL. Pain tolerance in the 99.9th percentile. He lasted two minutes and fourteen seconds with the Aelph.” “How long do I need to last?” “Long enough to collect a viable sample. We estimate three to five minutes for a full transfer.” She paused. “But you won’t be mating with the Aelph first.” Ellis raised an eyebrow. “The briefing said one endangered species.” “The briefing lied.” Harsh opened her clipboard. Inside were ten glossy photographs, each showing a different creature. Some were beautiful. Some were grotesque. One looked like a woman made of smoke. Another looked like a pile of moss with eyes. “These are the preliminary specimens. Ten magical species. You will mate with each one, in sequence, over approximately six weeks.” “Ten.” Ellis let the word hang. “Ten,” Harsh repeated. “Their procreation fluids contain unique biochemical compounds. When introduced to a human male during copulation, those compounds permanently alter the nervous system. Increased pain tolerance. Increased pleasure tolerance. Accelerated healing. Emotional regulation. Among other benefits.” “Among other benefits,” Ellis echoed. “That’s vague.” “Intentionally.” Harsh’s smile didn’t reach her eyes. “You’ll experience each upgrade firsthand. Then, after the tenth specimen, you’ll be ready for the Aelph. Your body will have been… conditioned.” Ellis looked at the photographs again. The smoke woman. The moss pile. A creature that was half-snake, half-woman, coiled around itself like a question mark. A creature that was all teeth and feathers. A creature that looked like a child’s drawing of a fish, except the fish had human hands. “Why me?” he asked. “Because you’re qualified and expendable.” Harsh said it without cruelty. Simple fact. “You have a PhD in comparative biochemistry, you’ve worked with controlled substances in four countries, and you have no spouse, no children, and no living parents. If you die, no one will file a missing person report.” “That’s bleak.” “That’s efficient.” Ellis leaned back. The comfortable chair swallowed him. He thought about the video. The laughing. The blood. The way Subject 004’s body had bent like a bow about to break. Then he thought about his apartment. The empty fridge. The stack of unpaid parking tickets. The last time he’d felt anything close to alive—really alive, not just moving through the days—had been two years ago, in a basement in Bangkok, during a thunderstorm and a bottle of something that had probably been intended for industrial use. He was thirty-eight years old and he was bored of being bored. “What’s the pay?” Harsh named a number. It was obscene. It was enough to retire on, if he survived. If he didn’t, the Institute would donate his body to cryptozoological research and send a condolences letter to an empty address. “And the s*x?” Ellis asked. “Is it actually good?” For the first time, Harsh’s expression shifted. Something like amusement flickered behind her eyes. “Subject 003 described it as ‘the best s*x of my life’ approximately twelve seconds before his hippocampus began to dissolve. Subject 002 said it was ‘worse than childbirth’ but also ‘better than heroin.’ Subject 001 couldn’t speak afterward. She just wept for three hours and then asked to go again.” Ellis picked up the tablet. He replayed the final second of Subject 004’s video. The laugh. The gurgle. The cut to black. He set the tablet down again. “If all it takes to do that is me having the best s*x of my life,” he said, “well. So be it.” Harsh extended her hand. This time, Ellis shook it. Her grip was dry and strong and exactly as cold as he’d expected. “Welcome to the Lytton Institute, Dr. Vance,” she said. “We’ll begin intake tomorrow morning. Try to get some sleep. You’ll need it.” She left. The door closed with a soft hydraulic hiss. Ellis sat alone in the comfortable chair, looking at the photographs of ten monsters, and wondered if he had just made the best decision of his life or the last one.