The man in the expensive suit frowned as he looked over the video footage of the holding tanks. Each of the clear tanks within view of the cameras contained freakish misshapen creatures. Creatures that hadn’t survived the process of changing into whatever monstrous creatures that they were becoming. This was a complete and utter failure. Over thirty more subjects were dead if the screens were to be believed.

This was the fourth batch of failures. Three months of gathering test subjects from the homeless and making his enemies disappear and the only satisfaction that this project had given him thus far was the satisfaction of seeing his enemies die painfully as they mutated into twisted caricatures of life. Three months and he was no closer to his original goal than when he had first found subject alpha seven months earlier.

It wasn’t the loss of life that bothered him, deaths and disfigurements were to be expected. it was why he had used his enemies and their families for many of the subjects, after all. No matter what happened they would no longer be a threat to him and their ‘deaths’ had been made to look like accidents. That and some well-placed bribes kept the police from sniffing around. To him, life was cheap and there were plenty more fish in the sea for his project. He laughed at the irony of that thought before directing his gaze back to the screens.

When he had first found the creature sleeping and sunning itself on an uninhabited atoll in the Caribbean while aboard his yacht seven months ago he had been excited. To all appearances, it was a real, live mermaid. Her upper half was that of a beautiful young woman with sun-kissed skin and long hair that was a mix of gold and orange like a sunset. Below her waist though, instead of legs, her flesh gave way to a tail covered in a mix of bright orange and golden scales.

Its tail was a sight to see, and not just because of the brightly colored scales. It ended in a trio of large translucent orange fins shaped almost like a three-leafed clover with a ruffled look to them. Similar fins emerged from her hips as well, wrapping around her like a diaphanous skirt as she slept. She was beautiful, but it wasn’t her beauty that drove him to have his men tranquilize the beast and bring it aboard.

Edward Pierce was no simpering school child to be awed by such a creature. He had been hoping to capture some rare sea creatures for his private collection, but this was more than he could have possibly hoped for, a creature that most people thought to be a myth. He had imagined that he could make a tidy sum from the creature if it could be properly trained but his mind had been on the legend that eating the flesh of a mermaid would grant immortality.

The creature had awoken while his men were dragging it across the deck to place in the tank that he had prepared for his prizes. The tranquilizer that should have knocked out an adult porpoise for at least eight hours barely lasted a quarter of that time and it was savage when it awoke. It hissed and growled, barbed spines that had been hidden beneath patches of orange and gold scales on the sides of its forearms emerged. It clawed at one of the men holding it, leaving deep gashes in his forearm, and sprang off the deck toward the other man who had been pulling it by the tail, coiling its tail around him and sinking its long fangs into his shoulder.

By the time they had hit the beast with enough tranquilizer darts to put it back to sleep the man’s ribs were cracked and his shoulder a shattered bleeding mess. It was almost a mercy when the toxin from the barbed spines that had emerged from the creature’s forearms had put him out of his misery. That was when Edward realized that precautions would need to be taken while the beast was trained and studied.

In six months they had gotten nowhere. The creature would not take to being trained despite trying negative and positive reinforcement and it was only a danger to its handlers. The studies hadn’t told them much either at first. The creature’s regenerative abilities were impressive, but they already knew that from how quickly it had healed from the rough handling on the ship. It took a while to find something strong enough to sedate it long enough to do x-rays, MRIs, and exploratory surgeries. Its wounds healed faster than a human could dream of and left no visible scars when done healing.

The exploratory surgeries had only confused Dr. Harris and his staff. The creature had a slightly larger than normal liver and stomach but much of its digestive system, or at least the digestive system of a human, was missing. It didn’t appear to have large intestines, an appendix, rectum, anus, or even a urinary tract.

The creature did eat though, usually large portions of the fish and kelp that they had provided it. It also needed to drink to stay hydrated during extended periods out of the water. The current theory was that since swimming required a lot of energy the species had evolved in such a way that what digestive system they did have was ruthlessly efficient, completely breaking down everything that they ate to provide maximum energy.

As for those toxic spines, they were hidden by pouches in the sides of the forearms covered with durable scales and seemed to only emerge when the creature was agitated, so pretty much every time that Edward had seen it. There were actually three long bone-like spines each tipped with a barb that could secrete a powerful toxin, the longest being the length of her forearm from wrist to just below the elbow. The spines were connected to one another and the scales on the arms by a thin and sturdy orange membrane that almost gave them a dragon-wing appearance. It was thought that they weren’t just a defense mechanism but also an extra pair of fins to help with mobility when needed.

It was an underwater predator, and well adapted to its environment. Its scales were as hard as steel, it had powerful jaws with prominent fangs, and its eyes had an extra inner eyelid that not only protected the eyes but also allowed it to see in the dark depths of the ocean. He had had to take precautions while having someone attempt to train it but those attempts had proved as useless as the previous attempts to create more of the creatures.

Studies of the creature’s DNA samples found that it was constantly regenerating for even hours outside the body. The creature might well be immortal and its DNA was extremely aggressive, attempting to take over the body of the lab animals when injected or consumed. Sadly, Dr. Harris and his team theorized that the only way to gain that immortality for oneself was to survive the transformation and become one of them, and it would seem that even the odds of that would be terribly slim. The first three batches had all died, and this one was looking no better. As attractive as the thought of immortality was, Edward would rather not have to become one of those beasts to attain it.

“Are they all like that, Dr. Harris?” he finally asked as he tore his eyes away from the screens and his dark thoughts to focus on the man with him. The weasel-faced man was pale and skinny with receding salt and pepper hair and he wore thick-rimmed glasses and a rumpled grey suit beneath his lab coat.

“N-no, Sir,” the nervous scientist replied. Edward Pierce made Dr. Harris nervous, and with good reason, since he had seen firsthand how he treated his enemies or those who failed him.

“Show me,” Edward said carefully hoping that he could get something worthwhile from this project.

Dr. Harris picked up his tablet and led his employer out of the security room with a nod. They made their way into the room with the tanks and he led them to a pair of tanks near the back. “As you can see, Sir, two of them successfully turned into mermaids. Caroline and Jennifer Holtz. The transformation process was hard on their bodies and they appear to be sleeping it off.”

Inside the two tanks were mermaids, and it was apparent that they were alive by the rhythmic pulsing of the gills on their necks. They were both pale and shared the swept-back long pointed ears of subject alpha. The elder of the pair was extremely pretty and had aquamarine-colored hair and scales. Her fins were sea green, including those on her hips that were tucked around her in slumber. The younger one looked almost androgynous, had scales and hair in a dark emerald, and had only a pair of smaller clear tail fins rather that the brightly colored trio that the other possessed and she had no fins at her hips.

Edward pursed his lips thoughtfully as he hummed in thought. The two girls in question were the daughters of a former business rival, a business that he was now working on taking over in the past week since the apparent tragic death of Gordon Holtz and any possible heirs to his budding yet insignificant telecommunications business. He hadn’t been bothered to remember any specifics about them though so he asked, “Why does the younger one look so bland? What do we know about them? And why them? Was it something genetic? It seems strange that sisters would have survived the process when nobody else did.”

“She is pre-pubescent, it’s possible that the additional fins and some other features develop during puberty,” Dr. Harris explained before quickly referring to the files that he had been keeping on his tablet regarding their captives. “They were out celebrating Caroline’s eighteenth birthday when you arranged for their ‘accident’ and Jennifer is eight years old. They had a twelve-year-old brother as well. I doubt that it was anything genetic that assisted the change, though that may be part of it. If that was entirely the case though, one of their parents would have likely survived as well. I may have a theory on that.”

“Well? Go on, out with it!” Edward snapped impatiently. “Time is money!”

“Umm… well, Sir… going by my notes, it seems that both Jennifer and her sister were suffering from a virus when the test subjects were fed the flesh. They were fevered, weak, and having trouble breathing. I would have thought that they would be the least likely to survive the process,” the scientist replied timidly.

“What is your point?!” Edward roared.

“Well… I was thinking that… uhh… their compromised immune systems may have assisted the transformation process, allowing the mermaid DNA to more easily become dominant. They could have some genetic compatibility as well that further assisted but being sick, their bodies weren’t able to resist the process as effectively as the other subjects. The failed mutations and eventual deaths in the others were likely because the subjects’ bodies were fighting the process, and possibly not compatible as well. Perhaps if we tried using subjects that we know to have a severely compromised immune system…” Dr. Harris suggested, trailing off uncertainly.

“Find some, people who won’t be missed. Preferably males. Since we now have two females aside from subject alpha, I would like to have a means of breeding the creatures. This method is wasting resources and three should be enough for my purposes. ‘Discovering’ an entire pod might arouse suspicion and make them less of a novelty. Hopefully, these can be trained properly,” Edward said with a frown.

“You know that we can’t just kidnap people from the hospitals, right?” Dr. Harris asked uncertainly.

“Of course,” Edward snapped. As much as he hated to admit it, Harris was right and this would have to be handled more subtly. An idea flared to life and a predatory smile graced his lips. “I own a medical research facility; I had been hoping to use any discoveries we made here to further that research but it will be useful. I think that I’m feeling charitable, Dr. Harris. I will send representatives to the local hospitals and offer to transfer some terminal cases to my facility for an experimental new cancer treatment.”